New buy, PC or MAC?

[Serenity]

Still using my old viao laptop and am looking to buy a new computer this xmas. I was looking at a PC until the bright spark in PCWorld showed off the new MAc to me, must admit most impressed.
Looks like the right sort of thing, just need it for internet, photos, music etc etc.
Was not looking to spend quite so much, are they really worth the extra money??
I do know that most Mac users don`t go back to PC`s once tried.
Looking for any opinions and helpful coments, many thanks.

[airborne_artist]

With £400 you can buy a Toshiba with XP from dabs.com. Buy it by the end of the month and you get £100 cashback so long as you spend >£100 on Tosh accessories, which includes a 2 yr extended warranty for £96.00. At that price you can afford to give it away once the warranty expires.

[tallsandwich]

I do know that most Mac users don`t go back to PC`s once tried.

That doesn't actually mean that Macs are better.....LOL !!!!

You pays your money and you makes your choice (or in the case of Mac you pay more money and get less choice, I crack me up!)

[bnt]

Won't someone please think of the Applications? If there is anything that you consider essential, and can't find a replacement for, then moving might not be a great idea.

[Mac the Knife]

I bought a MacBook and I'm very happy with it.

For the very few Windows apps that I still use I run 'em under Parallels3. NeoOffice is the Aqua port of OpenOffice and it replaces MS Office very well.

If you "just need it for internet, photos, music etc etc." then more and more makers are offering laptops with Linux distros (usually Ubuntu or SuSE) - enjoy a *nix OS and stop worrying about viruses and malware.

Mext desktop buy will be a Big Mac 'cos then I can run Mac, Linux and WinXP apps simultaneously.

Nothing would induce me to run Vista.

[tallsandwich]

Well if Mac was a "good guest", it would run happily in VMWare as a guest Operating Sytem, in which case you could choose whatever "big box" you wanted from any supplier - and still have available all those operating systems you wanted, via VMWare.

While the rest of the Operating System world is opening up, Apple is still trying to keep their doors locked. Sure there is a VMWare tool for running other Operating Systems in OSX - but not the other way around. It's just another exmaple of Vendor lock-in from Mr Jobs. I suppose he is still busy trying to get Java 1.6 running on Leopard, however since they managed to take the ZFS filesystem technology from Sun for use in Leopard, I would have expected that they also could have got the latest Java version running

It would have to be a very bad day indeed in the computing world before I bought a Mac just so I could run other operating systems

[AlphaMale]

Used a Mac at home for 2 years now and love it. I did use them at Uni for 3/4 years so it was nothing new to me, I spent £1,000 making the best PC money can buy 4 years ago and had nothing but probems. Which was nothing new as PC's seem to always play up ... *Cough* Blue Screen of Death *Cough*

I am running all applications that I need with no problem.

But remember a 3GHz PC will not be as fast as a 2GHz Mac ... Infact nowhere near.

As a graphic designer I use a fairly powerful PC in work (something like 2.8GHz and 512Mb of Ram) and my Minimac at 1.66 Intel Duo with 512Mb Ram eats it alive.

My work PC is getting updated this week and the Mac will be updated soon to 1Gb Ram.

The only downfall was when I am doing ASP.net etc I need to use a PC

I found myself a PC on the Evo car forum for £50 and it's awesome for what I need ... albeit it still crashes.

Applications shouldn't prove a problem with the option of having Virtual PC or any other PC emulator.

I've convinced 2 people to convert and they all say they'd never go back and neither would I.


What Mac are you looking to get?

[tallsandwich]

as PC's seem to always play up

As I have said many times before, PCs give you choice and you have to exercise that choice carefully and manage your configuration. When the Mac world offers you that same level of choice, you will get the Blue Screen of death - as concretely shown as evidence by Leopard when you try and upgrade and you have a non-Mac USB device plugged in.

[AlphaMale]

tallsandwich while we're on OS's you might want to take a look at:

Video 1

Video 2

Why Apple thinks you need a Mac here ... pretty funny.

