Trackpad is more portable and less hassle to get working.
Define an awful mouse
One that isn't better than any laptop trackpad.
New Macbooks: opinions and experience
- Thread starter Loppan Torkel
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Trackpad is more portable and less hassle to get working.
One that isn't better than any laptop trackpad.
I didn't purchase a mouse for the limited time I was playing around on a friend's Macbook. Seemed like too big an expense. How she got around without a mouse I don't know.
If you are going to pull a snide, dickish LMGTFY, you might as well try to plug in the right thing. Especially since I already addressed that previously, not sure what you are going for here.
...and I'm done with this Mac panther.
No, I'm looking at subjective usability, by me, who happens to be an excellent source of information.
Apple's trackpads are a pleasure for everyday use. For anything demanding, I want a proper mouse for speed, precision and tactile feedback.
In general, Apple makes solid and attractive hardware. Decent performance, soft factors like screen, audio, input devices, design, build quality can be expected to be good to excellent. If you have more specific needs than "an all-around sexy machine" and OS preference isn't a dealbreaker, you can often get something that'll satisfy your needs for much less.
OSX has its attractions too: It's a proper Unix (good for nerds), has a classic UI with unintrusive modernisations (good for non-nerds), convenient and mature consumer services, Apple's tight control means few gremlins and a consistent user experience.
Things rapidly deteriorate when you want to do something Apple didn't intend, but they pay enough attention to pleasant defaults that most users can live with that happily.
In general, Apple makes solid and attractive hardware. Decent performance, soft factors like screen, audio, input devices, design, build quality can be expected to be good to excellent. If you have more specific needs than "an all-around sexy machine" and OS preference isn't a dealbreaker, you can often get something that'll satisfy your needs for much less.
OSX has its attractions too: It's a proper Unix (good for nerds), has a classic UI with unintrusive modernisations (good for non-nerds), convenient and mature consumer services, Apple's tight control means few gremlins and a consistent user experience.
Things rapidly deteriorate when you want to do something Apple didn't intend, but they pay enough attention to pleasant defaults that most users can live with that happily.
Yeah, I spent hours trying to get the date in the menubar into ISO 8601. And as far as I can tell it's impossible to get rid of the ginormous window shadows.
There's an app for that 
But as usual, no idea for how long such tweaks will work or whether they'll have side effects.
For me it was setting up my mother's mac to be slightly friendlier to aging eyes (smallish grey text on grey background isn't ideal, general zoom or high-contrast theme overkill).
All I want is some simple plaintext configuration files...
But as usual, no idea for how long such tweaks will work or whether they'll have side effects.
For me it was setting up my mother's mac to be slightly friendlier to aging eyes (smallish grey text on grey background isn't ideal, general zoom or high-contrast theme overkill).
All I want is some simple plaintext configuration files...
God of Kings
Ruler of all heads of state
Well, there are the new rMBPs now. rMBP = MacBook Pro with Retina Display
I have the early 2013 15" rMBP, with 16GB RAM, 2.7GHz processor, and 512GB SSD. Yes, it was expensive (good thing my university bursary helped me pay 1/3 of the price).
I will not rant about Windows 8 here much (there is already a huge thread on that in this forum), but it was so bad that it pushed me into getting a Mac (despite previously being a loyal Windows user who hated Macs for much of my life). It was until I read about the rMBP (and because many students had MacBook Pros) that converted me completely into a loyal Mac user.
Regarding mouse vs. trackpad, I decided to get a Wacom Bamboo Create tablet (yes, I know that it is a graphics tablet), but I use it as a very effective trackpad (and I use my pen whenever I need precision and quickness).
Note that I am a former gamer (since I am very disillusioned at modern gaming), which means that I will have almost no interest in video games (yes, I know that I am in CivFanatics, since I do have an interest in Civ V and since I prefer the Apple App Store version of Civ V (and is the only legal non-Steam version of Civ V), this is good for me).
I have the early 2013 15" rMBP, with 16GB RAM, 2.7GHz processor, and 512GB SSD. Yes, it was expensive (good thing my university bursary helped me pay 1/3 of the price).
I will not rant about Windows 8 here much (there is already a huge thread on that in this forum), but it was so bad that it pushed me into getting a Mac (despite previously being a loyal Windows user who hated Macs for much of my life). It was until I read about the rMBP (and because many students had MacBook Pros) that converted me completely into a loyal Mac user.
Regarding mouse vs. trackpad, I decided to get a Wacom Bamboo Create tablet (yes, I know that it is a graphics tablet), but I use it as a very effective trackpad (and I use my pen whenever I need precision and quickness).
