pros and cons of PC v apple mac..

[Mark_C]

I am a long time PC user. I've owned countless Windows based desktop PC's and laptops, from Windows 3.1 all the way to Windows 7. I was always one for getting most bang for buck, so to go to a Mac system was sort of contradictory to my beliefs!

I bought a Macbook Pro due to the ability to switch from one OS X to Windows 7 natively, or run both, with Windows 7 being virtualised. There are aspects of both operating systems that may appeal.

The other reasons I purchased are because of the solid & sleek design, decent battery life, decent screen and the absolutely magnificent trackpad, I really don't think there's any laptop out there that comes close to the one that ships with Macbook Pro's, they have to be used to really grasp how good they are. When you're on the move, the trackpad makes life so much easier, I would also go as far to say that they're a viable permanent replacement for a mouse, rather than a quick workaround like on most laptops.

There are many things in OS X which I really wished were included in Windows 7, such as spaces, it's great being able to have multiple desktops and run whatever you want within them, it helps remove clutter. Linux distros have had this a capability for some time but I do think Apple has implemented this down to a fine art, everything feels so polished. I think this is one of the reasons why I could never let go of OS X and go back to a completely Windows 7 based system again.

As has been suggested here, I would go to an Apple store and see for yourself whether it's for you or not.

What I do think will put a lot of people off is the price tag. I do think Apple need to review their overinflated prices.

 

[arad85]

There are many things in OS X which I really wished were included in Windows 7, such as spaces, it's great being able to have multiple desktops and run whatever you want within them, it helps remove clutter. Linux distros have had this a capability for some time but I do think Apple has implemented this down to a fine art, everything feels so polished. I think this is one of the reasons why I could never let go of OS X and go back to a completely Windows 7 based system again.

You can get (free) software to do this on Windows.

I use VirtuaWin (http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/) but also have tried Dexpot which is quite good http://www.dexpot.de/index.php?lang=en

I haven't yet come across anything which is available on the Mac which doesn't have a counterpart on Windows (some paid, some free). Even the oft mentioned Time Machine has a similar app on Windows (http://www.genie9.com/business/genie_timeline_pro/overview.aspx).

 

[WillW]

true, support is a bit of a minefield.

a lot of people say to get applecare for macs when you buy them but most neglect to upgrade the support on a cheap windows machine. in my opinion the dell upgraded support is great and is worth the money in the same way that applecare would be.

Bah, I hate all upgraded support.

With the exception of accidental damage, (which is your fault obviously), both Dell and Apple have a legal responsibility to fix any hardware faults for several years - regardless of warranty and support packages.

Not buying warranty is how I made Dell give me a decent M15x for free.

 

[Craikeybaby]

true, support is a bit of a minefield.

a lot of people say to get applecare for macs when you buy them but most neglect to upgrade the support on a cheap windows machine. in my opinion the dell upgraded support is great and is worth the money in the same way that applecare would be.

I think my experiences with HP are particularly bad, but I was just using the standard Apple support, I'm yet to decide if I'm going to fork out for Applecare on my new machine.

 

[mattyb]

A guy I work with has a Mac, likes it enough, but doesn't think the OS adds enough goodness to justify the price premium. So, his next laptop will be a PC. (sorry it's a bit of a 'bloke down the pub' anecdote),

No mate thats grand, must admit my desktop will remain a home built PC as the price premium to similar spec mac pro is huge and I don't think the OS justifies the difference, it's enough to pay for another motorbike

I went from a pc to an intel iMac back to a pc. Neither are perfect, but the pc is easier to fix.

Didn't meant to ignore your post, thats a perfectly good reason to prefer other brand PC to Apple kit. I should have said "anyone else".

My point wasn't necessarily pro apple (although I probably sound that way), was more that most negative stuff about Apple comes from people who don't use it. Sure there are genuine downsides, but they can be hard to find out about against the background noise.

