MAC or PC..... why?

halobender

When comparing apples to apples, I maintain that there isn't really much in terms of "quality" difference between the two. It all depends on who you are, and what you want out of a machine.

And I didn't pay 2,000 for my macbook I got a student discount, but it wasn't 900 worth. If it were, there'd be a massive resell market of students reselling them. Don't know where you're getting these numbers from...

Obviously the numbers on that ad are advertised numbers provided by Dell. It was more or less just making a point; you can spend $2000 on a PC laptop, as well. But generally you're getting much higher quality products in it that perform at a faster rate than that which you would get on a Mac. Sure, Mac parts are high quality and all, but I also like to be able to decide exactly what I want in my system.

The way I see it is you can get a Mac for $2000 or you could get a Windows PC for $2000. They'll do the job for most people, but the Windows PC is going to have more bang for your buck; more HD storage, RAM, higher CPU, etc.

I build my computers myself, as opposed to building them on a Web site, though.

RoughDiamondUK

My Toshiba laptop just died on me after only two years. The Dell before that lasted about that long as well. I've always been a PC girl but am I missing out by not going MAC? Any opinions and/or advice appreciated!

I see people screaming that Macs have compatibility issues, and are only good for "creative" people, blah blah blah. Take those opinions with a pinch of salt as your situation and theirs could be very different.

Best thing you can do is answer these questions:

1. What software do you currently use in Windows/what tasks do you currently do in Windows?

2. Is there anything that you would like to use a computer for, but currently don't? (Like, say, getting into video editing, or keeping track of your financial affairs, or maybe other things?)

3. How computer-savvy are you? (If you want to upgrade your hard drive or RAM on your Windows machine do you do it or do you have someone do it for you? If you think your computer has a virus what do you do?)

4. What peripherals do you currently have that you'd like to continue using, e.g. a printer, scanner, video camera?

Personally I prefer using a Mac to a Windows-based computer -- I'm Mac at home and use Windows at work. (Note that it's "Mac" and not "MAC" btw.) However, I have always been a Mac person and so didn't have to factor in any legacy Windows software or peripherals that I had that I didn't want to pay to replace as well. There are some things that can be trickier on Macs than on Windows, but except for very specialised things there are usually workarounds, that's why it's important to consider what software you currently use before you make the decision, although you can install Windows on a Mac as well, should you really need to.

ArtGeek22

Mac. I can NEVER go back to PC. I have had no issues with Mac's, and way too many with PC's. They are faster, cleaner, more simple to use and built better. Plus they look fabulous. And with the edition of iCloud all my Apple products seamlessly sync up (iPod, iPhone, Macbook Pro, Apple TV). I can't imagine not having a Mac.
They also last a hell of a lot longer.

^^THIS!!!^^

muffintopminx

I'm a creative in advertising and it's MAC all the way. It's an industry standard because it is the BEST tool for design, graphics, and photography. Aside from that, I find MACs to be much more user friendly and way more intuitive in problem solving. And they're pretty because Apple cares about every single detail inside and out. And I like well designed and beautiful stuff.

PJilly

I've been using Macs since 1987, and I love them. I didn't realize until today that meant I had hipster cred. Cool!

halobender

It's an industry standard because it is the BEST tool for design, graphics, and photography

This is actually no longer true; it's a pretty even split in the industry, and if you do hardware intensive work, such as animation, it's PC running Linux. In fact, the creative industries have been trending more toward Linux based OSes in the past decade.

But it all depends on scale. The larger you are, the more likely you are to use an open-source OS.

jewol

Au contraire, it is PCs that are junk. Had it not been for Apple to show them how, they wouldn't even have Windows, which is an out-and-out ripoff of the Mac desktop -- an inferior ripoff, I might add. AB:PIP:BA -- that's the kind crap PC users used to have to type in to transfer a file. Go with the user-friendly innovators: Choose a Mac.

Actually, Apple stole the idea for a GUI (Graphical User Interface) from Xerox who were the first by MANY MANY YEARS.

Don't try to get technical when you have no idea about the details.

If you want to talk about firsts, you need to talk about AT&T and IBM. It is you who need to bone up on your history.

halobender

The point still stands, however, that Windows did not rip off Mac; they equally "borrowed" technology and developments made by other companies/individuals.

Furthermore, Macs haven't always been as user-friendly as they're portrayed today.

