Need advice on new laptop: quad core vs duo core, PC vs Mac

90percent of the time, the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo in my MacBook Pro is 95 percent idle. And it's just a dual core CPU. Only when I'm encoding video, or burning DVDs or something like that does it ever use much of the resources I've got.

I would advise 2GBs of RAM minimum on any computer these days. It's really cheap and the performance difference is noticeable if your running lots of stuff simultaneously. There is 4GBs in my MBP, and I generally have half of it used up (I've always got lots of background programs running). I've got 2GBs in my desktop PC (running vista), and I generally have about 60-75% of it in use at one time. I have tested Windows 7 too, and it seemed like it used about 200-400MBs less RAM than Vista during general use, but I'd still advise 2GBs minimum. I don't think it's necessary to have 6 or 8GBs, though. That is just overkill for most people.

As for whether Mac or PC is better or worth a little extra...go try them out side by side in the store; you'll see the difference right away.

and in the next decade we'll be seeing 8x, 16x in our palm...well maybe not that small so soon. Hey, who says that just because one lives on the Upper East Side, working on Wall St, that one can't commute in one of these
http://www.ferrari.com/English/GT_Sport%20Cars/CurrentRange/Ferrari_599_GTB/Pages/599GTB.aspx

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to stick with a Duo and hopefully the prices will start to drop soon.

Bob-any more advice on why I should take Mac over a PC? Are they worth paying the extra $400-500?

If you use MacOSX then you don't spend money on antivirus and endless scanning.

You get what looks to be a 5 year battery versus that 300 cycle battery from all other makers.

How much this is worth to you is up to you.
Bob

I am running Mac OSX and Windows 7. I would buy a machine that has Windows 7 loaded and make sure you use a good A/V program and spyware program. Mac's are not totally immune to this stuff, but I find that the cost of the Mac's to Intel machines far outweigh the benefits. Apple charges too much for so-called latest hardware, and your money can be better used on the Intel machine which will run faster and better than even on a Snow Leopard MacBook that you paid over $1100 for. In time, even Mac's will see more and more terrorist activity leveled towards their OS. Linux is already experiencing a trend in this area and even Apple recommends an A/V program as well.

Anybody saying Mac OS is immune to viruses is lying. This is particularly true now that Apple is using Intel processors.

For more information you can go to http://antivirus.about.com/od/macintoshresource/tp/macvirusfaqs.htm

or just search Google for Mac OS viruses, they are out there, and they also infect the iPhone and iTouch devices (mostly just jailbroken ones so far).

Aside from that Mac OS pretty and stable given the higher end hardware it is built upon. Just wish more Windows manufacturers would use good hardware instead of the cheaper stuff that cause most of the problems and give MS a bad rap.

There are differences between viruses and trojan horses. There are no virus infections in Mac OS X. There have been trojan horses, but any computer can be affected by a trojan horse if it's user willingly downloads and manually executes it.

And as far as the iPhone goes, only jailbroken phones have been susceptible to those issues. Not mostly, but only.

Regardless, given the 1,000,000+ viruses/trojan horses/malware, etc., on the Windows platform vs. less than 10 trojan horses for Mac OS X, there is clearly an advantage. And, if the Mac OS user doesn't try to download pirated copies of commercial software of surf porn sites and accept downloads of "video codecs" needed to play porn videos (aka trojan horses), then the user is, as of today, completely safe.

And if a person does the exact same thing in Windows as the Mac, it's highly unlikely to be infected as well. Just because 99.9% of the criminal elements in the world thing Mac isn't worth their time because most people use PC, doesn't mean it's secure, just that they really don't want to mess with it. I think however, if they actually realized that you have to have some cash to buy Macs, and PC's are cheaper, they would start heading over that way. I mean come on, 400 dollar computer at walmart versus a thousand or more mac. who's got the money?

at eye level on the shelves at the Apple store. They don't sell just one brand but multiple ones.

Spotted making the rounds. Antivirus for your internet connected HDTV.

Given how much money there is to make here, it had to happen.

No one has mentioned that it's not just the $400-$500 price difference in the hardware. There's several orders of magnitude more software available, cheap and free for the PC platform. I'm not talking about saving four or five hundred dollars. I'm talking about huge dollars. I'll take a low-estimate conservative guess and say that I probably have enough high-end software that I got legally, for free, that I would have spent not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of dollars for on the mac. If I spent every single waking hour of my life, I couldn't even read the descriptions for all the free downloads available for the windows platform today.

Also, when you do need support, Google is by far your better Windows buddy. There are tons more forums, free support sites, etc.

