Buy a Apple Computer instead

[admin_exported]

I've always been a PC user but I was getting fed up with the way it would organise my music and pictures etc. I started using itunes on the PC when ipods came out and I loved the way they would organise all my music and movies etc. I then bought the Apple TV and it worked so much better than my Windows PC to Xbox. It had a great interface and again was super easy to organise.

Then last October I bought my 1st Apple iMac and have been blown away!!! it starts up in 36 seconds shuts down in 10 and everything is instant!

they come with a lot of easy to use software like iMovie which for the 1st time i've been editing old home movies and or mixing them with old photos and they look great! it looks impressive and it's only drag and drop.

iPhoto is brilliant for organising photos. it has face detection so you can name people and it groups them altogether.

Before I use to have my photos is just one big folder on windows and I never even dreamed editing old home movies etc.

for the home user and small business user I can't find anything that It can't do. It runs excel fine and does all formulas I need and does word great as well.

I have a windows VISTA laptop for work and it crashes daily! it's a nightmare! where as I can honestly say in the whole year i've been using the iMac its never crashed.

I just thought I'd write a quick review because I know a lot of people will be upgrading or buying a new PC now that windows 7 is out.

I'm sure windows 7 is great but I don't think I could ever go back.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Shimmi,

Good post here. I was quite anti-mac and didnt quite understand the mac fanboys setting up altars for mr jobs worship. My first apple product was an ipod photo. I was so impressed with this product and still impressed that to this day, the battery life is excellent and it still works so well.

I finally took the plunge and purchased a macbook pro in 2008. After getting used to the products, i dont think i could ever go back. It fits all my needs perfectly and it just does everything so well. Yes its more expensive, but I really do feel its worth it. I was quite sceptical so i purchased vmware fusion in order to run XP on top of OS X for those events where i would need windows. Ive never had to use it.

To be fair to Microsoft however, they create software which needs to run on many different platforms and hardware which is bound to cause issues. OS X and Iphone software is customized to run only on mac hardware. This is its greatest strength.

 

[Alec]

I've never actually read a post such as the OP's that has provided anywhere near enough for me to go on to decide to make a change - from Apple fans, Linux fans, whoever - tho ive been a bit tempted by both on occasions.

Thing is, there seems to be this idea that Windows machines crash every five minutes, which is nonsense. It'll take quite a lot to convince someone who's never used a Mac; I'd probably need to try one first.

Macs are expensive machines, which many think dont run well without additional RAM.

Whats more, you can actually organise whatever you want pretty much however you want in Windows, with a little maintenance, like any filing system or whatever. I refuse to believe thats not the way with Apple software. In fact, i know it isnt, as evidenced by posts here about people not liking the way itunes organises by default.

Oh, and i know this makes me the weirdo, but i dont like apples styling very much.

 

[John Duncan]

al7478:Oh, and i know this makes me the weirdo, but i dont like apples styling very much.

Yes it does. Weirdo.

I use both Macs and PCs daily, and they're both just computers. To me Macs are more stylish, but the OS is no better or worse than Windows - except perhaps for performance, where I think a Mac does have the edge, certainly over Vista which is a bit of a pig. Haven't upgraded my Vaio to 7 yet, but will soon for research purposes; I hear it's a bit more svelte.

 

[Anonymous]

Each to their own Al,

Its not about convincing anyone to go out and change something they are perfectly happy with. I think the OP just provided a personal review of a product which he is entitled to.

You are right.. when setup correctly,, windows wont crash for no reason. But since you have never used one of the new mac's i think its a little silly to criticise an opinion without having anything to base it on.

You can customise os X quite well and this idea that itunes is the only media player available to be run on os x is a little nuts too. OS X is not ram hungry and is definitely a lot better at handling hardware resources than most windows machines due to it being customised for mac hardware.

Yes they are expensive, but your paying something thats more innovative than the competition.

If you dont like the styling.. dont buy it!.. seems your mind is made up anyway so im not really sure what the purpose of ure post was.

Im definitely not a fanboy.. all i can say is for what i do (general use, amateur photoshop, amateur music and multimedia) my macbook pro has been a revelation. Everyone will differ.. Most hardcore PC gamers will never choose a mac. Most hardcore computer geeks probably wont choose either and will probably go with some form of linux setup.. each to their own. no one should have to convince you in a forum post about a financial purchase.

