college laptop???

I agree that there are sometimes biased/outrageous reviews out there, but when you have a 100+ reviews of a product on cnet, 50+ on amazon, 50+ here, etc., and all of them point to similar ratings, then like I said before, it shows a pattern. I mean, why would the HP ZT3000 get a 88% rating on cnet (2005) and as good on other websites, but another HP or Dell laptop would get 66% and similar? Say what you want, but the higher the # of users, the more the user rating converges on the true mean and the "truth." If you get a lot of negatives, then there's something wrong, just like when you get a lot of positives, then it's a good product (generally speaking and on average).

Say what you want, but user ratings (with a high number of users) are my primary mechanism for narrowing my options from 8 to 1.

 

it comes with the dreaded cpu whine as well

 

But realistically, how honest are Apple's users?

Look back to when the MacBook was first released and all the issues the MBP had with heat.

You had systems that were genuinely over heating, you had the MacBooks that would randomly reboot and get locked in an endless cycle that would continue even after the battery was pulled from the system and put back in, you had MacBooks that were turning yellow only days after being purchased. You had people that had to tear apart both their MacBook and MBPs and re-apply thermal grease, voiding their warranty, just because Apple tried to say that heat was normal.

Yet the user reviews of both systems were extremely high.

You can go over to macrumors and theres people who have gone through 3 or 4 systems replaced under warranty and have had just about everything go wrong that can go wrong with a laptop, yet they will still tell you their Mac is the best system they could purchase.

If Apple users rated their systems honestly, then MacBooks would score a good 30-40% lower, if not more. You know you can find user reviews out there who will say things like "I'm on my 3rd one! I've had a logic board die, dead pixels, discoloration.. but its an awesome system so I'm giving it 5 stars!". Where PC buyers/owners are more likely to be like "I had a single problem with this system and returned it to the manufacturer. Looking for a different brand". I think PC buyers expect better value for their dollar than Mac buyers do I know I certainly do now and wouldn't buy any Mac over $1,000. In fact, the only Mac I would probably buy in the future is a refurbished Mac mini and even then I'd end up throwing Windows on it.

 

Hmmm... CPU whine versus extremely hot, no dedicated GPU, possible discoloration, bad warranty support, etc