Looking at laptops, leaning towards Mac- yea or nay

It gets pretty confusing when I'm checking out specs on laptops in a store or online. I'm kind of an Apple fan (my iPad rocks!) but I'm open to other suggestions. Some of the units I've seen set up for gaming (using Windows) have a lot of features that appeal to me as well despite my not really having much spare time for gaming.

Here's what I'm doing with it:
-online courses (taking a bunch of safety orientated courses to further my career)
-Karaoke- as disturbing as it sounds BC can croak out a few songs and I have a pretty insane PA system, at some point I'd like to get back into parties, shows at pubs, etc. I hate messing around with discs, it would be way easier to access my stuff this way. Also personal entertainment, I live in an RV and have no intentions of changing that arrangement anytime soon so I'm currently using the ipad for movies, etc- the small screen gets old sometimes. Accomodating audio and video connections is important to me (PA system has RCA and 1/4" jacks- no USB or Bluetooth available for that)
-I look up a lot of information online, save pictures, etc so speed and memory are prime considerations.
-hanging out on ALL on occasion

Any feedback appreciated

All the people I asked said apple is just expensive. They don't have any real complaints, except that you can get more for cheaper. Personally I'm a fan and for 2 years have never had any problems with my Mac.

What's your budget? I use and work with Macs and PCs a lot, and I find both quite decent. Unless serious gaming is a concern or your budget limits you, I'd go with a Mac. The retina macbook pros are quite amazing, imo. Also I have one of these, and it's been quite handy. Maybe it would help your situation?

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wire...3880&sr=1-1&keywords=bluetooth+audio+receiver

I love my macbook Air

stay away from Apple imo.
few more years and they will be collected like cassette tapes

Meh. Laptops only last 4 years anyways. I've been through 3 in the last 7 years of being in college.

Stay the heck away from HP

Lonely in BC said:

-I look up a lot of information online, save pictures, etc so speed and memory are prime considerations.

Click to expand...

Is that 'BC code' for porn?

Thanks for your feedback everyone.

As far as budget minty, whatever it takes to get what I want, I hate cheaping out on something I really want and will use- thank you for the link. I was pretty surprised to discover no cd or DVD capability built into the retina display Mac but its likely the way of the future- having an external drive wouldn't bother me much as long as long as it'll read and copy those cd+G's I currently have.

I've killed off a desktop and two laptops in the last 9 years SG- I honestly hate Windows (haven't tried 8 yet, the previous versions have me gunshy) I've used other people's Macs and they seemed very intuitive as far as sitting down and using them.

Apples-cassette tapes, hmmmm, I suspect not Walley, seems to me they lead and everyone else try's to follow IMO.

Porn Miss G., is that what those stunning photos you sent are? So admire your flexibility

Apples-cassette tapes, hmmmm, I suspect not Walley, seems to me they lead and everyone else try's to follow IMO.

Click to expand...

that should be "led"
they stopped leading when they lost steve jobs, now they are playing catch-up.
even in the smartphones, they used to sell more iphones than all other os's, but last quarter the galaxy s3 alone out sold the iphone5, thats not counting all the other smartphones out there.

Walley said:

Apples-cassette tapes, hmmmm, I suspect not Walley, seems to me they lead and everyone else try's to follow IMO.

Click to expand...

that should be "led"
they stopped leading when they lost steve jobs, now they are playing catch-up.
even in the smartphones, they used to sell more iphones than all other os's, but last quarter the galaxy s3 alone out sold the iphone5, thats not counting all the other smartphones out there.

Click to expand...

Ummmm, I'm still going with "lead" after seeing this in the paper today....



Not only do I like the product but they're going to put some effort into stimulating the North American economy- can't knock even the smallest of efforts.

i dont mran to turn this into an Apple bashing thread..
but i can sure knock their smallest efforts.
Apple is a corporate greed monster that even bill gates thought was controlling. they sell less.. yet make more profit that compettitors. (you do the math)
they constantly play supply and demand shortage games with customers to drive sales among other things. its over hyped, over priced and thats what gives it value to the masses..and for all that.. i just dont trust them.
if this was a batman movie the execs of apple would be sentenced to exile onto thon ice and crowds would cheer.
just to bad for us that greed and sales technics are seen as positive attributes for a company above all else :/

Walley said:

i dont mran to turn this into an Apple bashing thread..
but

Click to expand...

(giggle) Sort of like when someone starts a sentence with, 'I don't like to gossip, but....' right before they dish some gossip?

well he did ask yay or nay... and i couldnt stay quiet and not try to save a few souls at least.

but speaking of gossip! i heard the steve jobs didnt rwally die.. hes gone into hiding to develop the new revolution and its all part of a major marketing scheme!

if its not true you didnt hear it from me.. it's just a rumor..

Hello,

Most generic laptops out there today sound good for your use, memory and CPU performance are pretty good nowadays and less an issue. Good battery life is the new issue these days, I think the average battery life is around 2 hours, of course there's many laptops that can squeeze amazing amounts of time from the battery; but be careful about how they go about this, because you could find yourself looking into a 10" screen with 5% brightness and no wifi enabled!

I feel you on the budget; if your going to buy something, might as well go the extra mile an pay extra. But with the Macs, I feel as though I'm paying for the brand than anything else, I think it's more like a fashion statement to have an Apple product now - sure Apple have a certain elegance about there products, and they even have some good features, but I hate the way they're so controlling, and that they use all these posh, rare materials for their products; they probably use that to justify the price of the **** thing.

Another problem with Macs is OSX, it's notoriously buggy, especially early 10.x versions. I know Windows isn't much better, although I was quite happy with 7. But then Windows 8 is surprisingly good, it's modern, fast and practical. It takes a little "gettin' used to", since it's quite different than previous versions of Windows, but if any laptops come with 8 don't be afraid of it.

Just one other thing, maybe this site will help you, they have good laptops, and they're not completely focused on gamers with power greedy graphics.

Good luck!