My HP laptop has recently developed a problem where the fan will constantly stay on then turn the laptop off.. The long and short of it is I bought this laptop back in 2014 to finish off my dissertation on and it hasn’t been right since day one. Around a year or so later PC world eventually sent it away and it was “repaired” it was still faulty. I have totally had it with it so I’m looking to buy a new one to avoid premature balding through stress!! My questions to the vast knowledge of the form is Apple or Windows? (only laptop options please) Which would you recommend through your personal experience? Looking at the Apple its probably going to set me back the thick end of 1k. which is ok if its going to properly last for years and not need replaced every 3-4 years like all my laptops before. Ideally I would want to buy something about the £500 mark but Apple will be more im sure. Your help on this would be greatly appreciated as this is looking like quite a financial dunt to say the least. Cheers
Don't buy from PC Hell*, their service has been crap for decades and their prices aren't great either. If you want to go main stream retail then I would go to John Lewis. As for PC or Mac I would say PC and you get a lot more bang for your buck. Am sure the Mac owners would disagree with that, but such is life. Personally I tend to buy Dell XPS laptops from their outlet store as the spec is good, and the price is lower as they may be returns/refurbs/cancelled order, but the warranty is still the same and so far if I have needed them to come and fix a problem they have been there the next day. Think about what you want to use it for and then see if the PC/Mac has the software etc to do it. *at one stage they were ok but then I left them in 94 and they have gone downhill ever since
As above mate, you pay for the Apple brand/image, but it works properly 95% of the time, unlike a PC with Microsh*te Windows, and thats the rub, not the PC its the OS that's the issue. But you are paying 100% + for the Macbook over a decent non Apple device. As for brands, its a minefield out there, we stabilised on Acer a few years ago and have had very few issues on machines that are mullered day in, day out.
To start off with; HP laptops are horrendous. Cheap, plastic, poorly made machines are the types of HP laptop you get from PC World. You can get better built HP laptops but you start moving up the price range. Anything stocked in PC World for PCs tends to be pretty rubbish and suitable for kids who do not use their laptops for anything other than browsing Facebook and the Internet. I used to be a Windows supporter, but after owning an OS X machine since 2010 that has seriously changed. Build quality on an Apple laptop is second to none. Machined from a single piece of aluminium, it's sleek and nice to look at. They are relatively expensive for their specifications compared to a non-Apple machine, but you don't get the whole user experience. I mean, Apple's software integrates itself so well. Mail, Calendar, iMessage, iCloud etc, especially if you have an iPhone to complement it. It's user friendly and designed well so it just works. A Windows machine out of the box will typically come with a whole load of bloatware - software you will never use or want. The best option for this is to re-install the operating system to a vanilla version of Windows. Apple on the other hand is a clean install of OS X, very simple to set up and get going quickly. You also buy into the whole Applecare support (1 year standard, 3 years upgrade), which is second to none in my opinion. I bought my Macbook and managed to corrupt the filing system when copying data over the day I got it. I took it into an Apple shop who sent it off and had it working in less than a week. I also had the battery start to fail after the 3 year warranty had lapsed but because the battery didn't do the minimum number of charge cycles (it was plugged in permanently), they replaced it free of charge, no questions asked. With Applecare, if you have any issues at all, you just take it to Apple and it will get resolved properly. None of this crap with PC World. My mother's phone battery started to fail when on holiday, took it into the shop and she was given a brand new one there and then. My Fiancee's phone had a defective battery from new, she went into the store and they provided her with a brand new phone there and then. Are you still a student? Because you get good Apple discount through your institute of education
Some great comments above. I'm no PC genius, but having switched to Mac I'm happy that it is reliable and just doesn't crash. Plus I can't get on with the new Windows versions that my kids have. I left Windows at Win7 and have never looked back. On the flip side I totally agree with Barstewardsquad with you get more for your money on Windows and there is more choice, but I guess I paid the extra for the convenience of a mac that is on as soon as I open the lid, doesn't keep crashing and generally just works as it should. Although you do have to learn some of the different shortcuts, icons etc.
As @Muffking has pointed out, there are some hidden shortcuts on the multi-finger trackpad. It'll take time to get used to them but they are mega convenient once you get to grips with them. Windows PC, spend 400 quid every couple of years. Apple laptop, spend 500-1000 quid every 3-6 years (depending when you want to upgrade really, they'll last longer).
