Mac’s Galore

Sitting in my high school’s library now, looking around it’s slightly surprising to me that Apple only has an 8% market share. I see two MacBooks, two MacBook Pros, and 5 various models of the iPod.* Many of you may or may not know in the end of October 2008 I bought the $1600 MacBook, and even dual booted Windows XP on it. While yes I admit the prices on their hardware is pretty ridiculous, and I could have gotten a much more powerful components, a much larger screen for the same price or even less, and the glass screen is a good warning mirror in case anyone sneaks up on me, what I got for the price I paid seems a little more fair now.

Having had it for almost three months, I can sufficiently say that I am rather satisfied. Windows runs games and such perfectly on the 70gb partition I made for it, and although the trackpad isn’t very compatible that is easily fixed with a good notebook mouse.

Yesterday, some friends and I pitched in $25 in order to split  4/5 licenses of iWork ’09. Originally I was skeptical about the software, I watched the Apple keynote revealing the revised Office suite and wasn’t too impressed. However actually trying it out on my own computer has been an experience. Initially I had used Open Office write, which while works, can be difficult sometimes, I got it so I wouldn’t have to pay more re-purchase MS Office and I considered it to out rank the suite overall. Now having tried iWork extensively, the ranks of Word Processors go from worst to best: MS Office, Open Office, iWork. For anyone who has a Mac already and is tired of using a clunky interface on such a beautiful machine, I recommend that you switch over, again you can split up the licenses as you wish.

The other software that comes on the Mac side, iLife ’08 in particular is also impressive, I have already used Garageband multiple times to create soundtracks for my videos, and I feel that they have come out with a level of professionality that a copyrighted song could not have given. iMovie is really a joy to use for short simple videos, responding to challenges on YouTube has never been easier, before my process would be slowed down over the course of about two hours per challenge.

My verdict: if you’re a fun loving student like me who games and does whatever whenever, then get a mac, you won’t regret it. If you’re just looking to get a good portable computer though just for browsing and word processing, get an HP Mini, I’ve tried them out from friends and in stores and they’re second to none in portability.

*I don’t care Zunes are still better, just wait until Songbird supports more mp3 players.