 

[Craig M.]

well, just to be controversial

my pc running xp has never crashed, but my mac has once.

vista on the other hand.... burn it!!

 

[fido87456]

I would be more tempted with an Apple if they weren't twice the price of a similar specced windows machine.

I was considering getting a Mac mini recently, but ended up getting an Asrock Ion 330 instead. similar size and performance, just as quiet and energy efficient, arguably not quite as stylish, but at £240 instead of £500 it wasn't a tough decision.

 

[Alec]

Nukzter:

Each to their own Al,

Its not about convincing anyone to go out and change something they are perfectly happy with. I think the OP just provided a personal review of a product which he is entitled to.

The title of the thread is Buy an Apple computer instead! The OP is perfectly entitled to say what he wishes about Macs or anything else. I, however, as someone who has been tempted from time to time, was simply remarking that I've not heard a good argument yet - just vague stuff about how lovely they are to use. And thats a comment I'm quite entitled to make too.

You are right.. when setup correctly,, windows wont crash for no reason. But since you have never used one of the new mac's i think its a little silly to criticise an opinion without having anything to base it on.

You will notice that my criticism, as you would have it, makes no pretence to me knowing things about Apples that i do not know.

You can customise os X quite well and this idea that itunes is the only media player available to be run on os x is a little nuts too.

And nowhere do I say it is.

Yes they are expensive, but your paying something thats more innovative than the competition.

How?

If you dont like the styling.. dont buy it!.. seems your mind is made up anyway so im not really sure what the purpose of ure post was.

Thanks for the permission not to buy one. I'm not really sure what the point of your over-reaction was either.

no one should have to convince you in a forum post about a financial purchase.

I bring your attention back to the title of the thread. I'm just a little...dissillusioned (...?) that you get people who are convinced by one or the other, but who fail to give any real reason. How many times have you read "dont use x programme, its rubbish", only to find little substance behind the statement? You've never known me to evangelise about Windows, I can assure you. Precisely because I dont know how it compares to anything else.

I'm from the John Duncan school on this one, as i have no reason to believe otherwise.

OP, I mean no offence, and you like your Mac, good for you. Maybe "Go get a demo of a Mac" would have been a better thread title

 

[Anonymous]

fido87456:
I would be more tempted with an Apple if they weren't twice the price of a similar specced windows machine.

I was considering getting a Mac mini recently, but ended up getting an Asrock Ion 330 instead. similar size and performance, just as quiet and energy efficient, arguably not quite as stylish, but at £240 instead of £500 it wasn't a tough decision.there not similar in performance at all the processor in the mac is much much faster

the intel atom in the ion is designed for netbooks etc and isnt as powerful as the other intel processorss

 

[Anonymous]

Hi AI,

Thats fair enough. obviously mine wasn't an in depth review of macs to get people switching. More just a brief overview of the features I like.

I know with Windows 7 coming there will be a lot of people considering buying a new PC and that some people assume macs are just for designers/professional types.

Yes they are more expensive than PC but I find they have had some decent price cuts lately.

I just find that the software bundled with a Mac is far superior to what is offered on the off the shelf PC. for example

Garageband - I can tune my guitar and have video lessons in my own home at no additional cost(except the lessons offered by proffesinal artists like sting etc)

iPhoto - i've organised all my photos with face detection and GPS!

iTunes- I really like it - and yes I know its not for everyone but I find it a lot better than when I used windows media player.

iMovie - I just bought some leads to connect my old VCR to the computer and have now digitised most of my family movies. I've ended up editing and putting these on DVD's for family and even their friends have asked me to do the same with videos and movies. i.e. I just did a video of my older sister of her birthday videos, her wedding day and when she bought her daughter home from the hospital etc and I set it to her favourite songs and she loved.

I'm the average home user who wants to look at photo's music and movies and since moving to the Mac I feel like i'm finally doing it.

I've had a lot of fun doing the above and think the Mac computers are worth considering when upgrading to your next PC.

 

[fido87456]

one off:fido87456:
I would be more tempted with an Apple if they weren't twice the price of a similar specced windows machine.

