Mac versus PC

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avarice08

avarice08

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Rob
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Hi All,

Like to get some opinions from the guys on here. I'm looking to upgrade my tired PC pretty soon, but I recently tried a friends iMac and quite liked it.

How do you guys rate the Ma versus the PC? Want to look at this on 2 levels...

1. Purely from a photo editing, storage etc point of view.

2. Everyday browsing, software, hardware point of view.

Cheers

Rob
 
avarice08 said:
Hi All,

How do you guys rate the Ma versus the PC? Want to look at this on 2 levels...

1. Purely from a photo editing, storage etc point of view.

2. Everyday browsing, software, hardware point of view.
Click to expand...

I use it a basic Macbook together with Photoshop, Lightroom and I also have a copy of Aperture on it, and I have no issue at all. I'll let others talk in more depth regarding editing.

As far as everyday living with a Mac I switched over just over a year ago, and have had no issues with it whatsoever once I got used to the Mac system (buttons in different places, different ways of doing things).

I find it 100% reliable, fast in use and everything but one thing I have ever plugged into it has been recognised instantly.

Personally so long as it works and is easy to use, I don't care if it's a Mac or a PC, at this stage in my life I like Mac :)
 
I have a mac and for picture editing it is perfect, imacs are very good mainly due to the amazing screen they have. Macs are also very good for general use as I find mine very quick especially coming from an old windows laptop...

I am sure some will disagree but its your choice, if you live near a apple store its worth going to have a look as you are able to have a play with the various macs and the staff know their stuff.
 
Hi :)

1. Purely from a photo editing, storage etc point of view.

Whatever you can do on a PC, you can do on a Mac. All the major photo editing applications are available on both platforms, just as each platform has it's own exclusives.

Storage - external hard drives will work fine, and all Macs that come with an optical drive have the ability to write to at least DVD!

2. Everyday browsing, software, hardware point of view.

Browsing - You have Safari, Firefox... and most of the other major browsers, and I've not come across a plugin yet that isn't compatible!

Software - Again, a massive choice, free programs aren't full of bloat.. Cyberduck as an ftp client for example. It just does the job it needs to do!

Hardware - Unless you are looking to build your own PC, then you will not notice the difference. Pretty much all hardware that you will ever use will work on both systems these days. From 3G/mobile broadband dongles through to printers and scanners!

This is from a Mac and PC user.

The only real difference in terms of usability is how each operating system works. They both have their pros and cons! Try and play around with your friends Mac a bit more and see if you grow into it!
 
in fact im going to elaborate on the banging of the head just because the sheer inaccuracy of that post annoyed me (sad i know)..

macs more reliable? no. no virus problems? yes and no, there have been a couple of small security flaws but like windows they get fixed in patches etc. faster? no.

as both plaforms are intel based now the only difference between mac and pc is the operating system. which is completely personal preference. they both do the same job, have the same sort of reliabilty with the same sort of performance.

for the record apple dont "make" the hardware any more than dell, hp, sony etc do.

bottom line is both do the same job but in different laid out ways. best bet is to go and try both OSX and Windows 7 and judge for yourself how you like the layouts and feel of the O/S. personally i support both platforms at work and wouldnt say 1 has any advantage over the other.
 
justinmoir said:
There is only 1 option!
Mac all the way!
Would chop off body parts before using a PC again!

So much more reliable, no Virus problems, smoother and faster!
Because Apple make the hardware and the software, they just all work together!

J

www.justinmoirphotography.co.uk
Click to expand...

deluded much ? you dont work in the IT industry i take it ?

anyway, to the OP - anything you can do on a Mac you can do on a PC. plus it's easier to upgrade hardware etc on a PC for future use.
i've had several PC's and several Macs - I've never really seen the reason why people switch as there's nothing on the Mac side that is worth moving for imho.
 
I use Both, my Custom Built PC is 1000000times more powerful then anyone's mac here...

But i love using my Mac for the build quality and the battery life...

If you have the money, get a mac, if not, get CUSTOM built computer, nothing worse than a PC from Dell or HP, they fill it with cheap parts and worst of all, its full of crap and pre-installed rubbish!
 
