How much is the MacOS worth (how much more than Windows)?

[Lew Zealand]

silvarios wrote:
[quote=Lew Zealand]
If you already have a KB&M, which many people have, then the Mini stays at $599. Buy a non-Apple KB&M? Add $30 to get $629. If you don't want an Apple monitor (how many people do?), you can buy anyone's monitor and hook it up to your Mac as easily as to any PC. The price then stays at $599 or $629. Poisoning the well to $1799 is not a very realistic way to present your argument.

You may as well suggest the OP order additional tax up a top of the line XPS or Mac Pro and then say "that's crazy, it's too expensive."

In my client's case she could not reuse the keyboard/mouse and her display was an older VGA only affair. Easily another $40 plus and don't forget to add tax for many buyers. I'm not even factoring in a new display, just the VGA adapter, keyboard, and mouse. My budgets are inclusive of any taxes. $599 plus tax isn't under $600.

Bottom line? I'm still over budget for an old Ivy Bridge computer. If Apple would simply update the darn mini it wouldn't seem like such a bad value proposition.
Agreed. I wanted to buy a Haswell Mini in November (last November!), expecting an update around then. I gave up and bought an Akitio TB dock to get USB3 & eSATA connectors for my 2011 USB2 + TB Mini and that $200 outlay has served me very well in the interim ~9 months.

The wait now is more bemusing than outright annoying.

[jdc]

Sorry. But even as a heavy Adobe user it's just not the same.

I freelance in a studio running windows 7? The "finder" sucks. It just doesn't make sense. And it does weird things when I navigate. Admittedly it's because I don't use windows on a regular basis and I have no clue how to customize many things but yuk.

And please don't get me started on the control vs command key. I love me some key commands.

Thumb + a or c or v or w is 100x easier than pinky + those keys.

[sekker]

The screen on the 13" MBA is excellent, IMHO. My son has one, and I have a MBPR. I have no trouble using the MBA's screen (except for the smaller font!), and I consider myself a monitor snob.

[Black]

We will still be having this same argument long after the zombie apocalypse claims us all. We will be making mostly croaking/hissing noises but the trained ear will be able to pick out key phrases such as "total cost of ownership" and "resale value."

[silvarios]

sekker wrote:
The screen on the 13" MBA is excellent, IMHO. My son has one, and I have a MBPR. I have no trouble using the MBA's screen (except for the smaller font!), and I consider myself a monitor snob.

Isn't the MacBook Air a TN panel versus an IPS display on the retina. If you can't see the difference, I would be shocked.

From the MacWorld UK MacBook Air 2014 review:
"We used a Datacolor Spyder4Elite display calibrator to test and measured just 63 percent of the sRGB colour gamut. That’s a particularly disappointing result, which was borne out subjectively by off-key screens colours visible to the eye. The wider Adobe RGB gamut was measured with only 48 percent coverage.

We found that viewing angles for this twisted-nematic (TN) glossy panel were limited, with marked colour inversion effects evident as we tried to view the screen from the sides and above/below.

Contrast ratio was measured using the Datacolor calibrator, to gain an idea of the display’s contrast quality. We recorded at the display’s highest peak output of 308 cd/m2 and discoverd contrast ratio was 600:1, rising to 680:1 at its nominal 75 percent brightness setting (corresponding to 143 cd/m2).

Delta E from 48 spot tones averaged a poor 8.39, with the highest deviation of 13.75 coming from the test’s ‘3E’ swatch (lilac tone).

This is all quite disappointing, but while a Retina display for the MacBook Air would be nice, it's probably not essential for the majority of users. Anyone who would benefit from the extra pixels can upgrade to the MacBook Pro with Retina display but beware that there will be a sacrifice in battery life. Read our Retina MacBook Pro reviews here. "

While some of that info would only be interesting to the more discerning users, I'm shocked someone wouldn't at least notice the awful color shift on the TN panels on the Air. It really isn't a very good display.

[silvarios]

jdc wrote:
Sorry. But even as a heavy Adobe user it's just not the same.

I freelance in a studio running windows 7? The "finder" sucks. It just doesn't make sense. And it does weird things when I navigate. Admittedly it's because I don't use windows on a regular basis and I have no clue how to customize many things but yuk.

And please don't get me started on the control vs command key. I love me some key commands.

Thumb + a or c or v or w is 100x easier than pinky + those keys.

The Windows Explorer seems like it works well enough. Where does it fall apart compared to the Finder? I don't know if either is my favorite file manager, but they seem to both work pretty well. I find the command key easier to reach as well. Have you considered remapping the keys? Got to be a way, right? Perhaps not built into Windows 7, but something like AutoHotkey should work, right?

[silvarios]

Lew Zealand wrote:
Agreed. I wanted to buy a Haswell Mini in November (last November!), expecting an update around then. I gave up and bought an Akitio TB dock to get USB3 & eSATA connectors for my 2011 USB2 + TB Mini and that $200 outlay has served me very well in the interim ~9 months.

Me too. I ended up with a clearance Ivy Bridge NUC because it was cheaper, even after adding more RAM and an SSD. Slower processor of course. I figured it I was going to go last year's tech, might as well save money, space, and energy.