Mac vs PC (yes, really) [Switched!]

[kalimus]

The reason Mac's are "less vulnerable" to viruses is because they make up such a small percentage of home computers. If you're going to attack computers in mass numbers, do you design a virus that will work on 80-90% of computers in the world, or the 10-20% that are Mac/Linux/Unix?

Mac's hardware is grossly overpriced (because the only people that make hardware for Mac is Apple), there are loads of software you can't run on a Mac (which is why so many people BootCamp Windows... defeating the whole purpose of running Mac OS anyway), and their computers are much more difficult to upgrade.

Windows has it's downsides as well, but if you run a decent anti-virus/malware program, and stop downloading free stuff illegally with shady P2P programs and websites, you're experience will be just fine with Windows. Windows 8... you can keep. You can still find 7... it's an excellent OS.

I heard something (somewhere) once, that was basically:
"Owning a Mac is like owning a car that gets 100 mpg, doesn't require any maintenance, will last over a million miles, but only runs on 5% of the roads".

[sigfan91]

I built my own PC and I can select whatever type of components to suit my budget or situation. I cannot do that with Mac.

I can't build my own laptop, but I can buy a cheap laptop, format it, install Windows 7, and be done with it, all at a fraction of the cost of a Mac book. After a few years, throw it out, and buy a newer laptop with up-to-date hardware. And I'll still be under the budget of a single Mac book from a few years back.

[Scout1520]

I will never go back to a PC.
I have had high end PCs for the majority of my life.
When I went back to school I bought a macbook pro.
To this day (4 years later) I have not had a single issue with it. It still works like new.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[sd_shooter]

I can't build my own laptop, but I can buy a cheap laptop, format it, install Windows 7, and be done with it, all at a fraction of the cost of a Mac book. After a few years, throw it out, and buy a newer laptop with up-to-date hardware. And I'll still be under the budget of a single Mac book from a few years back.

That is true, if you buy an inexpensive laptop from BestBuy/OfficeDepot and don't care about the specs. For $400 you can get a decent Windows laptop, but it likely will not have HD video or anything (screen resolution tends to be rather low.) If you get a high end PC with similar specs to the Mac (very high resolutions, SSD), then the price is actually comparable.

Windows has it's downsides as well, but if you run a decent anti-virus/malware program, and stop downloading free stuff illegally with shady P2P programs and websites, you're experience will be just fine with Windows. Windows 8... you can keep. You can still find 7... it's an excellent OS.

I have used all the MS operating systems and have yet to find one that is actually good. For example my work machine has Win7Pro, widely regarded as the best OS MS ever put out. Yet when I plug it back into the dock each morning, it takes a full 30 seconds to discover that I now have a mouse and keyboard attached. I step away to get some coffee at that point since I know the machine will be dead for a little while, but it shows that the OS has some problems (you'd think the mouse/keyboard ISRs would have top priority.) If reboot the machine while in the dock, the mouse/kb are never discovered! I must unplug them each time, plug back in. There are workarounds, but in a mature OS things like this should be taken care of.

[kalimus]

I have used all the MS operating systems and have yet to find one that is actually good. For example my work machine has Win7Pro, widely regarded as the best OS MS ever put out. Yet when I plug it back into the dock each morning, it takes a full 30 seconds to discover that I now have a mouse and keyboard attached. I step away to get some coffee at that point since I know the machine will be dead for a little while, but it shows that the OS has some problems (you'd think the mouse/keyboard ISRs would have top priority.) If reboot the machine while in the dock, the mouse/kb are never discovered! I must unplug them each time, plug back in. There are workarounds, but in a mature OS things like this should be taken care of.

That's too bad you've had those issues. I have two machines with 7 and one machine with XP, and don't have anything close to that kind of problem. Now Vista on the other hand... I couldn't get rid of that piece of dookie fast enough.

[zio707]

The reason Mac's are "less vulnerable" to viruses is because they make up such a small percentage of home computers. If you're going to attack computers in mass numbers, do you design a virus that will work on 80-90% of computers in the world, or the 10-20% that are Mac/Linux/Unix?

