Is the macbook pro much better than any other laptop?

I am currently wanting to buy a laptop, I am deciding whether to buy a macbook pro or just a regular laptop. Is it really worth it to spend so much more?
Thank you! ~ mtumbler

Don't forget where you're asking that question.
Since nearly all people here have Macs, we obviously felt they were worth the price. "Much better than any other laptop" is a fairly subjective statement. All the major manufacturers have excellent high-end options. When comparing prices, you need to compare similar specifications and quality. You can certainly get cheaper PC computers, but similarly spec'd machines with similar build quality are generally around the same price (and actually sometimes somewhat higher).
The areas that most of us would agree puts Apple at the top are OS X, quality/design, and customer service. Only Macs can run OS X. For those of us that use OS X, we typically prefer it over Windows (by quite a bit). However, this isn't always a positive for someone moving over from Windows. There is a little bit of a learning curve. If you are going to need to be able to do everything you want, you need to understand that it might take a little time to figure everything out. You can install Windows alongside the Mac OS to help make the transition a little easier, but that requires that you purchase a copy of Windows. So far as quality and design... Apple has always been a leader in this area. However, as I had mentioned earlier, most major manufacturers have caught up in this area... at least with respect to their high-end offerings. It's really a matter of preference in terms of which you like more. No one offers the same level of customer service that you'll get from Apple. No other manufacturer has retail stores like Apple where you can go in with your machine and have someone (who knows about Apple products) check out your machine on the spot. Their phone support is also excellent and their user support community (where you're at now) is second to none.
So... most of us would agree that we feel Apple products are "better". But if you were to go to a typica PC forum and ask the same question, you'll find people who would argue fanatically that they're not. The reality is that there isn't that much of a difference in the hardware. You need to decide if something like the OS (which you probably don't have much experience using), design, and support are important to you.

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Resolution is iMovie is always better than any other exported version

Hi folks -
I've used iMovie to make a few montages (photos/music/some video). When I watch the "movie" on iMovie it looks great - crisp, high resolution. But when I choose any format to compress it to, even the highest resolution, it is automatically degraded. Is there any way I can save the final cut in a resolution that won't lose image quality? Right now I've been keeping the iMovie working file on my hard drive (taking up a ridiculous amount of space) because it's the best way to watch it.
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even the highest resolution, it is automatically degraded
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I archive my edited iMovie clips as <9 min 30 sec clips exported this way as .dv files.
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Is it worth replacing the MacBook Pro with an iPad Air?

I've been sat in the realms of contemplation for some time now. Since the release of the iPad Air it looks as though it is now possibly a viable option for me to replace my aging MacBook Pro. I essentially only use my laptop for photographs and music. My photo collection is about 11GB in size when they are in their original format outside of iPhoto. (iPhoto bloats it up to 33GB). My music collection is miniscule and we're talking only about 2GB in size, as it's only stuff I have purchased from the iTunes Store, so I know I can listen to this whenever I want to by re-downloading specific albums or tracks with "Purchases in the Cloud." At the moment I think the Macbook Pro is more than I actually need for what I use it for. Things like document creation etc. isn't an issue for me as I've used pages previously on my laptop and my documents are iCloud synced.
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Message was edited by: C.Moore - Spelling & grammar corrections.

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That said, if you still have your desktop and use it for most of the computing work and basically just want a photo viewer, check your e-mail device, then it may work for you.
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Why is ATV output so much louder than my other components?

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Im about to buy a macbook pro. but I dont know if there are too much techproblems with the retina model,such as overheating, malfunction of the fans, screen problems?. or is the macbook pro non retina in tech problems a better option? thanxa lot

I have a brand new rMBP and have not seen any of those problems.

Is the Macbook Pro Retina display better than the LED display on the new iMac that is coming out?