 

[strobemonkey]

I prefer PC, as I can get loads of softwares for it, and do what I want.

 

[timmygcsc2308]

I just dont get why people complain about windows and that it freezes ..cant remember when my froze...no viruses either...

yep, agreed, Windows 7 x64 Enterprise with an SSD - solid as a rock 1.5 years in fast as the day I built it. There are two issue SO many PC users will come across
1) There are viruses out there, much more than there is for a mac - however I run with no AV or anti malware software and now and again I scan my PC using online tools and malwarebytes, always clean - just remember the basic rules of not opening dodgy attachments, opening files you're not sure about etc. sure that's easy for me to say being an IT engineer but 95% of the time it's common sense
2) I think you'll find many of the Windows 'issues' come down to the amount of preloaded carp most OEM sellers insist on shipping with their machines, Dell are notoriously bad and I've best easily 2 hours removing their rubbish from a new laptop. For instance they load a trial version of Norton out the box, it expires so unwitting user loads another AV product like AVG free without removing Norton...you're asking for trouble. There are ridiculously unneeded programs installed like 'network managers' and 'power managers'..WHY?! Windows 7 can do it all and it can do it very well, you introduce external software that messes with it it's going to muck up.
My build was a fresh Windows 7 vanilla build and whilst XP was alright and Vista was a turkey, 7 is by far the best OS Microsoft have shipped.
I've used OSX a bit, I have an ipod touch 4g too so I'm not an apple hater, I just don't agree with people saying Windows is slow/buggy/full of viruses

 

[stan the man]

Hi guys,and thanks for all the feedback and help,very much appreciated.certainly lots to think about,but will visit an apple store within the next couple of weeks(nearest is in Cardiff,35miles away) to try them out,and decide from there.

I would use either for browsing the web,and processing/editing my images,and not a great deal else...apple also offer a service(can't remember it's name)where you take in your old PC/mac,and they transfer everything over to your new mac..would that include photoshop for example?

 

[big soft moose]

So out of interest, has anyone here brought a Mac and decided they didn't like it then gone back to Windows? Because those are the experiences that would be worth hearing.

Yes. I had an I mac (back when they were new) However i need to be able to transfer documents easily back and forwards betwen work and home and work is all PC - while you can save as compatible file at either end its easy to forget to do, and also it periodically screws up the document formatting.

so when the I mac became obsolete I bought a Pc instead - and i've just sayed with PCs since - I nearly went back to mac due to vista being such a heap of **** , but now that 7 is out and installed on my machines i'm happy with them.

that said I'm frequently quite tempted to bin windoze and do a linux and open office install - but then i'd be back to saving compatible files etc

 

[big soft moose]

)where you take in your old PC/mac,and they transfer everything over to your new mac..would that include photoshop for example?

no - its a transfer of data - files, photos, music etc they wont transfer software and it wouldnt run if they did.

 

[WillW]

1) There are viruses out there, much more than there is for a mac - however I run with no AV or anti malware software

That's just bad practice. You should always be using AV, regardless of how much of an "advanced user" you are.

 

[neil_g]

That's just bad practice. You should always be using AV, regardless of how much of an "advanced user" you are.

Agreed. It only takes one hijacked url... and Avast only uses a couple mb memory.

 

[arad85]

that said I'm frequently quite tempted to bin windoze and do a linux and open office install

I tried that. First file I opened the formatting was different to the Word version of the file.

 

[whiteflyer]

Just a bump on the costs of a PC "V' Mac, as Apple launched it's new OS yesterday OSX Lion i looked how much to upgrade both systems from the current (at time) OS to the latest.

Win7 upgrade from Vista £84
Lion from Snow Leopard £21

 

[arad85]

Just a bump on the costs of a PC "V' Mac, as Apple launched it's new OS yesterday OSX Lion i looked how much to upgrade both systems from the current (at time) OS to the latest.

