seeeee i get way more

 

hence the appeal with mac because it seems like their batteries go forever. Battery life isn't a huge concern anyway because I rarely use my laptop where there isn't a power outlet near by.

 

ehhhhhhhh.

 

If you can, I'd say definitely wait a month or two for the new Intel mobile chips to make their way into the market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_B...ile_processors). As it is now, there are only a couple laptops that run them, and they're the higher end. Here's a good example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834246006

Make sure you really want the 17" screen that badly before you get one. You'll hate having to lug it around if you have to take it places.

And if it is at all possible, drop $100 on a 60gb ssd (or ~$190 on a 128gb) and leave your media at home or on an external. The ssd won't be prone to mechanical failures like normal hdds in laptops. Also, the ssd in the mac book air is what makes everyone love it. And if you get a mac, wait for the Air refresh this year to dump that old core2duo.

 

And how big is that laptop? Dual drives may be a plus for you, while compact size is a plus for someone else. There are two sides to every coin.

The SSD thing is pretty cool though. What's their lifespand in regards howblkng until they've been rewritten too much? Or is that no longer really a concern anymore?

 

i own a mac and i run 4 OS's on it. hardware wise you cant beat em (no trim support in OSX though) but the price is kinda prohibitive.

 

wrong. the 12 hours of battery life is what makes me love my MBAir. its just as fast as my MBpro w/ ssd but the battery life for general use is much higher. lower for more intense applications (obviously).

my only complaint about the air so far is that its ****ing hard to open if its sitting on the table.

 

If a $1200 Mac can easily outlast two $700 PC based laptops, then isn't it the PC's that are cost prohibitive?

 

wait for sandy bridge IMO. give it like 4 months.

 

VRT MBasile: No worries. Maybe it is time to stop by the Apple store again and give it another shot...

To all the others: thanks for the feedback and info, please keep it coming!

 

Honestly, when I got my first one, the first day of using it everything felt bass ackwards, thats why I suggested if there is some way for you to test one out for a month or so (if someone you know has a spare perhaps). Thats when it clicks and you go "oooooh, I get it now"

 

Yea, there's the battery life, and the touchpad, and the size, and the everything else. But it's the SSD that made everyone on the internet go "omg I hate how slow my other computers are compared to my MBA" because so few people invest in SSDs as upgrades.

And for SSD lifespan...there isn't any real data on it yet, just a theoretical 100,000 re-writes per cell that came from who knows where. But with wear leveling and garbage collection / TRIM having improved so much in the past couple years, I'm not afraid of keeping my SSD for more than the anticipated lifespan of a normal spinning disk that can be damaged by shaking.

 

I have Macbook Pro 17", previous to unibody model. If I'll have to buy a laptop now I'd probably buy HP Business - HP Elite and etc... Macbook Pro has a nice design but not very good from reliability point of view. Been once in the repair already and has some issues now. So, I'd say that the build quality of Macs are not that good. And it's not the materials - it's the design itself. Not a big fan of OSX either.

So, my vote will probably go to HP Business. Business series, not regular one from Fry's/Best Buy, etc...

 

It's a 17" widescreen. I am not overly concerned with size other that back when I had a 15" laptop is looked like a little toy when I used it on my lap. I'm a big guy and the 17" fits me a lot better and I do like the number pad I get as well.

With dual drives, I know the trend now is to have one SSD and one HDD and boot all the programs off the SSD and specifically only store data on the HDD. I have yet to use a SSD, my plan would be to run two really big HDDs. Currently, since my 250GB drive failed, I have a 40ishGB that I got from a friend to keep my machine running and I have a 750GB Drive that I got from xmas. (my laptop only came with one drive even though it has two bays.) I am planning to get another 750GB drive to replace the 40ish and I will then have a laptop with just a little less than 1.5TB of space on it. And I really like the sound of that.

 

love my HP dv8 with i-5 inside to pieces!

don't know what im gonna do when it breaks