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It was disappointing to hear of Bill's MacBook problem after all the
work he has done for getting our tools to run on OSX, he deserves
better! But I have to second Warren's recommendation for the Apple
MacBook Pro. Our labs (Johnson and Schneemann at Scripps) have 3,
and they are working very well. They are quite fast - preliminary
benchmarks show they are competitive with G5 workstations (number
crunching tests), and Coot, PyMol, Chimera run smoothly. No problems
so far (probably revision B models?).
I highly recommend extended warranties (at reasonable cost) for
notebooks. They are always packed with advanced technology in small
hots spaces that get jostled around, which invites trouble. The 3
year AppleCare for the MacBook lines is reasonable at the academic
price.
Apple's computers have been good for us (together our labs have 30+),
but with this many machines we of course have had assorted problems.
I would expect this from any computer manufacturer, not all of their
products are going to be perfect. A couple years ago we had one of
the legendary PowerBook G4's arrive for Jack Johnson. After
gathering all the disks, cables, and computers, Jack and I sat down
and powered it on to configure it and transfer data from his old
machine. It made a few strange noises for about 10 seconds and then
shut itself off. It wouldn't turn on again. We were pretty bent to
say the least. Must have been revision A! Apple replaced it
overnight without questions. One area where I think Apple excels is
their service - they have fixed everything quickly, even if it took a
couple phone calls to AppleCare to convince them.
Just thought I'd put our two labs worth of experience out there for
comparison.
Cheers,
Jeff
On Nov 30, 2006, at 8:22 AM, William Scott wrote:
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Also it is good to check the repair statistics, in Consumer
Reports, for
example. Dell, Compac, and Apple typically get the best ratings.
Here is
something more up to date on the Apple line:
http://macintouch.com/reliability/macbooks.html
Andreas Forster wrote:
The good thing with a PC notebook is that you get a usable
touchpad and an
ALT key that lets you access menus without taking your hands off the
keyboard, the lack of both of which drives me up the wall every
time I sit
in front of a Mac portable.
How to decide on a notebook? Sit in front of those you find
interesting
(all with dedicated graphics, obviously) and pick the one whose
keyboard
and
screen you like the most. The differences on the outside are
bigger than
those on the inside.
Andreas
On 11/30/06, William Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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Either a PC laptop or Apple would be fine. I just bought a new
MacBook
and after the salesman assured me it was the latest and greatest,
it was
obsolete 4 days later, has had serious battery problems, random
shutdowns,
and so forth. Meanwhile the new version allegedly corrected
this. But
this has put me in a pretty foul mood with respect to Apple
recently, so
I
am going to recommend any good cheap PC laptop and install a good
free
Linux distribution that is pleasant to use and maintain, like Ubuntu
Linux.
On Thu, 30 Nov 2006, shivesh kumar wrote:
Dear all,
For installing CCP4i and CNS and other graphics program which
laptop I
should buy.Whether it should be of linux operating system of any
other.Howabout HP
pavillion.Any suggestion is welcome.
Thanx in advance.
S