Win7 upgrade from Vista £84
Lion from Snow Leopard £21

Except each "upgrade" comes from Apple every 2 years - approximately. From M$, apart from the abomination that was Vista, you're looking at one every 4 years on average (5.5 years XP->Vista). We'll see when Win 8 is released, what features it has and what the takeup is like, but I suspect I'll be running Win 7 for some time to come...

 

[WillW]

Except each "upgrade" comes from Apple every 2 years - approximately. From M$, apart from the abomination that was Vista, you're looking at one every 4 years on average (5.5 years XP->Vista). We'll see when Win 8 is released, what features it has and what the takeup is like, but I suspect I'll be running Win 7 for some time to come...

Vista - 2007
7 - 2009

Windows 95 - 1995
Windows 98 - 1998
Windows ME- 2000
Windows XP - 2001

Windows 8 ... 2012?
How did you get to a 4 year average? Vista is the exception, otherwise the OS's get released fairly promptly.

On Average Mac releases every 2 years, but you can't say Windows updates are "More", or "Worth more" etc, it's just they price them more.

 

[onomatopoeia]

So out of interest, has anyone here brought a Mac and decided they didn't like it then gone back to Windows? Because those are the experiences that would be worth hearing.

Yes, me. I'm going to treat the original question as "OSX or Windows" rather than "Mac or PC", since these days Macs are basically less expandable PCs in nicer boxes, able to run OSX.

I bought a Mac mini when the iphone 3G came out (I bought one of those as well). This was not a co-incidence, to develop iphone applications you must use a Mac. It didn't like that my network wasn't running a DHCP server, but once I assigned it a (routeable - it seemed to want an RFC1918 address at first) static IP address it proceeded to download loads of updates, just like Windows.

I then installed xcode, required by the iphone SDK which in turn triggered another OS upgrade, but once I'd fought through the updates and reboots it started working - very like Windows so far

Being used to systems admin work on linux systems the shell didn't phase me. I didn't find the windowing interface at all intuitive, having the application specific menu bar at the top of the screen rather than the top of the application window was not something I like.

It worked as a computer, just like a PC running Windows works as a computer. I stuck with it for about three months, but didn't get on with the windowing part OS at all, nor with xcode (as a development environment, it's like driving needles into your eyes) and finally flattened it, wiping the disk and replacing it with Windows 7 (not dual boot, OSX was entirely expunged). The Mac now lives in the lounge under the TV as a media PC, as it is small and quiet.

I guess it's not a "Mac" now, since it doesn't have OSX on it .

There are two reasons to pay the price premium that a Mac PC attracts over other PCs - the ability to use OSX and that they come in nice boxes. OSX did not impress me as any sort of improvement over Windows and for a home office computer it being in a nice box isn't enough of a reason for the price premium over a home built PC running Windows or Debian.

For a media computer, the form factor and noise levels of a Mac mini is hard to beat in my experience though, at least with Windows installed.

 

[arad85]

Vista - 2007
7 - 2009

Windows 95 - 1995
Windows 98 - 1998
Windows ME- 2000
Windows XP - 2001

Windows 8 ... 2012?
How did you get to a 4 year average? Vista is the exception, otherwise the OS's get released fairly promptly.

I discounted anything before XP as they aren't based on the same technology (and I only looked back 3 or 4 releases from Apple to be fair). Win 8 is "scheduled for release in late 2012" which means 2013 in reality, so you have:

XP - 2001
Vista - 2007
7 - 2009
8 - 2013

or 4 OS in 12 years - which is 4 years on average You could, in fact, look at it that Vista was 2 years late rather than saying only 2 years between Vista and 7.

On Average Mac releases every 2 years, but you can't say Windows updates are "More", or "Worth more" etc, it's just they price them more.

And you can get even more frequent (complete with buggy UI) OS releases on a far more regular basis for free. Just buy a PC and run Linux on it....