You get what you pay for at the end of the day.

[AlphaMale]

PCs give you choice and you have to exercise that choice carefully and manage your configuration.

Is that where Bill Gates went wrong? as seen here and here

You'd think the boffins at Microsoft would know how to make their own software run wouldn't you? ... But if they can't make it run what chance does Joe public stand?

[Gonzo]

As a graphic designer I use a fairly powerful PC in work (something like 2.8GHz and 512Mb of Ram) and my Minimac at 1.66 Intel Duo with 512Mb Ram eats it alive.

I assume you're comparing the same processor family here, and not comparing a NetBurst architecture P4 2.8GHz to a Core Duo architecture 1.66GHZ.

Apples and oranges.

I'll never buy a Mac until I can easily swap out components, or build my own, a la PC.

As I've said in other threads, I've been running Vista for months and I really like it. No crashes, no compatibility issues.

[AlphaMale]

You can easily swap components?

I just upgraded my fathers PowerMac from 512Mb 667 DDR2 SDRAM to 4Gb ... I didn't see any problem? As Apple says "Isn't it nice when things just ... work?"


I've worked with Photographers that have invested thousands into PC's and decided a PowerMac is better. I see that movies in Hollywood are always being made using a Mac, and when I watch an international rugby match I see the coaches using PowerBooks in the stand?

Any reason? ... Nothing against PC's but I prefer a Mac, people love the iPod / iPhone / iMac ... etc so we can't all be wrong

[beardy]

Sin City was made by Hollywood with microsoft and AMD processors. The stranglehold MAC has in Hollywood is of the imagination.

[AlphaMale]

Ok, special effects?

Lord of the Rings? ... Shake on a Mac.

Funny, Pixar uses Macs too? as seen here.

So lets just say that anything complicated/special effects/animation and 99% of movies are made on a Mac

[bnt]

But remember a 3GHz PC will not be as fast as a 2GHz Mac ... Infact nowhere near.

That hasn't been true since Apple switched to the same Intel CPUs that are used in many PCs. I'll say it again: think applications.

If you want to use Weta Digital as a reference, note that they're primarily a Linux shop, according to their FAQ. Or, have a look at the Massive software they created themselves, for creating the mass battle scenes in LoTR, and its requirements. There is a Windows frontend version, but the backend renderfarm is only in Linux at this time. WETA use IBM (PC) blade servers for rendering (report). There is no Mac version.

Dreamworks, meanwhile, have a contract with IBM's big competitor, HP, and uses their PC hardware for everything, front and back. Didn't you see the HP & Shrek commercials on TV?

Maybe Macs ruled the graphics and FX world back in 1998, but it's definitely no longer the case, so much for your "99%" figure. Can you imagine how much more LoTR would have cost to make, had Weta Digital tried doing it all on Macs? I have no problem recommending a Mac if it's the best tool for the job - which is what this thread was about, I thought? Applications such as GarageBand, Logic, etc. do make a powerful case, and Leopard sure looks pretty. Whether you'll get what you pay for is a personal decision. Not everyone wants to drive an car with an automatic gearbox, either.

I don't mean to go on, but it doesn't help the original poster if you make claims about inherent superiority of Macs that might have been plausible years ago, but don't stand up to scrutiny today. There's more to the PC than Windows - just ask Weta - so even if Vista deserves all the criticism it gets, it doesn't mean that a Mac is the answer.

[MidgetBoy]

I just bought myself a Dell PC.. besides the fact that I've had it for just under 24 hours and it's had about 30 BSODs. It's running nicely after I disabled half of the startup programs and services.

[Gonzo]

I have an iPod, and it works perfectly well with Vista (as it did with XP before). It does a job, and it's very user friendly, I can't say I love it though. iPhone has a slick interface, no doubt, but the feature set is limited and it's very expensive. And I don't 'love' PCs either. I prefer them to Macs. They do the job I want with no hassle and easily upgradeable.I love Plymouth Argyle Football Club...doesn't mean they're better than all the other football teams..

