pros and cons of PC v apple mac..

grudie said:
apple displays whether on an imac or a stand alone take some beating imo and i struggle with a pc display for photos
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Buy a better display then ;) unless you mean a laptop. The iMac displays are only IPS monitors and you can get them for PCs... Plus the ones I have aren't glossy (so no reflections to fight against).
 
*walks in*

*reads...

grudie said:
if you want to switch it on and it just works then buy a mac quicker / more intuitive / just better ....however once you are bitten by the apple bug it will get expensive

in our hotels we use macs but our accounts are done on a pc as no sage support and i dont like windows on a mac ...if you have a specific software app that you need to use check for mac support first

apple displays whether on an imac or a stand alone take some beating imo and i struggle with a pc display for photos

i still use a pc for gaming as there are very few games i want to play on a mac but now that steam is mac supported perhaps that will change!

and dont forget too no native blu ray support for macs
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*walks out*
 
grudie said:
if you want to switch it on and it just works then buy a mac quicker / more intuitive / just better ....however once you are bitten by the apple bug it will get expensive

in our hotels we use macs but our accounts are done on a pc as no sage support and i dont like windows on a mac ...if you have a specific software app that you need to use check for mac support first

apple displays whether on an imac or a stand alone take some beating imo and i struggle with a pc display for photos

i still use a pc for gaming as there are very few games i want to play on a mac but now that steam is mac supported perhaps that will change!

and dont forget too no native blu ray support for macs
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best post in this thread by a mile

:D
 
i use both without issue
i sit behind a PC at work with a horrible little screen :puke:
i use a windows laptop at home which has been really good over the last 4 years. only just got it back from having a new HD
plus now my main home computer is an oldschool (late 2005) Powermac G5
the last of the true macs (powerPC)
i love using my mac because its certainly fast enough with 8gb of RAM (half what i could put in there) & the 23inch cinema display is a joy to look at :love:

macs have been intel based since 2006 anyway so they are not so far removed from their microsoft cousins anyhow

in my experience they both work pretty much as well as each other but the macs just look so good. if it didn't work as well as it looked you would almost think them guilty of form over function:LOL:

in fact my G5 looks awesome with the side cover off with the big cowling over the CPU cores having a shiny chrome G5 logo :cool:
they didn't need to make it look so good inside but they did (y)

its the little things that set macs apart like the pressure it takes to move a screen. eg my cinema display can be moved with almost no effort yet it satay where you set it. also try opening a macbook. push the release, lift the lid, the lid opens fluidly & the keyboard stays sat on the desk. one handed, nice & smooth. try the same with most laptops, flick the release & lift the whole thing up! use your other hand to hold the base down etc

its little touches like that, things you take for granted that all add up to make ownership nicer. its a fully designed product rather than just a utilitarian box :)

simple answer is they both work for their intended purpose but you may have to pay a bit more money if you want it to work slightly differently & to look nice :LOL:

maintenance for either isn't a problem for me as i got a buddy who fixes PC's & the mrs is a certified mac technician/engineer (y)
 
i'm currently using a 5yr old vaio which at the time had a fairly decent spec when i purchased it - 1.83ghz processor, 2gb ram and a 200gb hd (which is only 50% full) i also use an external hd where i dump most of my bigger files. of late it has started to slow down. i have always had anti-virus software installed (kaspersky) i don't download just anything and for the life of me i cant understand why it is starting to freeze and at times slow down.

getting into photography and wanting to develop my pp skills and with my current pc giving me issues i started looking around for a new machine.

i've spec'd a 17" mbp with a 2.3ghz processor, 8gb and 500gig 7200rpm hd however, at the moment i am holding off making the purchase don't know why maybe part of me thinks it is a lot of £££ for say a similarly priced vaio or the like.

reading this thread a lot of members have raised some very interesting points i.e maintenance of the machine etc. maybe i represent the average customer that apple gets who is having trouble with his pc, enquires about an apple and is told that for graphics etc. apples are the best machines.

maybe i should first invest a bit more time into understanding my current machine beter and keeping it in good condition but then again some friends who are I.T guys say that overall an apple is the best bet.
 
1.2f said:
i'm currently using a 5yr old vaio which at the time had a fairly decent spec when i purchased it - 1.83ghz processor, 2gb ram and a 200gb hd (which is only 50% full) i also use an external hd where i dump most of my bigger files. of late it has started to slow down. i have always had anti-virus software installed (kaspersky) i don't download just anything and for the life of me i cant understand why it is starting to freeze and at times slow down.
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You've probably answered your own question there. You have anti-virus software on it.
 
onomatopoeia said:
You've probably answered your own question there. You have anti-virus software on it.
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having the anti-virus software has enabled me to have 5 yrs trouble free computing. when i didnt have any anti-virus software installed on a previous machine it was compromised and it was never right again.
 
neil_g said:
i dont know what footprint kapersky has but GOOD av shouldnt have any noticable performance hit.
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Kaspersky is getting more bloated since 2011. I used to experience random freezing, was much improved when I switched to MSE.
 
neil_g said:
i dont know what footprint kapersky has but GOOD av shouldnt have any noticable performance hit.
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Well, to be fair I've not tried that one. Avast and AVG do cause one, as do Norton and PC Tools (long time since I used that particular one though).

You get fed up after a while, or at least I do.
 