I was considering getting a Mac mini recently, but ended up getting an Asrock Ion 330 instead. similar size and performance, just as quiet and energy efficient, arguably not quite as stylish, but at £240 instead of £500 it wasn't a tough decision.there not similar in performance at all the processor in the mac is much much faster

the intel atom in the ion is designed for netbooks etc and isnt as powerful as the other intel processorss

Fair enough, what I should have said is that for the tasks I will use it for I won't see any difference in performance

 

[Alec]

Well said Shimminator. I'm sorry if i seemed harsh at all, but hopefully you can see my point, as i can yours. I'm glad your enjoying it.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks and I didn't think it was harsh at all, I know Apple and Microsoft is a sensitive subject - and yes I can totally see your point of view as I was going back and forth for a good year before I bought it.

 

[Dan Turner]

fido87456:
I would be more tempted with an Apple if they weren't twice the price of a similar specced windows machine.

I was considering getting a Mac mini recently, but ended up getting an Asrock Ion 330 instead. similar size and performance, just as quiet and energy efficient, arguably not quite as stylish, but at £240 instead of £500 it wasn't a tough decision.

I thought exactly the same thing just over a year ago and I bought a windows machine, an Hp laptop, against the advice of a mate who had recently made the move to a Mac, because I couldn't justify spending £1k instead of £500 for the spec that I wanted.

Now I have just ordered a Mac because I've just got to the end of my tether with PCs - my HP does everything i could possibly want on paper and more, but it is just inherently flakey*, and so has been every windows machine that I or anyone else I know has ever owned.

The time had come to make my computer a central part of my home entertainment and I just couldn't face doing it with a windows-based machine.

* My 3 favourites:

- randomly deciding not to recognise that a disc has been inserted into the disc drive. I have to re-start and sometimes even that doesn't work so I have to shut down and let it 'rest' for a while

- blue-screen-of-deathing every time I hooked up to my HC amp via HDMI following an update. It took absolutely ages to trouble-shoot that and the only solution is to keep running on an old version of the graphics card drivers

- It absolutely will not remember the way that I've configured the dual-display settings for use with my HC system

I just cannot wait until the Mac arrives (this week) and I can be free of this hell!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I think my current laptop may be coming to the end of its life and I'm considering getting one of the following laptops when it finally gives out:

- Macbook (2.26ghz, 2gb ram, 250gb HD, 13.3" screen)

- Sony Vaio (2.13ghz, 4gb ram, 500gb HD, blu ray, 16.4" Full HD screen, windows 7)

Both cost about £900, and at the moment I'm leaning towards the sony due to the greater compatibility of windows with other products, the higher spec, the blu ray player and, important to me, the ability to use word and other office programs. The only downside I can see to the Sony is the pitiful battery life of 1.5-2hrs compared to the 7hrs of the Macbook.

Does anyone have any experience using word or microsoft office on Macbooks and if so, do they operate free of any problems/ crashes, to the same standard as on a windows laptop?

Of the above, which would people go for?

Does anyone know if and when Apple are planning to release macbooks with blu ray drives?

I'm having difficulty deciding which to go for, as I'm not sure what the benefits of the apple are over the windows-based sony, so any advice would be welcome.

Thanks

 

[John Duncan]

I have both a Macbook and a Vaio, so can comment with some experience, but i need to go to bed - remind me in the morning and I'll respond in full...

JD

 

[Anonymous]

There is no doubt in my mind that OSX is a superior system. I do not know about Windows 7, but that does seem to have copied a lot of the Mac operating system anyway. Mac's are not more expensive particularly when you factor in the software that comes with it free and the fact that you do not have to pay for Firewalls, Virus Software, Disk cleaning software etc. With Mac's you can of course also run Windows, so two computers for the price of one!

However, the Mac's strength is also a weakness. OSX will always be more stable than Windows, because it operates in a closed hardware environment. . Apple make the hardware and the software and it is very difficult to upgrade anything other than RAM on most machines. Windows by contrast has to cope with machines made by many different manufacturers and with users or regularly upgrade not only RAM, but graphics cards, ROM etc. This is a reason why Mac's will never really be machines for gamers - they will not be able to upgrade to the latest spec's for the latest game

 

[RodhasGibson]

JohnDuncan:I have both a Macbook and a Vaio, so can comment with some experience, but i need to go to bed - remind me in the morning and I'll respond in full... JD Hi JD, I see you haven"t tried windows 7 yet. As I mentioned to you the other night, when you were on the night shift