Thanks for the detailed reply's they all help build a picture So far that picture is of the money grabbing customer care dodging clowns at PC world. I will not be buying from them again. Then onto HP, this experience with HP has totally put me off. My first laptop was HP and I really liked the way it worked but that too gave up on me and died after three years of use so I think its adios to HP. Ok so to shortlist a few brands I will have a brows over Dell, Acer and Apple. Im not exactly going to be editing the Titanic to shave time from the film or producing the next Marvel film as I am no tech expert but i just want a laptop that will last and stand the test of time, can do some video / picture editing (if i ever get round to it) and be perfectly capable of streaming films online while also browsing the net on the side. Another thing that seems to be drawing my attention to the Mac is how it works. People seem to just say they work well can perform well, since i am no tech master this is something that is very appealing to me as i really cannot be a***d ploughing through software picking programmes etc as i have to do on my past laptops. Thanks again for the advice folks
There is a reason creative studios lean towards Apple products. Typically out the box the lower-mid range spec'd Macbooks and iMacs are capable of light to medium photo and video editing, the high spec machines will smash it. Dell are a fairly reputable company. They are typically suppliers of office equipment for a large proportion of corporations. Their standard laptops are good enough for generic office work, but you'll need to look at the higher spec'd stuff which may start to fall into the Apple price range. All Windows machines, no matter who the manufacturer or supplier, typically come with some form of bloatware. Bloatware is crappy software you will never use which you can leave or purge. Apple comes with a standard suite of software all Apple machines come with, except for software purchased when you order it. Honestly if you're still a student (even if you've graduated, may still be possible), you get 7.5%+ discount through their educational store
I should add, I have a number of years experience in IT support for both a company and my university support desk. Had first hand experience and knowledge of all of this stuff
Cheers mate, I would say generally I am leaning towards a Mac at the moment although the price tag scares me and i do have an ipad at the moment so I am getting by without a laptop. I might have to wait a while as I am in the process of trying to buy my first house / flat (early next year). Also, no longer a student unfortunately, that boat sailed two years ago, in the real world now haha
I'm currently in the process of buying a house and save for a wedding next year, the struggle is real man. If you need a laptop in the interim, pick up a second hand machine for a couple hundred quid and use that until you're in a position to replace it with something more permanent
Apple do factory refurbished products which come with a warranty and the usual after care. I gave up with pc's 10 years ago and never looked back. Used my first laptop for 7 years before upgrading. They even fixed my 5 year old iMac for free after the graphics card died.
Apple every time. Took time to convince myself regards cost but bought a Mac Air in 2010 and it's still going strong. Two other lap tops (wife's) bought in the interim are no longer with us. Just bought a Mac Pro and forging ahead no problem. Not cheap but no worries about aftercare. Even dropping into a local Apple reseller (storm front ) when I had an issue with virus or malware they fired it up and spent an hour sorting it out for no charge. They say that as these things are so rare with Mac they don't charge for it. Even though they didn't supply the lap top. Top service in my book.
Nice to see some constructive comments rather than opinion above! All I can add to the process is... wife's macbook air 2008 still going strong with no probs. My Macbook pro 2011 still blinding too. what ever you do don't buy an Asus bought one for my boy as he 'needed!!' pc and its been a blooming nightmare and slow as a Suzuki!
An Acer netbook I had was the bollox once the Windows bloatware was stripped out and a bare system installed but to be honest I have been a Mac freak for around 10 years and would never go back to Windows on a permanent basis. I do have a 11 inch Lenovo X201 Thinkpad running Win7 which I use for my vehicle connectivity (Range Rover, VW, Tune ECU etc) which you can buy refurbed for around £150 but other than that I'd never use Windows again if I didn't have to. It's hardly surprising that Microsh!te can't sort out Windows10 and it's getting serious backlash from customers. My 2.2GHz Intel Core i7 2011 Macbook Pro is still a flying machine and just does what it should day in, day out. Cost me £500 used around 3-4 years ago and I got £200 for my old plastic bodied Macbook so for the outlay second hand I really can't complain. Only downside with it is it is only running 4GB of 1333 DDR3 memory and I could do with upgrading it to 8GB as sometimes when multitasking and converting movies the fan can get noisy and the machine gets hot. If it failed tomorrow I would do what I had to to get a new one immediately. Wife and daughter both running 2014 & 2015 11 inch Macbook Air and my son running a 2014 13 inch Macbook Pro. Go for it, they do what's expected and the user interface is simple. Also unlike Windows when you instal software it sticks it all in one place (generally) unlike Windows which gets spread all over the machine. It's like its very own virus!
@exuptoy, for the cost of memory nowadays it's worth whacking some new RAM modules in it. Cheap and noticeable performance increase
Yeah, cheers. Will sort it but just not got around to doing it yet. It's doesn't bother me that much but will get done. The machine is still head and shoulders above a Winblows machine and faster even with the memory issues. Usually get my memory from Crucial as they are reasonably priced and you know what you are getting unlike other 3rd party vendors.
Purchased a 16Gb upgrade kit from Crucial for my 2011 Macbook Pro i7 and it ran effortlessly after. The 4Gb it came with was a bottleneck when you had applications open for a long period of time and the computer was storing stuff in memory.
