mmmm...windows only programs......autocad.....mmmm

I had a conversation with a friend the other day consisting mainly of a time when this choice was easy - Macs are computers for people who can't use them. Now, it's not that simple!

That second question's answer seems a bit flawed to me. If you like Windows, and use mostly Windows, you shouldn't get a Mac because heaven forbid you could learn to use and like something else? Yes, it's a completely different operating system, but it's not rocket science. And if you are, in fact, a rocket scientist, Macs should be easy.

In college, I used both PCs and Macs and since graduating, I'm working 100% on Macs now. I'd never recommend a Mac to either of my parents, since it does require a learning curve. But if they wanted to learn and adapt, they would be great at using a Mac.

Apple's laptops, at least the ones I have used, are very hard on my wrists with their sharp squared off edges. Industrial design shouldn't compromise ergonomics.

I'd never buy a Mac because of the proprietary hardware/everything integrated design. What happens when the cute integrated monitor goes bad?

I'd consider building myself a Hackintosh, though.

@CaffeinatedSquint: As a lifelong PC user (largely due to gaming reasons) until about six months ago when I bought a shiny iMac, I have to say I would totally recommend a Mac over a PC to someone who wasn't familiar with computers in the first place (not my parents, as they were the ones who bought us a TRS-80 when I was a wee bairn). I think it's way more user-friendly and intuitive, especially compared to Vista (which I regret installing, but see aforementioned gaming reference).

Maybe the learning curve didn't seem that steep to me, but I can see "well, I already use a PC so I don't want to deal with a new OS" as a valid reason for someone to stick with the same system. Inertia is a powerful thing.

I have used both through work forever. The only thing I find difficult is re-remembering where the basic command buttons are but it is easy enough to get back up to speed since they are pretty intuitive.

My predecessor at one previous job had the smarts to demand she have a Mac for doing graphics work. IT there would not touch a Mac at all, they provided unmonitored network connection and that was it. All of the Windows activity was closely monitored down to what you were doing on a local machine. I really think most of the reason that some demanded the Mac's for their office was to get around the heavy handed monitoring by IT.

@ParkerTheDog: not all macs have integrated monitors... and the only proprietary things on a mac these days are the motherboard which it doesnt matter what you buy, unless you build it yourself its going to be proprietary.

about the only 3rd party piece that your going to find difficult to replace on a Mac these days are the graphics cards, which if you look you can STILL find replacements for not from Apple.

@ParkerTheDog: currently the only mac that has a "cute integrated monitor" is the iMac, to which there are numerous clones by other companies, including the likes of HP.

Apple also makes the MacPro and the Mini, both of which are compatible with the monitor/display of your choice.

Dell sells an integrated pc and monitor knockoff.
[www.engadget.com]

Walt Mossberg irritates me... There was one of his lengthy diatribes, about freeing up cellphones and networks, in my local paper today. I realize that it's an important issue, but who died and made him king? What makes his word on technology the holy grail?? I hate how everybody waits for his review on anything new and technological... "What will Walt say about the iPhone?? What will Walt say about the new Zune??" WHO CARES?!

@ParkerTheDog:

I think that same criticism applies to every PC laptop in the world. Go figure.

". Finally, if you know and like Windows, and expect mainly to use Windows programs, stick with a Windows PC."

Like email, web browsing, instant messaging and Office applications? Those are probably 99% of what most people use on a PC. Yeah, Macs have those things too, but without the PC bullshit. Unless you have something super-specific to Windows, you're probably better off jumping ship.

Nice to see a reasonably objective even-handed assessment of both.

The user-experience is what makes the mac my choice. Pro- or anti- Apple, chances are you've heard many people say they *love* their macs. When's the last time you heard someone say they love their pc? I'm sure it happens but not nearly as often, in my experience.

In the old days, the Mac was for graphic artists and the PC was for business people dealing with the business world. And I'll second the notion that Mac once were for people who knew nothing about computers. You basically didn't need to because nothing ever needed tweaking like it did in the Windows 3.x enviroment.

Today it is a tough choice with Mac having dual booting, but in the end the PC is far more economical and there's so much more support for the Windows platform. In getting a PC, however, you need to purchase something from the business side of whatever computer manufacturer you're looking at. Otherwise the computer is leadened down with crapware and they strip the system down to something that has severe limits on being upgraded.

@ParkerTheDog: If anything, I suspect that the monitor will last longer than the useful lifespan of the computer itself. LCDs don't really wear out in less than five years, do they?

