PC vs Mac

[Rex Bloem]

I'm not trying to start any wars here, but our old computor died. My son and his wife have and like the Macs. I have only ever worked with PCs. Macs are higher priced and I,m told that they are more viruse free. My wife will be the one to use it the most. She mainly does e-mail and scrapbooking. Finds the pics that are downloaded and then prints them. For those of you that have used both what are your opinions? If you were to buy another computor today which would you get? Our old computor was 8 years old so we will not update to a new version very often.

 

[Art Mulder]

Is your son close by? Is he going to be your tech support?
Do you like learning new things? Can you and your wife change 8 years of ingrained habits? Have you had problems with your current PC? How often has it crashed and/or needed to be reinstalled? Is there an apple store nearby so you can make use of their services if needed? How tech-savvy are you?

Those are all questions you'll have to answer yourself.

I bought my wife a mac first, and later gave up my Linux box and bought myself one. I support Windows and Unix at work, and some Macs also. I'll stick with Macs at home.

Sure, we still get problems, and even the occasional rare crash. But at the time we made our choices, this was closest to the "it just works" system.

...art

 

[Cynthia White]

Yeah, what Art said +1. I use both, and I've worked with both. I prefer my Mac. It just works better--it's hard to explain to non-Mac users, but it's more stable. For you wife, if it's just email, internet and scrapbooking, *and* you have some support from someone who knows Mac, I'd say definitely Mac even if it's a little more $. If all you were doing all day was Excel spreadsheets, I'd say stick to PC (although a Mac can run Microsoft programs). But for arty stuff, I think most would agree that Mac is the better choice. FWIW, YMMV.
cynthia

 

[Dom DiCara]

What Art said +2. Once you get used to a system, it is very hard to relearn. As for viruses, Kaspersky anti-virus and good old common sense seems to stop most viruses. And if you have your computer back it's self up automatically, should not be an issue.

One more suggestion. Since we are so close to the holidays, I would recommend waiting for Black Friday. Dell always has an incredible deal on line. Last year they had huge desktops for $299 with free shipping. Should be better this year. I bought 3 of them and gave them to the three youngest for Christmas. They are great systems

 

[Brent Dowell]

Never used a mac, but from what I hear they are what you want if you don't like messing around with stuff...

Me, Eh, I like messing around with computers and build my own from the components. So, I'm a windoze and Linux user...

Although I do quite like my little ipod touch....

 

[Dan Noren]

for me and mine, i stick with the pc based computers. then again, my prejudice goes way back to the days when apples were for those who wanted a dumbed down version of a pc. either way, a pc is a pc(yes, a mac is a personal computer too), whether it is microsoft or mac, and each have gotten progressivly easier to use. there is a reason the mac is relatively virus free, and that is due to the very small share they have in the business world. hackers only target really big targets, hence all the attacks on pc's in the business world. besides, apple computers haven't really advanced that much since they stole the gui interface from xerox, it's all been minor tweaks. just a humble opinion from someone with almost 30 years dealing with the world's fastest idiots. (think about it, there's a reason computers don't have feet...)

 

[Chris Hatfield]

It's a preference. I'm a PC guy, but I've liked Macs. But not the price - 2-3x of what you'll pay for identical hardware.

If you haven't tried Win7, it's such a pleasure.

 

[Paul Gallian]

I see that some are still confused about the true history of computer evolution.

Wanting it to be does not make it a fact.

 

[Paul Gallian]

It's a preference. I'm a PC guy, but I've liked Macs. But not the price - 2-3x of what you'll pay for identical hardware.

If you haven't tried Win7, it's such a pleasure.

If it was identical it Would have an Apple logo!

Do a side by side price comparison and it will be very even in $$$$.
You can not buy a new cheap Mac but you can buy a real cheap machine running Microsoft windows -- and that is what you get a real cheap machine.

 

[Darren Wright]

I'll re-iterate what's been said. Macs are good machines if you don't like to fiddle with them. I see them a lot like when Windoze was when it first came out. MS used to limit who could write programs for it, therefore they controlled the quality of the apps and what damage it could do to the PC and OS, therefore a safe bet for someone that doesn't like to fiddle and can pay a little more.

On the flip side I see linux like DOS used to be, I really hated the command line. Unfortunately I spend most days in it.

 

[Rex Bloem]

Well I see alot of positive things for the mac even if it is higher in cost. Loml and I both use pc's at our jobs. We do have a mac store close by (20-25 miles). I will take her with me and make her try them and probably go to Best Buy and try a newer pc. I think she is after a laptop, but I am thinking an "all in one desktop" we'll see what happens. We have not had the old computor crash, had to replace the power something or other. I think that it went again so the unit goes.

