Breaking Point Reached: Bye Bye to Windows

[TromboneAl]

After some blue-screen crashes on my HP Envy 17" laptop, and hours spent solving issues (e.g. failure to sleep, restore points problems, intermittent fingerprint reader failure, things stop working after upgrades, occasional very slow performance. etc.) I finally thought about switching to a Mac.

I realized that I was stupid not to consider that years ago. I don't play games and I disabled the touchscreen. The things that bug me most about Windows (constant upgrades, driver problems, inconsistent user interfaces, antivirus apps) are not present or are less of an issue with Macs. The novel-writing software I use is better on the Mac.

So, I'll probably switch soon.

One problem is that I prefer a 17" laptop (a laptop works better on my beloved rolltop desk).

Apple stopped making the 17" Macbook Pro in 2012. Would it be dumb to buy a refurbished one of those?

 

[pb4uski]

I dunno Al. I have a Lenovo Miix 700 Win 10 tablet I bought in January 2017 and it has yet to hang or crash on me. When I was working I wasy usually issued Lenovo and they were solid... one round I got a Dell and it was a nightmare.

 

[Car-Guy]

Interesting. I have the same type of PC (Win10 HP ENVY) and have very few issues. Most of those issues I've been able to fix pretty quick. I do agree the MS updates are really a pain, far to frequent and unannounced. Good luck with the MAC. (I've used those too but keep coming back to my Windows PC's)

 

[sgstaley]

I have been using Apple products for around 11 years and will never return to windoz. I am using a Macbook Air 13" (2015) with a solid state drive. I bought it new and simply love the thing. I cannot imagine that I would ever be inclined to ditch the Mac.

 

[Scuba]

I absolutely love my MacBook Air, and DH loves his MacBook Pro. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to PC’s.

 

[RobbieB]

I rolled my beloved roll top desk out to the curb a couple weeks ago.

My next computer screen will be a 40 incher up on the wall

 

[Dtail]

I dunno Al. I have a Lenovo Miix 700 Win 10 tablet I bought in January 2017 and it has yet to hang or crash on me. When I was working I wasy usually issued Lenovo and they were solid... one round I got a Dell and it was a nightmare.

+1 on Lenovo except it is a laptop.

 

[sgstaley]

I rolled my beloved roll top desk out to the curb a couple weeks ago.

My next computer screen will be a 40 incher up on the wall

I have thought about multiple screens a few times over the years, but that is when I was working for a living. I still think that it would be handy every now and again.

 

[USGrant1962]

I'm kind of partial to a mid-range Win10 desktop with 3 screens.

 

[Scrapr]

pssst....Chromebook

edit: doesn't look as if there are 17" CB. Have to settle for 15"

 

[Just_Steve]

I'm a self professed Apple Fanboi (sic) Once you go Mac you never go back.


https://www.techopedia.com/definition/28754/fanboi

 

[Koolau]

IIRC the big joke back in the day was "Windows 95 - Mac '87" We used Macs at w*rk for many years until some 'person' decided we should go all PC (no, not THAT pc - we'd already done that.) Worst decision in IT ever. Took months to get everything to work the way we needed it. True, there was much more software available, so it probably did help some accounting geeks. For the scientific crowd, it was never forgiven.

But to Al's question, I see no reason a refurbished Mac shouldn't suit most needs assuming you don't need the latest bells and whistles. If anything, I actually don't like, need, want, any of the latest Mac "gadgets" but that's just me, so YMMV.

 

[97guns]

I got tired of viruses with windows too and went with a Mac, it’s old and slow now so I picked up a chrome book and it’s great for web surfing but moving, editing and storing files is not its strong point

 

[Red Badger]

pssst....Chromebook

edit: doesn't look as if there are 17" CB. Have to settle for 15"

+1. On my 3rd Chromebook. Never looking back.

 

[corn18]

I have migrated most of my day to dat work to the cloud. I keep an iMac on my desk for file / photo / video management but only turn it on once a week or so to do something like that. The rest of the time is on my macbook pro surfing and messing about with files on the cloud.

Would a chromebook be a good choice for a guy like me?

 

[TheRunningMan]

I've loved my many macs over the years and am currently running a MacBook Air with a 27" monitor for when I want a large desktop. I also loved my old 15" MBPro, but enjoy the portability of the Air. The 17" model was a bit of a beast to haul around but was a great machine. My next laptop will be one of the thin 15" MBPro's, when that time comes.

I'm highly suspect of the ad serving and data selling google monster and therefore do not use google search, the chrome browser, chromebooks or android. I find that life is better without google. I will say that there are some very nice chromebooks that are not expensive, just not for me.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I ditched my windows machine in January for an iMac. This doesn’t address your question but I’ll add my +1 to the conversation. My only regret is that I didn’t do it earlier, much like retirement.

 

[Dawg52]

+1. Chromebook. Never looking back.

Same here. Almost as good as mom's apple pie.

 

[AginMS]

To answer one of your questions, yes, it would be dumb to buy a refurbished 17” Mac circa 2012.

