Selling a MacBook Pro to buy a DELL??! - Macenstein

Selling a MacBook Pro to buy a DELL??!

This story pulled at my heartstrings the way an abused kitten story never could. Check out this craigslist listing:

17in. MacBook Pro – $1 (Minneapolis)

Paid over $3000 for this laptop less than a year ago and now feel that Macs aren’t my thing. Looking to sell it so I can get a Dell. Make your best offer.

Laptop is new condition.

Ok, someone needs to start a Minneapolis Mac Rescue League to rescue unloved and neglected Macs from maniacs like this. I know NYC has a great program.

I mean, how can the Mac not be his “thing”? The Mac is EVERYONE’S thing. And he wants to sell it to buy a DELL?!? Please. If you’re looking to sell something, usually you want to at least try to appear sane, and selling a MacBook to buy a DELL is the act of madman. At least say your mom needs a kidney or breast augmentation and you are trying to raise money by selling your prize possessions.

Well, if you’re willing to risk a buck to rescue this poor, neglected and unloved machine, check out item 596228426. Let us know how it goes. I only pray it’s not too late.

Comments
25 Responses to “Selling a MacBook Pro to buy a DELL??!”
  1. Luis says:

    Not everybody have good taste. Let him go to Hell, sorry I meant Dell, in peace.

  2. SHRIKEE says:

    Can’t he just save a little bit of his soul by installing bootcamp then? I mean, i’m totally against bootcamp and windows on a mac and all that, but this is ridiculous.

    I mean, if OS X isnt what he wants. Fine. Each to their own. But dont swap the sexy design for a hunk of plastic labelled Dell.

  3. SgtBaker says:

    Oh, I did almost same thing about a year ago.
    Got rid of my MacBook and went and bought a shiny Dell Inspiron 1720.

    Macs are not my thing either (or perhaps I just didn’t have enough good friends to start a rescue operation).

  4. Zorin says:

    Ugh, okay. I understand that Mac OS X is not everyone’s cake. But trading it in for a *DELL*?? UGH!

    At least trade it in for a Lenovo ThinkPad, or a Toshiba, or anything but Dell. Dell makes among the ugliest craptops around.

    If Macs didn’t exist, I’d likely have a Lenovo. They make the second-best laptops around.

  5. Peter Morgan says:

    Well, if he wanted to he could keep the Macbook Pro and simply use bootcamp to run Windows, somewhat more pleasant than running on a Dell I would have thought?

  6. Mike says:

    There are 2 types of people in the world….
    1) Those who own a Mac and obviously enjoy it!
    The other type…
    2) Those who don’t deserve a Mac!

  7. Omar Sharaf says:

    Listen mate, you do know that Dell offer Linux on their laptops, and for some people Linux is the one true religion, ironically i work at Apple and thats why i come to your blog often because i follow news etc, but generally if there is anything as annoying as Windows users, it’s Mac users. You guys think that everything Apple is god sent and that Apple are like the holy grail, what you don’t know that for some people and mostly Linux users a lot of you are just a bunch of computers retards just like those MS users you mock most of the times. Linux – Dell FTW!.

  8. Xeno says:

    Hey Omar,

    Got news for you, I run Ubuntu Linux on my desktop at work and have a macbook. Why? Because I want an all-in-one portable platform that has a UNIX backend that can work with my Linux apps but also integrate well with Windows environments.

    This is what it provides as a laptop. While I would love to say that Linux is a perfect platform for all occasions, it still has a ways to go yet. So while you yell at people for being Mac zealots, you yourself are coming here and being a Linux zealot… so just mellow out and stop making us Linux users look bad as we use macs too.

  9. indigo196 says:

    Macs are not everyone’s thing… some people actually want to have a computer that just works… and not worry about bad driver implementations.