 

[arad85]

For a media computer, the form factor and noise levels of a Mac mini is hard to beat in my experience though, at least with Windows installed.

Atom/Nvidia ION running linux/xbmc off an SSD is pretty good - and certainly a lot cheaper...

(have to say my experience of the Apple UI is just as you had though - I don't like the app menu bar at the top either)

 

[onomatopoeia]

Vista - 2007
7 - 2009

Windows 95 - 1995
Windows 98 - 1998
Windows ME- 2000
Windows XP - 2001

Windows 8 ... 2012?
How did you get to a 4 year average? Vista is the exception, otherwise the OS's get released fairly promptly.

On Average Mac releases every 2 years, but you can't say Windows updates are "More", or "Worth more" etc, it's just they price them more.

You're quoting two separate OS development trees there, those based on the traditional DOS kernel (95,98,me) and those based on the NT kernel (XP, Vista, 7 etc).

Comparing the two MS OS trees is like comparing OS9 to OSX.

In 10 years there have been eight OSX versions.

In 18 years there have been eight Windows NT versions - 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 5.0 (2000), 5.1 (XP), 6.0 (Vista), 6.1 (7)


Until Windows 2000, the NT based OS were really not very good. 2000 was when it became useable.

 

[WillW]

And you can get even more frequent (complete with buggy UI) OS releases on a far more regular basis for free. Just buy a PC and run Linux on it....

What exactly is your point? You said "Except each "upgrade" comes from Apple every 2 years" - so what? MS being slower doesn't justify them charging £100 for the most basic edition.

My point is the release schedule isn't that important. How often you release something doesn't justify the price you charge for it.

The price difference between Mac and Windows - is a positive point for Macs, and a negative point for Windows. There is no "except MS is slower at bringing out updates", how does that justify it costing more?

The price difference is nothing to do with the release schedule.

 

[onomatopoeia]

Atom/Nvidia ION running linux/xbmc off an SSD is pretty good - and certainly a lot cheaper...

Had I not already had a redundant Mac mini I might have explored that option

 

[WillW]

You're quoting two separate OS development trees there, those based on the traditional DOS kernel (95,98,me) and those based on the NT kernel (XP, Vista, 7 etc).

Comparing the two MS OS trees is like comparing OS9 to OSX.

The point was release schedule, not comparing the OS's. It's perfectly legit to count all products when comparing the release schedule of Mac updates, compared to Windows updates.

It doesn't matter, it's not the point anyway.

MS charges extortionate fee's for each upgrade, whilst Apple's updates are a lot cheaper. The release schedule does not matter towards that point.

 

[arad85]

What do you mean aren't based on the same technology? ME and 2000 are the direct predecessors to XP.

I mean this (thank you onomatopoeia )...

You're quoting two separate OS development trees there, those based on the traditional DOS kernel (95,98,me) and those based on the NT kernel (XP, Vista, 7 etc).

Comparing the two MS OS trees is like comparing OS9 to OSX.

In 10 years there have been eight OSX versions.

In 18 years there have been eight Windows NT versions - 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 5.0 (2000), 5.1 (XP), 6.0 (Vista), 6.1 (7)


Until Windows 2000, the NT based OS were really not very good. 2000 was when it became useable.

What exactly is your point? You said "Except each "upgrade" comes from Apple every 2 years" - so what? MS being slower doesn't justify them charging £100 for the most basic edition.

My point is that just because you don't charge "much" for the OS doesn't automatically make it any better.
The release schedule isn't that important. How often you release something doesn't justify the price you charge for it.

The price difference between Mac and Windows - is a positive point for Macs, and a negative point for Windows. There is no "except MS is slower at bringing out updates", how does that justify it costing more?

The point I was making was that overall cost of OS ownership is probably about equal (especially as I was on XP until last year and I think my OEM copy of Win 7 Pro was £80 and this is the second computer I've used it on...)