I am thinking of either buying the Macbook Pro retina display (15") or waiting for the iMac 27" display. I am mainly focusing on the display, so what is better?

vinay.sujan wrote:
Is the MacBook Pro Retina display resolution of 2880-by-1800 a strain on the eyes as I understand the higher the resolution the more strainful the screen can be to the eyes?
Well there are two or three causes of eyestrain with displays different people seem to have.
1: Small type/UI elements
2: Glossy screens
3: Flicker rate
1:
The higher pixel rate combined with the display set at the higher resolution is going to cause UI and type to be smaller and harder to see. In fact it's advised to set OS X to a lower resolouton so it upscales better to match the pixel of the higher display.
Reports coming in say watching HD 1920 x 1080 trailers on the anti-glare 17" is best as the pixel content matches the display almost fullscreen, where on the MBP-R it's upscaled and thus looks blurry.
HD content makers are NOT going to change all their video cameras to support 2880 x 1800 full screen, so in order to get a clearer image playing HD 1080 content, one will have to do so in a smaller window.
2:
The new MBP-R dispalys are 75% less glossy, but not 100% less glossy like the anti-glare models so this can still cause some people problems. This can be lowered to under 1%, however I'm suspecting to do so would be considered giving up a military advantage to China where Apple gets it products made.
3:
I don't know about the flicker rate if it's better or not on the MBP-R's than the previous screens.

Ive had my 13 inch macbook pro for less than 30 days and the battery health has gone down to 92% and the computer itself is so slow...i paid %50.00 for an OLD windows computer with 512 mb of ram and it is much faster..is this normal for mac??

Ive had my 13 inch macbook pro for less than 30 days and the battery health has gone down to 92% and the computer itself is so slow...i paid $50.00 for an OLD windows computer with 512 mb of ram and it is much faster..is this normal for mac?? Also, apple says there is nothing they can/wil do even though i got the apple care....i mean really? $50.00 for 2002 computer with windows XP and 512mb of ram and a single core processor......faster and more usable than $1400.00 computer with 4gb of ram and dual core processor.....***???

Willtc92 wrote:
Ive had my 13 inch macbook pro for less than 30 days and the battery health has gone down to 92% and the computer itself is so slow...i paid $50.00 for an OLD windows computer with 512 mb of ram and it is much faster..is this normal for mac??
obviously not.
Ive had my 13 inch macbook pro for less than 30 days and the battery health has gone down to 92% and the computer itself is so slow...
Give examples of how it is slow.

How much hard drive do I need on the Macbook Pro?

I am buying a Macbook Pro 13" to use for email, internet, word processing and photo editing (in raw and jpeg). It comes wtih 500 or 750 GB Seriesl ATA hard drive which is way more hard drive than I need. I will keep most of my photos on an external hard drive and in a cloud and retain about a thousand photos on the Macbook's hard drive at a time for viewing and processing. I would like to upgrad to the Solid State hard drive but want to choose the least amount of hard drive that would be sufficient for the applications I would like to run and the realtively small amount of photos I want to store on the Macbook Pro. Do you think this would be sufficient? Is the solid state hard drive so much better than the serieal ata hard drive that it would be a good investment?

The downside of moving a lot of your storage to an external hard drive is that then you need a second external hard drive on which to back the first one up, and you need to remember to actually DO the backups regularly. I greatly prefer to have a large enough internal drive to store all my files, just because it makes backing them all up so much easier (and therefore more likely to be done often).
As for the downside of SSDs, do they need any more downside than costing several times more per GB of storage than hard drives? Particularly when they're still in their early childhood, are still improving by leaps and bounds, and better SSDs will probably cost half or less than half as much per GB a year from now as they do today? There's more than enough downside to discourage me from buying an SSD now. Thanks, but I'll wait for prices to come down, sizes to increase, the limited-write-cycles problem to be addressed on Macs, and SSDs' long-term reliability to be more definitively confirmed. And frankly, I just don't care whether a file takes half a second or three seconds to open. I can afford to wait 20 or 30 seconds a day.

My MacBook Pro won't load any websites on Safari (except this site, Facebook and Google), Opera, or Mozilla Firefox. I already did the "Reset Safari", restarted the computer half a dozen times, and I can't find this alleged "caches.db" file to delete.

