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I, throughout my personal technology history have been a Microsoft fanboy. I bought or assisted in buying at least 10 PCs for my family (Parents, Grandparents, Siblings, Friends, etc…). I had windows phones until about the time the nexus 5 came out. I have a custom Gaming PC that i also use for coding.(probably $2000 if you consider the peripherals). I have an Xbox one X. I had the original Xbox One. I use the Microsoft Launcher. I have Office 365 and my whole family uses the storage and apps. Fanboy. In the last few years I have become more practical about it. Use whatever gets the job done. Which i think is still Windows most of the time. but my sister and girlfriend have iphones and Macs. I listened to that Dogfight book about Google and Apple and gained a little more respect for apple in the process. I have always thought that they made good hardware. Just worse software.
I recently decided to go back to school for a M.S. in Computer Science. I am currently a Test Engineer with an Electrical Engineering Degree. My laptop is also starting to show it’s age (it’s 4 and the fan and battery are dying). I was separately started considering a side project making a character sheet app for a game in order to re-enforce my learning. I started researching Xamarin and realized that I would still need a MAC (Gasp). This seemed like blasphemy to my MS/Google-centric world until I started looking at new laptops. When I buy laptops I typically look for them to last about 4 years or so.
So I looked at a MAC and thought “I’ll just put windows on it for the development apps I need”. Then I looked at the price and found that I could either end up with last year’s model (dual core) for 1700 + the cost of windows, or this year’s model for 2100 + the cost of windows. This includes warranty extension and whatever else I need. At that price I could get a windows PC and an old used Macbook air on Ebay and just make it a dedicated XCode machine.
I looked at the XPS13 and found that people have a lot a problems with the wifi card and sleeping the laptop as well as poor customer service. I looked at the HP Spectre x360 and found several hardware issues with decent customer service. I looked at the Surface Laptop and still cannot believe they only have one USB port. Plus the price is similar to the MAC if I want more than 256 GB storage. (No SD Card Slot :'( ). Anyway the more I look the more I find wrong with the everyone’s PCs except Microsoft and Apple.
So adding onto this, Paul’s years-long crusade about “finishing the job” is really resonating with me. As I look at where I want to take my education, it feels like Microsoft just doesn’t care about making things work well, so why should I care? When I was playing with the MACs in the apple store and my girlfriend’s MAC, it may not be as capable in terms of number of features, but everything is buttery smooth. Sleeping and waking up is instantaneous. They don’t release an operating system with a DATA DELETION BUG. I mean, that is as bad as it gets. It just is frustrating. Why should I, as an advanced user and future developer, care when Microsoft doesn’t. It is depressing. I will probably end up getting a Surface Laptop and later buying a used MAC if I need it.
I know I’m probably just frustrated and getting into my own head. I do feel better posting this though.
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Bats
<p>I'll make this easy for you. Get the Mac for $1700 + Windows. Forget everything else (Dell, HP, etc…). If you are serious about your career, then you are better off arming yourself with all the platforms at your disposal. </p><p><br></p><p>Secondly, you are saying that Microsoft and Apple are free of faults? Because that's not true. Mac OS bugs are so common and Surface computers have known reliability issues. That's common knowledge. </p><p><br></p><p>What I suggest you do, is wait a week or two for the Black Friday deals and where coupon codes can be utilized. Then go to HP and look for their Student discount program and customize a fully loaded and overspec'd Windows laptop.Then apply a coupon code to lower the price further. However, before you submit the order signup for Ebates for more cash back with your purchase. Then submit the order. Do that if buying an overpowered Windows PC makes more sense to you than a Mac (LOL…"Mac"). I only know HP because that's the computer company I trust the most. Plus, I think Dell computers are ugly looking. Every single computer I bought from HP (six) has been customized to high end specs and they are still running today. </p><p><br></p><p>Again, the steps:</p><ol><li>Wait for Black Friday/Cyber Monday</li><li>Signup for ebates</li><li>Look for HP Coupon Code</li><li>Go to HP and look for Student Discount program, thru Ebates or activate Ebates Chrome Extension</li><li>Customize your machine</li><li>Apply Coupon Code </li><li>Submit Order</li><li>Send me a nice thank you note.</li><li>Stop complaining. </li></ol>
Todd Northrop
<p>I'm sure you'll hear suggestions about installing Windows on a Mac, but as someone who did that for a couple of years I can tell you I would never do it again. If you need a Mac in order to develop for the Apple Store, buy the cheapest Mac you can and use it to do your uploads to the store. Problem solved. You do not need to do the actual development on the Mac.</p><p><br></p><p>Windows on a Mac seems really great until something changes in Windows or something goes wrong on your laptop. Apple is not great with drivers. It can be difficult to track down and download the latest drivers, and even when you do they can be flaky. All Apple hardware is proprietary, so you need the drivers specifically from Apple — you can't just go to a part company's website and download the latest driver.</p><p><br></p><p>Then of course you are dealing with multiple fragile partitions on the storage drive, because both MacOS and Windows want to create several partitions each. If something breaks, are you SURE it is backed up correctly? Because it's easy to screw up with so much going on. Restoring after a disaster is a problematic affair.</p><p><br></p><p>You will certainly hear anecdotes from people who say how easy it was when they had a problem, but you can just as surely hear from all the people who would never do it again (like me).</p><p><br></p><p>Better to keep the two worlds apart.</p>