  10. Bob says:

    Macs run Linux just fine, I am running Ubuntu on my Macbook as well as OS X and Windows. And, of course, OS X itself is Unix – Leopard has full Unix certification.d

  11. Omar Sharaf says:

    To Xeno

    I am not being a Linux zealot at all, but i was provoked by the opinion of Macenstein that Mac OS X is everyone’s thing. And the others who agreed with it. Everyone are free to use whatever they want, but constantly attacking others is dumb Apple maniacs culture. Apple just like Microsoft is a massive company that seek profit and has a long list of flaws, people should not become religiously fanatic of profit seeking organizations. And yeah i love Linux which is only a ”Unix like” system not ”Unix Based”. Because Linux promote community and when an OS is developed by a community it advance much faster than other OS developed by a bunch of people in a lab inside a massive building. Thats why today a single Linux distro which is Ubuntu became more popular than the OS X although Ubuntu is like what? 4 years old?

    Apple is walking the Microsoft path, For example, those Macbooks used to have an LG lcd panel, it got replaced by a cheap one made in Thailand, which is uses something called dithering to cut down the costs. Apple customers are being enslaved by the company marketing plan, for example, you can’t upgrade the GPU of your macbook because if you do it would be just perfect and a lot won’t get the Mac Book Pro. Same with the Mac Mini, Imac, and Mac Pro, or the iPhone not having 3G or Bluetooth file transfer and a respectable camera it’s a scheme to sell the more expensive product or to ensure that when the new stuff come up you will buy. All this why? because of OS X because let’s be honest hardware wise it’s all an equal market now.

    What they are missing is that because of Apple stupidity when they cracked the EFI to emulate the PC BIOS to load windows they opened a can of worms. Because today since all the hardware are the same, with the difference that outside apple i have the freedom to upgrade only according to my needs instead of their marketing plan, i can run OS X on none Apple computer.

    So yeah instead of selling my Mac Book to buy a Mac Book Pro because i need a superior GPU i can get another most probably cheaper and sexier device and put OSX on it. All i am saying that Apple, Microsoft or whatever they all wanna suck our blood. Apple may be much better than Microsoft but thats because they are not as big.

  12. eyerhyme says:

    Omar,
    WTF? You work at Apple? Why? Give me a break about the M$ path that Apple is “walking” as you say. While Apple isn’t perfect (what company is?),they’re far from M$. IPhone will be 3G in a few months, the iMac, MacMini and Pro are all upgradeable with their CPU’s, and while yes, Macenstein can be a bit “Apple” happy, they do make a good point about this moron wanting to sell an amazing 17″ MacBook Pro which can run ANY OS for an ugly Dell. And putting OS X on any cheap PC? Yeah… have fun getting that crap to work with high end 3D, audio and video software. Maybe you should go work for M$.

  13. Mark says:

    “Omar”, if you run OS X on anything but Apple hardware, you are a criminal, and a tasteless shit-eating one at that. People like you do not deserve Mac hardware or Mac OS X, and if I had my way you’d be beaten with a hose and then thrown in solitary for a few years. Eat your gruel and shaddup, prisoner.

    If you want to live in squalor on non-Apple hardware, fine, go run your POS Linux or Windows. Nobody cares, and we have no sympathy for you. But you don’t get to use OS X elsewhere.

    You’re nothing but criminal scum.

  14. Omar Sharaf says:

    To Eyerhyme

    See thats exactly the stupidity i am talking about, first of all these upgradeable macs and in the Mac Book, iMAC, Mac Mini case you can’t upgrade the GPU not the CPU. Which means that you are stuck with the shitty Inter Graphics Chip and why is that? because if you can upgrade that then no one will buy a Mac Book or a Mac Pro for that matter except a few in the Mac Pro case.

    And there is no such thing as a MAC and a PC, PC stands for Personal Computer, so you’re MAC is pretty much a PC as far as i am concerned unless you own a main frame or a super computer. And about the hardware it’s the same you idiot. Apple in the Mac Pro uses a 5000 series motherboard with Ultra Sli technology that belongs to ATI and Nvidia not Apple which allow you to use more than GPU, 2 Intel Xeon CPU’s and hard disks from either Seagate or Maxtor. The main difference is that your none Apple computer uses PC BIOS and MACS use something called EFI which is the next generation firmware.

