Mac or PC

[BUGSnBIRDS]

Recently moved to an iMAC and generally pretty chuffed. Haven't any editing software yet..just getting used to basics of slight differences in word and excel functions and Skype. BUT so far so good.

[Dan Gamble]

Mac's great if you want to tell eveyone you have a Mac.

PC is for people who want a computer they can use, have control over, customise, optimise and functionalise without spending money on aesthetically pleasing plastic casings and painful proprietary connectors.... and then again a year later and then again two years later.

PC is flexible computing

Mac is Kit computing

Depends what you want and what you're doing and how much you care about spending more money unnecissarily.

My two cents... (which i saved by bying a PC)

[wolffman]

I'm quite surprised the Mac representation is so high. We went Mac about a year and a half ago now. I hesitated as the idea of teaching the good lady wife another operating system filled me with dread, but it was a doddle.
Sadly the optical drive just stopped working so I am computerless for probably a week!! It's only been at the shop for 2 hours and I miss it already.
MacBook pro 15.4 2.66ghz with 4gb ram and 320 hdd
I went in to photo Wholesalers in Adelaide and they were putting the sell on a young lady to get her into a 13" MacBook pro. I couldn't help myself but had to butt in saying the mac was great. The guys behind the counter looked happy until they asked me what I thought of iPhoto...

[Dan Gamble]

The guys behind the counter looked happy until they asked me what I thought of iPhoto...

[Calxoddity]

Mac's great if you want to tell eveyone you have a Mac.

PC is for people who want a computer they can use, have control over, customise, optimise and functionalise without spending money on aesthetically pleasing plastic casings and painful proprietary connectors.... and then again a year later and then again two years later.

PC is flexible computing

Mac is Kit computing

Depends what you want and what you're doing and how much you care about spending more money unnecissarily.

My two cents... (which i saved by bying a PC)

I've scraped up 18 cents for you - add the 2 cents you already have and you can afford a clue...

Regards,
Calx (at his utterly wittiest today on account of being stuffed around by Virgin Blue computer glitch)

[I @ M]

Regards,
Calx (at his utterly wittiest today on account of being stuffed around by Virgin Blue computer glitch)

I heard that Virgin Blue use Macs ----------

[bigdazzler]

Mac's great if you want to tell eveyone you have a Mac.

PC is for people who want a computer they can use, have control over, customise, optimise and functionalise without spending money on aesthetically pleasing plastic casings and painful proprietary connectors.... and then again a year later and then again two years later.

PC is flexible computing

Mac is Kit computing

Depends what you want and what you're doing and how much you care about spending more money unnecissarily.

My two cents... (which i saved by bying a PC)

is about it really ....

[Eberbachl]

Alot of funny stuff in this thread, and sadly a bunch of myths too. Some comments I'd love to rebut, but sadly that would just start a downward spiral that won't help anyone.

Personally, I think we're pretty blessed with some great choices theses days:

Mac OSX is a great platform - fast, stable, secure, lots of yummy eye candy. Sure you pay a premium for it. A 27" iMac is a seriously gorgeous piece of machinery, and for that you'll pay extra. Some people are OK with that, some would prefer not to. That's OK.

Windows 7 is an excellent operating system and came at a great time for Microsoft who were hurting from the unfortunate Vista release. Windows 7 is really what Vista should have been, and with the myriad of great value PC configurations is a great option. Be sure to keep your updates up, firewalls at the ready and anti virus software fresh and you'll have a ball.

Linux is maturing rapidly as a desktop alternative, and my personal favourite, Ubuntu brings alot to the table. Good free open source software, faaaast, secure, and stable with free application alternatives for almost all of the major categories. Be prepared to roll your sleeves up from time to time and work in the command line every now and then to keep things humming nicely, and you'll get a lot from this great platform.

All of the above says is that we've got three great platforms available to us - none of them perfect, but all of them really good in their own ways.

Choose what you like, and enjoy using it.