Mac's hardware is grossly overpriced (because the only people that make hardware for Mac is Apple), there are loads of software you can't run on a Mac (which is why so many people BootCamp Windows... defeating the whole purpose of running Mac OS anyway), and their computers are much more difficult to upgrade.

Windows has it's downsides as well, but if you run a decent anti-virus/malware program, and stop downloading free stuff illegally with shady P2P programs and websites, you're experience will be just fine with Windows. Windows 8... you can keep. You can still find 7... it's an excellent OS.

I heard something (somewhere) once, that was basically:
"Owning a Mac is like owning a car that gets 100 mpg, doesn't require any maintenance, will last over a million miles, but only runs on 5% of the roads".

Thank you for posting this and saving me the time as these are pretty much the same points I would have made as well. I'd like to add their proprietary software, cables, etc. that only work with Apple is an absolute joke in this day and age.

Apple has had an excellent business plan in place for years now. Make it simple, target the schools and the elderly. Those first waves of kids are now adults and have children of their own drinking the same Kool-Aid.

[the86d]

Thank you for posting this and saving me the time as these are pretty much the same points I would have made as well. I'd like to add their proprietary software, cables, etc. that only work with Apple is an absolute joke in this day and age.

Apple has had an excellent business plan in place for years now. Make it simple, target the schools and the elderly. Those first waves of kids are now adults and have children of their own drinking the same Kool-Aid.

You forgot proprietary cables, and collecting licensing fees on said cables, then change it so they have to buy more when the new model comes out...

[LittleOldLady]

Aren't you guys discussing Fords vs Chevy's??

Each, a clone or a Mac, has their place and uses.

Like my Father, a master mechanic for Caterpillar, always said it is what a person is used to.

He was so sick of working on equipment all week he rarely worked on our family cars. He preferred to do something completely different on his days off besides work on cars. He liked Fords and I liked Chevy's.

I followed his philosophy after working on clones all week long. The last thing I wanted to do on my days off was work on a stupid PC that crashed, had driver conflicts, registry errors, BSOD and I could go on and on.

I bought a Mac and I have a computer that just works. I turn it on and it does what it is supposed to do so now I have time to do other things besides work on computers on my days off.

It is all a matter of perspective. You don't get enough of fixing during the week?
Buy a PC.

Want to play outside, or do family things?
Buy a Mac.

[sd_shooter]

It is all a matter of perspective. You don't get enough of fixing during the week?
Buy a PC.

Want to play outside, or do family things?
Buy a Mac.

Thanks!

I used to build PCs and enjoyed being the "IT guy" around the house. I'd spend hours setting up new machines, tweaking the win registry, turning off bogus services etc. Great fun if you're single

But now I have a family and have zero time to tweak a PC. Just the other day my wife's Win8 laptop had a problem: Couldn't connect to network, couldn't shut down via the GUI, couldn't launch the start menu. Reboot didn't solve it. Ended up installing ClassicShell and all is well. I have CS on all my other PCs, but she had initially refused it since she liked the glitzy Win8 'tablet' look-n-feel. When I was done she said thanks and didn't even notice that the machine had morphed into something that looks like WinXP Anyway, these days I'd rather not chase problems like that.

[wobbleside]

Apple has made some of the nicest Windows 7 Ultrabooks for a long time.


My 2008 15" Macbook pro finally died a month an half ago. It had the crap beat out of it, the chassis was warped, it was on touchpad number 3; fan set number 2 and battery number 5.
For the last 2 years I've been running it primarily in Windows 7 and only booted into OS X for updates, and used whatever flavor of linux I wanted to play with more than OS X after Windows 7.

I bought a Razer Blade 14" with Windows 8.1 on it to replace it. Installed classic shell, disabled metro and tweaked it a little and aside from the ****ty TN screen absolutely loved it for the week I had it. Then Razer announced the 2014 Blade 14" with a 3k IZGO screen to replace the 900p TN film screen that crippled the original. Now I'm going nuts waiting on my 2014 Blade 14" to ship.. because it's been delayed twice.


As a note, I have my own custom built desktop, though it's due for a rebuild soon. It runs Windows 7 and crunchbang.

[LittleOldLady]

Thanks!