RoughDiamondUK

Furthermore, Macs haven't always been as user-friendly as they're portrayed today.

Depends on the user. Windows 3.1 vs System 7? System 7 any day of the week for me!

coachblt

It's a matter of choice, that's all. I use both the iMac and PC. iMac at home, PC at work. I prefer using the Mac for it's graphic interface, simplicity in music/video options.

PC has an easier MS Office software, but I say that because I learned Office on a PC. The Mac Office just confuses me a bit on a few things. I do like how compatible they are, though.

I wouldn't go back to a PC computer for all the tea in China. I even convinced my brother and my parents to switch to the iMac. They've enjoyed it thus far, but it's only been a year. Time will tell.

jewol

Au contraire, it is PCs that are junk. Had it not been for Apple to show them how, they wouldn't even have Windows, which is an out-and-out ripoff of the Mac desktop -- an inferior ripoff, I might add. AB:PIP:BA -- that's the kind crap PC users used to have to type in to transfer a file. Go with the user-friendly innovators: Choose a Mac.

Actually, Apple stole the idea for a GUI (Graphical User Interface) from Xerox who were the first by MANY MANY YEARS.

Don't try to get technical when you have no idea about the details.

Let me extend an olive branch. It's obvious we're both passionate about our preferred machines. I think the PC has the advantage in the sheer variety of applications available to it, although with the effort to make Macs and PCs compatible that advantage is not as great as it once was. I believe that, for ease of operation, the Mac is difficult to beat. But that's me and I shouldn't expect everyone to agree, no more than I should expect everyone to like the same cuisine. Vive le difference!

Besides, we're not here to argue the merits of various computers. We're here to embrace a healthy lifestyle. And that, I'm sure, we have in common.

vingogly

If you want to talk about firsts, you need to talk about AT&T and IBM. It is you who need to bone up on your history.

The root of the GUI concept (as I stated earlier) was "memex", described in Vannevar Bush's seminal article "As We May Think", published in the Atlantic in 1945. Sketchpad was inspired by Vannevar Bush's proposal, and coded in 1963 by Ivan Sutherland as part of his PhD thesis at MIT. NLS was designed by Douglas Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute around the same time. I'm not aware of any AT&T or IBM involvement in these projects.

misskerouac

I'm a MAC girl and I work at a credit union that operates on only MACS so it's not JUST for video editing or artistic jobs. I find MACS easier to use and my macbook and iMac have outlasted my husbands laptop and his desktop PC.

If you are a serious gamer (my husband is big into C.O.D.) I can understand wanting a PC that you build yourself, so that you can have specific videocards, and fans, and whatever. But I use mine for Internet, word processing, and I have a Bamboo Tablet that i use with it for drawing/playing.

I've had my 27" iMac for over a year and so far have not had one problem. I've had my macbook for over 5 years and it is just now losing it's airport card (I can't do wireless) and I don't know if I want to replace the card or just get a new macbook.

I think more than anything it's a personal choice of what you like, if you don't use a Mac or haven't used one, go to a Bestbuy type store and play around with the Macs and see if it's something you like. I had no problem switching between the two but some people really can't get used to Macs after being on a PC for so long.

LovingCruz

MAC girl here. When my husband first brought the iMac I was so mad because i didn't know how to use it and that was 3 years ago. So in-between the 3 years he has had his MacPro and I have MacBook. Love them!!

rcrobinson70

There are various comments on here about MACs from PC lovers that are afraid of change. Honestly I have been in the IT industry for many years, I was once a "Nah dont get mac they are only for Graphics etc", not until last year I decided to get a Macbook Pro. Never looked back. You get use to the features it has. It is simple to use, less worry on viruses and malware, not having to worry about Internet Explorer Accidently plugins and toolbars. The system stays neat and tidy. Less frustration.

I now also own a macbook air, cost is the same as any pc. As mentioned having ICLOUD and IMATCH is great, I own, Iphone and IPAD and my 2 Macbooks, all my music and apps just download as i need them. No need to find Authentication keys or backup emails to find the once piece of info you may have lost.

Music on the go any time. The person who said he wouldmt pay the proces for OSX, hmmm better look again at the price. OSX is only about $75 Australia on a usb key, where as hmm Windows 7 - you are looking at a minimum double cost + some more.

