Quote:
Originally Posted by
JeffDM 
The ad doesn't try to say it's an equivalent computer. It's marketed as a professional computer too, with features that consumers might never use. I see no problem with other companies marketing consumer computers with the same screen size, I think it's pretty silly to associate the 15" and 17" screen sizes as a professional feature when anyone can benefit from a larger screen.
Also, crunching the numbers, the 17" model in question has a 100ppi screen. I recall a time a few years ago when Apple officially resisted going beyond 100ppi citing usability studies showing that 100ppi is about right for most typical people to comfortably use, because higher pixel densities mean that UI elements and screen text gets pretty tiny. Apple (and Apple fans) were basically saying that companies going beyond 100ppi were doing their users a disservice. Now, I guess the roles have reversed, though really, I don't think 125 and 133ppi screens are doing older users any favors.
Don't know what you are trying to say here. Whatever the 17in, $699 HP laptop is or is not marketed as is irrelevant. The 17in Apple laptop IS a pro machine. No two ways about it. The quality of the screen is just one of the differentiating things that makes a big difference - both in price and in usefulness for pro applications and solutions.
No, the roles are not "reversed." Yes, Apple has UI guidelines and advice. And a few years of technology makes all the difference. Icons aren't fixed sizes anymore, and last time I checked, you had a slider for your icons. The problem in the past was, for example, that a 16 px icon at 72ppi was readable, but "shrank" in real terms to be unreadable at higher resolutions.
At least on the Apple side with Quartz, tech is headed toward resolution independence anyway. The UI can be sized for the reader, and yet one can see a 100MB PS file in all its glory. Apple has always been ahead with its sub-pixel rendering and anti-aliasing. You are acting like Apple and Apple fans are being hypocrites. I usually find the shoe on the other foot when Windows users go on and on about real work in the real world and how Apple is all about the cool factor.
Simply, there are 17in screens, and then there are 17in screens. Big gamut here; and with Apple the 17in does happen to be a pro-level machine. With Apple this is very clear: it is much more than the apparently general perception that marketing a computer as pro means:
the user is a "professional" person in need of a computer to do something "professional" (MS Word users are afterall professional somethings). Rather, Apple is clearly about needing a professional computer for computer intensive "professional" applications. Hey, I am just a free-lancer and do a bit of this and a bit of that, but I know what I need or want in a laptop, what the difference is, and why. In fact, the MacBook is a far more professional computer than the vast majority of PCs at ANY price point.
The only thing that seems to differ between "consumer" and "professional" PCs is that one has Vista Home basic, and one has Vista Ultimate so that people can prolong their pain and feel better about it.
The point Mac users are making is that making "17in" one of the "criteria" was simply contrived in able to make the whole advert possible in the first place. Anyone who had real criteria and knew what they needed in a computer for under 1000 would look seriously at what the white Macbook offers and realize that with the screen resolution, quality, killer apps, GB ethernet, N wifi, firewire, front-side bus speed, etc. that it would be a far more worthy computer for any kind of "professional" (and Okay it may not so easy to watch a DVD from across the room with it as it would be on a 17in HP). But the real comparison of the actual specs on a spec by spec basis (instead of ticking off a list like size of HD and physical size of screen) is laughable. Even without any comparison between OS X and Windows, which is a no-brainer. The 17in Apple is not even in the same galaxy as the HP, so the comparison has to be with Apple's "consumer" laptop. And by any real comparison, it is quite a pro machine by most standards. Professionals presenters and trainers and programmers use it, just maybe not professional video editors and graphic designers.
A funny reversal of role is that people used to call Macs toys. Now MSfanboys turn up their noses because you can't play so many "cool" games on it. I guess a Windows PC is just too cool for me! I have to work for a living and actually get something done without tearing my hair out. Of course all this will change again with Apple and NVidia and OpenCL. Since MS is going down, ActiveX will lose its hold and appeal also.
For every anecdote that you or I can provide explaining the virtues of the Windows vs Mac experience, there's always going to be a counterpart. We could go one for ages doing this, so I won't even start.
