Mac Or PC

[Keith Lard]

I think I am getting old and technology is passing me by!

Just bought an Ipad2. Why? I havent a clue, just felt like buying something. Cant get on with it at all, havent a clue what to use it for. Looks like someone in the family will get a nice xmas pressie.

[Chronicbint]

PC for gaming/web dev. Macbook Pro for iOS dev. Both good.

[rockhopper]

I use a MacBook Pro for work. My employer supports it (me as I'm self employed:lol:)

All the family use them, so far without problems.

Mac do cost more yes.

Try and sell a 3 year old PC and you won't be able to give it away. Sell a 3 year old mac and you will get around 50-60% of its purchase price.

Therefore it will cost you about the same as a PC over 3 years, but without all the hassle. I used to have PC's and had problems with every single one. My father has problems all the time with his PC. A PC in the hands of somebody who doesn't know what they are doing in my experience spells disaster, which is why I would always recommend a mac.

My 2p worth.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cjb]

What, so you would all rather have a pc than a Mac or Macbook! :wonder:

Yep. I can afford one, but choose not to.

[cjb]

This is also a Skoda forum so falls into the more sense than money area for the Apple argument, after all Apple is just PC hardware in a fancy shell running a skinned version of BSD Unix.

Carl.

It's quite well skinned though, and if you're going to pick an OS to put your fancy skin on, BSD isn't a bad start. Don't get me wrong, I'm as far from an apple fanboi as you'll find, but OSX *is* slick and works well. The same applies to the hardware: it's Intel hardware, but it's well executed- well engineered, attractive to the fanbois.

You won't find me spending money on it though: I hate Apple's walled garden, their DRM, and their controlling instinct that has made them a far more evil tech firm than even MS, and I'm far too mean when it comes to computer hardware for my own use to spend the large premium. Hell, I even disklike the 'look at me' shinyness and sleekness. What really gets me is the specific type of fanboi that thinks that Apple is their friend, when they're just another big tech firm.

[Macdemon]

Yeah, why not

iMacs' and iPads' aren't for everyone

If some people prefer to chose PC over Macs' them we have to respect their decision, that's what makes us interesting people.

I for one just LOVE Tiramisu but the wife can't stand it, more for me then!!!!!

And Carl, Apple is not 'just' PC hardware, you clearly have no Idea about the technology behind them.

[Babs]

Having recently opened up an iMac... it is!

[TeflonTom]

We use macs at work because pc's just simply aren't reliable enough in a live environment in entertainment industry stuff... Although to be fair the humble pc is a lot more stable nowadays..

The main thing apple are guilty of is releasing the hardware as soon as is humanly possible with "unfinished" software, when the 5th gen iPod came out years ago it was months before they fixed all the bugs in the firmware to point where it was actually usuable.

[gac]

And Carl, Apple is not 'just' PC hardware, you clearly have no Idea about the technology behind them.

Which bits aren't "just" PC hardware though? The CPU is a standard Intel Core i5/i7. They use standard DDR3 RAM, standard SATA2/SATA3 disks. That takes care of the core components, pretty much. The motherboard is a custom Apple one, I agree. But then HP, Dell, Lenovo et al all use motherboards of their own custom design which aren't available off the shelf. Does that make them "not PCs"? Cos really, that's all Apple do, and then bundle the whole lot into a spiffier-than-average all-in-one package.

I'm curious how you think Apple hardware differs from that of any other Tier 1 manufacturer?

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

I've used Apple since I was 13 years old, so 9 years so far.

I find it more aesthetically pleasing and stable than many Windows platforms I've used, but I've been limited to mostly crappy school/college systems. I have used some decent top-machines, such as Alienware, and they've been pretty good.

However, for what I specialise in (mostly photography and music), Macs are just better to use. I have a Mac Pro that simply never goes wrong. It's never shut down unexpectedly, and can cope with recording 18 live tracks with no hiccups (which is no mean feat). Likewise, it can process anything I need to do on Photoshop ridiculously quick. Mine cost me £900 delivered, then I bought a Samsung screen, an extra hard drive, wireless card & some extra RAM. The whole lot came to £1130 I think. It's easily worth that.

It's worth mentioning that the laptops, whilst they have a ridiculously short shelf life for hard drives, are VERY easy to get working with a new hard drive again. On some of the laptops, the hard drive you can just pull out from under the battery. OSX has a dedicated utility system that allows you to boot from CD, follow some steps onscreen and you have a working laptop with a new hard drive in about 30 mins, max. Then you can transfer all your data from an old hard drive using FireWire, with no trouble at all... they're just so easy to use. I've never tried to refurbish a Windows laptop, so not sure how easy the process is in comparison.

But yeah, I see no reason to ever own a Windows machine. I have no need for one. I don't like Pinball that much...

[Chronicbint]

My Macbook Pro crashes now and again, Safari is also rubbish. OSX is also very unintuitive at times with what should be simple operations not.

[Babs]

New Konica printer in work with user account authentication, 100 Windows PCs connect to it fine. 2 Macs... hours, upon hours of searching for the right options, searching Mac forums, searching Konica's site... eventually find the option burried, and it doesn't save it - need to re-enter user/pass each time they want to print!

[cjb]

My Macbook Pro crashes now and again, Safari is also rubbish. OSX is also very unintuitive at times with what should be simple operations not.

