Mac or PC

*sigh* the great debate again...

PC laptops can have SSD drives in them too. My Lenovo ThinkPad does and it will handily beat any MacBook Pro out there (i7, 16GB, OCZ Vertex3 SSD). There's not much you can do to upgrade a laptop, PC or Mac, besides the hard drive, memory, internal optical drive (if your manufacturer has the option), and if you have the gaming PC laptop that can do it, the video card.

Macs, while pretty, sleek, chic and very appealing to the eye, seem to adhere to the motto "fashion over function" and have done so for the past decade. PC laptops have undergone a consumer revolution as of late when it comes to style, and aftermarket support has also followed suit.

The whole virus thing is a joke. Of course you hear nothing of Macs getting viruses, but that's because Macs only populate 10% of the world market, and even less so in the corporate world. In fact, most of the big-name viruses you hear hit corporate email servers and only occasionally hit home users nowadays, especially since all the web-based email servers scan their hosted emails with PC-based anti-virus software.

Apple is 'closed' technology, as they are the only company currently making an operating system that will only run on its own proprietary hardware (although it's Intel who provides the CPUs now to Apple). Dell, HP, Acer, and a whole bunch of others clone the 'open' PC technology, thus paving the way for more products, better prices and more selection. Microsoft, the maker of the PC operating system dominating the market, is readily compatible with these manufacturers' offerings, although there's more support for Linux-based OS's now. And speaking of the 10% Apple market share, the peripheral support market share closely follows that too, but maybe more like 15-20%, thus limiting product selections.

Customer support is hit or miss with either manufacturer. It may depend on who you draw on the other end of the phone or at the store. I've talked to Apple Store employees who were about as knowledgeable as their Best Buy counterparts, and their interpersonal skills are about the same. You should focus on the warranty instead. Neither Mac nor PC has an indestructible CONSUMER product for your use (I am alluding to the MilSpec arena = $$$$$ yes up to 5-figures), and you probably wouldn't want one anyway.

Apple's marketing strategy has been to cater to the crowd that wants to be different from conformity, almost to an elitist level. While this has also lead to the price-dictates-quality mantra, do you really get what you pay for though? I've got a MacBook Pro that was given to me by my last employer, but I preferred my Lenovo over it because I could do so much more 'real-world' work on it than the Mac. I can edit movies, photos and music with the best of any Mac program out there (I grew up with SAWplus and ProTools), so don't believe the hype when everyone says Macs are better than PCs for the arts. Not so much anymore.

You have to ask yourself, why are Macs so expensive anyway? Their internals are that of a PC now more than ever. In fact, I can show you how to put a Mac OS on a PC desktop, so is it the OS? Is it the simplistic nature of MacOS? Have you tried Windows 7 yet? Windows 8 is even better and it will be here soon! $50 for an OS upgrade, but is it really an upgrade when it should've been a Service Pack release, like Microsoft issues out for FREE? Aesthetics maybe? I guess when it comes down to it, one MacBook Pro/Air now will equate to 2 or 3 cheap PC laptops, but all in the same 5 year span, right? But each successive PC laptop will outperform the previous laptop it replaces, which the original one will have been directly competing against the aging MacBook Pro/Air, right?

PC = most compatible, cheap to own
Apple = stylish, high entry price
Linux = gaining ground, but for advanced users; same price as PC, maybe cheaper