Note that I am a former gamer (since I am very disillusioned at modern gaming), which means that I will have almost no interest in video games (yes, I know that I am in CivFanatics, since I do have an interest in Civ V and since I prefer the Apple App Store version of Civ V (and is the only legal non-Steam version of Civ V), this is good for me).
God of Kings
Ruler of all heads of state
True. I wanted to delay buying it, but the university bursary that allows me to purchase computers has an expiry date of 30 days and it was opportune for me to get the early 2013 refresh, which was only a few days ago at the time when I purchased it. Another thing, for the 15" rMBP, I bought the standard high-end model (which has 16GB RAM already).
God of Kings
Ruler of all heads of state
True. This is why getting the highest RAM possible is imperative when getting an rMBP. Fortunately for me, 16GB RAM is the maximum available (and mine has 16GB RAM), which means that there is no need to upgrade if it is already upgraded to the max.
This is more of a note for those looking to buy an rMBP.
We got a late 2012 15" rMBP for my wife. It's replacing her 2007 13" macBook. Same price.
We're completely thrilled with it - whenever I use it I'm thoroughly impressed. My machine is a 2010 27" iMac, and her specs are roughly on par.
Her machine is snappy as all get-out. If anything lags more than about 200 milliseconds you notice. That rarely happens.
The retina is beautiful to look at, if a bit cold in terms of color temperature.
Battery life is spectacular. She uses the computer (active screen with video or radio streaming) about 4 to 5 hours a day and the battery is rarely lower than 80% at the end of the day.
As most people have mentioned here, whether this machine will suit you really will be determined by what you expect to do with it, and what compromises you're willing to make.
I especially appreciate the completely integrated aspect of OSX. No hunting around in obscure menu trees and popping open dialogues rooting around for the setting you hope is there - just SpotLight search and it's right there.
I'm not familiar with most of the power-user aspects of the OS. I learned OSX with Tiger, and I wind up finding myself pretty set in my ways (sadly). Once I start to do something one way, I wind up defaulting to that forever. So some of the features like LaunchPad, AirPlay, etc don't get used very often. Not because they're not useful, but rather because I just don't know why I'd use them.
My wife uses those things even less.
We're completely thrilled with it - whenever I use it I'm thoroughly impressed. My machine is a 2010 27" iMac, and her specs are roughly on par.
Her machine is snappy as all get-out. If anything lags more than about 200 milliseconds you notice. That rarely happens.
The retina is beautiful to look at, if a bit cold in terms of color temperature.
Battery life is spectacular. She uses the computer (active screen with video or radio streaming) about 4 to 5 hours a day and the battery is rarely lower than 80% at the end of the day.
As most people have mentioned here, whether this machine will suit you really will be determined by what you expect to do with it, and what compromises you're willing to make.
I especially appreciate the completely integrated aspect of OSX. No hunting around in obscure menu trees and popping open dialogues rooting around for the setting you hope is there - just SpotLight search and it's right there.
I'm not familiar with most of the power-user aspects of the OS. I learned OSX with Tiger, and I wind up finding myself pretty set in my ways (sadly). Once I start to do something one way, I wind up defaulting to that forever. So some of the features like LaunchPad, AirPlay, etc don't get used very often. Not because they're not useful, but rather because I just don't know why I'd use them.
My wife uses those things even less.
This isn't really typical, full load battery life is ~2 hours, minimal load while forcing only integrated graphics is ~7 hours. Objective tests
You have to be careful about the GPUs too, quite a few programs force the discrete gpu on for no good reason, you can monitor that with gfxCardStatus.
This is how the start search works in Windows too...
Check out Quicksilver for a really good Mac OS launcher.
Spotlight isn't really that impressive any more, the rest of the world has caught up quite a bit.
I have a love/hate relationship with Macs. Polish and attention to detail are impressive, parts of the user experience are slick to the point of being physically pleasurable. Hoewver, the interface is sometimes nerd-unfriendly and beneath I found OSX complicated, forbidding and sometimes plain weird. Terrible things have been done to a perfectly good UNIX.
I have a love/hate relationship with Macs. Polish and attention to detail are impressive, parts of the user experience are slick to the point of being physically pleasurable. Hoewver, the interface is sometimes nerd-unfriendly and beneath I found OSX complicated, forbidding and sometimes plain weird. Terrible things have been done to a perfectly good UNIX.
Hmm. I guess we're a little lucky? Or maybe my wife is over-estimating how much active screen time she's using.
Are you saying that sometimes a program will power up the GPU when it's not really needed - resulting in battery drain?
Yes, Chrome used to be really bad at it, though it's improved lately. Virtualbox is also awful. I've tried a number of other programs that do it, but most of them have been non-essential so I stopped using them after seeing their behavior.
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