    EFI was originally intended for normal computers but Microsoft decided to delay it’s usage for a while as it will be used in Windows 7 which is due next year. Now Apple had to patch the Darwin Boot Loader to emulate Bios booting to run Windows and thanks to that and the fact that now Apple uses common Hardwear OSX can run on any computer with Core 2 Quad, Quad Core, Xeon Cpus without any tweaking in the kernel. Which mean you get Apple updates and everything like any Mac user, in fact you can buy a legit OSX and run it on a custom machine and enjoy the full benefits of it. Oh and in that case you get to break the chains put around you by Apple to use specific hardware which means better performance than MACS, Imagine getting the same configuration of an iMAC but with 2 Nvidia Quadro cards like on a Mac Pro. Or getting a Super Vaio which is more sexy than the Mac Book Pro and enjoy OSX on a superior configuration. I think you guys get the point.

    Oh and Thats not illegal btw, and it does not break any law even though no one cares about that because the true criminals are the fat bastards using idiots like you to make more money everyday.

    And about the Iphone i think you guys just made my point, first you got the iPhone without 3G and now those who want to buy an iPhone with 3G will have to pay again, if they had made it with 3G from the first time they would have made less money. And about the Thai LCD’s i think there is a site a called google where you can find out how Apple scammed people by providing LCD’s that only provide the Illusion of Millions of colors using something called dithering which is only used in crap cheap LCD’s or even check the Apple site itself and read the complaints.

  15. JoSe!! says:

    he is mick jagger..

  16. Xeno says:

    Omar,

    You are obviously here to argue for the simple fact that semantics such as ‘Unix based’ rather than ‘Unix like’ throw you into a tizzy; for the record, Linus Torvalds BASED Linux on the UNIX OS hence it IS ‘UNIX BASED’. You are in fact no better than the zealots you are bashing.

    I love Linux as much as you but it is people like you who make Linux look bad.

  17. gctwnl says:

    This reminds me of how I got my NeXT Cube in 1991. Some university professor had ordered one but he left before the stuff arrived. Then it sat there unopened in boxes gathering dust for 6 months. Another guy from the department could get a really good deal on a 486 custom built by the local PC shop. So he sold me the NeXT Cube (with CD-ROM, printer, 400MB HD) to fund his 486 PC.

  18. darrell says:

    Omar is the Truth.

    the truth that the internet is full of trolls.

  19. Anonymous says:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like

    And i never said anything wrong, except that the mac happy idiots need to come straight with reality of this world that nothing is perfect and no profit seeking organization will put people interest ahead of their own. So you people should start to address themselves instead of wanking all day and all night. And instead of the fan boys insults can someone please stand up to me and prove me wrong in any fact that i stated? There is a law suit against Apple because of their LCD scan, people who complained in the site got their complaints deleted and all can be found in the Law Suit pdf document.

    There is not such thing as a Mac and a PC because i will say it again, PC stands for Personal Computer, so the entire i am a Mac and you’re a pc culture is ignorant and just dumb. And also Apple uses Intel, Nvidia, Seagate, Samsung, ATI, LG gear, so the hardware isn’t from outer space, installing osx on a none Apple computer isn’t a crime.

    Someone selling a Mac Book Pro to buy a dell shouldn’t be mocked for his choice, the whole Apple culture of insulting others instead of promoting their own stuff is just dumb, we all saw that two can play that game when Novell started their own ”I am a mac and i am a pc and i am Linux” advertisement just to mock Apple and their dumb ads.

    People should respect other people choices, and Mac users rarely do that as seen here, and i mean the Mac happy idiots who treat Apple as a religion, it’s just a company ffs and it’s full of flaws, but then again it’s the same idiots that fail to realize that Apple hardware is identical and sometimes uses inferior gear to any of those PC’s they mock.

    I use Linux, and i work at Apple and my friends use Windows. Never mocked anyone for his choice, but for some reasons Mac maniacs have this urge to jump on anyone who dares to criticize Apple or even the users of other stuff, thats an inferiority complex maybe i don’t know.Anyway for your own information, Apple now uses Windows, yes Windows the same Windows they mocked for years to promote their stuff, i mean Boot Camp? WTF, all i have to say is weak.