My MacBook Pro won't load any websites on Safari (except this site, Facebook and Google). Opera and Mozilla Firefox won't load any sites whatsoever. I already did the "Reset Safari" several times, restarted the computer half a dozen times, and I can't find this alleged "caches.db" file to delete. I virus scanned the computer with Sophos, Avast, and iAntiVirus and it looks clean.

Is iAntiVirus the best virus protection to use for a MacBook?
The best anti-virus protection is your own common sense, and what you already bought and paid for with your Mac. Third party products such as "iAntiVirus" convey no additional benefit, and as you already determined are very capable of causing trouble.
OS X already includes everything it needs to protect itself from viruses and malware. Keep it that way with software updates from Apple.
A much better question is "how should I protect my Mac":
Never install any product that claims to "speed up", "clean up", "optimize", or "accelerate" your Mac. Without exception, they will do the opposite.
Never install pirated or "cracked" software, software obtained from dubious websites, or other questionable sources. Illegally obtained software is almost certain to contain malware.
Don’t supply your password in response to a popup window requesting it, unless you know what it is and the reason your credentials are required.
Don’t open email attachments from email addresses that you do not recognize, or click links contained in an email:
Most of these are scams that direct you to fraudulent sites that attempt to convince you to disclose personal information.
Such "phishing" attempts are the 21st century equivalent of a social exploit that has existed since the dawn of civilization. Don’t fall for it.
Apple will never ask you to reveal personal information in an email. If you receive an unexpected email from Apple saying your account will be closed unless you take immediate action, just ignore it. If your iTunes or App Store account becomes disabled for valid reasons, you will know when you try to buy something or log in to this support site, and are unable to.
Don’t install browser extensions unless you understand their purpose. Go to the Safari menu > Preferences > Extensions. If you see any extensions that you do not recognize or understand, simply click the Uninstall button and they will be gone.
Don’t install Java unless you are certain that you need it:
Java, a non-Apple product, is a potential vector for malware. If you are required to use Java, be mindful of that possibility.
Java can be disabled in System Preferences.
Despite its name JavaScript is unrelated to Java. No malware can infect your Mac through JavaScript. It’s OK to leave it enabled.
Block browser popups: Safari menu > Preferences > Security > and check "Block popup windows":
Popup windows are useful and required for some websites, but popups have devolved to become a common means to deliver targeted advertising that you probably do not want.
Popups themselves cannot infect your Mac, but many contain resource-hungry code that will slow down Internet browsing.
If you ever see a popup indicating it detected registry errors, that your Mac is infected with some ick, or that you won some prize, it is 100% fraudulent. Ignore it.
Ignore hyperventilating popular media outlets that thrive by promoting fear and discord with entertainment products arrogantly presented as "news". Learn what real threats actually exist and how to arm yourself against them:
The most serious threat to your data security is phishing. To date, most of these attempts have been pathetic and are easily recognized, but that is likely to change in the future as criminals become more clever.
OS X viruses do not exist, but intentionally malicious or poorly written code, created by either nefarious or inept individuals, is nothing new.
Never install something without first knowing what it is, what it does, how it works, and how to get rid of it when you don’t want it any more.
If you elect to use "anti-virus" software, familiarize yourself with its limitations and potential to cause adverse effects, and apply the principle immediately preceding this one.
Most such utilities will only slow down and destabilize your Mac while they look for viruses that do not exist, conveying no benefit whatsoever - other than to make you "feel good" about security, when you should actually be exercising sound judgment, derived from accurate knowledge, based on verifiable facts.
Do install updates from Apple as they become available. No one knows more about Macs and how to protect them than the company that builds them.
Summary: Use common sense and caution when you use your Mac, just like you would in any social context. There is no product, utility, or magic talisman that can protect you from all the evils of mankind.

Is the Mountain Lion so much better than the Snow Leopard that make it worth buying?

Is the Mountain Lion so much better than the Snow Leopard that I'm currently using and worth the money to buy it? Is it more or less confusing to operate?