[TightSlot]

I switched to Mac about a year ago and haven't looked back. My computing needs are very low level by expert standards - a bit of skype, email, web browsing, photo management, music and podcasts, dvd watching and the odd letter/memo, spreadsheet and powerpoint. All of this is managed quite happily by the Mac with iWork and iLife and I keep a .mac account for the various on-the-road benefits it allows. The thing I like best is how good the macbook is for travel - it makes light work of hotel internet connections and skypes like a dream. It also gets good battery life for movies on the aircraft. So for me, the mac is perfect.

In my previous life with PC's, I enjoyed upgrading components and generally tinkering with the PC: If you are this kind of person then a PC is the only way to go. I also played a lot of games, and so did the kids, and once again, if this is the case, the PC has the legs of the mac by some measure. Finally, if you work in an environment where the office network requires various complicated or bespoke applications, then although Boot Camp/Parallels are an option, for a simple life a PC is probably better in my view.

IMHO what it boils down to is knowing what you want from the new computer. There will always be somewhat arcane discussions about the relative merits of windows/mac/linux operating systems on various hardware platforms. As a normal home user, you may assume that all of these OS's will work. Personally, I'd suggest a mac, because for me, it is the best solution at this time. You may be different...

[Shunter]

I've just bought a MacBook Pro. My old laptop finally died, and when looking round comparing specs I discovered the "macs cost more" thing to be pretty much untrue. Sure, you can get a half decent laptop from a "PC" vendor for less, but look what it's actually got inside it... once you start comparing like-for-like specification-wise, there really isn't that much difference.

I'm a Linux-user by preference, and Microsoft consultant by trade (the quality of their software is so poor it'll keep me in flying hours for years to come), and the MBP now runs triple-boot OSX/SuSE/Vista. The aesthetics of the machine, attention to detail and the thought put into its design are fantastic; simple things such as the use of quality, branded hardware with plentiful driver support instead of obscure rubbish from some half-baked upstart who only ever bothered to write drivers for Windows. I randomly discovered the other day that when you pop the battery out, it doesn't just suddenly die - that's right, it will retain enough juice for you to change the battery without rebooting!

Apple's strategy of moving to Intel chips and binning 30 year old legacy stuff like BIOS is a good one and holds substantial benefit for those who want to lever that technology. Think if it as ripping out all your old, traditional, knackered avionics and putting a G1000 in.

Vista, that's an interesting one. As computer use has grown over the years, so has the average capability of computer users to administer their systems. Yet conversely with Vista, Microsoft do their best to isolate you from doing what you want, instead forcing you to do what they think you want. It might keep joe public (who quantifies resource-hungry eye candy as progress) at home a little safer, but there are many very valid reasons why business adoption is going to be slow at best.

[+200 No Flags]

Being a relatively recent MAC-convert myself, I must confirm the old "Once you go Mac, you never go back" saying.

In the past, people were reluctant to jump from PCs to Macs for several reasons, the most important ones being fear of non-compatibility and old habits (which were mostly unfounded).
They were afraid that, after buying a Mac, they would be cut-off from the PC-using community and would no longer be able to exchange documents and files. Furthermore, many experienced PC-users had grown accustomed to a bunch of little programs they would no longer be able to use (although Mac-equivalents are were readily available).

Today, with the Intel-based Macs and the possibility of running Windows with all of its "little programs" (it's basically like having a PC-laptop with better looks), PC users are reassured. IF one day, they run into the need of running a piece of windows-based software, they can.

On a lighter note : Macs and OSX are great! Just go and get one, fool around with it and feel reborn!

Also, in his previous post, TightSlot might unwillingly have given the impression that Macs are no good for professional use and that use is restricted to internet, email, photos and DVD-watching. This, of course, is not (no longer) the case.