  20. Mike says:

    Games and not breaking the GPL with everything it makes. That’s why someone would choose a Dell over a Mac. Oh, sorry, does hearing the truth hurt?

    Also, if a Mac is “everyone’s computer” why is there no Mac Server Edition…

  21. Also, if a Mac is “everyone’s computer” why is there no Mac Server Edition…
    Mike, did you really just ask that??
    -The Doc

  22. jkahan says:

    Mike’s a troll….

  23. revvy says:

    Ya know, this is exactly why I didn’t like macs back in the day. Every mac user I’ve ever met is so self-righteous, prejudiced and down-right biggoted towards any other platform it just makes me sick. I remember countless conversations with mac people who swore up and down that ppc macs were faster than pc’s although every single benchmark proved otherwise…then what happened… Apple switched to intel. Then all the mac people changed their tune…but not ones to admit their mistake they simply claimed that intel chips were faster “now”, simply because Apple said so. Or how about when Mac OS went to the BSD base code? Before that Mac OS was superior to all other OS’s out there, now… well you get the point. (Oh, and just for curiosity sake, how many of you Mac people have ever even used the unix power under the hood? My guess is few. Most mac users I have met are TERRIFIED of command lines…there not pretty and require logical thought which from the things I have read here are asking too much of you.)

    Bottom line is, Mac OS is nice. It’s stable, it works. Great. Apple hardware is fairly top-end, it’s pretty, it works. Great. You know what? None of that makes Apple a deity. None of it. Nothing apple has ever done has made it worthy of the worship you zealots lay at it’s feet. Apple is just a company, in business to make money, not friends and not to do right by you or anyone but their investors/share-holders. Stop being led by a corporation. Apple is no better than any other company. No better than Sony, Ford, Exxon or *gasp* Microsoft. At least Microsoft doesn’t lock you into one vision, one hardware platform or one upgrade path (hardware wise anyway).

    Speaking of one vision… what the heck is up with Steve Jobs anyway? I swear that guys just screams “cult leader” in every damn way I can imagine. Y’all need to stop following that man’s every word like he just came down from the mountain with stone tablets or something. Apple’s problems right now (read: market share) are mostly tied to this man’s greed and sense of “elitism” (is that even a word? Doesn’t matter, you understand what I mean).

    The greed of apple and it’s elitist ways are my biggest complaint at the moment. Kinda always has been. I’m sorry but the person who posted above is dead on about the hardware now. Other companies use the same hardware, apple just packages it prettier. Fact is, Apple products are generally 50%-100% more expensive than the exact same non-Apple-branded items…for the SAME THING. Take the Nvidia 8800 mac pro upgrade… $279? I can get the exact same card on newegg for $195. Don’t kid yourselves here, the ONLY difference between the Apple branded card and the one on newegg is the bios info in the card that tags it as Apple approved. ALL, yes ALL nVidia based devices are reference based, meaning the are all built off the same blueprints/spec sheets. The only real leway a manufacturer has is upping the core and memory clock speeds and the amount of ram on the card. The actual silicon is identical throughout the product line series. Fact. Look it up before you go claiming different. Don’t like that example, how about this one? RAM. Mac pro ram from apple is $500 for 2 GB???? Are you kidding? I picked up 2 GB for $119. Exact same spec, exact same performance and reliability. It’s been running in my system for a month under heavy 24/7 use and hasn’t glitched ONCE. My point is: All apple cares about is money. Not you, not your experience, just your money.

    As for the whole argument of “if you run OS X on anything but Apple hardware, you are a criminal, and a tasteless shit-eating one at that. People like you do not deserve Mac hardware or Mac OS X, and if I had my way you’d be beaten with a hose and then thrown in solitary for a few years. Eat your gruel and shaddup, prisoner.”? Um, no. Breaking a EULA? NOT a crime. It’s potentially a CIVIL CONTRACT violation but those aren’t crimes. Breaking a contract does not make you a criminal…if that were the case then if you have ever broken a lease you would be in jail. “shit-eating” ? Are you serious? Because the person doesn’t want to pay the Steve tax? And who the hell are you to say what someone deserves? And for the love of God, just how much of a mindless zealot do you have to be to advocate BEATING someone over their choice of hardware, be it legitimate Apple or not? Thank God that it is not up to your diseased mind. Sir/Madam, you need to seek professional help. Immediately.

