How much of a difference is there between a macbook and a laptop from dell, hp, sony, acer, etc?
I had to think deeply about this question as i search for a laptop that will accompany me for the next 4+ years in college. Mac's are pretty, give Apple's designers props for coming up with this sleek and beautiful design, one that will surely grasp the attention and the buying motive of a consumer. So when my Mom asked me "why do u want a mac again?" I was sorta stumped. What is it about macs that are worth the $400+ difference? Fashionable? The pride of owning something expensive? The truth is I don't know. While it certainly feels better to type on a mac keyboard, adoring its beautiful design, as opposed to looking at a piece of machinary that "feels" cheap. So what REALLY causes ppl like me to consider products that are pricier but not certainly better in quality? Is it seriously because of the "elegance factor"? Personally, i think that accounts for part of the answer, but certainly not worth the entirety of the price difference. To be honest, the solution to this issue will take some time to surface...
Thinking about the above question led me to another random thought.
I want to be successful (both biblically and in terms of wealth)
Biblically, success is defined as someone who lives and breathes by godly morals, not succumbing to any secular forces or any hints of moral relativism. Worldly wealth...well note bill gates and donald trump. In terms of biblical success i think its pretty self-explanatory y i would wanna achieve that, and that is the have intimacy with god our father and fulfilling what he has set for us to do here on this earth. I wanna devote this post to my thoughts about worldly success and how it pertains to me.
So going back to that macbook conversasion i had with my mother, i wanna emphesize that my parents r the type of ppl that r not crazy about big names. We drive a camry and a siena, not a corvette and a BMW seires 9. Their reasoning for refraining from high class brands is not due to financial incapability, but because of something else (which i dont no what it is). But what i do know is that for some reason they dont believe in the lacostes or apples. (altho my mother own some coach bags?). So if i was a girl and i asked my parents to buy me a pair of UGG(ly) boots, my probability of receiving a lecture is very high. So with all that said, I wanna thank my parents. Thats right, I am thankful of them. Without them setting limits on what they would provide for me in addition to my absolute necessities, I would not have half of my personal finance skills i have now. Hypothetically, they could give me a thousand dollars a month to spend and I'll be livin it up for now, rolling with the trendiest sports car and owning all the best brands out there. (note-bad hypothetical). If that indeed happen, I would be soo clueless of how i would survive when i enter the work force and starting from ground zero (well i would receive some help from my parents). I would have 0 habits of saving and no idea about when to buy and when to not buy. There is probably a good chance that i'll dump all my savings account into the stock market. And we all know how that is doing right now ._.
Thank you mom and dad :)
As a parent, I will employ the same kind of strategy on my children. They will get their food, shelter, and clothe (like 5 shirts, 2 jeans, 2 shorts, 5 pair of socks, 5 underwears, 1 jacket, 2 sweatshirts, and one formal attire each). Anything additional they will have to pay for. And this policy will be in effect starting age 5, that is when i, as part of their bday gift, will give each of them a silver piggybank, to start saving money. To buy their desired items, they will need to pull money out of that special jar. However this policy will be lifted come age 16.5. I think by that time they will be mature enough to realize that money is no easy thing to come by and whatever financial decisions they have to make, they will have to consider with caution. That is when i will inundate my graciousness and "spoil" them with benz's and the lacostes and the Guess's and the macbooks. Although it seems contradtictory to my previous efforts, I personally think it is necessary. Part of living is enjoying the freeness and satisfaction of spending. People need to learn how to save and in addtion to that, how to spend. The key point is to achieve balance. The reason why i teach my children to save first and spend after is actually quite common sense. I am not gonna explain it in depth, but just think of this question. Would the effects be the same if for the first 16.5 years of their lives i implant in them a habit of spending? No, it wouldn't be because some of your morals you form come from your early childhood experiences. So if they're used to the big brands as a kid, they will certainly feel uncomfortable making the change at 16.5. So i think its better to learn about saving first before spending. Also it is sooo much easier to spend than to save, so i dont think my kid will have issues with spending O.o
So yes, i wanna be wealthy so i can provide those benz's and lacostes and such for my children.
haha of course they're more reasons why i wanna be wealthy, but i am not gonna write them out cuz my fingers r tired.
more to come
9 years ago
3 comments:
haha dont get me started on why macs are better than pcs...
ok so ive used a pc up until i got my mac, and to be honest, i really liked my desktop. it was functional and let me get the stuff i needed to get done done. well this is also in part that i built my computer so i could customize it however i wanted. so what made me get a mac? and why am i in love with them?