I own a Mac laptop and won't ever buy another Mac, ever. Hated it! But I did like that it was a LAPTOP. Anyway, I'll stick with my flawed Vista box. However, I disagree with the suggestion that "Macs are computers for people that can't use them." A Mac is a computer, and if you can use a Mac, then you can and are using a computer. That's a simple enough counter argument, I think.

The idea that Macs are for people that "can't use a computer" is a deep seated resentment by adherents of 80s nerd culture - a time when using a computer was an end unto itself. Where making the computer do your bidding was both a challenge and a hobby. For hackers at the time, mastering the computer was more important than getting it to actually do something. The advent of the Mac brought resentment from those people, and still does. Because with the Mac, people that don't give a s**t about how computers work, or why they work, can turn on a Mac and get it to do what they want it to do, then turn it off and go away. Maybe they want to write a report, edit pictures or send an e-mail. But they don't care about the brilliance of all the people that designed the hardware or the challenge of getting the software to work together. Those people use the computer as a tool -- just like a carpenter uses a table saw or an electric drill.

So I understand the resentment. The hacker that could make an 8088 or a i286 really sing in the 80s and 90s is no longer relevant. Because people are no longer impressed with the tricks, or with the use of a computer to just use a computer. They want to create, store and digest information. Then they turn off their computer and go out and get laid.

And the dorks and nerds and geeks and dweebs are left behind wondering why they aren't relevant anymore.

I use both - a PC at work, and a Mac at home.

Since I'm not doing anything particularly involved on the PC (aside from working, sending e-mails and occasionally surfing the 'net for work-related matters coughandotherthingscough) or the Mac (e-mail, 'net surfing, blogging, yadda yadda), they both work well for me.

Maybe I'm just easily amused. Who knows?

I play cutting-edge games and I haven't had a computer that I didn't build since about '95. I don't like Windows, but most of the game stuff is developed for Windows, so that's where I am. If the development focus shifts to another platform, I'll follow along.

Macs are good for casual users who aren't price and/or performance sensitive. Generally if you want a top end system to do just about anything you need to go PC. I'd direct people like my parents who want a computer to use email and browse the web to a mac. More serious users... well unless you're completely computer illiterate I can say I would recommend one.

If all you want to do is surf the web, send email, watch YouTube, and write short little documents, you should not buy a Mac or a recent PC with Vista. My company regulary gives away computers perfectly capable of running Ubuntu. They won't be BLAZING FAST!!!!! computers, but they'll web surf and use open office with the best of them.

If you plan doing podcasts/vblogs/other Web 2.0 things beyond text, then you'll need to shell out for something with the power to edit video. Or maybe not, since even the $400 AsusEEE PC can take rudimentary video, and it's remarkably short on specs (900mHz, 512 MB ram).

Break the e-penis craze and recycle those old computers. You don't need to spend thousands to have the Macintosh "bling" factor.

My degree is in software engineering, and I love my MacBook Pro. It provides both a better user experience than Windows, and a better development environment, since it's a UNIX clone, although it's not as good for development as Linux or BSD.

I agree with the others who say that that last suggestion doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless you are a Windows power-user, it shouldn't be especially difficult to get used to Mac OS X and its applications. My main suggestion is to get OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox for Windows before switching to Mac, then get Firefox and NeoOffice for your Mac; it'll spread out the learning curve and save you money even if you stick with Windows.

When you find yourself on a Windows machine wishing you could squeeze the mouse or hit F11 to display all your windows, you'll understand the beauty of Mac OS X.

I have used both PCs and Macs with PCs at the office and a Mac at home. As mentioned before, the interface, graphics, and general usability is much better with the Mac.

However, for many folks this will be the deciding factor between PC and a Mac - Excel. Simply put, Excel on a Mac is inferior to its PC cousin. The short-cut keys are different, nested functions often don't work on the Mac, and there are glaring errors on iterative value calculations.

I work with spreadsheet pro formas and to that end PC is the only way to go.

It's a tough one for me; I do a lot of graphic design -- obviously I should get a Mac for that. But I'm also studying interior design -- so I definitely need a PC for Autocad and related programs. Right now I'm sticking with PC because it's all I can afford.

@TARGET_VETERAN,

Thanks for bringing that up. My only qualms with Ubuntu and other Linux OS's are that (a) configuration, especially for the display, can be nasty, and (b) as you said, it's not great for making videos.

I've considered the switch, but Apple is still too expensive.

$599 Mac Mini? Add in the most basic Apple keyboard, LCD monitor, a productivity software available in their store and you're over $1300. Even if you drop the Apple-branded monitor (and their industrial design is a huge selling point) for a generic version you're still creeping upwards of a grand.

