Sorry Mac fans!

King of Groove

King of Groove

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Here at Northstreet HQ my desktop pc will be 6 years old in 2009. This is the longest I've ever kept a desktop pc. When I brought it from PC World in Purley Way, Croydon it was one of the fastest and best in store.

I am beginning to think sometime during this year or 2010 I'l replace it. Although a friend of mine has brought a imac recently I can't work up any enthusiam for them.

Yes they're good but the typical imac has only 3 usb ports wheras my pc has 6. They seem expensive in comparison to a pc body.

At the moment I see the replacement being another pc. My present monitor is only a few months old so would seem a waste to rid of it.

So come on mac fans convince me!
 
you seem to have decided on a pc and you arent going to miss much if you stick to pc:)

and you know how it works and the software you already have without changing licenses etc...
 
... and there another two USB ports on the keyboard. Stick with Windows, if you don't 'want' to change to a mac. iMacs dont, like toasters, change your life. iMacs, like toasters, make life more pleasant especially if you like toast.

After doing System Admin with Windows for the last 20 years, it took no time at all to go to mac. Doubt that I'll be tempted to ever go back but I suspect it was because I wanted to, rather than needed to.

Chris
 
Macs are AWESOME.

They make Bill Gates Cry :( and I like making him cry - he has far too much money!

And I LOVE EM!! :) :) :) That is to say that I have much love for Macs.

Its all the intricate little OS tweaks - like Expose, Spaces and Dock that make it an all round pleasant experience. It takes a while to get into using all of the features to their full extent but once you have got involved with them you truly see how much they speed you up and unclutter your desktop. Yes I know Vista has some of these built in, but on a Mac they just seem to 'work' without shoehorning into your workflow.

Yes they do cost a fair bit more in terms of hardware. But they also seem to me to cost a lot less in running costs such as AV, OS Upgrades and Software written by Apple.

Its a tough ask to get someone to help you with the decision of buying one. My advice is going to the Highstreet and having a proper play with a Mac to see how you get on. That is what I did several times before switching and I am glad I did. It gave me a chance to see the shortfalls - I was at Uni at the time, and Microsoft Office for Mac felt a whole lot different and would have probably slowed me down on essays etc. But after finishing Uni, and started working I got myself a mac and have loved it ever since.

I also have Paralells running to let me use XP natively. Tried bootcamp but ended up frustrated because the stuff I was looking for seemed always to be on the other OS. Paralells is good, but TBH I only use it when someone else is using my computer. The cross compatibility of files from Mac OS to XP seems to be less and less of an issue these days. If you like the hardware but are afraid of losing Windows all together then this may help.

Let us know how you get on! :thumbs:
 
A true Mac-ism indeed!
But it is one of the resounding feelings you have after a few months of making the switch.
 
If you like the mac interface you can get that fell for a lot less my using Linux. :p
 
The interface is more than just a look though. I don't believe the OP actually wants to be converted. If you think there's nothing wrong with your current style of computer then why take the risk of switching? i have found Windows in its many variants to be an unstable, slow, resource hungry, inconsistent piece of crap so I switched many years ago and haven't looked back. I still have to use Windows every day at work so I'm constantly reminded of what I'm 'missing' lol.

Good luck mate.
 
Well said Bradley! I totally agree.
I was not trying to convert OP - just show my experience in use and switching.
Inconsistent is definately a good description.

Might have to give Linux a go too! Heard lots but never got down n dirty!
 
King of Groove said:
...So come on mac fans convince me!
Click to expand...
Hiya KoG... to be honest, it seems you are already made up with your Windows PC based system, which is fine. If it works for you then that's great, stick with it. But... as I often say... if you always do what you did, you'll always get what you got. Now, if you're happy with what you always got, keep doing what you always did and stick with a Windows PC based system. However, it seems to me that by merely posting this thread of yours, that you are, OK, maybe only a little intrigued, but intrigued nonetheless shall we say, about the hype and Mac paraphanalia.

I have a Macbook, and also a wonderful Dell Latitude laptop, and I love them both. However, ask me which one I use 99% of the time, and therefore which one I prefer to use, and it has to be the Mac.

It might be a cliché, but I'm afraid it's true... Macs just work... it's as simple as that.

No Blue Screens of Death, no loading USB cards and then having to search the net for the latest drivers, no hardware installs then a need to find drivers, no shutting down unexpectedly, everything just works.