Avast always annoyed me due to speed (which was noticable on the P4 3GHz I had at the time), due to the default of announcing that it the "virus database has been updated" in a US accent and due to actually letting the only virus infection I've ever had on to my computer.

It told me it had blocked it, but in fact it hadn't. Excellent.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Avast always annoyed me due to speed (which was noticable on the P4 3GHz I had at the time), due to the default of announcing that it the "virus database has been updated" in a US accent and due to actually letting the only virus infection I've ever had on to my computer.

It told me it had blocked it, but in fact it hadn't. Excellent.
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you can turn that announcement off. i wont comment on your infection though, there could have been many reasons why it got through.

but anyway, youll need it on a mac too soon what with malware starting to rear its head (opens can-o-worms) ;) we've already started looking at extending our enterprise AV licencing onto our macs at work..
 
neil_g said:
you can turn that announcement off. i wont comment on your infection though, there could have been many reasons why it got through.
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I know you can turn it off - I did. The infection was good-old "MS Anti Spyware" via a javascript exploit on an apparently legit driver download site when I was trying to find a driver for a long since discontinued printer. My fault, I had forgotten to disable client-side scripting after turning it on to use my online banking.

Lets say the whole experience did not improve my opinion of AV software or of client side scripting.

Nowadays I use FF+noscript and only allow a very limited number of sites to run scripts.
 
what you whinging about then ;)

interesting, its always been spot on for picking up those sites with the fake malware popups combined with FF. one or the other stops them dead.

anyway, wandering off topic and we both clearly have different opinions that arent going to budge :)
 
neil_g said:
i installed windows 7 on my desktop about a year ago, i havent ever "tweeked" anything, done a defrag, a registry "clean" or malware check and its still fresh as a daisy.
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Neither have I. My server (running XP) has been up for over 100 days (and it only went off due to a powercut) and half the time I forget it's even there at all.

My Windows 7 laptop and work PC never give me any trouble and my ~5 year old Windows XP laptop that I have just retired has given me hardly any trouble outside of one or two messy situations that I've created myself, and one hard drive dying.

Most of the problems I see with PCs in my job are indeed people who feel the need to run 300 "clean up" apps or people who are just to stupid they are beyond help...


joescrivens said:
im talking about the cr@pware like we were discussing before, why is there so much more cr@pware in the free and shareware windows apps than there is in mac osx apps
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It's a matter of making money and advertising. Apple won't allow any of that crap which is why the out of box Apple experience is much nicer than it is on a PC.

Whenever we get a new PC in I make it my personal mission to get all that shart off it. No such trouble on a Mac... but you do pay a premium for having a better experience on the get go.
 
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Never had an issue with PC's, have used a few macs, and they look pretty and work nice but cant justify the price difference. I do however build my own machines and I put in the components I want. So I know Im building a reliable machine.
As for macs being really fast.. I run an i7 @ 4ghz with twin ssd's and a 12gb ram on windows 7 ultimate 64bit for a year, no freezes or crashes.
I havent come across a imac 27" which some of my friends use that come close to its performance. And if I do in future, i'll upgrade mine at half the cost :p
 
I use all three main OSes and to be honest they all have their uses.

My Linux server has been up and running for 457 days without issues although my Mac Pro is now running Lion Server so the linux machine will eventually stop.

I use the MacOS machine as a main machine for most things but I have a Windows7 machine in the workshop running Eagle CAD, Atmel's software and a few other things.

Each to their own. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.


As for the price thing, this is getting MUCH closer as time goes on. If you look at the Macbook Air then the windows builders cannot compete on price and have complained to intel in relation to that. This has happened before - the original mac pro for example would cost more to buy the components than apple were selling it for!

I find that most Apple machines do have a premium over the equivalent quality windows machine but then they will hold that value too. If you are buying a medium to high end machine then the cost of ownership is not that different but there are no low end machines really so if you have £400 then there isn't really a choice.

You do get the arguments about the desktop machines particularly the mac pro and it can be hard to justify the difference in price between them and building a windows machine. Graphics cards tend to be a generation behind but that isn't often a problem unless you are playing games. There are a lot of pluses to them but I do miss the ability to upgrade as I go which is what happened with windows.
 
@cowasaki... That fence you're sitting on appears to have a nice wide seat ;) :D
 
It should be, neither one is "better" just better in certain circumstances. For a home machine for email, word, excel, browsing etc then macos is better IMO simply because of the lack of malware. The only real malware issue that has cone up at all are a few Trojans all of which have been killed off within hours by a quick and automatic software update but even these only affected people downloading hooky software. Saying that though if you use a windows machine for the same and you don't fall for one of those download this it's great links then your pretty safe with W7.

Certain software is available only under windows but it is getting rarer all the time such as atmels studio software so in reality you can just get either. They both talk to each other and most peripherals work with either.

I use all three but prefer macos personally.
 
tee_tee said:
As for macs being really fast.. I run an i7 @ 4ghz with twin ssd's and a 12gb ram on windows 7 ultimate 64bit for a year, no freezes or crashes.
I havent come across a imac 27" which some of my friends use that come close to its performance. And if I do in future, i'll upgrade mine at half the cost :p
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An iMac isn't supposed to be a performance machine though. A 12 core mac pro with 64gb of ram and quad SSDs raided might just shade it. Might need a remorgage to pay for it though!

Most computers spend most of their time waiting for the next input though. Unless it feels slow it's quick enough.
 
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