Mac vs. dell which is better

pianoman12 · Jul 27, 2005

I am thinking about buying a new computer mainly for storing my photos and music and I cannot decide which is better. I am looking at the mac mini in particular (it is only $499). it is small and sleek which is good because space is not something I have a lot of. Dells are much cheaper but I hate the notorious blue screen of death (pc thing). They Macs do not crash as much as PCs . I am very much stuck and if anyone would like to add there two cents that would be appreciated

MDowdey · Jul 27, 2005

get a mac. if i had cash coming out the wazoo..id get a mac.

graigdavis · Jul 27, 2005

Mac hands down. Macs also dont get virus's, ever. My wifes Mac froze once in the last year. My Dell freezes about once a day. And my Dell is brand new and upgraded out the wazoo. (work paid for it so Im not crying).

you will have to replace a PC every 2 1/2 years. You will have to repalce your Mac every 8 years just from normal use. Also, if you are mainly using it for pictures and music then PC cant even touch the capabilities of a Mac.

hobbes28 · Jul 27, 2005

I'd say mac as well.. You may want to ask this question on our tech forum, www.thesupportforum.com . You may get some different responses.

ferny · Jul 27, 2005

The whole "Mac's don't crash" thing is rubbish I think. They'll break just as often as Windows if you don't use them properly. I'm running win2kpro here and it's crashed once or twice at most. It hardly ever gets checked over to make sure it's running ok as well.

Showing my ignorance here, but don't Dell just put computers together? I didn't know they actually made the parts like Apple do. :scratch:

Alison · Jul 27, 2005

I'd vote Mac as well if you're looking for photos/graphic design. When I did a marketing internship everyone there had a Mac and loved it.

kelox · Jul 27, 2005

Get the Mac. I'm not sure if ferny has or has had a Mac, but the "Mac's don't crash" isn't rubbish. ferny, I am not attacking you here, I know sometimes things get lost in the written word, just wanted you to know that up front. I work with computers and networks for a living, and trust me-Windows machines do crash more than Macs. Now it can be said that since Microsoft has the majority of the PC market, this could account for the abundance of PC woes we all hear about, and that would be partly true. Macs do crash, but not as often or as hard as the Windows machines do. I have 3 Win desktops, 5 Win laptops(mostly put togethers, but two that I did buy), and two Macs(powerbooks). The powerbooks have both crashed, for lack of a better term, but I didn't need to spend hours trying to recover from it. No need to reload the OS. The Windows machines however, are a different story. At some point in time I have had to reload each of them at least once. I do the regular maintenance on them, but sometimes that isn't enough. I think the fact that Apple makes both the hardware and software to specifically go together is the biggest reason for the stability. Microsoft makes a product that really isn't designed for one brand of hardware and that seems to be the biggest problem.

Never the less, pianoman12 asked which we would choose, and I choose Mac. Windows is a very good platform, and tradionally has been the cheaper(price wise) system for beginners to get into, but the mini is now a viable option. Don't forget that the mini doesn't come with a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. If you already have them then no need to buy them. Remeber though, the need to be USB.

Hertz van Rental · Jul 27, 2005

I've been running Mac's for 15 years or more now.
Current count I have six. The old systems used to crash now and then but not as often as the Windows heaps I had to use at work.
The new OS is based on Unix and is virtualy bomb proof. If you leave it on 24/7 it runs self-diagnostics and repair scripts in the small hours.
You get the odd problem - usually caused by a program crashing - but if you just reboot it sorts itself out.
I wouldn't use anything else - certainly not for image manipulation.
My son has a Mac Mini and it is just unbelievable.
If you have lots of PC software you can still run it on a Mac by using Soft Windows. This prog makes the Mac think it's a PC and it runs any version of Windows you like.
The other advantage with Macs is a lot of drivers - particularly Canon - are built in to the OS so you just plug and play.

kelox · Jul 27, 2005

Hertz van Rental said:
The other advantage with Macs is a lot of drivers - particularly Canon - are built in to the OS so you just plug and play.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

danalec99 · Jul 27, 2005

Why do you even have to think??

sfaribault · Jul 27, 2005

I would not touch Dell at all !!!

pianoman12 · Jul 27, 2005

This is the mac mini it is 2 inches tall and 6 inches square

mygrain · Jul 27, 2005

I've been a Mac-head all my life and I'll die one too. Enjoy.

Jeff Canes · Jul 27, 2005

About Dell (and most stock computer), they are not design well for user upgrades, because slots, fans & power supply are usually at the minimal requirements

At work I have IBM Z Pro with win2k pro and at home a custom build machine with win2k, crashing is not a probable with either as it was with w98 and before, do get slow downs (near crash/locking up) on both machines mostly seem to be network/internet and over multi-tasking with memory heavy software like PS and downloading music

JohnMF · Jul 27, 2005

i own both mac and a pc and ive used macs in work for almost 15 years and one thing ive learnt is that mac users are stubbornly loyal and that they like to collect them!

Both PC's and Macs will crash, macs probibly less. But i think XP has came along way and is almost, if not on par with mac OSX. My current pc runs XP and i can honestly say that in the last year i have never had to reboot because its frozen up or have i seen the dreaded blue screen of death...