Your Apple Laptop - Attn: Jack

[JackoliciousLegs]

The only reason macs respond better to more ram is they load so many damn services, or whatever the hell they're called.

They're called processes. That's the original name for a running instance of an application. Services is the Windows name for it.
At idle, my machine uses ~350MB of RAM.

Perhaps by useless crap, you mean things like AppleSpell (integrated spell check into any cocoa app), the dock (10MB of useless eye candy), or maybe the quartz subsystem (all that fancy gui UI stuff). It's really killing the CPU... and the performance of the machine...

btw, screencapture is the built in print screen which is 10x better than the built in windows one... it's the one hogging the pagefile.

Macs use a lot of RAM. It does *NOT* make their interface sluggish. In fact, most people are surprised at the "snappiness" of the interface. My aunt and uncle came into town and fell in love with my MBP today as a matter of fact.

I was such a fan of windows until I really tried a Mac. I would not be this adamant about it if I didn't truly believe that they are far superior. I thought I'd miss windows and windows apps. I miss NOTHING about my windows experience.

Evan, your comparison is bogus. You compared a larger, MUCH bulkier hunker of a laptop against the macbook. If you want to go spec for spec, you're better of comparing the hp dv2500 series. It's a slightly smaller screen, but uses more similar components. It's $900 vs the MacBook's 1000. It has a 160GB HD over the MB's 80. That's about where the HP's advantages end. That particular HP has a very nice 12.1. The MB has a 13 in a similar form factor. The Mac doesn't come preloaded with dogshit software to really slow down your machine (i.e. useless services... Derek). It doesn't come with free trialware versions of antivirus software (it doesn't need it). It comes with no superfluous internet trials. It comes with amazing support. (MB's had some minor problems right after launch, but that's it). It comes with an iSight built in. You'll use it. It comes with a remote (I use this damn thing ALLL the time).

Ok, back to the real issue... You get the idea. You know you're paying a slight premium for the Apple logo. You're not paying 200% of a normal laptop. You get things that you don't get in other laptops. You get a smaller form factor. Better reliability. No viruses. OSX doesn't bog down after a year of use. You get a built in camera. The most amazing part about it all. The shit just fucking works. I never have to stumble for a driver. I never have to scan shit for viruses. I use my computer for what I bought it for. I haven't had to reformat once since I've had a Mac. I don't dive into the techie settings. I open it up and it works. I hop on a wireless network and it works. I can count the number of times I've had to kill a task manually in two years on one hand.

I'm one of the cheapest bastards you'll ever meet. I HATE spending money. You know what I hate more? Inefficiency. I will never hesitate to buy a Mac as my next computer. I'll pay the 10-20% premium for the headaches that I've saved

Oh, PS Evan, just reread. The black is overpriced because it's an "exclusive" model. I think that's BS too for the record. It's not fair to use the exclusive model in a comparo. Might as well compare that to the Acer Ferrari edition laptops.

Oh, and as far as gripes with the Apple interface... it's always hard switching when you're so used to one system. It took me a week or two to start feeling almost as home as I did in Windows. Now, I struggle to go back.

The only viable argument that I can't refute is that Macs don't have much support for games. Since you're looking at MB's, I'm guessing you're not really into games. The only real option is to dual boot into windows for games. For the record though, my friend plays bioshock all the time on his MBP with the settings cranked.