The price difference is nothing to do with the release schedule.

Correct, nor the cost of producing that software.

BTW, if you were an early adopter, you could have got Win 7 upgrade for around £45 IIRC...

 

[WillW]

My point is that just because you don't charge "much" for the OS doesn't automatically make it any better.

Having a much cheaper release at £21 is a plus point for Macs. It doesn't make the OS itself better, it makes it cheaper to by.

Can you not see how a cheaper OS is a benefit to the user?

The point I was making was that overall cost of OS ownership is probably about equal (especially as I was on XP until last year and I think my OEM copy of Win 7 Pro was £80 and this is the second computer I've used it on...)

If you've bought the last few Mac upgrades, and the last few Windows upgrades, Mac will work out cheaper.

I'm not comparing the two OS's, or looking in depth at the features and technology, but Mac updates are cheaper.

This is a good thing for Macs. There isn't really any way round that....

 

[WillW]

BTW, if you were an early adopter, you could have got Win 7 upgrade for around £45 IIRC...

I think my upgrade copy cost £60.

If I had stolen it, I could have got it for free. Mac upgrades are still cheaper than Windows upgrades.

Most people would just go into a PC world and buy the first copy they saw, the general user price is the important bit.

 

[arad85]

but Mac updates are cheaper.

OK, to stop us going around in circles, add "and paid for copies come out more often" and I'll be happy.

This is a good thing for Macs. There isn't really any way round that....

As I said, if cost is the overriding factor, you'd go a different route - Linux.

TBH, this is kinda like comparing road tax categories when buying cars. It's the last thing on most peoples decision list....

 

[neil_g]

good lord..

anyway i think what i said in the thread about the new apple announcements stands:

"stands to reason the lower cost though, with higher hardware costs and closed hardware compatibility needing less development its always going to cost less than rival OS and hurt apples pockets less by reducing the cost."

you have to factor in the whole multi hardware platform that windows is developed for. that and bits that are in windows and not osx like blu-ray data support etc.

now, lets not get this thread locked for bickering shall we.

 

[WillW]

OK, to stop us going around in circles, add "and paid for copies come out more often" and I'll be happy. .

It's still cheaper. Stop trying to validate a useless argument.

 

[arad85]

It's still cheaper.

An individual purchase is cheaper, whether the cost of upgrades is cheaper over the lifetime of the box is not so clear.

In the grand scheme of these things, the cost of OS upgrades is not one that many people use as a up front purchase decision.

Stop trying to validate a useless argument.

Now stop stirring

 

[ptholt]

Just to add my two penneth (and normally to fan the flames) im a 20 year it consultant and have a house full of both macs and pcs.

Windows 7 is very nice, and on a new shiny machine is plenty quick especially when you factor in hardware costs, it does in my opinion slow down fairly quickly due to registry issues etc unless you spend decent money on specific hardware (then your approaching mac territory imo).

The macs run well, they do slowdown, there are some things that just dont seem right with mac which get nasty if you use NOT the way they were intended (iphoto or itunes libraries across multiple users on a nas for example) or are just not very nice and hard to replace (like finder).

Having said all of this i do find myself upgrading the hardware in the pcs more than the macs (pcs needing graphics card, memory upgrades and yearly security apps), but the most interesting is that past 3 years most of the pcs tend to get completely replaced.

However i have sitting next to me a circa 2002 imac g4, its got a whopping 256 mb of ram and a 35gb hd, my bro in law gave it to me because "it was old, slow, kept hanging and wont upgrade".
The reason for most of that is he has 9 years of photos, emails and docs and it has sod all disk space left, he has also rather stupidly duplicated his photos in photo using double the disk space.
I copied the docs and photos off and the damn thing boots to the desktop faster than my eldests nc10 samsung netbook with 2gb of ram does in win7, and its surfing and running fine, not sure the same nc10 will work as well when its of a similar vintage.

