What kind of Computer to buy

[Antithesis]

This is a ridiculous statement.

On many levels, but it wasn't meant to be taken literally. I'm just saying that Mac's are more user friendly. It obviously doesn't take a week to learn the basics of an OS (unless your my mother, than we are talking months), but Windows Vista on my girlfriends computer is a joke compared to Mac OS X. I'm still using Tiger and it's prettier, far simpler and doesn't freeze nearly as often as my girlfriends newer (by about 18 months), faster and better equipped PC desktop.

Did I mention I'm on a 2+ year old Macbook? It's just more stable and won't need to be reformatted in 3 months like my girlfriends computer. That's enough for me to commit to Mac, sorry.

 

[BPALMER]

in the last 60 days i purchased a replacement desktop(gateway) w/ 2.2 ghz quad core and 500 gig hdd w/ 3 gig ram and vista,
also got a new dell laptop(xps m1530) with 2.0 dual core 4 gig ram and 320 gig. and i spent less than some of the mac desktops i priced out and i am very pleased with both choices. both systems are wicked fast and work extremly well for work and play.

 

[mrodgers]

This is a ridiculous statement.

Yup, it sure took me a week to learn START>PROGRAMS>PROGRAM THAT I WANT TO RUN....

Very true about virus and such. But then if you do not surf "questionable websites", you should not have any problems.

Yup, I'm running on over 3 years now, never reinstalled XP, never had a virus program, spyware scanner, or a firewall running, and my computer runs better than it did in 2005 when I bought it.

What "questionable sites" would you have to avoid to avoid virus and such? I've gone to plenty of links that friends have sent me in email for a look, been to P2P sites, all over the net. Still, have never gotten a virus or needed to scan for anything in the 3 years I've been with this PC and had broadband.

 

[frXnz kafka]

That's a truly ridiculous response.

How so?

On many levels, but it wasn't meant to be taken literally. I'm just saying that Mac's are more user friendly. It obviously doesn't take a week to learn the basics of an OS (unless your my mother, than we are talking months), but Windows Vista on my girlfriends computer is a joke compared to Mac OS X. I'm still using Tiger and it's prettier, far simpler and doesn't freeze nearly as often as my girlfriends newer (by about 18 months), faster and better equipped PC desktop.

Did I mention I'm on a 2+ year old Macbook? It's just more stable and won't need to be reformatted in 3 months like my girlfriends computer. That's enough for me to commit to Mac, sorry.

Honestly, you're comparing apples to oranges. If you were comparing YOUR mac to YOUR PC then you might have a valid argument, but that's not what you're doing. Almost any difference in performance comes down to user error. I'm fairly certain your girlfriend's computer would be running just fine if she knew how to use it. Your Macbook is 2 years old? Great. The Dell I'm using right now is 3 years old, and runs like day one. I've never formatted my harddrive. My computer has never crashed. I've never had a virus.

Honestly, I'm not saying this as a pro-Windows guy. I'm saying this as someone who is annoyed by the amount of sheer misinformation on BOTH sides of the argument. The OSes (I'm talking OSX and XP. Vista sucks) are different. Neither one is better than the other. The biggest difference, besides GUI, is compatibility. Most software supports both platforms, but if you're running any software that supports only one you should probably go with that system.

 

[Sirashley]

Once you go Mac you never go back... I used Windows from 95 all the way up to last year when Vista was released. When Vista came out, I played around with it and decided to buy a Mac to try something new. Mac runs so much smoother, never freezes and I mean never. I almost forgot that Control+Alt+Delete command...LOL... No Virus scan, No spyware, nothing running on my Mac to slow it down. Also, you can buy a Mac with less hardware that will outperform a Windows P.C. with more hardware because of the efficiency, especially without having to use RAM to run excess programs like Virus Scan and Spyware. Bottom Line, Apple is so far ahead of Microsoft its sad. Unfortunately, there are alot of people who are afraid to learn a new operating system(which is very simple). I have used both operating systems extensively, BUY A MAC. You won't be sorry...

 

[usayit]

well lookie here... its a tennis match.

 

[Antithesis]

Almost any difference in performance comes down to user error. I'm fairly certain your girlfriend's computer would be running just fine if she knew how to use it.

Odd... she's been using it well over a week. Closer to 6 months actually.