OS X 10.7-18.0+ will NOT run any current PPC based programs your running.
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table
If you have a MacPro like your signature says (the tower, not the laptop) then it's not going to have much of a performance loss as say the MacBook Pro's will.
Older, less powerful Mac's have performance losses with the newer OS X Lions, it might be best to stick with 10.6.8 on a older machine until it drops, then spend the money on all new software on a newer machine instead.
One guy was here today and had a 2007 Intel Core 2 Duo and it was struggling to run OS X Mountain Lion, Chrome and Photoshop.
It just didn't have the hardware horsepower for all that bloatware.
My advice if it's not a top end iMac or MacPro, then 2010 is the cut-off point, those 2010 machines and earlier are likely better off on 10.6.8 max.
It all depends upon one's perception of performance really.

The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?

I have recently switched from a PC to a MacBook Pro.
I have a large number of documents and photographs on a multiterrabite external drive, backed up on a second multiterrabite external drive.
Both external drives are formatted for MacIntosh. This has been verified by agents at an Apple store and also at Best Buy in two different cities.
This is the problem:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
Thanks!
Roderick Guerry
[email protected]

Roderick Guerry wrote:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
No, this is a philosophical difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple believes that it's dangerous to cut a file in case the user never pastes it; in that case the file is lost. Microsoft seems to not have this problem (if I remember Windows correctly) because they don't delete the originating file if it's cut but never pasted.
Even though Macs have a lot of keyboard shortcuts, philosophically Macs have traditionally been mouse-first. This applies to file copy operations. In your case, what a Mac user would do is open the source window, open the destination window (on your second drive), and then Command-drag the selected files from the source to destination window. This is because a normal drag would leave the originals behind, while adding the Command modifier key tells OS X that this is a Move, not a Copy, so don't leave the originals behind.
(In addition there are different rules for drag-copying within the same volume or between different volumes. If you drag between two folders on the same volume, the files are moved. If you drag between different volumes, the files are copied unless you hold down Command to delete the copies on the source volume.)
Roderick Guerry wrote:
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
Two problems in this case. First, batch file renaming is not built into OS X unless you build something with Automator. However, there are many utilities that can do batch file renaming which you can find at macupdate.com or on the App Store. Since I work with media I often batch rename using one of the media managers I have lying around like Media Pro or Adobe Bridge (comes with Photoshop).
iPhoto is a database front end designed to shield the file system from the consumer and let them concentrate on creativity and sharing. As such it is often a poor choice for managing files directly. When you "transferred the photographs" chances are you moved the originals, not the ones iPhoto edited which are stored in a hidden folder.
Roderick Guerry wrote:
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
There will not be a way to do it exactly like Windows. As described above, there are ways to do it "the Mac way." If it is possible to remove judgment on which way is "better" you might find the Mac way to be acceptable, but of course sometimes we simply prefer what we're used to.

Mag Safe power cord sparks when connected or disconnected--whereupon the MacBook Pro 13'' dumps date and time, and all passwords, plus any/all unsaved information.

I purchased my MacBook Pro 13" from the Apple Store in Tucson, AZ, in mid-January. Since then, every time the Mag-Safe cord is jostled, not even disconnected, sparks fly from the power terminal on the computer, the computer shuts down, and dumps its passwords, as well as the date and time.
Any work in progress is also lost.
I work overseas, and Apple's advice was to give them my credit card number, await shipment of a new power supply and cord, and then, when I return the old power supply and cord, i'd receive a credit. That won't work, as packages from the US to my location take weeks if they arrive at all. There is no Apple Store within a reasonable distance. Or, Apple suggests, when I'm home on leave in mid-June, I should bring the computer to the Apple Store for repair--I have only days in which to do that, but I suppose I'll need to try. My concern is that I'll need to return overseas without my computer and won't be able to retrieve it for months, until my next leave.
This issue shows up elsewhere online. Is there a short in the power terminal in the computer, or on the Mag-Safe power cord, or within the computer itself? It's a known issue, thus I wonder why it hasn't been fixed.

Odd, but here's a copy of Page 1 of the links I got:
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Is the macbook pro much better than any other laptop?

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