And that has kinda summed up my last 10 years of joint pc and mac ownership, go play, pay for what you like and what works for you and be happy

 

[stan the man]

thanks guys..really appreciate all of the help on this .

well,i finally plumped for a PC...mainly down to cost reasons.i must say that witrh 6 gig of RAM,it's super fast compared to my old machine .maybe on mty next purchase i'll give an imac a go

 

[arad85]

it does in my opinion slow down fairly quickly due to registry issues etc

What are these registry issues you speak of ?

I really don't get it. I have a 6 month old PC, I install quite a lot of software on it yet I ran Malwarebytes the other day on it and it gave me the total of 2 "problems" - both of which were only problems as they were registry handles that didn't point to a valid file due to a problem with a particular program install - they were certainly known about on the web. I also ran msconfig and found nothing that was starting up that I didn't expect.

I'm really not having a pop at anyone on the PC/Mac debate, but I can't understand what people do to their machines that slow them down. I'm not installing anything extraordinary - in fact I'm probably more likely to install something I shouldn't as I'm on the PC most of the day and will install s/w if I think it might help with todays greatest problem. What I don't do is install without reading what I'm installing, nor do I run without an A/V system in place (although I can't remember the last time it actually found something).

I do have a problem with people justifying their position with the fact they are in the IT industry... Why? I work for a large (>40000 people) corporation. My current PC was built by the local IT department. Not only did it come with no anti-virus installed (we have a corporate IT standard install which includes this) but it also came with 3 viruses that predated my install date by 2-3 weeks (i.e. the directories they were in were dated before my PC was given to me). My ONLY conclusion on this was that these viruses are on their image disk they used to build my PC.

IMHO, the IT industry contains both those who do and don't know what they're on about and probably isn't the best way to start a post on saying you work in the industry...

 

[neil_g]

What are these registry issues you speak of ?

I really don't get it. I have a 6 month old PC, I install quite a lot of software on it yet I ran Malwarebytes the other day on it and it gave me the total of 2 "problems" - both of which were only problems as they were registry handles that didn't point to a valid file due to a problem with a particular program install - they were certainly known about on the web. I also ran msconfig and found nothing that was starting up that I didn't expect.

I'm really not having a pop at anyone on the PC/Mac debate, but I can't understand what people do to their machines that slow them down. I'm not installing anything extraordinary - in fact I'm probably more likely to install something I shouldn't as I'm on the PC most of the day and will install s/w if I think it might help with todays greatest problem. What I don't do is install without reading what I'm installing, nor do I run without an A/V system in place (although I can't remember the last time it actually found something).

I do have a problem with people justifying their position with the fact they are in the IT industry... Why? I work for a large (>40000 people) corporation. My current PC was built by the local IT department. Not only did it come with no anti-virus installed (we have a corporate IT standard install which includes this) but it also came with 3 viruses that predated my install date by 2-3 weeks (i.e. the directories they were in were dated before my PC was given to me). My ONLY conclusion on this was that these viruses are on their image disk they used to build my PC.

IMHO, the IT industry contains both those who do and don't know what they're on about and probably isn't the best way to start a post on saying you work in the industry...

 

[whiteflyer]

Oh another thing about Lion OSX

It's £21 to upgrade ALL your macs, not £21 each, it's an unrestricted personal license

Don't know if Win7 is like that.

 

[Urban Grimshaw]

It depends on what your after. If your into doing lots of Graphics Design or Video Editing then yeah get a mac. The mac is geared up for this, it's good at doing this which is why it's almost a de-facto standard in the industry.

Probably already been mentioned, but macs were the de-facto standard 20 years ago, for good reason. Now they're just branded PCs with different software.

Straight out of the box you get a good set-up with a mac...but then for the price, so you should. But it's simple..which is good. PCs on the other hand offer a whole world of choices, depending on what you're looking for. Both in spec, and quality. So both have their pros and cons.