MACS are the way to go. Easy, and more realiable. You can install Windows on them also using Bootcamp or Parallels, Funny enough my Windows Virtual runs better on my Mac than my physical PC. Just goes to show MAC hardware is more superior

mes1119

I had like a bajillion problems with a PC. Finally decided to get a Mac....

Now I will never go back.

(unintended rhyming).

halobender

Furthermore, Macs haven't always been as user-friendly as they're portrayed today.

Depends on the user. Windows 3.1 vs System 7? System 7 any day of the week for me!

Ugh, I definitely preferred 3.1. To each their own!

Nopedotjpeg

Build your own computer. A lot cheaper.

vingogly

Ugh, I definitely preferred 3.1. To each their own!

You mean you didn't like the constant battling with preference conflicts in System 7?

10036

I think we should all sit in a big circle, make some s'mores, and have everyone say one good thing about each and every OS.

grrrlface

You can build your own computer for much cheaper than a Mac and you can make it as awesome as you want!

I had a Mac at college doing graphic design, it died on me losing a year's worth of work (a week before my external hard drive arrived, )Also had to have new hard drives fitted because it was full to bursting. Slowest most unreliable piece of rubbish I ever owned. Never again.

Fit_Canuck

You can build your own computer for much cheaper than a Mac and you can make it as awesome as you want!

I had a Mac at college doing graphic design, it died on me losing a year's worth of work (a week before my external hard drive arrived, )Also had to have new hard drives fitted because it was full to bursting. Slowest most unreliable piece of rubbish I ever owned. Never again.

So many issues in this post I'm not sure where to really begin. Because you lost data in college and it so happened to be a Mac all Mac based systems are rubbish? And because you filled the hard drives it's the machine's fault? And the machine was slow ?

1. Windows based machines use the same hard drives....
2. Apple computers currently enjoy the highest reliability rating of any computer manufacturer based on outside market research
3. Unix based operating system Mac os x is very fast and stable, in all my years I've used them I can recall 2 times where it locked up or slowed down for me. It's the same performance many people see in Linux based systems.

AtticusFinch

I have an Intel based Dell laptop running Windows that was made in 2005. Touch wood that I'm not cursing it, but it runs perfectly well, and meets my needs adequately. (I'm in IT as well and I find most problems are caused by users not knowing what they're doing with software rather than the machine itself).

Macs look great, but they're more expensive and not every application program you may want to use is compatable or available with the Mac OS.

You should therefore start with software - draw up a shortlist of the apps you must have and those you want to use, then see if they're available for the Mac. If not, the choice is simple; if they are, then it's your choice regarding aesthetics and capital outlay.

Have fun choosing your next machine.

Flabberella

Mac, superior computers, and last astonishingly well. We have had our IMac for 4 and a half years and it is still running fantastically, the IMac we had before is the one we use for the kids to play on and still does everything we need it to do for us, albeit slower than we are now used to. My husband uses his Macbook for his music (pro tools and other musicy things lol)

I used to have PC's I found they never lasted as long as I thought they should, a couple of years at most, so yes you pay more for a mac but you not only get more for your money but it lasts longer so no need to keep on replacing the machine.

ExcelGuru

For a device with a lower fail rate go MAC. Thing is even if you go and purchase a PC over the lifetime of owning the PC it will cost you the same as purchasing a MAC.

halobender

... that is not true at all ...

That is to say it may be possible, but it's not plausible, so long as you aren't negligent toward your machine.

sweet110

When comparing apples to apples, I maintain that there isn't really much in terms of "quality" difference between the two. It all depends on who you are, and what you want out of a machine.

And I didn't pay 2,000 for my macbook I got a student discount, but it wasn't 900 worth. If it were, there'd be a massive resell market of students reselling them. Don't know where you're getting these numbers from...

Obviously the numbers on that ad are advertised numbers provided by Dell. It was more or less just making a point; you can spend $2000 on a PC laptop, as well. But generally you're getting much higher quality products in it that perform at a faster rate than that which you would get on a Mac. Sure, Mac parts are high quality and all, but I also like to be able to decide exactly what I want in my system.

The way I see it is you can get a Mac for $2000 or you could get a Windows PC for $2000. They'll do the job for most people, but the Windows PC is going to have more bang for your buck; more HD storage, RAM, higher CPU, etc.

I build my computers myself, as opposed to building them on a Web site, though.

