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- >> February 2024 >> - Show 10, 25, 50, All News - Expand All, Compact All, 1024 chars

Why didn?t buy a new MacBook Pro

In 2010 I left IBM and I started as a freelancer.

I needed a new computer.

A friend of mine had a MacBook Pro. He has always been an excellent ITer so I decided to follow his advise and give Mac a try. I bought a MacBook Pro. The best one. The most expensive one.

Was it a better experience than Windows ? Not really. My Mac’s performance decreased with time just like it would with a windows PC.

I even had regression: very annoying crashes due to the GPU switches. I has to install freeware (GfxCardStatus – https://gfx.io/) to be able to use my mac.

When the MacBook pro disk gets full the performance gets really very bad making the computer unusable.

At the store they told me the only solution was to format and re-install… Last week I decided to re-install the OS from the original CD. I really hesitated to try Ubuntu on MacBook Pro. Before I upgraded to “El Captain” I checked if my GPU problem was still there and in fact it had disappeared ! I could connect to an external display which was impossible since years… So I decided to report to Apple.

Here is what I sent to Apple as a comment to the crash report:

GPU switch crashes my Macbook Pro 2010.  For example when connecting to external monitor.

This week I reinstalled with the original CD OSX 10.6.3 and I could extend my desktop to a second screen. After OSX updates it?s now crashing again.

I conclude that it?s a software problem and that Apple OSX suffers from regression for managing the GPU.

I?m obliged to play with GfxCardStatus to maintain my mac up and running in a decent way.

Many software that are initially designed on windows don’t work well or just don’t work on Mac : MS Office, Sparx EA, MAMP, Java, Flash…

So finally :

  • The overall MacBook experience is not better
  • I have much more freedom and choice on Android and Windows
  • You have less viruses on Mac Vs Windows but  can install Ubuntu or boot Linux on any PC.
  • Apple is 50% more expensive

In 2010 I had also bought an iPad 1. The hardware is still ok but it has also become unusable : impossible to update most of the apps.

Bye bye Apple.…

|| >> February 2024 >>