I used to build PCs and enjoyed being the "IT guy" around the house. I'd spend hours setting up new machines, tweaking the win registry, turning off bogus services etc. Great fun if you're single

But now I have a family and have zero time to tweak a PC. Just the other day my wife's Win8 laptop had a problem: Couldn't connect to network, couldn't shut down via the GUI, couldn't launch the start menu. Reboot didn't solve it. Ended up installing ClassicShell and all is well. I have CS on all my other PCs, but she had initially refused it since she liked the glitzy Win8 'tablet' look-n-feel. When I was done she said thanks and didn't even notice that the machine had morphed into something that looks like WinXP Anyway, these days I'd rather not chase problems like that.

My other half has a high end gaming machine (PC). We bought the parts and built it. Every time we make a hardware change we always have to buy extra's ie: new power supply for the new vid card we just bought and drivers AND doing this made Micro$oft mad and we had to re-acquire the serial because of the changes. We held our breath we did not have to call and go through that headache. Whew.
I do not game so I have no need of a PC.

Yah, I know what you mean regarding the CS, I logged in remotely a couple of weeks ago to my Sis's Win8 machine (from my MAC) installed CS because she hated the way it looked.
Did some other tweaking to make her happy, fonts too small icons too small gui all whack. She has screen writers software that only works on a PC otherwise she would........
Always something with a clone.

[the86d]

My other half has a high end gaming machine (PC) running WINDOWS. We bought the parts and built it. Every time we make a hardware change we always have to buy extra's ie: new power supply for the new vid card we just bought and drivers AND doing this made Micro$oft mad and we had to re-acquire the serial because of the changes. We held our breath we did not have to call and go through that headache. Whew.
I do not game so I have no need of a PC for WINDOWS.

Yah, I know what you mean regarding the CS, I logged in remotely a couple of weeks ago to my Sis's Win8 machine (from my MAC) installed CS because she hated the way it looked.
Did some other tweaking to make her happy, fonts too small icons too small gui all whack. She has screen writers software that only works on [COLOR=“Red”] a PC WINDOWS [/COLOR] otherwise she would........
Always something with a clone Windows.

Fixed it for you.
Non-Macs can run many flavors of other OS's Natively.

[LittleOldLady]

Fixed it for you.
Non-Macs can run many flavors of other OS's Natively.

Alright you can climb of of your high horse it is not necessary to put me in my place and correct what you think I should have written.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer

I have supported and run lots of Linux, FreeBSD, Novell, DOS and others on clones.

Matter of fact since my Mac is Intel based, and I dual booted it and I am running Win7 on it, I would imagine I could also use Linux and UNIX since the OS on it is based on BSD.

[kalimus]

My question for those that buy Macs to dual boot... why? You bought the overpriced Mac hardware and then run an OS that is really what people complain about. It's not PC (read non-Mac) hardware that is the bane of peoples' issues in the Mac vs PC (read non-Mac) wars. It is that there are more viruses and other issues in Windows. So all you did, was take a computer that was overpriced, and put the OS on it that is causing the "problems". I don't get it. Why not save yourself a few hundred dollars and just get the PC (read non-Mac)?

The only reason I would see is if you share the computer with someone in the house who is more familiar with the Mac OS.

[LittleOldLady]

My question for those that buy Macs to dual boot... why? You bought the overpriced Mac hardware and then run an OS that is really what people complain about. It's not PC (read non-Mac) hardware that is the bane of peoples' issues in the Mac vs PC (read non-Mac) wars. It is that there are more viruses and other issues in Windows. So all you did, was take a computer that was overpriced, and put the OS on it that is causing the "problems". I don't get it. Why not save yourself a few hundred dollars and just get the PC (read non-Mac)?

The only reason I would see is if you share the computer with someone in the house who is more familiar with the Mac OS.

I am not sure I have to justify my computer purchase to a random stranger but I will try.

In my case at least:

I wanted a Mac.

Then came a job:
"Do you know Mac and can you support it?" Answer, "Yes."
And because it was a challenge to see if I could use BootCamp, and to say I did, for a job.
Here is money and a new skill set.

Why would anyone want a Corvette if a cheap car would serve the purpose of getting from A to B?

Why would anyone buy a Rolex when a Timex would serve?

Why would anyone buy a mansion or a 72" tv?

Why would anyone buy an AR?

Short answer: They want one.