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Nephew just called from BestBuy asking for advisement on his 1st Mac purchase. After figuring out he wanted a portable but was on a budget (had $1,400 on him) I advised him to get the basic 13" saying he could always upgrade the hard drive and memory for cheap himself if he wanted to. He said that the salesman was stating what a poor gaming machine, and he thought the salesman was trying to steer him into another bad PC purchase. Would not listen.

I think I'm going to make an attempt at persuading my wife that we need that big ass i7 iMac.

wellfleation wrote:

Nephew just called from BestBuy asking for advisement on his 1st Mac purchase. After figuring out he wanted a portable but was on a budget (had $1,400 on him) I advised him to get the basic 13" saying he could always upgrade the hard drive and memory for cheap himself if he wanted to. He said that the salesman was stating what a poor gaming machine, and he thought the salesman was trying to steer him into another bad PC purchase. Would not listen.

The 9400M is not an awful chip for gamming, by no means is it great but it does the job.

mrreet2001 wrote:

C. Ives wrote:

Alien wrote:

I was al set to make my next main machine a MacBook Pro (economic hardship of these days makes the option of both a new desktop and a portable a pipe dream, sadly), but upon seeing the new iMacs, I might just make do with my old PowerBook a bit longer and spring for the quad core i7 monster.

Come the new year, and barring equally impressive updates to the MacBook Pro line, of course.

.tsooJ

You're waiting for the 27" MacPro, too?

whats so special about a 27" MacPro? Mine will handle a 30" screen just fine.

The 27" MacPro comes with retractable shoulder straps for carrying convenience.

Mr. T wrote:

Jokotai wrote:

I decided to go for Apple's $50 when replacing my previous generation keyboard (aka dirt magnet)

Dude, the dirt magnet was the best keyboard Apple ever made!  Toss it in the dishwasher, let it dry out for a few days, and it's good as new (for reals).

Since I now have two keyboards (the original dirt magnet still works fine), I might have to give it a shot.  Hello, eBay?

wellfleation wrote:

Nephew just called from BestBuy asking for advisement on his 1st Mac purchase. After figuring out he wanted a portable but was on a budget (had $1,400 on him) I advised him to get the basic 13" saying he could always upgrade the hard drive and memory for cheap himself if he wanted to. He said that the salesman was stating what a poor gaming machine, and he thought the salesman was trying to steer him into another bad PC purchase. Would not listen.

Most of the BestBuy salespeople are trained to steer customers towards PC's.  There was an article about that on ArsTechnica some time back.  I would recommend buying the new MacBook (the plastic one) at it's base configuration and doing manual upgrades to the memory at the very least, if not the HDD as well, but if the people at BestBuy are going to be pushy about it, don't patronize them.

mrreet2001: Your picture of the dirt magnet is inverted.  Just a pet peeve of mine

Alien wrote:

Orion wrote:

SomeOneOrOther wrote:

The curve of the mouse looks VERY sleek. Very nice.

Sucks for folks like me with big hands.

Speak for yourself. I like small, flat mice and I'd wager my hands are bigger than yours.

.tsooJ

I have troubles finding mice that actually fit my hand.  Those small mice force me to contort my hand into a "claw" like shape to simply grasp them.  I tried the mighty mouse, but my hand hurt so bad after a few minutes, that I simply tossed it in the closet.

To give you a size comparison, on my Apple Pro keyboard (black keys) I can have my thumb on the edge of the space bar, and hit the + key on the keypad with my little finger.  I can cover my Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 with my hand to the point you cannot see it at all.

Big hands suck when you are trying to find keyboards and mice. 

Last edited by Orion (2009-10-22 11:19 am)

dv wrote:

Orion, my solution to that problem (hockey puck mouse) was to plant my wrist on the wrist rest, grasp the mouse with my fingertips, and set the mouse tracking fast enough that I didn't need to pick-up-and-move to get from one edge of the screen to the other; so I wasn't actually resting my hand on the mouse at all.

It was actually quite comfortable, and seemed to cut down on rsi-ish wrist fatigue.

I think that was a pretty common tactic, actually. Iirc, I read about it in an Andy Ihnatko column.

The only tactic that really helped with the puck was to replace it. The absolute cheapest, bottom of the barrel Logitec mouse was much better.
The print shop I worked at last had a box full of puck mouses they had replaced off of shop systems. They were free for the taking, no one wanted them.
Musta been 20 of them in there.

sturner wrote:

There was a company that made a jacket for the puck, it turned it into a larger mouse body. Worked for my Dad-in-law.

One button? :No:

Pariah wrote:

sturner wrote:

There was a company that made a jacket for the puck, it turned it into a larger mouse body. Worked for my Dad-in-law.

Polishing a turd

indeed

I have had this theory that the Apple mouses that have been made since the return of Jobs prove that Jobs is an alien because they obviously were not designed for human anatomy.

Readies shotgun and Pit Bull.

Donkey Butter wrote:

I think I'm going to make an attempt at persuading my wife that we need that big ass i7 iMac.

Save your cash.  The i5 is an i7 minus the on-die memory controller, tripple channel memory support, and some overclocking potential.  Tripple channel memory is insignificant, the on-die memory controller only matters when you have lots of bandwidth-hungry PCIe devices (like three-way SLI, for example), and the overclocking potential only matters if you feel like cutting a hole in the case for a decent-sized HSF (such as the Cogage True Spirit).

So unless you absolutely have to have the extra 133MHz the i7 option offers, or just plain think that "i7" sounds cooler than "i5," then you should probably stick with the i5.

Last edited by Mr. T (2009-10-22 11:48 pm)

I use a MBP so I just use the trackpad. I've gotten used to the Mighty Mouse, but it's not my favorite mouse. The frustrating part is that you have to remove your index finger to get the right-click to register. We'll see how the Magic Mouse works after it gets reviewed. I was mainly talking about size and shape however. People have different sized hands and fingers, no one mouse will fit them all well.

Maybe it's just me, but if you're already dropping $1K+ on a new computer, a bit extra for a mouse or kb doesn't seem like a lot.