Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Originally Posted By: Peters Garage
<...snip...>. I have had my i7 Quadcore based MacBook Pro for almost 10 years now, and I'm yet to see a Windows PC provide such life span.<...>

Now you have.

I just retired a 2002 Windows XP ThinkPad. I play one-nighters for a living, and it travels in the van, changes temperature drastically and quickly, rocks on a keyboard stand all night (or day), gets back in the van, and back in the house from 2 to 6 nights a week (until COVID-19).

It's still working. I replaced it with another old XP ThinkPad, a hand-me-down from desktop days.

Since I put it on stage in 2002, I had one repair. The CMOS battery died, it keeps the clock running, and the new one cost $5 and was easy to replace.

It has never crashed either. Probably because I don't have many apps on it, just the ones I need for work.

My other 2002 ThinkPad was dropped, a hinge broke, and they no longer make replacement parts. It still works too. It had a hard disk starting to fail when it was about 10 years old, making a grinding noise as it spun. I replaced the HD and it's still working with a broken hinge.

Mac makes great hardware, don't get me wrong, but they aren't the only company that does.

I haven't had a Mac in a while. I write aftermarket styles for BiaB, and ever since the file data became identical, I have no need for two platforms anymore. So on one of the Apple update or perish incidents, I failed to update.

I've been writing styles on the StyleMaker since it was introduced in the 1990s. I don't know if this has been resolved or not, but until I got to update or perish, the StyleMaker app on the PC was better, enabling me to write better styles if I use Windows.

I have nothing against Mac OS. There are things I like better about Mac and things I like better about Windows, none of them are major. I had to choose Windows because it allows me to make better styles.

My advice is that if you have both PC and Mac, and you use them equally, get the Windows version.

On the other hand if you do most of your music on the Mac, you might be happier with the Mac version.

Insights and incites by Notes




As an avid Mac user since the G4 era, and a user of both Pro Tools and Logic Pro, I can say that even though a 10-year-old Macbook should still perform admirably (albeit with perhaps a new battery and a Ram and SSD upgrade), nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - will outlast a good Thinkpad. My experience is much the same as Norton - Thinkpads are near infinitely repairable, and that's when they actually do break which they don't often.

Over the years I've had a Thinkpad 380E, 600E, A31, X200, T500, W520, X230, and T540. Every single one of them has a PDF hardware maintenance manual which tells you how to take it apart, put it back together, and the part numbers for everything. Of course you can get those parts direct from Lenovo, but I often found cheaper used parts from eBay as they are very easy to part out.

A close second to a Thinkpad would be the HP Elitebooks - many of those are built very similarly to Thinkpads.

A Mac, on the other hand, is a completely different story. 10 or more years ago they were easy to disassemble and repair, but since 2012 they've become increasingly more impossible to fix. My "current" 2012 Macbook Pro Retina model is basically glued together, and most parts can't be replaced easily if at all.


But then again, if my option is to give up Mac OS and Logic Pro for Windows, you're gonna have to pry that unrepairable Macbook out of my cold dead fingers.



PS: Between BIAB for Windows or for Mac, I'd choose Mac - sure, a couple features are missing, but it tends to be a lot more reliable compared to Windows, given how well the Mac Coreaudio system works.

Last edited by Simon - PG Music; 12/31/20 04:56 PM. Reason: Mo' Thinkpads
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