The only real difference of similar spec machines, is the operating systems. So it coes down to whichever one you prefer to use. There's nothing else in it really. One is not better than the other. It's like choosing between Canon and Nikon.

 

[neil_g]

Oh another thing about Lion OSX

It's £21 to upgrade ALL your macs, not £21 each, it's an unrestricted personal license

Don't know if Win7 is like that.

No its not, for the reasons I mention it never will be as cheap.

 

[WillW]

What are these registry issues you speak of ?

I really don't get it. I have a 6 month old PC, I install quite a lot of software on it yet I ran Malwarebytes the other day on it and it gave me the total of 2 "problems" - both of which were only problems as they were registry handles that didn't point to a valid file due to a problem with a particular program install - they were certainly known about on the web. I also ran msconfig and found nothing that was starting up that I didn't expect.

I'm really not having a pop at anyone on the PC/Mac debate, but I can't understand what people do to their machines that slow them down. I'm not installing anything extraordinary - in fact I'm probably more likely to install something I shouldn't as I'm on the PC most of the day and will install s/w if I think it might help with todays greatest problem. What I don't do is install without reading what I'm installing, nor do I run without an A/V system in place (although I can't remember the last time it actually found something).

I do have a problem with people justifying their position with the fact they are in the IT industry... Why? I work for a large (>40000 people) corporation. My current PC was built by the local IT department. Not only did it come with no anti-virus installed (we have a corporate IT standard install which includes this) but it also came with 3 viruses that predated my install date by 2-3 weeks (i.e. the directories they were in were dated before my PC was given to me). My ONLY conclusion on this was that these viruses are on their image disk they used to build my PC.

IMHO, the IT industry contains both those who do and don't know what they're on about and probably isn't the best way to start a post on saying you work in the industry...

Agreed.

I've also never understood the logic where people say Windows is full of registry errors.

That program advertised in a popup said Windows was full of registry errors... it must be true.

 

[Sebastian]

Few words from me...
PC User since 1997. Can't remember the last time I had a virus. I guess read before click applies here.
Speed - last Windows re-install was 2 years ago due to change in HDD topology. Since that time my PC stayed almost as fast as on day 1.
Every 2 days: EasyCleaner. Antivirus: Avast.
Current OS: Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux, which is FANTASTIC OS and very similar to OSX in many aspects. And it's free.

Few facts:

• Lightroom 3 has the same minimal specs required for both Windows ans OSX
• I have recently purchased THIS laptop for £839
• Apple's equivalent: £1,869.00 incl. VAT, with slower HDD and less powerful graphics card
• Apple support is second to none. No discussion here.
• Mac's build quality is much better than average laptop.
• Apple's closed architecture ensures maximum compatibility and performance from OSX
• Windows needs to handle all the variations of hardware and software and it's not optimized for one/few configurations. If it's good for everything, it can't be perfect.
• Windows is less limiting software than OSX, but is causing more problems to average users.
• You can install Windows on Mac. You can install OSX on certain PCs with compatible components.

I like Windows and I know how to use it and keep it fresh.
I use Linux that is a nice mix of the best features from both Windows and OSX.
I do realise that in case of hardware problems with my laptop I won't get as good support from Asus, Dell, etc than from Apple.
I'm a PC user, because I want the most processing power for my money.

It's all up to you guys. Easy usage and great support vs more power for the same money, but more potential (!) problems in the future.

If you don't like Apple, don't eat it and leave Mac users alone. They have paid for slightly overpriced hardware, but also for GREAT OSX that is maxing out Mac's potential and amazing support that we, PC users, won't have.

 

[WillW]

Every 2 days: EasyCleaner.

Registry Cleaners aren't a good idea to use. There is very little benefit and they can severely damage your system if they make a mistake... which they are prone to doing.

I've seen more computers made unbootable from Reg Cleaners than I have seen computers with speed improvements because of them.