Apple

[Total Longo]

I've got a Mac Book Pro, I think it's pretty awesome but like others have said, I don't use it fully, mainly for Itunes, storing photos and browsing the web. i've spent £1100 on something I could be doing just as well from a £250 Acer.

 

Good God, man.

[VladimirIlyich]

Had an Acer Laptop for years and now have a Lenovo laptop.

Both excellent for my needs and under 500 quid brand new.

[Jairzinho]

I have a Fujitsu laptop that cost about £300 two years ago, and a Samsung something rather phone (whatever their absolute cheapest smart phone is from about a year ago) which cost £50. I only use the former for the net, occasionally FM, and Writer (blag Microsoft Word). The phone for calls, texts, and the web. Presumably I'd need some better kit regarding the laptop if I wanted to play games with graphics beyond the late 90s, but I'm still completely in the dark about other stuff phones do. 

 

Are Apple more expensive when it comes to phones? I assumed you could get an Apple phone for about £500, but the same was true for Samsung, etc.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I think they're a bit more expensive to but the unit but quite a bit more on contract. With android having so many handsets compatible, it varies.

[Croque Monsieur]

I own the sum total of zero Apple products and have no plans to buy any of their oh-so-trendy gewgaws.

 

They can get to fuck with their grossly exaggerated prices and air of ill-deserved exclusivity and superiority.

[Jairzinho]

I see. What stuff does a £500 smart phone do that a £50 smart (presumably actually quite dim) phone can't? Or is it more a case of doing stuff quicker, and with better picture quality, etc?

[Major Tom]

Are Apple more expensive when it comes to phones? I assumed you could get an Apple phone for about £500, but the same was true for Samsung, etc.

 

I've been with the same network provider for years so they offer me good deals on phones. I've got an iphone 5something and got it for £50, although I am tied into a 2yr contract paying £20 a month. iphone works for me for my work. But I imagine they all do now. Years ago it was the only one, though.

 

I should embrace change, really.

[Major Tom]

double post.

 

Stupid dell pc.

[Jairzinho]

I've been with the same network provider for years so they offer me good deals on phones. I've got an iphone 5something and got it for £50, although I am tied into a 2yr contract paying £20 a month. iphone works for me for my work. But I imagine they all do now. Years ago it was the only one, though.

 

I should embrace change, really.

 

Yeah, I guess most people are on contracts and therefore the actual pricing is a bit murkier. Or at least murky enough for quite a lot of people not to really look into it.

 

I'm assuming if you dropped the phone into a well they'd provide you with another one?

[Total Longo]

There is nothing "exclusive" or "trendy" aboutr Apple products, they're as ubiquitous as Mick Jagger's buck-toothed daughter. 

[Major Tom]

Yeah, I guess most people are on contracts and therefore the actual pricing is a bit murkier. Or at least murky enough for quite a lot of people not to really look into it.

 

I'm assuming if you dropped the phone into a well they'd provide you with another one?

 

Nup, they don't. I think it's an option you can have by paying some sort of insurance. But not an option I ever take up.

[Croque Monsieur]

There is nothing "exclusive" or "trendy" aboutr Apple products, they're as ubiquitous as Mick Jagger's buck-toothed daughter. 

I was just thinking that after posting; I suppose it's a throwback to when Macs etc were as rare as rocking horse shit and were talked of in hushed tones in school playgrounds.

 

Still, their modern ubiquity hasn't stopped Apple from charging extortionate prices for their gizmos based on their perceived 'exclusivity'.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I see. What stuff does a £500 smart phone do that a £50 smart (presumably actually quite dim) phone can't? Or is it more a case of doing stuff quicker, and with better picture quality, etc?

I don't think you can get a 50 smart phone. But I think it's like anything else, design, branding, technology, desire all at a part. I've got a Nexus 5. It was quite a bit cheaper than the iPhone but the build quality and materials aren't even close. I think I'll be going for an iphone next time out cnow they've got the bigger screen.