    As for me? If I could find third party hardware that was guaranteed to run Mac OSX, I’d be all over it. Hell, there is one out there and I intend to buy multiple units. In fact they are faster and have more storage and memory than a mini at half the price. Sure, they don’t have the looks of the mini, but I’m not shallow enough to judge a computing product solely on it’s looks (*cough* mac book air *cough*). In fact looks are a distant last place in the consideration of new hardware (red paint doesn’t make a car go any faster and brushed aluminum doesn’t make my computer go any faster either…) My primary focus is on performance/price. I have no love for Apple nor it’s bottom line, they are simply what works at the moment.

    And just in case you haven’t guessed by now, yeah, I own a mac. 3 of them in fact. One is a brand new Mac Pro, the others are imacs for my kids. I love my mac. I do. I’ve been a Windows user all my life until just a couple months ago. Why did I switch? Because of Mac OS. Stable, functional, and very very fast. The fact that I can virtualize any OS I wish any time I wish, means it is the most compatible unit around. That and there was no way in hell I was ever switching to Vista. Ever. Period. I’ve got no love for Apple. Nor any real hate either. They just happen to make the computer I choose to use at the moment. Nothing more, nothing less. Just another corporation who wants my money.

    So if I own a Mac, why am I bad mouthing Apple? Well, I’m not really (well, ok, I am bad mouthing Steve Jobs, but regardless of what you think, he is not Apple, Inc…). All I am trying to say here, is that being a zealot for any company is foolish unless you are collecting a paycheck. And even then, its a little retarded.

  24. macbook pro user says:

    revvy,

    you rock. I am a huge mac fan, and have been for years, yet I use a PC, with Vista (Blegh), at work and I telnet (from both my MBP and PC) to a Linux box in the UK to manage my 250GB apache server that runs our sites.

    For me, each different provider, if you will, has their own benefits and their own downfalls. This will never change, get over it. If you want a mac, get a mac, dont hate the person who likes his PC, whether it be a Dell, Toshiba, or an Alienware for all that matter. Dont jump down the command line happy Linux user for his lack of interest in a GUI. Trust me, that GUI-less command line runs its programs quicker when initiated then most Mac Pro’s run any app. Have you ever burnt a CD from the command line in Linux. Trust me, try it out, you will be amazed.

    At the end of the day, to each his own. I love my mac, and its stability, but I agree the price is crazy, but worth it. My company is a Microsoft Gold Partner, but its ability to provide, what I would call, hardcore down the line back-end power is not all that powerful! But then again I havent used it for that! My 250GB Command Line based Ubuntu Linux powered Apache Box in the UK is quick, powerful and works a charm, but it costs a fortune, and isn’t really mine, nor does it fulfill my every computing desire, but it was cheaper than IIS, runs more stable, and the only licensing fees I pay for is for Plesk 8 Server Edition with Virtuozzo.

    I guess my real point is, that we all have specific needs, one which I would love to have fulfilled by one unit not 3, but hey… I am not complaining, and for all of you out there who are, well I say, what for..

    If you were a mac fan, surely you would have bid that $1 dollar reserve bid, and if it cost you $5000 dollars at the end of the day… Well, you are a die hard fan arent you?

  25. iodine says:

    Mac’s are now junk. I used to be a complete Apple Fanboy with my PowerMac G3, then G4..

    I had an iBook G3, PowerMac G3/G4 and Powerbook 12″

    I purchased a Intel Macbook and have never been more dissapointed. The machine is just crap.

    Most iLife apps are now bloat .. The UI is crap.

    .MAC is not worth $99 / $149 per year when there are free services like Microsoft Live and Google Apps.

    I think Steve has lost his way.

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