Try a dell xps m1550, they can be had pretty cheap on outlet.dell.com
these days, and often I'll see 15% off coupons on deal sites.  I love my
m1330, the 13" variant, probably the best laptop I've ever owned.  Fully
loaded I payed about $1300 shipped with top of the line core2duo, 4g of
memory, and nvidia m8400 video card.  I've been considering upgrading to
the m1550 just because I can get them with a pimp 1920x1200 display.
Between work and personal, I've used one or more dells at a time over
the past 8 years or so, and have overall been quite pleased with them.  

When I moved in with my now wife, she had an old imac g4 that needed an
os-wipe, so I got 10.4 osx for it and ran it on there for a year or so -
absolutely hated using it.  It was convenient to sit on my coffee table
for looking up things while in the living room, but was painful to use
coming from using linux full-time at this point.  It wasn't as featured
as either windoze or linux, but was some kind of bastard in between that
made me feel like I need to drop 80 or so iq points to *get it*, and
with half the functionality/software of a real computer.  Finally I got
so fed up with osx, I nuked it and put ppc xubuntu on it, and life has
been much better (not to mention 4x faster).

I really don't get why people voluntarily pay the 50%+ apple tax, I
found it's really mediocre at best for power users.  Maybe my grandma or
a 4 year old niece would dig it, but otherwise it's simply too brain
dead for me.

-mb


On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 14:24 -0700, Josef Lowder wrote:
> Based on the very positive and enthusiastic comments from so many
> people (including several of my good plug friends), I recently
> purchased a 15" Macbook, thinking that it might be "the way to go."
> 
> While the Mac is a very appealing product in many ways with many
> outstanding features, I have finally come to the conclusion that the
> disadvantages (to me) far outweigh the positives.  So I am now
> thinking of selling it and looking for something more sensible in the
> real world.  Therefore, once again, I am seeking input from the
> collective wisdom of this esteemed group.
> 
> The simple, but (to me) major drawbacks of the Mac (not to mention
> their proprietary impositions that seem to be even worse than M$), are
> as follows:
> 
> 1. The keyboard layout that forces that screwy Mac/Apple X key on
> users in lieu of simply using the CTRL key ... and then positioning
> that weird mac key in such a terribly awkward place.
> 
> 2. Putting the "FN" key where the "CTRL" key should be (and is on
> every other computer keyboard) is really stupid.  Bottom-farthest left
> is the *only* place (from an anatomically logical standpoint) where
> the CTRL key should be (imho).
> 
> 3. Failure to totally eliminate the "caps-lock" key (of course I guess
> all keyboard mfrs still remain guilty of this ridiculous failing, at
> this point).  However, I seem to accidentally hit it more on the mac
> than on my other keyboards ... I guess because on the mac it seems to
> be slightly oversized.  Why?  Duh!
> 
> 4. The absolutely ridiculous limitation of being forced to the bottom
> right corner of every window as the *only* way to resize windows.
> That might be the most stupid of all Mac contrary-to-all-common-sense
> "features."  And apparently no way that I can find to "maximize" a
> window.
> 
> 5. The needlessly glitzy but cumbersome "dock."
> 
> 6. The lack of a simple text editor ... one that doesn't force the use
> of html or rtf.
> 
> 7. Most of the *nix command-line commands and utilities that I am used
> to using do not seem to work on Mac OS-X
> 
> 8. While I like the slot drive rather than a DVD drive that slides
> open, I do (not) like having it on the front. Has that changed on
> newer models?
> 
> 9. And as for being "intuitive" ... I've tried for a week to get the
> hang of using a Mac and almost everything that I am used to doing on
> my "normal" computers, I find almost impossible to figure out on a
> mac.  The 529-page "How to do everything Mac" doesn't ... and if mac
> is so "intuitive" why should it need a 529-page book to explain how to
> use it?
> 
> In any case, I am now looking for a new (or used) laptop to replace
> this mac and get back to the real world.
> 
> One that intrigues me is a new, single-core, lower-powered Asus that
> claims to have 8+ hours of battery life.  It is also the only one I
> have seen so far that has lighted keys (the letters light up on the
> keys like the mac -- one of mac's truly great features).  That seems
> to me to be a very desirable feature.  Only problem is that that
> feature seems to be available only in a larger format Asus unit with a
> number keypad (that I do not want).
> 
> So what do y'all recommend?
> 
> I like the slot drive (on the right side), built-in camera, lighted
> keys, lightest and thinnest possible, a "normal" keyboard (no 10-
> pad), at least a 15" screen, preferrably matte not glossy, and long
> battery life. I want to install Linux as the base OS and use whatever
> virtual ware will allow me to install win98 (I do *not* want the
> all-intrusive, pop-up crazy winXP).
> 
> PS: Anyone interested in trading for or buying a 15" macbook with 4-gig of ram?
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