Sebby's new mac - is it a big one?

[Sebby]

I can't work out whether it's coming straight from China or not. I've got a feeling it is (or was).

[Simon]

Oh, I wouldn't have wanted a Chinese one!  Does it come with prawn balls?

[Sebby]

If I'm lucky!

[Gary]

We'll all bate our breath for tomorrow then. 

Good luck with it Sebby, I think you will love it, I was looking at them online, £800 to fit an extra ram was a bit steep, I'm sure you can do that a hell of a lot cheaper yourself, but they look so gorgeous, and a standard they were cheaper than my Acer Gemstone, you will love it, every time I have used one I loved it, I just need Windows for communication as there is no messaging software that uses webcams for macs that talks to live messenger, and also all my software is windows based only, those two things were what stopped me in the end the cost of new software being very prohibitive. I can't wait to here what you think, I doubt you will miss windows at all  

[Gary]

I can't work out whether it's coming straight from China or not. I've got a feeling it is (or was).

Bet the chips will taste extra good as well 


Edit: markup sorted

[Sebby]

What you have to remember about the RAM, Gary, is that it's DDR3, not DDR2 like most PCs. To upgrade to 8GB RAM, you need 2 x 4GB sticks. Even Crucial are charging £650 for that.

Even on my iMac, a lot of the cost will be in the 4GB RAM. Also, you have a 24" LCD, aluminium casing, etc. They're still over-priced, but I reckon they're significantly more expense to manufacture than you might think.

I'm very much looking forward to it.

[Gary]

What you have to remember about the RAM, Gary, is that it's DDR3, not DDR2 like most PCs. To upgrade to 8GB RAM, you need 2 x 4GB sticks. Even Crucial are charging £650 for that.

I'm very much looking forward to it.

I have DDR3 in mine Sebby, it is expensive, it will be interesting to see how the prices go with the slump in PC sales, the excitement of learning a new OS will be great I bet. They are also built well, having control over the build and software does make for a more reliable machine I think

[Simon]

Six hundred and fifty pounds for RAM? 

[Gary]

Six hundred and fifty pounds for RAM? 

I have 4GB of DDR3 in my laptop Simon and its pretty expensive, its just not a standard yet so they still charge a premium for it

[Simon]

You could buy a pretty good complete PC for that sort of money. 

[Sebby]

Yep, DDR3 is very expensive at the moment.

[Sebby]

By the way, if anyone's interested, the new Macs come with a Firewire 800 socket rather than a Firewire 400, and the physical connection is different. I suspect PCs will begin coming with Firewire 800 as well very soon, if not already. I use Firewire to connect my backup drive as it's faster than USB 2.0 in practice. You can buy a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable to solve this issue - I went for this one.

[Rik]

I'm always amazed that external HD manufacturers haven't opted for Firewire more than they have, Seb, it has clear advantages over uSB (albeit a smaller market).

[Steve]

Once you've done your first big backup with Time machine its set to back up every hour by default . So data transfer speed becomes less important. I am using wireless N and it just occurs unobtrusively in the background.

I have also purchased a very big book by David Pogue called MAC OS Leopard "THE MISSING MANUAL" which is very readable and could also act as a wheel chock and stop a truck from rolling downhill when you've finished with it

[Simon_idnet]

My Mac Pro developed a fault recently. Occasionally I would see artifacts on screen. A reboot fixed it. But rebooting a Mac is almost never necessary. The problem got progressively worse until it got to the stage where the screen would either lock-up or just disappear.

I called Mac Support who told me that my Mac was one month out of warranty. Typical! But they asked me to describe the fault and immediately conceded that I had a video card from a batch that was known to be bad. Two days later I received a brand new video card free of charge. Fabulous service.
S

[Rik]

It's nice when a manufacturer stands behind their product, isn't it.

[Sebby]

I have also purchased a very big book by David Pogue called MAC OS Leopard "THE MISSING MANUAL" which is very readable and could also act as a wheel chock and stop a truck from rolling downhill when you've finished with it

Already have it - bought it back in December when I was first thinking about getting a Mac.

[Sebby]

It's nice when a manufacturer stands behind their product, isn't it.

I have to say, everything I've read about Apple's after-sales service has been good, which is encouraging.

[Rik]

I wonder if Sue would go for me switching us to Macs? 

[lozcart]

Good luck with it Sebby, I think you will love it, I was looking at them online, £800 to fit an extra ram was a bit steep, I'm sure you can do that a hell of a lot cheaper yourself, but they look so gorgeous, and a standard they were cheaper than my Acer Gemstone, you will love it, every time I have used one I loved it, I just need Windows for communication as there is no messaging software that uses webcams for macs that talks to live messenger, and also all my software is windows based only, those two things were what stopped me in the end the cost of new software being very prohibitive. I can't wait to here what you think, I doubt you will miss windows at all  

My kids all ways moaned at me about the lack off webcam facility in MSN for OSX and kept booting our iMac into Windows just to use Messenger, that is until I found aMSN which is available for OSX from http://www.amsn-project.net/ . They think it is great and in some ways better than the Windows version.

[Rik]

Useful to know, thanks for that. 

[Sebby]

I wonder if Sue would go for me switching us to Macs? 

You won't know until you try...

[Rik]

I'll wait until she's back at least.

[Glenn]

I wonder if Sue would go for me switching us to Macs? 

Only if it was from an anorak

[Rik]

I like my anorak, it suits me.