I am not a Mac snob, I love my Dell, but I can assure you there's no pain using a Mac, it's all gain. Besides, on a Mac you can run XP, you can't do the opposite. Best of both worlds.

:)
 
neil_g said:
oh now lets not start with the "macs just dont crash". even our design studio manager says thats a load of BS.. :)
Click to expand...
Well Neil, all I can say is that I have had my Macbook for two years, and I have not experienced a crash. I am sure it happens though.

What gets me is the response from the PC brigade when they discover a Mac has crashed. What one should be looking at is frequency of crashes. To that, there is no debate.
 
neil_g said:
believe me i wish they didnt crash itd make my life easier :)

in a work environment vs xp pro sp3 id say its very close for frequency of crashing tbh.
Click to expand...
Sure Neil, and I have no reason to disbelieve you that this is the case. You report as you find, which is extremely valuable and useful information. However, I too report as I find, and in my home based environment... i.e. a home user with 2 * Windows based machines (both Dell, one desktop and one laptop) and 4 * Macbook machines... the Windows machines crash regularly and so far, after 2+ years despite being outnumbered 2 to 1, the crash ratio is

PC: countless crashes to Mac: none.

Honestly, I have no axe to grind, I am not a PC fanboy nor a Mac fanboy, I just find Macs much better to use.
 
theMusicMan said:
Well Neil, all I can say is that I have had my Macbook for two years, and I have not experienced a crash. I am sure it happens though.

What gets me is the response from the PC brigade when they discover a Mac has crashed. What one should be looking at is frequency of crashes. To that, there is no debate.
Click to expand...

Indeed.

I have two mac systems, the older one is still going at nearly four years old, which has crashed a couple of times only.
I suppose it really depends on the software and the strain your slapping on.
 
musicman - thats fair enough, like i say i support (and use) both platforms. yes my main machine is windows (vista x64 in fact lol) for sys admin work, but i understand that it is personal preference on the way the platform feels.

i just like facts, not comments like "i like X because its just the best".

no offence intended :)
 
If your reason for not wanting a Mac is that it only has 3 usb ports then that is plainly silly. The keyboard has two on it (basically for the mouse from either side) so the keyboard and mouse use ONE leaving 2 and on a PC you have 6-2 leaving 4. If you go wireless then you will still have 3 but a powered usb hub with 8 ports and a decent psu is only about £15.

I switched to the Mac a few years ago and have never looked back but I also run XP, Vista, W7 and Linux.

The Mac and Linux are most stable quite closely followed by XP (drivers permitting!!) then W7 and finally Vista although Vista is getting better.

The thing is its your choice what computer you buy so just buy the one you want you don't have to justify it to us :shrug: Those of us that have Macs just sit here smugly :)
 
Well I have been a PC man forever. Always built my own, got a super quad core, water cooled, 8Gb RAM, you name it super beast running Vista 64bit.
Just got a MacBook 2.4Ghz and 4Gb RAM, and I notice the MAC to be so much more responsive, faster boot up, even running CS4 seems slick, I can only say form my personal experience, MAC have got something right, its like the HW and OS were designed together. Not even going to go into build quality. But I will always run both I am sure. But more and more work is done on the MAC now.
 
cowasaki said:
The Mac and Linux are most stable quite closely followed by XP (drivers permitting!!) then W7 and finally Vista although Vista is getting better.
Click to expand...

little confused by that to be honest concidering W7 drivers are mainly vista ones at the mo. also vista x64 drivers were easier to find and more stable than their xp 64 counterparts :)
 
neil_g said:
little confused by that to be honest concidering W7 drivers are mainly vista ones at the mo. also vista x64 drivers were easier to find and more stable than their xp 64 counterparts :)
Click to expand...