 

[Dao]

For Virus or Spyware problem. I believe one of the big reason why Windows PCs had most of the problem is because Windows PC still own the Desktop PC market.

I am sure ... if at one point, Mac machine own half of the PC market, most of the Mac machines will have an Anti-virus or Anti-spyware program installed.

I like Mac, especially OSX is based on BSD now (I am a Linux user as well). At one point, I was thinking about getting a Mac Notebook. But at the end, I end up with a Sony notebook. Software compatibility was not the issue at that time since I had few PCs at home to run Windows apps. It was the cost. For the same amount of money, I got a more powerful machine if I go with the Windows route. I am sure if cost was not an issue, I would have got a Mac notebook already.

 

[usayit]

You guys do realize that your personal experience doesn't make it the market/industry norm... right? (this goes for both windows and mac camps).

Unless you guys have some sort of extensive test lab and run a study.

I can't make this generalization: "My Mac||PC never has given me a problem in X number of years... therefore it is far better."

I CAN make this generalization: "Mac has a very well established Unix (BSD) core which makes it a better player for a person who is comfortable in a Unix environment".

But thats just me....

didn't this thread die a while back?? Oh well. continue on.. I enjoy watching this topic thrown around like a hot potato.

 

[asfixiate]

Disclaimer! The below is based on what I see in the industry as well as personal opinion.

In college there were the IT, MIS, majors and the Art Majors. The graphic arts students as well as classes all were equipped with MACs. The IT, MIS departments all were equipped with PCs. If you look at Adobe's website and watch the lightroom demo they're using a Mac.

That being said do you get where I'm going when it comes to Mac vs PC? Its not about what is really better but Macs are generally used more in the graphic/art industry.

Macs and PCs are great. My main concern in a lot of aspects is price to achieve the best results. If for 1,000 I can get great results why would I spend 2,000 to get the same?

In the past you could get this week's top of the line laptop with all the specs to make it the best substantially cheaper than MAC's top of the line.

I would say if you have a lot of cash you can get a PC that will do the same as what a MAC can do and probably cheaper. That being said a MAC will do the same as the PC.

But I do believe a base level Mac would achieve better results than Base level PC. Based on past research i've done.

One thing you never really have to worry about with PCs though is "will it work with a PC?". Often certain softwares out there doesn't have a MAc equivalent. The main heavy hitters generally do but keep that in mind.

Its possible prices have reversed making Mac's cheaper nowadays but this is when I was doing a lot more research on computers.

don't forget...when it comes to making your decision you should research what the software requires as far as hardware and what you require as far as software. If I had a choice I'd build my own PC for far less than any package out there. Can you build your own MAC?

 

[usayit]

Macs and PCs are great. My main concern in a lot of aspects is price to achieve the best results. If for 1,000 I can get great results why would I spend 2,000 to get the same?

Ok then please explain this magazine's test results:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135062-page,1-c,notebooks/article.html

In 2007, a MAC laptop outran all of the other machines in their tests running WINDOWS VISTA. Oh but what about cost? If you look through their list, the MAC is NOT the most expensive in the lineup (and by a good margin).

I will now assert the ol' cliche: You get what you pay for.




You guys remind me of the car nuts who focus just on the amount of horsepower above all else and ignore suspension, transmission, engine, weight balance, curb weight... You are all just looking at $$$ versus CPU and memory but are missing the point. There is more to a computer than a box with a CPU and memory.

Yes you can build a PC for far cheaper but now you are comparing apples to oranges. A custom built machine versus an off-the-shelf. This is not the norm.

I see people with cheap cars putting out gobs of power on custom built turbos. It still doesn't make it a porsche, ferrari, etc.


btw.. with some effort you too can build a custom machine running Mac OS X albeit it takes some work and not exactly legal either (at least I don't think so). But comparing that to an off-the-shelf Mac isn't a fair comparison either.

 

[Village Idiot]

You guys do realize that your personal experience doesn't make it the market/industry norm... right? (this goes for both windows and mac camps).

Unless you guys have some sort of extensive test lab and run a study.

I can't make this generalization: "My Mac||PC never has given me a problem in X number of years... therefore it is far better."

I CAN make this generalization: "Mac has a very well established Unix (BSD) core which makes it a better player for a person who is comfortable in a Unix environment".

But thats just me....

didn't this thread die a while back?? Oh well. continue on.. I enjoy watching this topic thrown around like a hot potato.