, I have installed 7 on our two laptops,now after a couple of days getting the feel of it,find it real good and its nippy too.Not being very IT savvy myself, I had no problems with install and would say it"s head and shoulders above the Vista Home Premium that it has replaced.Interested to hear your views soon. Cheers Rod

 

[Anonymous]

JohnDuncan:I have both a Macbook and a Vaio, so can comment with some experience, but i need to go to bed - remind me in the morning and I'll respond in full... JD

Hi JD,

I'd be interested to hear your opinion on both the Macbook and the Vaio when you have a moment.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Hi hmtb,

I run microsoft office on the mac with no issues. Some of the functionality is a little different, but its fully compatible with the windows versions and ive had no real issues with it.

Consider what applications you will use that only run exclusively on the Windows platform? Ide be surprised if there wasnt a more than capable mac alternative. If these applications are a deal breaker for you then go with windows..

Remember though. Windows works perfectly fine on a mac either via dual boot or via vmware fusion. So if you ever do need to run windows software,, its very easy.

 

[John Duncan]

Right

At home, my desktop is a Mac and my laptop is a Vista machine, at work my desktop runs XP and my laptop OSX. I use them interchangeably, more or less, since there's very little I can do on one and not the other (besides not having CS3 installed on my work desktop). I've said before and I'll say again, there isn't much difference in functionality or performance between the two, and you should go with what your most comfortable with, aesthetically and financially. mac OSX can be made to look very whizzy with it's animated UI, but tbh it's all flash and no real difference underneath. on the contrary, there are quirks to OSX that I find a pain, having used windows for nigh-on 20 years. The one caveat I would add is that if you want to run games, it's got to be a Windows machine really.

That said, if you want the aesthetics of a Macbook and absolutely must have Windows - and there are perfectly valid reasons for that, for example if you use Windows development tools or Microsoft Project (there's no real compatible alternative for Mac) - then you can still run Windows on a Mac under bootcamp, which zips along very nicely.

As for Office, to the poster above who says that Mac Office is compatible with the Windows version, this is not the case - there's no support for VBA, which frankly is a dealbreaker for me. So if you use spreadsheets at work that contain custom-built functions, you're SOL. there is an alternative to Mac Office in NeoOffice - a Mac port of OpenOffice - but I can't confirm VBA compatibility until the 160meg download has finished on my laptop

. Note also that whilst NeoOffice is broadly compatible with Microsoft Office, I've seen some layout issues with Word.

So to summarise - a Mac is not the most compatible business machine, and if you're using it for work a Windows machine is probably better. If you're just using it for surfing, a few docs and spreadsheets, bit of photography, bit of music, then either will do. If you want to use it for heavyweight image or video processing or especially music creation (where it kicks Windows' butt), you'll probably find a Mac best.

I'll update findings on NeoOffice shortly...

 

[Anonymous]

if i can add to some of your comments john

i use vmware which means i have a windows virtual machine running with ms office for windows corel photoshop and other graphics software all the time

vmware is cheap runs with windows 7 and seems bullit proof so that removes any incompatibility issues with windows office since you dont need to use it what it does is turn the mac into a fully compatible business machine without having to resort to openoffice or neooffice

still not good with games but otherwise no problem

by the way you need 4gb ram to run vmware but since its a do it yourself upgrade thats also inexpensive

macs also runs with usb windows keyboards so you can plug one of those in if you find your using windows more than osx

 

[John Duncan]

Yes agreed, I have vmware on my MBP, but to me it kind of defeats the object - if you want to run Windows, buy a windows machine, they're cheaper.

Just an addendum to my lasp post though - VBA macros do work in NeoOffice (extraordinary, bearing in mind they don't work with Microsoft's own product). And you can even edit them. All hail open source software, I say...

 

[Anonymous]

not really because it allows you to use the windows software you have before switching to mac versions and means you can have the best of both worlds

i simply cant afford to buy the adobe product suite all in one go so continue to use my older windows versions as i slowly upgrade

by the way office for mac also claims to be accessible which it isnt remotely

 

[The_Lhc]

fourforks:There is no doubt in my mind that OSX is a superior system. I do not know about Windows 7, but that does seem to have copied a lot of the Mac operating system anyway.

UNIX you mean?