This is from experience so it might not be the case for everyone else, my PC stuff is no longer state of the art so that might explain things a little.
 
not very old monitor, so you can have your image on the mac. and your palette on the monitor, time to change then ;)
 
Why almst everyone has issues with Vista saying it crushes a lot...I run vista x64 and dont remeber it freezing/crushing for few months know if not even a year...Im not saying its perfect but if you know how to deal with it its fine :) and XP at the mom is one of the most stable systems I would say...it wasnt at the beggining but now it is...
Vista is like win millenium..it should not hit stores haha but it did and after a while now it works quite good..I cant wait to see W7..
From time to time I do think about getting an mac...but just for fun...as I am a game person I would stick to PC in the end...
last week I went to keyboard lab at my work place to have a look on iMacs there...screen was so bright that it almost burned my eyes :D as I dont know if there are any buttons on the LCD to change the settings i left the room quite quickly
 
just because you don't understand doesn't mean i'm not making any sense

but either way nevermind :)
 
bastic said:
last week I went to keyboard lab at my work place to have a look on iMacs there...screen was so bright that it almost burned my eyes :D as I dont know if there are any buttons on the LCD to change the settings i left the room quite quickly
Click to expand...

f1 & f2 on the keyboard adjust brightness on the monitor.
 
As other have said, if Windows suits your need, stick with it.

From my own experience - Macs *do* crash, but an awful lot less than windows. I our house we have three Macs and three PCs; the Macs are regularly up for 30-40 days at a time before I give them a reboot, whereas the PC's need a clear out every day. I have probably hard booted my main home computer (MacBook Pro) less than once in the last six months. I've booted my main work computer (HP Laptop) several times a week.

The reason for this difference is not magic! My poor HP work laptop is has to content with device drivers written by many different manufacturers, few of which have ever tested by good old Microsoft in their Windows development centre (there are just too many combinations), where as on the old MacBook, Apple have written all the device drivers for the core laptop themselves.

The second main reason is that core foundation of the operating system is tidier in OS X (and Linux), whereas in Windows, it is still a little ramshackle, and incorporates lots of old code for backwards compatibility. A Windows PC will still run Windows programs from many years ago, the Mac will not. With the release of OS X, backwards compatibility is essentially gone (albeit, there was a period when old programs could be run through an emulator). This means the Mac code is a lot cleaner than the Windows code, at the expense of backwards compatibility.

These two main reasons account for a lot of the stability differences between Mac and PC, but it does come at a cost - a lack of backward compatibility, and because the components used to manufacture the Mac come from a smaller supply pool, an increased cost.

The other difference is obviously the OS itself; it's not really about how it looks, that's very superficial, but the main difference is the way in which they manage the data. Both OS' now look at data in a more object based way, but again because of Window's backwards compatibility, it has not yet gone quite as far as Mac OS. On the Mac this makes for cleaner installs, and where Apple now provide a comprehensive suite of applications with the Mac, they have imposed a really tight integration between them which is where the 'it just works' comes from. Window's is getting there, but the suite of bundled software is not quite as good yet (IMHO).

The main downside of the Mac is (was) software availability. This really only affects the kids in our house, as games tend to be MS only, hence the three PC's in our house are really only for the kids. You always have the option of booting a Mac into Windows of using Parallels or similar, but who really wants to mess around with that? I can hand on heart say I have not used either on my Mac for well over a year now as all the software I need is now available for the Mac natively.

It was not always the case through. Companies like Garmin, have been very sluggish in supporting the Mac and the BBC have been a little slow getting their downloading iPlayer out too. The world is not perfect yet, a lot of the DRM'ed media (like Sky, ITV etc), will only support the Microsoft model, so no luck there with a Mac, and you do from time to time find badly coded websites that *only* work with IE, which you can not get for the Mac. Also MS Office for the Mac is not as slick as the Window's version and although iWorks is very cool, it's not a 100% replacement if you have to work with Office files regularly, so you will have to work with MS Office on the Mac.

Like many others, I have worked with Windows PC's and systems for 20+ years in the workplace (as a developer), and I wanted a change at home. I tried a Mac back in 2002, and have not looked back since. I still have to deal with Windows PC's at home and at work on a daily basis, and honesty can still say I prefer the Mac for my own use. Try something different - you may like it (or you may hate it!).
 
theMusicMan said:
Besides, on a Mac you can run XP, you can't do the opposite.
:)
Click to expand...

;)


DSCF0147.JPG



And thats without taking into account my main machine (4ghz O/C core2Duo / 16gb Memory / 6tb Storage etc. All cooled silently.

I've got it dual booting with Vista 64 so i can play my games as well :D

Its all doable with care in choosing the right components, and never crashes. In fact, from a usability point of view there is no difference in operation to that of the real deal.
 
Ahhh but Chris... is this in an XP window... :):)

Sure you can run OSx off a boot partition on the same machine, but I'm not sure you can do this from within XP, actually running in an XP session/window.
 
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