Me?

My Desktop PC is an AMD 6 core CPU, with 8GB RAM and an ATI 5850 graphics card running the new Ubuntu 10.10 Beta.

One of my laptops is my trusty MacBook 13" with Core 2 duo 2.16GHz CPU and 4GB RAM running OS X Leopard. Still running quickly without issues 3.5 years on, and still getting 4+ hours from the original battery ('twas around 6 hours when new).

My other laptop is an ASUS Intel i3 machine with 4GB RAM and ATI 5000HD graphics running Ubuntu 10.04 and loving it.

On all three of the above machines I have Windows 7 virtual machines (VirtualBox) I drop in to from time to time for various things. All of my Windows 7 VMs run quickly and smoothly on the above machines and I enjoy using them.

It's all good.

[Quietguy]

Hope I've done this right

Using...

IMac 20" 2.6g with 4gigs ram, and 3x external hds

MacBook pro 17" i5 with4gig ram

IPad 64gig

IPhone 3gs 32gig (hoping to upgrade to iPhone 4 soon)

Guess who is an Apple fanatic?

David (not admitting he also has an Apple 7300, LCII, and LCIII)

[Wayne]

My Laptop just ceased to exist this week, and when I opened it up, the board looks roasted, so not worth fixing given it's 2 years old. I was looking at a new desktop, and I'm tossing up between the latest imac core i7, the new Mac pro and building a new PC. Given the current pricing for Macs, and what can be had when building a PC for = $, the macs as aesthetically pleasing as they may be fall somewhat short performance wise, particularly when comparing a PC build to a Mac-pro.
Decisions decisions, but I think the PC build is going to win...

[Schmenz]

my hp just died at 1.5 years old

just got the new macbook pro 15" i7 with 2gb ram (will upgrade later when i have more money) and the 7200rpm harddrive and high res screen. although i cant really tell the difference in the screen.

i also have an asus eepc 1005p with 2gb ram which is great for uni, but too slow to do any mutlitasking.

im very new to mac and slowly getting used to it but i like it so far.i wouldnt say one is better than the other, but i am enjoying not having any "blue screen of death" moments. As my old hp had them regularly, and the netbook had it on the first day!

(although my original mac was faulty and froze lots, but they gave me a new one which has been fine! )

[JM Tran]

my hp just died at 1.5 years old

just got the new macbook pro 15" i7 with 2gb ram (will upgrade later when i have more money) and the 7200rpm harddrive and high res screen. although i cant really tell the difference in the screen.

i also have an asus eepc 1005p with 2gb ram which is great for uni, but too slow to do any mutlitasking.

im very new to mac and slowly getting used to it but i like it so far.i wouldnt say one is better than the other, but i am enjoying not having any "blue screen of death" moments. As my old hp had them regularly, and the netbook had it on the first day!

(although my original mac was faulty and froze lots, but they gave me a new one which has been fine! )

Hi EMz, the high-res optional screen is best utilized with the matte screen option for the MBP, I have noticed my hi-res screen with the matte to be a lot sharper looking with more details when zoomed right in - compared to my friends who just have the glossy glass screens and no hi-res option

when you upgrade it to 8GB of RAM the machine just flies so fast! Just over $300 or so for the 8GB Ram from the site sponsors here, or go to MSY

[terrencechin]

Not a fan of Macs myself. Used them for a while when I was studying multimedia and there's one at work which I don't like much.

I have a PC running Windows 7 atm, Q6600, 4GB, nvidia video and 24" Dell LCD. I just like building my own setup from hardware I choose.