 

[Stuart Ablett]

I've got two PC machines left, one is almost dead the other is still fine, touch wood, they will both be replace when they die with Apple machines.

They are not for everyone, if you like the "value" you get from buying Harbor Freight tools, I'd say stick to PC, if you enjoy the value you get from buying well made tools that will last a long time, look at Apple.

Art has a lot of very good questions, the Macs are a different beast, and they do take some getting used to, but in general, I'm never willingly going back to a PC based computer. The Apple care is also great, for example, my daughter had her HDD die, it just up and quit (Samsung drive). She took it to the Apple store, they replaced it in three days, no problems, no questions, no paper work, and they also reinstalled the OS etc so the computer was ready to go when she picked it up. My mom and dad were shocked, they have PCs and when one that was new had a similar problem last year, they took it to the place they bought it, which also sells every electronics gizmo you could shake a stick at, and it took three weeks to fix and they had to pay the labour.

Thanks, I'll pay a little more up front to pay for a lot less in frustration down the road.

I'm stickings with Mac, but that is not for everyone.

 

[Don Baer]

There will be those who are confirmed apple maniacs and there will be those who are planted firmly in the windows world. It is what ever you are used to and prefer. Since win 8 showed up I see little difference between the 2 and for me it's a matter of money. I'd rather spend my hard earned $$$$ on woodworking not some piece of silly con and some cult software. If I were into the graphics world like Larry and Tom then The Mac makes sense since most of the graphics programs utilized the at that time superior graphics capability of the Motorola chips, that why most of the early games controllers were based on the 6800 processor. As procesessors have evolved they have all gotten better at doing the job so that advantage is gone. If you are doing business software then the Wintel solution makes the most sense since most business programs are designed to run windows.

 

[Brent Dowell]

And then there's gaming... Not that that is an issue here.

I'm perfectly happy with building my own little windows boxes and running the software. My Music editing software I've been using for years doesn't run on the mac and I can't see shelling out the equivalent of a couple of sawstops to get the hardware and software to do what I want.

I really find the whole argument of which is 'better' irrelevant. Get what works for you and use it.

What's better for me, might not be better for you, and vice versa!

 

[Cynthia White]

I agree with several things said by Don and by Brent. Both systems are good. They are different in some ways and similar in others. If you're used to PC it takes time to learn how to use a Mac. Some people think it's worth it. However, most business people use Microsoft Office programs. More people in art/design/layout/graphics etc. use Mac.

I do, however, very respectfully disagree with this below:

for me and mine, i stick with the pc based computers. then again, my prejudice goes way back to the days when apples were for those who wanted a dumbed down version of a pc.

Apple introduced/marketed (but didn't invent) VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program, long before Microsoft marketed anything comparable, and Apple had a windows-like "graphic user interface" --GUI-- before Microsoft did, even though as time went by Microsoft has had more and more sophisticated calculating business software.

I don't want this thread to go nuts, so I'm going to stop here.

 

[Brent Dowell]

They are not for everyone, if you like the "value" you get from buying Harbor Freight tools, I'd say stick to PC, if you enjoy the value you get from buying well made tools that will last a long time, look at Apple.

And likewise, I'd find the comparison of PC's to Harbor freight a little uncharitable. There are some very good PC's out there.

I think the question that is getting blurred is the hardware versus the software.

Theres a lot of great PC hardware out there, and you can spend a lot and get a ferrari of a PC.

I think the differentiation is more on the software and what you can do with it.

I'm becoming more and more attracted to Linux, simply because of the open source nature of the beast.

The control that Apple places on the software they allow to run on their devices makes them appealing to a certain segment of the market.

I think the Macs, Linux's, and Windows' all have their price points and purposes. Use what you like, and like what you use.

I use Windows and Linux, and I'd like to use a Mac, but I don't really have the need or the extra dough to blow...

 

[Brent Dowell]

And now that I think About it, my first PC was an Apple IIC...

Ah, those were the days, Green screens and command lines.

 

[Don Baer]

Be $ there was a GUI interface I was using both 8600 and 8080 (intel) based hardware. The first real OS was CPM and the first office suite of programs I was aware of was word star data star and mail merge. And visa calc ran on CPM
Now those were the good old days.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Sniff,

Now you're going to get me all sentimental about running programs on paper tape and then punch cards... Sniff...

 

[Don Baer]

the rest of the story.

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