Same thing with their laptops. My wife desperately wanted a Mac laptop after using a coworker's ($1800) Mac laptop, but we couldn't stomach the price when a dual-core Vista laptop with a 15.4" screen was available for $450 and has been both stable and more than capable of meeting her needs (web, Office, and basic DVD authoring).

At home we've had two Apple desktops and two laptops. They were generally unreliable and very expensive to fix. My little local shop builds PC's to order, offers a exception-free one-year warranty, and will fix any problem in a day or two. And I don't have to fight my way through masses of teenagers playing with Ipods to get to the counter. My first workplace computer was a Apple IIe, and I recall how resentful I was at having to learn a new operating system when I changed jobs. So, yes, I don't really want to have to go through that again unless there's a big payoff--and I don't see one. After living through all the Windows iterations, I'm very pleased with XP (wouldn't bother with Vista), and have no reason to give gobs of cash to Apple.

@jendomme: Office on the Mac is in general inferior, weirdly slow when doing even certain simple operations (on my G5 at least) and full of really odd bugs - this is not just restricted to Excel. I actually use a Mac at work and a PC at home, and Office's oddities are probably the primary reason I prefer my PC. Oh, and (at least the pre-Leopard) Finder sucks. But that's just my opinion.

But the rest of my Mac I like. Visually superior to Windows and simpler in many respects.

Anyone in a financial field (accounting, corporate finance, etc) will prefer a PC over a Mac at a tremendous margin, as JenDomme stated. PCs blow away Macs in that place.

However, one place that I see PCs and Windows in particular gaining an edge over the Mac is in the area of Media Center and integration. The very fact that I can stream live or recorded TV, music, pictures, etc from my Media Center on XP/Vista to my Extender (such as the XBox 360) is a huge thing. I doubt that's the competitive advantage Microsoft wants, though...

@Caswell: I agree. The price of a mac mini + monitor, keyboard, and mouse can get quite high. You can get a very decent computer for cheap if you go the windows route, dell regularly sells a pc w/24" monitor for around $800(I've seen as <$700). And if you're getting a pc for someone that is just a web browser, the wal mart everex is a decent deal. I tried gOS and its very usable for a beginner. And for what its worth, I loved my IIgs

My MacBook was about a hundred dollars less than my last laptop, and I had designed it to be a fairly portable gaming laptop. After about a year and a half, the screen crapped out on me after too much traveling (and a few drops when being taken out of the car), and I switched to a Mac. I love my Mac and haven't found it to be cumbersome. I like both, and still use both as my fiancee has a PC. I know a decent amount of computers, and would still recommend a PC for most users. But I know a lot of people swear by their Macs and so far I'm satisfied with mine.

I use Macs at work (design stuff) and PCs at home, and I must confess that I privately hate Macs. My vintage Gateway back home rarely crashes, while the Mac (a new model, by the way) requires that I save my progress every .01 seconds for fear of losing it to a crash. Granted, I'm using heavy-duty programs (InDesign, Final Cut, etc...) but it makes me snicker when Macfolk talk about how *awesome* Macs never crash. And yes, this holds true for every Mac I've had to work with in my career.

If you tried to buy a PC that has all the standard features that a Mac has built-in, you'd find that it's as expensive as a Mac. But the Mac has worthwhile software that you'd actually USE, and full versions as well, none of that trial-version bloatware that's rife on the PC side.

And, except for Valve Software - who tried extorting Apple to pay them a million dollars to develop for the Mac (Jobs told them to take a hike), all the major game publishers happily code for the Mac.

To say nothing of the warm fuzzies you get knowing that 5,678 variants of viruses aren't able to pop open a cold one and take turns ravaging your computer while you helplessly mewl like a girl. :D

@GinaLouise: Are you using recent versions of everything? Any out of date extensions? Simply asked since I use the CS suite all the time w/ no ill effects.

@Mike Mac: "When's the last time you heard someone say they love their pc?"

I love my PC. It doesn't everything I ask it to do, and it does it when I ask. I wouldn't switch unless I decided to get back up to speed with Final Cut Pro for a job.

Granted, my husband built my computer and we installed only the programs I wanted to have on it. But I've really not seen the terrible horrible evil things so many people think happen with Windows.

@Caswell: So buy a used Mac. They tend to have a much longer useful lifetime than a comparable PC. I currently have a G4 tower, which I paid less than $100 for about two years ago. I dropped another $100 maxing out its RAM. It's now about five years old, and I'll keep it for at least another year or two before I upgrade.

Admittedly, I already had a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers - they are all hooked up to both the Mac and also to a PC, through a KVM switch.

I would definitely say that both Macs and PCs have their advantages; personally, I've gotten so used to doing all my work on a PC that my Mac is just my "play" machine now.