I have come over to Mac in the last year when I bought a macbook pro and I must say I have never looked back.
Was a bit concerned at first that a lot of small free programs you find on windows I might not be able to get for mac,but the mac has a whole host of free software developers which are just as good to.
Plus you can always run boot camp and use windows if you needed to (i haven't found the need to)
 
Hey Rob,

That's a highly emotive subject!

I think it's fair to say that either will suit your needs admirably.

If you have money invested in software or are particularly savvy with one or the other, it makes little sense to switch. However, if you are a light user and don't own much software, you are free to choose.

My sister-in-law holds down a highly paid job and always struggles with our macs. She says she hates them, but I know I feel the same about PC's when I have to use one. In either case, it's just lack of familiarity.

But do try to avoid something that is cheap because it is out of date before you start. You may find a PC offered more cheaply for that reason. Most macs generally start from a pretty reasonable specification which means they do tend to start at a higher initial cost.

Sometimes too much choice can be a nightmare and identifying a good PC is always tricky. You really should understand what you are buying and buy wisely. With a mac, you have an incredibly narrow choice. That does take some of the guesswork out of it.

If you do give a mac a go, you may find it worth slightly more when and if you come to sell it. No computer will hold it's value well over time, but there does seem to be slightly more demand for a mac. And you don't have to stress over viruses which is a refreshing change.

Good luck.
Graham
 
Can we pick five topics and whenever anyone posts one of them we just merge it into the existing thread. We can make it a sticky too but stuck to the END of the thread list.

Do a search, we are bored with this.
 
thehitmen said:
I use Both, my Custom Built PC is 1000000times more powerful then anyone's mac here...

But i love using my Mac for the build quality and the battery life...

If you have the money, get a mac, if not, get CUSTOM built computer, nothing worse than a PC from Dell or HP, they fill it with cheap parts and worst of all, its full of crap and pre-installed rubbish!
Click to expand...
my Lenovo out performs and out lasts most Mac laptops. the build quality on Mac laptops aren't anything to shout about either (hinges breaking, discolouration, heat distortion etc etc). Mac hardware isn't a haven from the usual pitfalls of modern computing, no matter what people have told you. Mac hardware will fail just as bad as any other manufacturers kit. cheap Dell's aren't that bad - have you used one ? i have quite a few in our office, and i get more problems with the 2 Mac's than i do with the PC equipment.

most of the parts that are sat in your overpriced MBP's are the same as those found in some of the cheap laptops from Dell/HP. you can pay for a Mac, but that doesn't get you any better hardware... what are you basing this on ?
RBHD1 said:
I have come over to Mac in the last year when I bought a macbook pro and I must say I have never looked back.
Was a bit concerned at first that a lot of small free programs you find on windows I might not be able to get for mac,but the mac has a whole host of free software developers which are just as good to.
Plus you can always run boot camp and use windows if you needed to (i haven't found the need to)
Click to expand...
i always find it amusing that people say they switch to Mac's to "get away from Microsoft and Intel" but lookie here - hardware by Intel... and the ability to run Windows. and then people actually suggesting you run Windows on it. that's known as "contraction" :p
 
cowasaki said:
Can we pick five topics and whenever anyone posts one of them we just merge it into the existing thread. We can make it a sticky too but stuck to the END of the thread list.

Do a search, we are bored with this.
Click to expand...

You aren't forced to read the thread Cowasaki.....

Thanks to all the other posters...several points raised so far that I hadn't considered.


Cheers

Rob
 
avarice08 said:
You aren't forced to read the thread Cowasaki.....

Thanks to all the other posters...several points raised so far that I hadn't considered.


Cheers

Rob
Click to expand...


The point is that this same question comes up every other week so a quick search would have answered it. Some of us have spent a lot of time giving a reasoned and detailed answer to the question before.
 
cowasaki said:
The point is that this same question comes up every other week so a quick search would have answered it. Some of us have spent a lot of time giving a reasoned and detailed answer to the question before.
Click to expand...

I appreciate that....but there may be people that haven't answered before for whatever reason, and have felt the courtesy to offer some time and advice now, which has been appreciated.