[Schmenz]

Hi EMz, the high-res optional screen is best utilized with the matte screen option for the MBP, I have noticed my hi-res screen with the matte to be a lot sharper looking with more details when zoomed right in - compared to my friends who just have the glossy glass screens and no hi-res option

when you upgrade it to 8GB of RAM the machine just flies so fast! Just over $300 or so for the 8GB Ram from the site sponsors here, or go to MSY

Ooo thank you for the clarification re screen. I thought about matte, but I do kinda like the gloss look. the upgrade to hires wasnt much at all so i thought "why not!"

but yea i definently need more ram! once i stop buying more camera gear ill have some money left for RAM! my googles at the time showed it would be around the 300 mark or less, which is why i waited. apple wanted to charge 500!

[exwintech]

A Vote here for Linux - seems to be no Button for it....!

In Australia, Linux is indeed rather a minority thing - only about 86,000 Linux home PC users.

But it's in much wider use elsewhere - the EU, South America, and Asia, in particular.

Most people aren't aware of it - but they probably spend hours each day using Linux or Unix.

I started with DOS - Genuine IBM Twin-Slotter, no HDD - in 1983. I was a Windows tech (suburban dealers, designing and building home PCs, and Workstations.) After 11 years of that - well, towards the latter stages of it - I had become somewhat disamused with Windows, and looked for something else. Macs at the time were very expensive - and a tech where I was working got me onto Linux.

Which was a 'grabber' - with Windows, the System controls the User - with Linux, the User controls the System.

There was a several year period (about 2001-2005) - when I used both Windows and Linux, dual-booted. In those days, Windows was "easier to use", but Linux "did more things". I went through several Distros (like model-names) - and 5 years ago settled into PCLOS - PCLinuxOS - and have used it fulltime ever since.

I like being able to spread work-in-progress over 6 or 8 Desktops (you can have up to 20.) Being able to do "anything you like" with the System - without thingies continually popping up to prevent or object.

The 9+ years without a Virus or Trojan has been nice - but Linux is NOT "invulnerable" on the Internet - Worms and Rootkits do exist, though are mainly aimed at Linux Servers. The biggest risk with a Linux PC is hackers on the Dark Side. A Compromised Linux PC is more valuable to them for their nefarious doings than a Windows PC. So - I'm careful to stay behind Linux Shorewall and a hardware firewalled router.

It's fun going to the ShieldsUp! site and testing - and getting 100% greens - then being told you have your Windows secured very well!

As for the "value for money" - a Linux PC that will equal or out-task a Windows one - is a quarter to a third cheaper to build. Or - a PC that will run Vista Ultimate adequately - will be a total-screamer on Linux.

Then - apart from crooked Pirates, the Windows O/S costs hundreds of dollars. Most applications, tools, utilities, etc - cost from tens to hundreds of dollars. Example - friends who paid $650.00 here in Sydney for Sony Vegas Pro - have used the free Kdenlive here on Linux - are a bit "peeved" - Kdenlive is easier to use, renders much faster, has more functions, transitions, effects - with heaps more of both to D/L free - and I get a "newy" or big upgrade - every few months.

Any interim fixes or updates are of course automatic. That is - when I secured-link connect to one of the PCLOS Repositories - and "Update All" - with Synaptic - the System, and all applications, tools, utilities, games, etc - are all updated in one go. Do it weekly - and it takes 5-7 minutes.

After you do that - you can look at the over 12,000 applications, tools, utilities, etc, readied in the Repository - and mark a few - 5-10-15-20 - and install those to try out, in 1 go. 10 would take under 5 minutes. No reboot needed. And the ones you don't want - "Mark to Uninstall" in Synaptic - click, and it does that.

If you can't find software to do anything you want to, out of 12,000 items, you're not looking very hard...

Linux - as late as 5-6 years back - used to be "hard to use" - with a lot of CLI (Command-Line-Interface) needed. No more. I rarely open a terminal to "do things", now. Mostly just to get quick answers - "df" - partition data usage, "top" - what's running and how much resources is each thing using, or "uptime" - which at present says:

[david@localhost ~]$ uptime
15:05:12 up 6 days, 17:03, 1 user, load average: 0.30, 0.39, 0.36
[david@localhost ~]$

So - I'm a rather happy Linuxer - on a 2 year old PC - AMD 6000 dual-core 3GHz, 2GB DDR2, 320GB HDD - which cost under $800.00 to build, and does all I need it to. And that $800.00 "was it" - the System, Applications, Tools, Utilities, Games, etc - cost nothing. I send them a US$25.00 donation from time to time.

