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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

+1 on Lenovo except it is a laptop.

[sgstaley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scrapr 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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Badger +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