Like it or not, sometimes popular really is is better just because it's popular. Algol was decades ahead of Fortran. Burroughs was lightyears ahead of IBM. They're both distant memories now.

Well first off they both can catch viruses on the net .
And if you get a virus on a Mac then your looking for a repair shop most times for cleaning .
Mac's don't use better hardware then a PC .
Intel cpu's are designed for mac programing so they just seem to work smoother together.
AMD cpu's are best with windows programing.
ITEL & MAC brands cost lots more for no reason.

And as for Cpu core's just remember the more cores the more heat they will create and the more cooling will be needed.
And any 2.2ghz laptop will run darn near any program and not much will change in laptops till they make smaller boards and smaller controllers. So don't waste your money buying mac just to think its better . Best to go into BEST BUY OR any other Computer store and see both a MAC & a Pc laptop perform side by side and decide then which you want to buy.

I'm been on using PC's since windows 3.11- I still have fond memories of all the device/driver conflicts, those were the days.. My first year with a MAC has been far from spectacular.. That whole "it just works" slogan has been the exact opposite for me. I've had program abruptly crash, SBBOD (spinning beach balls of death), program hangs, blue tooth devices fail from drop connections- and this was only the start of it.. I spent over a grand (hard to believe i actually still "saved" money) for the machine, thinking I'd be up and running out the box. Sure, it's fine for the 'net, watching movies, email and few other things. As for work, what did i turn to? Text-editor?? Are you serious?
To top it off, within a windows environment, typically when you have problems, the machine will normally tell you if something's wrong or if a device has failed.. WIth MACs, it just crashes.. of course, you can send an error report to apple and relaunch but, that's it. Finally, when MACs have problems, they have big problems, forcing people to trouble-shoot them after they see some weird "behavior" happen. One time, 'something'- i'm still not sure what it was- went into my address book and changed my email address to '[my user name]@infoking.com' or something to that effect. I simply corrected the problem and thought i would be a good idea to repair my permissions. I started the disk utility and repaired the permissions. Afterwards, i attempted to verify my hdd. it fails(corrupt file system).. I relaunched it again, it fails. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what had happened. I started disconnecting devices, restarted the machine, and tried verifying the disk again.. It finally passes. I still don't have a clue as to how that happened.
All in all, the experience can be pleasant when everything is running as it should. To it's merit it does multitask better than many PC's in the same price range. Boot up is taking longer though. Would I recommend a that mac? a 2.5ghz proc is still more than capable of doing the job but, what happens later? Eventually, you will start to sprout your wings, you'll probably need to convert a movie to a different format, burn DVD's or something processor demanding. Is 2.5ghz enough? It would be if you don't mind waiting the extra time it will take.
I would probably go with the Corei7 because eventually, your going to need it to do more then just cruise the 'net sometime later on; and besides, you can get more with it, feature-wise. On paper, all specs do look great but you have to look at everything your getting: OS, packed in software, customer service, warranty information .etc.. If your still not sure, here's a handy little tip. Go after the forums.. This will give you the opportunity to meet other user own this same machine that could possibly be a future headache (computers are far from perfect regardless of the brand). Ask them whether or not they'd recommend it to other potential owners and more importantly, ask them what type of specific problems they've had with it. the forums are an awesome place for information.

Thanks for all the advice, esp Timhood. I know its the little things that are in a MBP that make so many people love it and I'm sure I would too, but I'm just not sure its worth the premium. I know not all Macs will be perfect & everything I could hope for and more; and I know not all PCs will have problems and just create headaches and trouble for me. I've been looking over some laptops and refined my search a little bit to the following:

MBP 15" 2.53 GHZ Intel Duo Processor 3 MB Cache 1066 MHZ FSB, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HD @ 7200 RPM ~$1800

HP ENVY 15" 1.6 GHZ i7 Quad Processor, 6 MB Cache 1333 MHZ FSB, 6 GB RAM, 500 GB HD @ 7200 RPM ~$1800

HP dv6t 2.66 GHZ Intel Duo Processor, 3 MB Cache 1066 FSB, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HD @7200 RMP ~$1100


SONY VAIO FW590 2.53 GHZ Intel Duo Processor, 3 MB Cache 1066 FSB, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HD @7200 RMP ~$900

I know the ENVY is HP's attempt to surpass the MBP in the high-end laptop category. Also, I've read on other forums Sony actually is ahead of Apple in product reliability. Still think I should go with the MBP? Any other suggestions? It's a split? Thanks again for all the help & input.