Dave.

[PaulMac]

I was always a PC person due to the cost and modular abilities. I swapped to a 24" IMAC 18 months ago and I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt that it is the best singular thing I have done in the whole time I have been into photography. I primarily photograph weddings so were talking large batches of photos . I have gone from spending so much time fixing hardware and software issues on a PC to just getting on with work... Every PC person knows the number of popup boxes you get when installing software and hardware... although there's no doubt it's getting better. With my IMAC I have a quiet compact beautiful to work with screen that just WORKS!!!!!! I plug in a piece of hardware... It works. I install new software... it just works. Seriously should have swapped years ago and my images have improved vastly since.

I'm not trying to convert anyone but seriously have a think about it..... You don't know what your missing. There has to be something in it when I can run windows XP in the background on my MAC and it works better than on my PC??

And the cost difference... Quality.. as simple as that.

Nuf said.

[PaulMac]

Having issues with my pc as it isn't picking up the ADSL wireless connection. How easily is the iMac in connecting to a wireless connection.

Thinking of buying the imac 21.5 this weekend but want to make sure it will connect well with my wireless ADSL 2+ modem.

Plug it in...turn it on. Enter the password if you have one and your done!


Pretty much no harder than going wireless on an Iphone or Ipad.

[exwintech]

PaulMac - Good for you, mate! Yes, that's sensible. People will find an O/S that suits what they do - and how they want to do it - if they look around at what's available. I long ago gave up trying to get friends here at least dual-booting Linux to have a good look at it....

They LIKE their Windows - most of the friends my age - the 55-65 range - have only ever had Windows - since Win-3.x or Win-95. The kids - there's 8 families and 2 singles in our bunch - are now all teens - or adult... So they came into computers from about Win-95 on. So they're used to Windows - comfy with it - and it generally does what they want to do - in a way they know how to do it.

They don't really want their computing-boat rocked - so why should anyone try to barge-in on that? They know a couple of people who have Macs - and one who has Linux - me, so if any of them ever want to try something else - they can ask and they'd be shown. Mac users are happy to demonstrate their devices, and discuss them - as are Linux users.

As for running non-HDD installs of Windows - I usually have a half-dozen Systems set up to run in Virtual-Box, in Linux. Other Linux Distros to try-out - recently the new Ubuntu/Kubuntu, etc - and Win2k-SP4 - along with XP-Pro SP2 - currently upgraded to SP3, though I don't always bother with that. SP2 runs just about anything friends want me to try out or test for them.

XP-Pro seems to behave very well in Virtual-Box. No Internet hassles - in V-Box it's behind the host-system's Shorewall, and the firewalled router. (And yes, as part of helping the bunch with their Windows boxes - I'm gradually convincing them that a router/firewall is a good idea. On those, I've been using the low-cost ASUS RX3041-etc, series.)

Can be funny.... Some of them are sure that Macs are "too advanced to bother with" - and that Linux is "far too complicated to bother with..."

So.... Weekend before last, one family was visiting... Their younger girl, 15, was in a panic about "not doing her mails and socials" - so I flicked on the monitor, and told her to go ahead. No probs - they have Firefox at home. She'd done a few downloads, so wanted to know where they were. Easy - Firefox is pathed to DLs0 on Desktop1...

Oooops - how was she going to take them to her friend's place... I said she could borrow an old Toshiba 2GB flashy I had in the junkbox on the bench. She stuck it in a USB port on the front of the box, merrily copy-pasted - right-clicked to 'Safely Remove' when told - and off with the flashy... To tell parents at the table, "Gee - trust Unky-Dave to have the latest - got that new Windows-7 we haven't seen yet...."