When will folks like you understand...the sort of person who "builds their own computer themselves" is not the average user. And I'm no slouch. I'm a grad student. Love freeware. Use statistical packages. But the Mac "works" without puttering. Now. If you *want* to putter, you'll hate the mac. And the part of me that loves to putter...finds the Mac frustrating. But puttering isn't my first love. Therefore, I find the mac to be fine. And I paid 1200 for a decent macbook. Probably got 100-200 off with my student discount...but mostly in terms of "included" software then in terms of actual performance related specs. Comparing specs, I would have paid between 200 less to the same for the equivalent quality in a PC...not just specs...equivalent quality. More expensive, yes. But not dramatically so. It only seems that way when folks compare the cheapest PC's with the one-price Mac.

I consider myself an "above average" user, but certainly not a power user (no gaming, no "real" programming, no graphic design). And I'm not a "mac fanboy" by any stretch. I hate the closed world of the Mac, but I have to admit...I spend a lot less time tinkering on my Macbook, and its nice to just have something "that works" without me having to "know how to do stuff."

Apple is closer to the star trek ideal of technology....Capt Picard just walks up to the replicator and says "earl grey, hot." He doesn't have to know how it works or be able to maintain, update, or otherwise fiddle with the replicator. He just gets his tea. And that is why Mac's are popular. Not because they're "better," but because, like a toaster or microwave, the technology becomes invisibile.

vingogly

Apple is closer to the star trek ideal of technology....Capt Picard just walks up to the replicator and says "earl grey, hot." He doesn't have to know how it works or be able to maintain, update, or otherwise fiddle with the replicator. He just gets his tea. And that is why Mac's are popular. Not because they're "better," but because, like a toaster or microwave, the technology becomes invisibile.

Exactly so. And that's the same reason iPads and iPhones are popular ... they just work. Computers aren't a hobby for me, they're the tools I've used to make a living for the past 35 years. I don't want to putter and futz, I have better things to do with my time. During that period, I've worked in software development, software QA and IT as well as freelancing as a web developer. Yes, I've done a lot of programming and I have an MS in computer science. Over the years, I've found the engineers I've worked with fall into two camps: those who like to putter with their computers, and those who want to get the job done. There are the Linux weenies at work who are proud of the fact they have Linux running on all their machines at home. Well, bully for them, but that's not my idea of fun.

It gets tiresome, however, when the putterers sneer and imply that somehow their platform choice is superior because they can "do whatever they want" with their machines. At work, I have my Macbook Pro sitting next to my Windows 7 machine. The Windows 7 machine is loaded with the best software available for it, including MS Office 2010 and Visio 2010. I find myself developing documents with Pages and exporting to Word format on the Macbook, and developing diagrams with Omnigraffle and exporting to Visio then moving the result to Windows. Why? The programs I've purchased for the Mac are elegant and I can be much more productive with them ... the programs for Windows are overengineered and get in my way rather than helping me get my work done. Case in point: the Windows ribbon interface which is a pure usability nightmare. Microsoft's design philosophy has always been: throw as much crap as possible at their users, in the hope that some of it will be useful. More choices does not always mean the options are better. Another example is Articulate Suite (an elearning development platform); it's a kludge cobbled on top of PowerPoint, and in a five day training course I learned how to get around all its peculiarities and bugs so I could (sort of) get my work done with it. And Articulate costs well over $1000.

I've been hearing the same tired gloating from Windows folks for the past two decades ... give it a rest: you've made a different choice, but you're not more sophisticated/technical/brilliant/whatever for doing so. While you've been screwing around with printer drivers and fixing register problems, I've been getting my work done. And all the time, Windows folks point with glee at what they perceive as every "misstep" Apple has made, and have predicted it's just a matter of time before Apple goes down the toilet. Then when those of us who have chosen Macs protest, we're dismissed as "fanboys". This endless battle is getting old, people.

ScatteredThoughts

This endless battle is getting old, people.

Indeed. A lot of what has been said completely ignores what the OP asked.

vingogly

Indeed. A lot of what has been said completely ignores what the OP asked.

To this point: here are two articles on the pros and cons of Mac vs PC (and it's from PC World, not a Mac "fanboy"):

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163842/eight_reasons_your_next_computer_should_be_a_mac.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/163836/eight_reasons_your_next_computer_should_be_a_pc.html

Chacon a son gout.