I will review previous threads for more info, thanks for the tip.;)

Cheers

Rob
 
I'm no computer expert and the the thought of moving to a new operating system at the time for me was a big step!! One of the main reasons I made the move was I always had the reassurance that I could still run windows if the move to mac didn't work out.
 
recrudesce said:
my Lenovo out performs and out lasts most Mac laptops. the build quality on Mac laptops aren't anything to shout about either (hinges breaking, discolouration, heat distortion etc etc). Mac hardware isn't a haven from the usual pitfalls of modern computing, no matter what people
Click to expand...

Hmmm, yeah right... (y)

My IBM laptop battery lasts approximately 14 minutes. My Macbook battery lasts just over 4 hours....

Go figure ;)
 
wibbly said:
Hmmm, yeah right... (y)

My IBM laptop battery lasts approximately 14 minutes. My Macbook battery lasts just over 4 hours....

Go figure ;)
Click to expand...

same age ?
same amount of use ?
same duration of charge ?

apples, oranges...
 
recrudesce said:
apples, oranges...
Click to expand...

Absolutely not, you wouldn't want me to be fair about it would you being a Mac user :LOL:

But I will say this, from sleep I am up and online and downloading emails in less than 30 seconds on my Mac and I have never had that on a PC, nor have I ever seen battery life of more than 2 and a half hours even on a brand new laptop ;)

I will concede *** that a PC does some things better than a Mac and vice versa :)
 
I moved over from PC based machines going back to 1981 to Mac in April having used a friends helping him with Photoshop & Lightroom. I have to say I really haven't looked back since & within a few weeks of the IMac bought a MacBook, which again has surviced me well at sea for 6 weeks , USA & OZ being light and excellent battery life. Just passed the IMAc to son at Uni & bought the new i7 which is awesome. The new 27" screen with the extra resolution is magic for Photoshop & LightRoom.

It has a few querks but there are 3rd party software to sort that often either freeware or very cheap shareware such as ScreenSahde to get that extra for monitor calibration or Snow Leopard Cache Clearner as a utilities programme & another is NFTS for writing to NTFS drive as well a reading only which is default.

I have to admit there are a few programmes which I need a Microsoft based system like Solid Works but WMware Fusion 3 & Windows 7 (now) have fixed.

My vote definately Apple now
 
Hi,

I can give you my view (based on 10yrs working with pc's , repairing etc) and i think that the mac is the way forward.

I have just bought my new 27" imac and it is stunning. Its mega fast, never crashes, never lags, never has virus's, never has silly popups.

I can do ANYTHING on my imac that i could do on windows so whats the point in having an inferior operating system??

Get a mac and you will soon start to actually enjoy computing again.

Matt
 
cloudhunter said:
Hi,

I can give you my view (based on 10yrs working with pc's , repairing etc) and i think that the mac is the way forward.

I have just bought my new 27" imac and it is stunning. Its mega fast, never crashes, never lags, never has virus's, never has silly popups.

I can do ANYTHING on my imac that i could do on windows so whats the point in having an inferior operating system??

Get a mac and you will soon start to actually enjoy computing again.

Matt
Click to expand...

Did you read through this thread before posting...?
 
wibbly said:
from sleep I am up and online and downloading emails in less than 30 seconds on my Mac and I have never had that on a PC, nor have I ever seen battery life of more than 2 and a half hours even on a brand new laptop ;)
Click to expand...

my dell lat' e6500 can come out of hibernate just as quick and battery life is approx 4hrs (load depending obviously).

what do i win?
 
Mac all the way here, run Mac Pro's x 2 without any issues at all. 2 x Macbook Pro (battery life is amazing - far superior to any pc laptop I have ever owned) and an IMac.

Some people love Macs, some hate them. As far as I am concerned Macs are exactly what I need and do what I want them to fast and efficiently. I will never go back to PC's again.

In my opinion (that counts for very little) windows operating system is as bad as it gets :D Macs work without any major or minor hiccups, windows based pc's and laptops are just pants in comparison :LOL:
 
neil_g said:
what do i win?
Click to expand...

