For those of you that know me, you know that in the past I’ve avoided Apple products like the plague. Well last weekend I took the plunge and got a Macbook Pro.
For years I argued that:
- I didn’t want to be part of the “walled garden“
- The price was far too high and I could get a lot more bang-for-the-buck elsewhere
- I’m very productive in Windows, and the switching costs were going to be painful – this is for keyboard shortcuts, applications, etc.
- The Apple Store “Genius Bar” experience is annoying
The Big Decision
As the year clicked over to 2014, my Lenovo T420 turned about two years old – pretty much the time where you start to notice your laptop is getting slow. First I looked at the new Lenovo T440s. They looked pretty awesome, but the keyboard layout changed (not for the better) and by the time I was done putting in an SSD harddrive and bumping up the RAM it was going to cost about $1,800. So then I started looking at HP, Samsung, and Dell – didn’t find anything good there, as expected.
Then I started to look at Macbook Pros. Over the last year everyone at BlueFletch got a new Macbook and said what a great experience it was. I was still unconvinced, so I decided to ask some more questions. A couple of them in particular were always “windows guys” (like me) and I wanted to know what the transition was like. The feedback I got was:
- I love my Macbook
- The hardware is great, especially the trackpad and gestures that come with it
- There is a learning curve with keyboard shortcuts
- Running Windows in a VM is “the fastest I’ve seen Windows run”
I was still hesitant and narrowed things down to the Lenovo T440 and the Macbook Pro. One issue I had on Lenovo’s website was that the T440 said it could support up to 12 GB of RAM, but the only option on the site was to order one with 4 GB (clearly not enough for what I’m looking for). I used their “live sales chat” feature and the nice gentleman I was talking to said that they do support up to 12 GB, but their RAM is on backorder. First of all their site shouldn’t make me think the 8 GB and 12 GB upgrades aren’t even an option on that model, and second of all I wasn’t messing around waiting or ordering RAM separately – I wanted my new toy now!
That day I decided I was all in on a Macbook Pro. Best case scenario it would be an easy transition, I’d end up with great hardware, and I’d never look back. Worst case scenario is it would kill my productivity and either I’d live with the bad laptop for two years or go back to my Lenovo (using the Macbook only sparingly). The reality will likely be somewhere in the middle. Either way – it would be a great learning experience.
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