ok lets start with basics, so you get what you pay for right? unlike the inside of a pc, macs are build to last. its like aluminum or some environmentally friendly stuff that just screams "high quality!" at you. honestly, everything seems to perfectly with the added bonus of looking nice. compared to the cheap plastic and weird wiring of my pc, my mac is clean and elegant.
k secondly, osx is a LOT better than vista or even XP. it takes soooo long to load up on a pc and it takes like 20 seconds in total for me to reboot this thing. this is in part how windows operates. you see, window likes to load up everything, which is good right? but your not using EVERYTHING. take for example on startup, it loads all your random devices and with a simple ctrl-alt-del you can see that there are like 40-60 things running already. with a mac theres like around 20 give or take. take another example, when windows loads up firefox, it loads up everything, all the peripheral addons like quicktime, blah blah blah. on the other hand, osx loads up an instance of firefox and when you need something else, it loads up another instance. so i short, macs are much more efficient on how they partition their memory. therefore you can open literally every application... yes ive tried it. and mac will still run smoothly because it loads up the basics. o and this also means that multimedia editors and devices such as photoshop, premier, finalcut will be less laggy and perform better overall. again, only reaching for things when needed.
heard enough yet? well there's more. over time computers get slower and slower, in part due to inevitable system failures but also due to spyware/adware/trojans/viruses. on my pc i had to run sweeps every week or so cause i was paranoid about everything being perfect. and every week i would find new things leeching onto my system. not cool. on macs, you dont have to worry as much about getting these things. i still torrent and download a ton of stuff but i could care less about getting screwed over by viruses and whatnot. but its not to say i wont do a full system wipe at least once a year. i guess my meticulous cravings carry on?
another point that i would argue is user interface. macs are designed for retards. no joke. it pretty much tells you when somethings wrong and its really easy to fix any problems. but honestly, you wont appreciate this aspect unless you somewhat know how computers run. a lot of people value this aspect, but if your asian you wont really notice too much of a difference since you know how to use/fix a computer anyways.
maybe the most superficial part but worth mentioning nonetheless. CUSTOMIZATION. omg i can do whatever i want with my mac and everything is like made for you. a bunch of programs unavailable for windows can be run on macs that just make you go "wow thats nice/cool". for example i use this thing called adium that integrates all of my ways of instant messaging whether it be aim, gtalk, msn, blah. theres all these "widgets" that allow me to see sports scores, coming movies, computer stats, and a TON more with a click of button. and theres just random little things both externally like light sensors and internally like stickynotes that make your life easier.
k so im done raving for my baby. but lets be fair now, there are some setbacks.
macs to inevitably cost more. this is because again, you get what you pay for. but also because it allows you to be on a different level than like 90% of the world using pcs. its like why do you wanna go to panera over mcdonalds? better food/better service/less chance of getting raped? haha or even better, why harvard over bhcc? its that selectivity factor.
another negative? gaming. hands down, pcs can run games better than macs. but im not talking about regular games that we play like wow/cs/starcraft/tft/tf2 whatever. i mean INTENSE games like crisis and stuff i dont even know or have interest in playing. pcs are able to pump out graphics and frame rates that are superior to what my mac can. but w/e who plays those games anyways? like 300 pound 40 year olds? jk, its cool if anyone plays them.
so tips on buying macs? well they have a promo in the summer that usually comes with a free ipod. also, they come out with new models soon after that. i would suggest buying the previous model which is almost the same with minor modifications. if your dying for the black screen border than go for the new one. that should save you like 200-300 dollars already. second, use a college discount. i got 200 off mine because i said i went to BU haha. i think you can get like 100-150 at least off the cheaper models.
final thoughts. haha so i kinda went overboard with this but ill use this for future reference. feel free to show this to your parents/friends/sister whatever. in general, im really happy i bought my mac and i definitely see the value in the money spent. theyre not like a MUST have but definitely something to consider. i mean i could use a pc fine if i wanted to maintain it and have it run just as well as my mac. good luck!
<3 tommy
i use a 15' 2.4GHz macbookpro
ps. you have a ton of money from working in the summer dude, just buy a mac!
holy crap how much did i write... i actually typed all of that in this stupid little box. then i copied it into word to save for future reference and realized it was 2 pages LMAO.
gosh tommy, thorough explanation, much? haha but it was well-said and i learned a lot.
mm i thought this post was insightful. btw, please tell me how the child-raising goes in like 30 years :)
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