Robbo Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 Overnight Apple quietly had a major price increase. All apps from the app store have gone up 20% and all MacBook computers have gone up $200 iPad's had a price increase a few weeks ago but don't be surprised if they creep up again. So the MacBook Pro I was about to purchase has gone from $1799 to $1999 overnight, luckily some retailers have been slow and haven't changed there prices. I was able to pick one up for $1620 on special from $1799 so with the new pricing I have basically saved nearly $400 ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 once you got them suckers on the hook, just real them in. an i5 laptop running windows is about $800, so you did well but not as well as apple did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andys@coffs Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 actually this was probably driven as a result of USD to AUD exchange rate movements.......the same percentage changes will be applied to other manufacturers if not already done (they are working smaller margins so cant wait as long as some to apply the rate changes.........for the large organisation I worked for we had PC/Laptop supply agreements with tier 1 suppliers where the contract was in AUD but had a variation clause that applied a moving 3 month average of USD to AUD Reserve bank reported exchange rates every 3 months to our standard catalogue..... Anyone who thinks they are buying tech in AUD is dreaming! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbo Posted October 14, 2015 Author Share Posted October 14, 2015 I have had 6 PC to 1 mac. The screens go, the hard drives go. Never a problem with the mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andys@coffs Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 Actually quality of gear is more an issue now than it ever was.....go back 10 years and the rate of change meant that gear only had a useful life of 3 years max.....now a top of the line PC from 5 year ago is still able to compete with the midrange.......(I have an i5-2500K (jan 2011) that is doing just fine with an NVidia 970 graphics card playing all the latest and greatest at 1920x1080 for the kids) so gear life has potential for 10 years now...cheap stuff wont make it but spend a few extra $ on quality and it should....but then as I suggested above the ability to swap bits out is the real benefit...graphics from 2011 wont cut it on the latest games but swap out the 460 for a 970 and your right to go again...... quality gear is most definitely not, imho, wrapped in something made by HP , or Dell or Toshiba, or imho apple, but rather all bits selected for their specific benefits......which is not in realms of the possible for many Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 I throw away nearly all my PC stuff because its so old no one wants it. my current desk laptop is a 2009 model Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DGL Fox Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 I have always got someone to build me a computer, I would never go out and buy a ready made desktop, when something goes wrong you always seem to have to buy genuine HP or Dell parts for example and they are expensive. The only thing that seems to kill my desktop computer is heat and dust, it gets in there and I think the heat builds up and eventually blows the hard drive or video card...bloody dust...It's just happened again when I started it up a few days ago...ah well here we go again...I think I will stick to my laptop.. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbo Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 Problem is you cannot build your own laptop. Desktops are a different story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmick Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 I have had 6 PC to 1 mac. The screens go, the hard drives go. Never a problem with the mac. I have a 5yo Laptop which is dated. I also have a 2009 imac, runs like a dream video editing etc, Latest operating system FREE. Microsoft Office Suite. even run XP for some old programs. I'm converted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DGL Fox Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Yes I agree Robbo.... they do seem to last longer but they don't play games as well as a desktop... David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andys@coffs Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Its a reality (Dust....sorry a heap of posts occurred while I was writing this diatribe....) whether desktop or laptop, the difference is that laptops have heat detection and simply throttle back on speed....if your laptop is miles slower than it used to be it probably needs a good clean...... Instead of waiting for death simply schedule a 6 monthly clean...I use a compressor and dust nozzle (noting that fans should not be allowed to freewheel up to speeds approximating warp speed under compressed air...just clean them preventing the fam from spinning..... Fans.....cheap fans are the bane of desktop builds...most fans are crap....Buy Noctua fans...they are easily double or triple the price but I would be astounded if you find yourself cooking a $400 processor for the saving of $20 in a fan...... Also never buy small fans when you can fit a bigger one....most good fans plug into sockets that the MB can manage in terms of RPM..a bigger fan spinning slower delivers more air and best still is much quieter...... Also most cases will come with 1 or 2 crap quality fans, and your motherboard will probably be able to drive 5-6....ditch the cheapy's, even if they have eye catching blue and purple lights...and replace with solid Noctua fans.....if it can hold 5-6 then don't be afraid to add as many as you can...just ensure that the low down fans at the bottom of the case suck air into the case and the up high ones push hot air out of the case..... Heat endured has a direct correlation to the life of components...fans may seem expensive but replacing components at a rate 1/2 what you otherwise would makes the cost of the fans cheap Just be sure to determine what the MB fan sockets are capable of...some will just spin the fan flat out, others will be driven by the heat the MB detects in the case...If you need to use the sockets that simply drive then flat out then buy the fan with an inbuilt speed controller so you can drop the RPM's a bit....that last 10% increase in RPM probably increases air flow by 5% and noise by 50%...... Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deskpilot1 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 I recently had a new pc tower built. Paid a bit extra for a water cooled, quad core processor, solid state 'disc', and a case that has 2 fans, front and rear, both with high and low speeds. Didn't bother with a gamer's video card as it wouldn't be necessary for what I do. Should last me for about 10 years and by then, I'll probably be gahgah and not know how to turn it on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbo Posted October 16, 2015 Author Share Posted October 16, 2015 Bloody jinxed myself, purchased a brand new $1119 iPad and the thing was D.O.A. First ever apple product that has died on me. Oh well, will swap it over at the place I got it from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbo Posted October 17, 2015 Author Share Posted October 17, 2015 This is embarrassing, but I am off the Apple bandwagon. Mac refunded and back to Windows 7 I go :) Funny, refunded my mac now I have a Toshiba i5, 8GB Ram, 750GB HDD and 2gb dedicated graphics for $900 + 3 year warranty included! iPad replaced as I need that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 more detail needed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andys@coffs Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Another rule of thumb to consider...... Old style HDD's with spinning platers still have their uses.......one of them is no longer, imho, as the main disk in a laptop or a desktop machine. If buying new, or considering how you turn yesteryears old clunker into a firebreathing beast replace the main operating system HDD with a solid state disk.....they are expensive on a per Gb basis but there isn't a single other component that will return noticeable speed like a solid state disk..... These days 500Gb is probably the minimum you should get. I also personally wouldn't get less than 8Gb of main memory...... ignoring benchmarking, a 6yr old PC with a solid state disk will in terms of user satisfaction thrash a brand new machine with an older style spinning plater HDD.... I use spinning platter disks still in my home on my domain server for raw storage because they can still keep up with the network bottleneck...all PC's and laptops use solid state disks because that bottleneck doesn't exists for systems related functions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Gnu Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 How is the lifespan of the SSD's stacking up in the real world Andy? Any issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andys@coffs Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 No, I still have my first SSD and it works as well today as it did the day I purchased it. For those that are concerned buy a bigger one.......the more unused capacity you have available as spare the better the device can load level and not stress any particular cell more than any other..... Also don't use really old OS's, you need win 7 or more recent from the Microsoft world.....designed for SSD's Earlier OS's were sometimes very unkind to SSD's and that contributed to the discussed short life. Boot up times counted in seconds rather than minutes before you can do something useful is a very compelling argument........Also anything that was historically disk intensive which used to turn a machine into a "your call is important to us...." call waiting queue now generally slows things down still but never to the point that you still cant do something useful while, for example, the operating system index's every file on the SSD just in case you want to search for it at a later time.... (Which is ironic because unindexed searches while still not instantaneous are a damn side faster than they used to be....enough in my view that I only index the older spinning platters) Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazza 38 Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Another rule of thumb to consider...... Old style HDD's with spinning platers still have their uses.......one of them is no longer, imho, as the main disk in a laptop or a desktop machine. If buying new, or considering how you turn yesteryears old clunker into a firebreathing beast replace the main operating system HDD with a solid state disk.....they are expensive on a per Gb basis but there isn't a single other component that will return noticeable speed like a solid state disk..... These days 500Gb is probably the minimum you should get. I also personally wouldn't get less than 8Gb of main memory...... ignoring benchmarking, a 6yr old PC with a solid state disk will in terms of user satisfaction thrash a brand new machine with an older style spinning plater HDD.... I use spinning platter disks still in my home on my domain server for raw storage because they can still keep up with the network bottleneck...all PC's and laptops use solid state disks because that bottleneck doesn't exists for systems related functions. I just had my 5 year old Toshiba 650 HDD lap top disk replaced with a Solid state disk. A lot cheaper than buying a new lap top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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