[Hooch]

I also like computers.

[morgan]

I've got a old MacBook Pro that was leftover from work. I think it's great - it's got a free BSD layer that allows me to use the command line, it looks pretty enough and most importantly it's got the world's best trackpad. The machined metal case is solid and it's travelled with me to four different continents and a couple of major road trips in the last four years. I use iPhoto, GarageBand, and Time Machine. I'd readily buy a macbook (probably an Air) if I was going to buy another laptop.

I was waiting until the new Mac Mini came out to buy a new desktop. When the mini was a disappointment, I looked at the tradeoff between an iMac and a Windows PC - I could get a fantastic triple-screened Windows setup for ~£1k, which would get me the most basic iMac. I went with the Windows PC, and while I prefer OS X, Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu are, between them, more than good enough to do what I want.

 

However, Apple use the same suppliers as everyone else. There's no way that I believe that Apple are any worse (and I believe that they are slightly better!) than Lenovo, Asus, Acer, HP, etc. They're just an easy target, as a large number like to sneer at them.

[Section_31]

Did anyone see Panorama?

 

Kind of exemplified why the world is in the toilet. American cities like Gary and St Louis are on their arse while America's corporate poster boy is giving it the Pharoah swagger in the Far East and retaining more money in its coffers than the US Treasury.

[morgan]

I'm amazed that US corps can hold money off-shore and it remains untaxed, whereas US citizens must file tax returns in the US every year, regardless of where they live and can be taxed on income earned abroad.

[stringvest]

Asus are a long standing and well-respected company; I've been building PCs for about 20 years and the motherboard in my current one is an Asus, as is the graphics card. They make good kit.

 

 

 

 

I can't begin to grasp what you are doing with a PC where you need to do anything to your BIOS settings other than when initially setting it up and often you don't even need to do much of anything at that point any more.  Ten years ago maybe but the need for the average user to have that level of technical competence is pretty much gone these days in my opinion.

 

 

I may have been using hyperbole as a device there, but it is a fact that the PCs I use need massively more tinkering just to keep the fuckers running and up to date than the macs.  Life's too short.  Especially mine.  

[stringvest]

I've got an iMac for photo editing because it does the job well. I switched to an iPhone 5s simply because it was smaller than the way phones are headed now and I got fed up of lumping a big phone around.

 

I use a Surface Pro 3 for work because it's the best tool for the job.

 

As long as you treat these things as tools for jobs, and not get attached to them like members of family, they're fine.

 

Pre-cisely.

[stringvest]

IMO the MacBook is the best laptop ever made. It's the only hardware (other than an iPad or iPhone) that I'd buy from Apple.

 

and the 5K iMac you forgetful twonk.  

 

Actually my next mac will be a desktop pro.  I've been bitten with a fuckoff big all-in-one before and I didn't like it.  

[TheHowieLama]

I'm still amazed they went from a record company to producing high tech gadgets.

[stringvest]

Yeah, I guess most people are on contracts and therefore the actual pricing is a bit murkier. Or at least murky enough for quite a lot of people not to really look into it.

 

I'm assuming if you dropped the phone into a well they'd provide you with another one?

 

the best thing you can do to hammer your existing phone company down is order a phone from another network.  Then tell your existing company about it.  They'll cry like babies, and offer you a deal you would be silly to refuse, much better than you'd get from carphone warehouse or even the network's standard tariffs.  Then cancel the contract with the second company under the 14 day rule, and you're laughing.  

[stringvest]

There is nothing "exclusive" or "trendy" aboutr Apple products, they're as ubiquitous as Mick Jagger's buck-toothed daughter. 

 

i'm not sure anybody thinks they are exclusive or trendy mate.  

[stringvest]

If you're a musician, macs are great.  Garageband - fantastic starter package, and Logic Pro is about the best DAW you can get for any price* and it's less than £200.  

 

*in my opinion

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

and the 5K iMac you forgetful twonk.

Oh yeah, the 5k iMac is really nice.