My thanks for recomending me my next work PC, never again will I now never have to sit in an airport wondering if I have enough charge to boot my laptop to check emails. :D :cool:
 
to the OP - my advise to you would be to skip with all the fanboy BS that goes on around this topic (on both sides) and get out there and try both platforms in the way you want to use them. BOTH platforms crash, if youve never seen a mac crash then you havent been pushing it hard enough. at work we have 2 floors PC and 1 floor mac and we get just as many mac IT support (ive been doing this for 10/11 years now (i hate dropping that in, but some people think it makes their opinion fact)) calls. both of the new O/S from either vendors are impressive to work with OSX10.6 is very slick but we've had a few compatibility issues on our network, with some software and with a few printers. windows 7 is basically the speed (if not faster) of XP with the looks of vista.

you pays your money you takes your choice..

on that note im off to bed.
 
I would suggest the OP did a search before starting this pointless and meaningless debate again. It’s been covered here more times than you can point a stick at.
 
wibbly said:
My thanks for recomending me my next work PC, never again will I now never have to sit in an airport wondering if I have enough charge to boot my laptop to check emails. :D :cool:
Click to expand...

Why would you boot your laptop to check emails?

That's what a smartphone's for...

I can get full Outlook (Not OWA) on a smartphone wherever I get a signal, be it Windows Mobile, iPhone or Android.

I can even get a Windows desktop on it, if I wanted to ;)

But we digress.

To the OP
Buy whichever system, Mac or PC, that makes you happy, it's a personal thing, like Marmite, so choose your weapon, and avoid getting embroiled in these types of threads....
 
2blue4u in January 2008 said:
Oh no - not another of these freds... :D

I've been using PCs since the boy gates was in nappies. But nearly three five years ago I bought an imac. I'm on my second third and have just upgraded the OS to Snow Leopard.

The decision is rather like deciding whether to bat first if you win the toss. Weigh up all the facts. Consider everything, the pitch, weather conditions, weather forecast, humidity, what the groundsman has told you, the form of your opening bowlers, the form of your opening batsmen, the opposition and their strengths - consider absolutely everything. Then stop being stupid and opt to bat! It's the same with this decision. Consider absolutely everything - then buy a mac. :clap:
Click to expand...
 
This subject always touches a nerve. I have experience of PCs starting back when they weren't really PCs at all and were running CP/M. I have to say it's unlikely I'll ever buy a PC laptop again, for two reasons. [I may build a PC desktop again one day, but I'm in no hurry. You can't self-build a Mac.]

Firstly, I find OSX to be a far better OS than any Windows up to Vista (no need for me to buy 7 so I wouldn't know about it). I have grown to loathe Windows, particularly for its insistence on rebooting itself. OSX gently reminds you it has updates but wouldn't dare to reboot without authorisation. Apple spend a lot of time making sure the OS is intuitive and elegant in a way Windows never has been. I wonder why I spent hours wrestling with driver conflicts, DLL hell, and all the other grit in the Windows machine when I could simply have been actually doing something useful on a Mac. I've had the little MacBook white for over a year now, and NOTHING has ever gone wrong, no crashes, no bugs, nothing. Productivity is much better. As someone mentioned, when you open the lid it wakes up in the blink of an eye right where you left off. Up to Vista, to wake up a PC laptop MS made you press a button to wake the PC up, the click the username (even if only one user was logged on), then in my experience wait ages whilst the hard drive did its thing, eventually getting you up and running. Thank you Apple. :clap:

Secondly, the Apple hardware is ergonomically superb, better than any PC I've ever owned. The use of magnets for the lid and power cable for instance are ergonomic delights. Of course under the skin it's all generic, but I've never had a PC with the ergonomic quality of the Mac. Again, Apple spend a lot of time and money on this stuff and it shows. I suppose someone like Sony try and make PCs with a bit more thought, but they don't come close.

So, in summary, it's highly unlikely I will ever buy another PC laptop. The only reason not to buy Apple is if you can't afford it. If you can't, just buy a PC, it will do what you want. But if you can, you will be in no doubt as to where the extra money has gone - there's more to an enjoyable computing experience than simple specifications.

Hope this helps.
 
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