I have used both. At home and at work. But as they say, once Mac, you never go back.

i think one of these days i'm gonna develop a dual-boot mac/pc that actually boots both drives simultaneously & then uses a simple keyboard macro to switch between the two. like having two machines on a kvm switch (only in one box)

oops. did i let that one out of the bag?

i like mac. i always have. oregon trail on the apple iie: best_game_ever! even when my powerbook 5300 took what seemed like an eternity to boot up, there was nothing better than firing that puppy up (to play marathon). battery never lasted more than 30 minutes, but at least it didn't blow up.

i recommend them to my friend & family (that have deep pockets). those looking cheap, i steer elsewhere. if you can afford it & you want something that just works, works well & makes your computing experience effortless, buy a mac...don't think twice. there's something to be said about closed-source - everything's guaranteed to work. it's the same reason i bought a console to play video games. eventually you just get tired of tweaking video cards for every game that you play.

PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PCP P PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC

Reason? Simple, easy to learn, much more variety of accessories and software.

Need I say more? You Mac people seem like you're in another world.

@BigNutty: Whoa bro. Bowl us over w/ your maturity. :P

@BigNutty: Well, you might have tried saying something constructive and useful rather than obnoxiously spamming and rather defeating the entire point of the post about "nice to see something other than unhelpful fanboyism." But in short, yes, you need to say more. As nearly all of the previous comments have pointed out, "simple" and "easy to learn" are hallmarks of the Apple line, and apart from games there isn't really a dearth of accessories/software developed specifically for Macs. Maybe the "other world" we're in is Earth. Where are YOU coming from?

@Yarvin,

Yeah, displays can be a bit... iffy at times. Ubuntu has it down for most of the common video cards, and the low end/on board cards that freecycled dells and the like come with are a known quantity, so there shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I know the article is aimed at people looking to buy new, high end systems, but a non-trivial percentage of those people are perfectly served with low end Linux machines. (most) Grandmas don't need Vista. They need something stupidly reliable that they can't mess up. Break the power of Best Buy, Circuit City, Dell, etc. Adopt a computer today.

@PatrickIs2Smart: I don't even know who the guy is, so he doesn't decide technology for me :p

Regarding the debate, I don't like Macs...maybe because I'm A+ certified for PCs, and I can build my own computer for as low as $ 150 that'll run Windows and is easy enough to use, but I don't see what paying alot of money for a pretty machine will do. I remember eveybody fawning over the eMachines iMac knock off a few years ago, when it was a bargain basement POS.

I will also say, that I can't stand to design on the Mac either. I used to work with a newspaper, and all their graphics department used Macs...well, I can still get Adobe CS3 on my PC, and, I can get OTHER programs for my computer too. Having a Mac is like having a car that'll only drive down 10% of roads built. I like being able to go to the store and seeing aisles upon aisles of software for PCs, and then a shelf or two for Mac...makes me feel superior.

Oh, and to just let you know this was a rant against Mac, I do know how to use other systems...I'm buying an EeePC at the end of the month, and I know linux fairly well, but we all agree linux is for techies, not a Windows replacement (yet!)

When did the author do his homework? Mac's use Intel chips and can run both the Mac OS and Windows simultaneously. Mac-Phisto knew it, plus the info is right on Apple's website.

What the author meant to write is:

People who spend much of their time playing cutting-edge games can use either platform, as the Mac now uses the latest Intel chips.

He's right about IT departments that use strict PC software though.

@mac-phisto: Take a look at vmware or parallels. With virtualization software you can have several operating system running at the same time. The speed hit is minor (use a really partition instead of virtual hard disk) except for games and other graphics intensive software.

O RLY!

@DemolitionMan: linux for techies and grandmas. Best move I ever made was setting up a linux pc(puppy linux in this case) for my parents and I rarely get a call from them about it.(wasn't the case when they had 98 and XP)

I love to see the people's face when I pull my macbook and start the windows partition. Is like you are messing with their heads, seriously.

I have been using macs since 1990 when we had classics at school. Back then was a pain in the neck to have documents migrated between versions and platforms. Oh well we leaned fast and survived. People, the war is over. the question is not mac or not, but what os I want to run this time on my mac.

ps. parallels works great to have BOTH versions running at the same time.

I love my Mac. I would never return to Windows or Linux. Before you say how simplistic I am for enjoying good UI architecture, consider that I have an A+ Cert, a background in programming and have been using computers since I had to boot off a floppy disk, the screens only showed shades of green and the internet was not yet invented. Apple pays attention to details. I have an XBox 360 for gaming -- who wants to sit at a desk to play?