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Topic: Has anyone upgraded to Snow Leopard?

Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Master Film Handler

Posts: 405
From: Canton, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2007

posted 08-31-2009 06:53 PM

Jarrett, there is nothing special about the hardware Apple uses. They use the same Intel chips, Seagate drives and DDR2 or DDR3 RAM (I think they use Kingston, but I'm not positive) as just about everyone else. I bought my mother a Dell around the same time I bought my Macbook, and they were virtually identical machines, with mine having a faster processor. Mine cost more than twice as much and has a glowing apple on the back of the monitor, and a worse keyboard and much worse mouse. The insane pricing goes largely to support their boutique storefront locations and the fact that they usually outspend Microsoft on marketing despite selling 1/10th the number of software licenses.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 08-31-2009 07:33 PM

quote: Michael Barry
Joe, as an experiment I just installed Snow Leopard onto a freshly erased USB drive. It seems that Leopard doesn't need to be there first.

The installer is an application that will not run under 10.4.x and the disc does not seem to boot. Can you boot from your disc?

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Mike Heenan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1896
From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 08-31-2009 09:32 PM

Dell is to PCs as Mac is to... Macs. Well there is no comparison I guess, but Dell computers are pretty overpriced compared to competitors.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-31-2009 10:09 PM

Dell's competitors do a lot more to subsidize the cheaper price of their machines by pre-installing a whole lot more crap-ware. That crap-ware is often resident on the install discs and/or hidden factory restore partition. The only way to avoid it is by getting an after market copy of Windows and hoping it can successfully install on the machine. Some of these department store computers are proprietary in nature and only work with their particular install discs.

You do get crap-ware with many of Dell's "home" and "home office" oriented machines, but not nearly as much as you get in a HP, Acer, Sony Vaio, etc.

You can get a Dell system free of crap-ware by ordering a system sold from their business section (vostro, precision workstation, etc.). But you're going to pay even more money. A dual Xeon precision workstation tower can end up costing you as much or a whole lot more than a dual Xeon MacPro tower -some of the possible configurations can go into the tens of thousands of dollars. The upshot is a machine free of crap-ware is going to work a lot better than a system spammed up with a bunch of badly coded junk software.

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Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Master Film Handler

Posts: 405
From: Canton, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2007

posted 08-31-2009 10:45 PM

Mike, if you think Dells are overpriced, that just lends credibility to my argument that the machines Apple sells are exorbitantly priced. As I said, I got my mother almost as much hardware for half the price. Is OSX worth $700?

Bobby, I've never had a machine that had an irreparable amount of adware and other junk out of the box. And if I end up with one in the future, it won't concern me overmuch since I plan on running Linux exclusively once my Macbook needs replacing. As for the cost of high-end desktops, I think it is foolish to buy a machine, and that much greater performance and lower cost can be attained by building it. We laptop users do not have the same luxuries in that regard, but my performance needs are not particularly high, so whatever.

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Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 08-31-2009 10:56 PM

I have HP 'business/corporate' model PCs at work, and the first thing I did when I unboxed them was to remove the crapware by doing a clean install of XP.

Fortunately, they shipped with proper XP discs in addition to the 'recovery/crapware' discs. That's something I always look for in a new PC.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-01-2009 12:21 AM

quote: Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Bobby, I've never had a machine that had an irreparable amount of adware and other junk out of the box.

We must different standards about what constitutes a gross overabundance of crap-ware in Windows-based PCs. Virtually every PC I see sold in retail stores is glutted with crap-ware. I consider much of this stuff "irreparable" because you can't entirely eliminate what all it has done to gum up the Windows registry. The only way around it is formatting the hard disc and installing an after market copy of Windows or some other operating system.

For many PC users, running Linux isn't a practical option. I'm certainly not going to run my graphics applications under any sort of emulation. It's already easy enough for me to make Photoshop bring a system to its knees under native operation. No need for a layer of emulation adding to the processing load. For my purposes the only options are Windows and MacOS.

quote: Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
As for the cost of high-end desktops, I think it is foolish to buy a machine, and that much greater performance and lower cost can be attained by building it.

People who buy high end machines have other interests in mind other than merely trying to save money. Often these machines are used to make money in business. It's more important for those machines to be reliably productive right out of the box. A DIY kit built PC doesn't offer that.

I've seen lots of kit built machines run like crap over a wide variety of problems, be it unforeseen hardware/software compatibility issues or defective parts. Many of us can't spare our valuable time to put up with a bunch of that time draining garbage.

Also, the money saving claims of building your own PC have to be examined on a part by part basis. I often see kit builders eek out their savings by using the junkiest off the wall brand parts they can find -as if everything offered at NewEgg is equal in terms of quality. If I bought the same exact parts Dell puts into a Precision Workstation without doing any cheap parts substitutions I could end up spending nearly as much money.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 09-01-2009 12:21 AM

If I use a PC, it's one I built my damn self.

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Mike Heenan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1896
From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 09-01-2009 01:37 AM

OSX isn't $700... It's $169, combined with ILife and IWork, two great suites of programs. I googled Vista, and it runs anywhere from $70 to $400, not including Office.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 09-01-2009 02:50 AM

quote: Mike Heenan
OSX isn't $700... It's $169, combined with ILife and IWork, two great suites of programs. I googled Vista, and it runs anywhere from $70 to $400, not including Office.

Saying it's not $700 is like saying that experiencing a Hemi engine doesn't cost thousands since it's only a few hundred dollar upgrade ignoring that you can only get said upgrade in addition to a car that already costs thousands.

OSX alone may cost only $169 but his point is that switching to OSX doesn't cost you $169.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 09-01-2009 03:47 AM

Don't hate.

Everything will be OK.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-01-2009 10:48 AM

quote: Joe Redifer
If I use a PC, it's one I built my damn self.

I have always wanted to build my own computer but with day job + theatre, there just isn't enough time in the day. Maybe when ("if") I retire!

My most recent machine is a Dell Vostro which I bought through a friend who is a "certified Dell reseller." He gave me a really good deal and the system is crapware-free. He went thru it before delivery and deleted all the stuff I told him I didn't want. [thumbsup]

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 09-01-2009 10:59 AM

Has anyone ever looked at the hardware components that make up a Dell, HP, or Gateway computer? Cheap crap.

I have built/upgraded/repaired PC's for years. What people pay for and what they get - are two different stories.

If Apple is using quality hardware components in their systems - good for them.

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Mike Heenan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1896
From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 09-01-2009 11:03 AM

Debating Mac vs PCs is like debating men vs women, everything that's wrong with one can be found wrong with the other. All I know is that Mac's are not perfect as they claim, but I like them much better than PC's.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 09-01-2009 11:46 AM

quote: Joe Redifer
Don't hate.

Everything will be OK.

Just because I respond dismissively to an argument doesn't mean that I am hating on anything.

Heck, if I had more time on my hands overall I'd try out making a partition to use for an OSX "hackintosh."

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