We use both Mac and Windows. I prefer Windows, but the wife and kids prefer Mac. The Windows machines do require more “help” with upgrades and drivers and such, but I am more comfortable fixing them. When a Mac does have issues, it takes me longer to sort it out. And there is absolutely no upgrading them, except memory. Although laptops in general are difficult if not impossible to upgrade.

All that said, I would not buy a 6 year old refurbished laptop of any kind. Even though you don’t play games or run CPU intensive software, I can guarantee the laptop will be noticeably slower if you load the latest Mac OS, Safari, and whatever office/productivity suite you use.

I have a 2008 24” iMac that has been sitting on the floor for three years b/c it is simply too slow to run the latest Mac OS and do basic tasks (web, email, etc...). It’s a shame, b/c it’s a gorgeous machine. It sits on the floor b/c I can’t bring myself to toss it.

Unless you need the laptop for portability, you might consider the Mac mini with a monitor suits your needs.

 

[ERD50]

Macs have their own set of issues though, and I think they've gotten worse over time, though I always thought they were much better than Windows.

I get frustrated when I need to do any sort of troubleshooting on the Macs in the family. Apple tries to 'hide' everything from the user. I had to jump through hoops (and yikes! go to the Mac terminal/console!) just to see hidden files (and then force quit/open the finder to make the change take effect!). You have to jump through hoops to include the library or system folders in a file search. And they don't tell you this, I only realized it when I'm looking right at Finder window, with a filename staring me in the face, and 'search' says no such file exists!

For me Xubuntu Linux just has been far less frustrating than Mac. Far less "do it our way" forced on you. Far fewer issues with an update making an app obsolete. I've had the Mac copy over an old app, the new one doesn;t work, and they don;t let you go back to the old version. You could probably load Xubuntu on the HP Envoy (check the Linux forums, in case there are any specific hardware/driver 'gotchas'). If you've backed up your data, and are ready to just wipe windows from the drive, installation is a breeze.

Nothing is perfect of course, but Xubuntu fits me like a glove.

https://xubuntu.org/release/18-04/

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

pssst....Chromebook

edit: doesn't look as if there are 17" CB. Have to settle for 15"

+1. On my 3rd Chromebook. Never looking back.

Worth considering. I have no experience with them, but I like most of what I've heard.

And.... external monitor:

https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1060909?hl=en

-ERD50

 

[mpeirce]

One problem is that I prefer a 17" laptop (a laptop works better on my beloved rolltop desk).

Apple stopped making the 17" Macbook Pro in 2012. Would it be dumb to buy a refurbished one of those?

The 17" MacBook Pro is pretty "old" and while it runs the latest Mac OS version ("High Sierra"), it looks like Apple will not support it for the upcoming version ("Mojave").

That may not be a big deal to you, but it basically means you'll be stuck in time with no OS upgrades going forward. Mac users typically upgrade to the latest Mac OS as it comes out - unlike many Windows users' behavior.

You might consider a 15" MacBook. These have "retina" displays now (Applespeak for enough pixels that you can't see them) and the screens are very very nice. I used 17" MacBooks back when I w*rked and the newer 15" are a better choice IMMO.

The other consideration is to make sure your MacBook has an SSD. Spinning HDs are fine as secondary or backup disks, but having an SSD as the main disk was the biggest improvement Apple ever made to MacBooks. If you buy an older MacBook with only a HD you can upgrade to an SSD. Don't even consider not doing it.

 

[eytonxav]

I switched to a Mac in 2014 and I definitely feel Apple's updates have posed zero problems, while it was the Microsoft update problems that convinced me to make the switch. No regrets.

 

[ERD50]

The 17" MacBook Pro is pretty "old" and while it runs the latest Mac OS version ("High Sierra"), it looks like Apple will not support it for the upcoming version ("Mojave").
....

I didn't realize he was talking about a 2012 model. My yellow flag is turning red. IMO/IME, Apple has not been good at supporting older models. I got stuck with their policy of only having the latest updates available, but those updates won't run on the older OS, and if your machine can't support (or you don't want) the new OS, you are stuck.

Maybe Apple fixed this, but they would actually tell/allow you to download the updated app, it would replace the old one, and THEN they would tell you that app is not supported by your old OS (why not before I Dl'd it?) . And it wiped out your working version! With no way to go back!!!! Argggghhhh!!!!!!!!

-ERD50

 

[easysurfer]

As pointed out, whether an older model is still supported in upcoming versions could be a consideration. Otherwise, in a similar boat to those (myself) clinging on to Win 7 waiting for the time to tick down when security updates no longer supported in 2020.

One deal breaker for me about jumping ship from Win in the future is with Win 10, Microsoft keeps on making new features that I really don't want. I just want a system that is stable so I can be productive. Not all the bells and whistles.

I have a fondness for Apple computers (at least the old ones). Back in the day, when folks were doing the c:\ thing a co-w*rker of mine showed me how to use a Mac Plus and I was fascinated that one floppy could hold applications like MacWrite, MacDraw and MacPaint. Memory lane ... .