Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Play on the go, but not on a MAC.

Too say the least, after waiting (and checking apples website every day), I’m very disappointed in the new line up of Macbooks.

You can’t really call them new because all they’ve done is used a slightly faster processor and added more RAM and larger hard drives. That's hardly revolutionary.

Nowadays all computers are what I would call “capable enough” for most people, even the entry level ones. But that's where my problem is.

I want to buy/I’m ready to buy an entry level Macbook. The problem is a simple one. Crap graphics on the Macbooks. The Macbooks ship with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (integrated graphics). Which is fine for most business use and even graphics editing or Photoshop work (2D), but quite frankly it’s not good enough for games, and I play games (I plan to dual boot into XP, it’s a shame but at the moment the only decent way).

With games the single most important (more important even than processor speed) is your graphics card. The better your graphics card, the less work your processor will have to do, and with multiple pipelines and heaps of very fast ram on the card even the mobile graphics are now great for games. Except on entry level Macbooks.

You can get a Macbook with a decent graphics card, but they have a US$1999.00 starting price (because there are many other better specifications).

On a PC you can get a laptop with a bigger screen, good processor and reasonable graphic for less around $600.00.

I’ve always been an advocate that Macs don’t cost more because of all the useful software included and the better more efficient and more productive OS (MAC OS X), but come on Apple, when are you going to update the graphics on your entry level laptops?

The truth is, if you want to play games, you can get a better entry level games laptop by buying a PC.

But I want to play games, and I want a MAC, and I’m still waiting…….

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