Really....there's so many generalizations and misconceptions being thrown around it's almost like the democratic party nomee race.

"Macs are only good for graphics designs"

"Macs just work"

"Macs cost a lot more"

"XP & Vista are incredibly unstable"

"XP & Vista need constant AV software and updates to work right"

"XP & Vista crash all the time"

"OS X is the most stable and user friendly OS"

"OS X never crashes"

Some of these are so stupid. If people would think of not saying something completely idiotic because of brand loyalty and take a moment to research that people are using XP & Vista without AV protection and not getting viruses because they're being smart about it or that you can do as much on a Mac as you can do on a PC, then we wouldn't have any threads like this.

This is worse than Canon Vs. Nikon.

People should take this little bit of advice and for the rest of the thread, think about what crap is about to leak from your mouths before you just add another stereotypical comment about either platform to the mix.

 

[asfixiate]

How does me saying why spend 2,000 if you can get the same results make you say t his...

You guys remind me of the car nuts who focus just on the amount of horsepower above all else and ignore suspension, transmission, engine, weight balance, curb weight... You are all just looking at $$$ versus CPU and memory but are missing the point. There is more to a computer than a box with a CPU and memory

Of course if you take what I said for exactly what I said it looks like I'm being slim with $$$ but I'm not. for 2,000 dollars I could build a PC and it would knock a lot of packages offered by companies out of the water. I'd have control over motherboard speed, brand of RAM, CPU, Heatsink, Harddrive Brand, video card, sound card, etc. When you buy the packages you only have some control over that.

Having control over all that will give you better results than any computers out there for cheaper.

maybe its because I understand computers but unstability of software happens and if people would learn how to use a computer than they wouldn't have issues.

To add. Fair enough comparison maybe not but this is a What computer to buy thread and that's my suggestion. Same reason why people buy SLRs and not P&Ss are the same reason I build my own PCs. The only reason I use laptops nowadays is because my work gives me one every year and I've not really done a lot of gaming within the last few years.

 

[Mav]

I like Apple better for ONE reason.

When I click eject on an attached USB device like a camera or USB thumb drive it f**king ejects it and doesn't dick you around like Windows does. Yeah Windows works all the time, 34% of the time, if you're lucky. :lmao:

Last week I was late leaving work and hit eject on my thumb drive which had some stuff I was bringing home to work on. OF COURSE, it screws around and gave the "cannot eject at this time, please close applications" nonsense. I closed every application, including what would have been accessing files on it. Nope. Then I went into task manager to look for rogue exe's that might still be running and "hanging on" to the files. Nope. Closed email. Nope. LOGGED OUT and back in. NOPE!! Goddamn MFer! LET GO of my goddamn thumb drive you stupid eff'in POS!! :angry1::madmad::banghead:

We need to leave our PCs running overnight so they can push near DAILY security and other updates out so I finally just rebooted and yanked it while it was in the shut down state.

Since I switched to Mac back in late 2006, this near DAILY nonsense that I've had to deal with plugging in and ejecting USB devices on Windows has not happened to me ONCE on Mac. With all that Windows is capable of, you'd think they could at least get basic stuff like this right, but they can't. On Mac, it really does "just work". I hit eject, and it's gone and safe to remove, all the time, 100% of the time. This experience at work on my PC where I rarely use thumb drives brought back such fond memories of exactly why I hated Windows so bad, and all of the other little dumb stuff just like this that drove me to switch. :greenpbl:


There's still some stuff I have that I'd like to run that ONLY works on Windows. No problem. You can take your copy of Windows and use the built-in Boot Camp software to dual boot right from your Mac. I don't want to dual boot, so I got a copy of Parallels ($79) and run Windows from within Mac OS X now. The other night I was doing some stuff in Windows while the Mac was batching through some photos in DxO while I was also surfing the web through Mac. Lets see a Windows box do that.

 

[asfixiate]

Well it takes me a total of 10 seconds maybe to eject a drive. I use Terra byte Lacie drives and they eject in less than a minute. I also use Rocstor external drives and they work fine. I keep a clean ghost image of my pc as well as back up my information so if I see wierd issues I can easily just reinstall fresh and i'm back to full capacity.

Sounds like windows was trying to build an index of the drive and it didn't want you to take it out.

I see a lot of the word unstable mentioned when doing these comparisons. What are you doing when you give this label?