Said things can be funny - wasn't Win-7 - was PCLinuxOS... But, natch, you can't tell folk that - they'd be helpless - because, of course - "Linux is far too complicated to use".....

Do wonder if the little folk 3-5, 5-7, 7-10, so on - find it "too diffy" to use the Linux Games and Educational Interactives, etc, made specifically for them....

(Yes - the No.1 User-logon was "clean" - had been checked a couple of hours earlier while putting downloaded Google-Vids on a DVD for some other Windows friends. Been caught - once, about 4 years ago. I copied some short videos onto a CD for visiting friends... Which they took home, inserted in their XP box - which didn't like the "additional hitch-hiking content" one bit - crashed, and wouldn't start.... Next day, I was over there doing a re-install job... )

Dave.

[Wayne]

I wa

I'm not trying to convert anyone but seriously have a think about it..... You don't know what your missing. There has to be something in it when I can run windows XP in the background on my MAC and it works better than on my PC??

And the cost difference... Quality.. as simple as that.

Nuf said.

I have given it serious thought over the past week since my laptop died, despite always having PC's and the know how to build and configure my own machine. I find it hard to part with $3K for an iMac that basically has notebook parts with almost no upgrade path and is difficult to self service from a hardware perspective when for a fraction more I can build socket 1366 i7-980X machines with copious ram, 480GB PCIe SSD and the 2GB 5970 series GPU which is a far superior machine in terms of computing power and speed.

I was however prepared to look past the cost saving and the better specs of a PC for the Mac, however when I see that the iMac has no support for USB3, SATA3 (6GB) I lost interest in them and will build a PC instead. Apple need to get with the tech that the industry is dishing out if they want to keep customers seeking cutting edge computing.

[exwintech]

Wayne - Linux supports SATA3 and has for some time.

Support for USB - the Linux kernel has had the SuperSpeed / USB3 driver from kernel 2.6.31 - September 2009, I think. It has the native support for the things that are starting to a arrive on the market.

Kernel 2.6.31 and later all have support for USB 3

Changing kernels in Linux is very easy - using Synaptic or Apt-Get - takes a few seconds. That "install" you DO have to reboot for - as the running system can't swap between kernels.

You can install 32-bit and 64-bit Linux systems on the same box, and boot between them.

You can set up the /home user-data partition so that either System can mount and access it. Or create a separate partition either can use - /mnt/data - or as you prefer to name it.

(You can also run a Linux system as several levels of Server, by installing the appropriate Server kernel from the repository with Synaptic, etc. The SMB / Samba setup to run Windows PCs / Stations on a Linux net, comes with the kernels.)

Added kernels come up in the reboot window of the right-click Shutdown / Reboot / Reboot to other Kernel - box. Or, the installed kernels to boot-to are in the startup Menu. The current one will be at the top - others, use the down Arrow, and press Enter to boot to them.

Note that unlike some systems, you don't need to go to 64-bit with Linux to address/use fairly large amounts of RAM - Linux has PAE kernels (installable via Synaptic, etc) - that address up to 64GB of RAM in 32-bit systems.

To go over 64GB - which is fairly generous for a home PC - you do need to go to 64-bit on the system. Many Distros have 64-bit versions set up ready, at no charge.

You can burn a LiveCD from nearly any Linux Distro - that will boot and run in RAM (change the boot sequence) - to have a look at it and see if it suits, before installing. You can also use such LiveCDs to recover data from "won't boot" Windows installs, or just to access data in a Windows install without needing to boot Windows. That won't disrupt or harm the Windows install, as that has to be running to alter or record anything.

It's useful to retrieve essential data from a badly compromised Windows install - you can write to CD/DVD (RW, too), Flash-drive, network, or Internet, from a LiveCD. Then clear-format and reinstall Windows. Can be quicker and surer than trying to "guarantee" that you've de-virus'd, etc - all of an install, including Registries.

Dave.