I've never heard anyone accuse OSX of being unintuitive. I find it a bit unintuitive, but I usually use Windows or Ubuntu- use OSX rarely.

[Soot1e]

I like my MiniMac,linked to a 32" Panasonic TV which makes everything in HD format, takes up no space unlike my old desktop PC, which required a whole desk to accommodate it. Never have problems linking up cameras or other ancilliaries, they all work without extra software or drivers, never have to re-start it to get new software working either. Never gone wrong in 3 years and never turn it off, it's allways on standby ready to use in about 15secs.

Work PC laptop is a real pain needs re-starting every 3 or 4 hours of use, allways asking if you "Are you sure you want to-----". Double clicking, I've never got the hang of, just not that dexterous with my fingers.

Macs cost more I know but I'm happy with that as it suits me so well.

[Babs]

Regardless of what a Mac can do, it just can't do everything that a PC can.

3 main uses of my main PC at home:

Graphic Work

Music Work

Gaming

It's a 2/3 for the Mac in that case!

[vRSLen]

After starting out with DOS I used Windowz for years and always found it lacking.

Next was the Amiga for a few years and it was fun.

Tried Linx and foud it very stable, but like MS, there were far too nany updates needed :(

My MacBook suits my needs now and would not move back

Still have laptops running Windowz 7, Linux and 98, but not used a lot, just to charge them up......

[ColinD]

To add another spin on it... I started with dos, then windows 3.1 and a 100Mb drive.

I migrated to Mac in 2006 with the purchase of a mac pro. It's a beast and still going strong today, in 4 years I've not really done much with it, swapped the HD's out for a SSD and 4 250Gb in raid10. But it now needs a new graphics card, circa 300 quid and thats a 2 year old bit of tech...

I've also had a macbook pro, donated to the folks and replaced by an air.

I love the engineering of the mac, but the OS, well I'm not that bothered, in fact recently I've been looking to move the mac pro, sell it, and replace with a smaller pc based system but to run linux. Still need windows for some software, like mapping and adobe graphics, purchased pre 06 :(

Other than the iPod thats all I *need* the mac for.

If I was pushed today to spend some cash for a laptop, I'd love to get the air's, they just work, but if budget was restricted I'd get a fairly generic with a view to replace after 18months. I think my rank would be mac > thinkpad > generic. For desktops I'm not buying another mac.

Mac has saved me from spending a lot on components ,albeit through a much higher purchase price, but when I consider on almost every benchmark a new mac mini will out perform this big old power station sat next to me for a 1/3rd of the cost... the cost of progress

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

Mac has saved me from spending a lot on components ,albeit through a much higher purchase price, but when I consider on almost every benchmark a new mac mini will out perform this big old power station sat next to me for a 1/3rd of the cost... the cost of progress

I respectfully disagree.

I have owned and used a range of Mac minis over the years, and they have never, ever been able to hold a candle to even the oldest of Mac Pros that I've used. The new ones will, doubtless, be extremely fast for such a tiny piece of kit, but I'd still rather have the Mac Pro. The new Mac mini will be obsolete a lot quicker than the Mac Pro will be- like you, I own a 2006 model and it's still pretty much the fastest computer in my entire family, including a fairly new MacBook Pro that was specced to the rafters.

Also, the connectivity on a Mac mini makes it irrelevant to me. In my line of work I use a LOT of FW400, 800 and tonnes of USB crap. The Mac mini has a paltry 4 USB ports, no FW400, the weird Thunderbolt thing and no DVI..? Not cool! Although I appreciate the smaller footprint comes with a few sacrifices, it just ****es me off.

[ColinD]

I'm glad you disagree I'm sure my mac just smiled when I read this, it nows the truth too...

Although, the mac pro has many uses and many use cases. For me, the air is fastest (subjective) as I do a lot of small file disk compile web dev. So the ssd compiling and running tests out shines the pro running raid 10 7200sata's. However the pro, rocks on when running virtual machines, keep chugging in to the daft amount of ram it can take.

True the connectivity is dire on the mini's. I've got a few usb hubs, not committed to daisy chain FW devices yet :(

The only other -ve for the pro is the power... mind it keeps my toes warm

[TeflonTom]

I've had my dual core intel mac mini for about 4 and a half years now, it was one of the very first ones they shipped with leopard on, other than the Ethernet port on it being a bit dodgy because I accidentally ripped the plug out in a fit of rage with my bt home hub it's been ultra reliable, sometimes gets left on for a week at a time, the only downsides with the mac mini is it's an almighty ball ache to upgrade the memory because you need a burger scraper to open the case and the other thing I've found is that the internal hard disc drive is too slow for video rendering work..

When I finally get round to buying a new iMac I'll stick my current mac mini in the glove box of my pickup and use it as a satnav/jukebox. Epic technology.

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

I'm glad you disagree I'm sure my mac just smiled when I read this, it nows the truth too...

Although, the mac pro has many uses and many use cases. For me, the air is fastest (subjective) as I do a lot of small file disk compile web dev. So the ssd compiling and running tests out shines the pro running raid 10 7200sata's. However the pro, rocks on when running virtual machines, keep chugging in to the daft amount of ram it can take.

True the connectivity is dire on the mini's. I've got a few usb hubs, not committed to daisy chain FW devices yet :(

The only other -ve for the pro is the power... mind it keeps my toes warm

Yep- the old beasts will be difficult to replace! I'm not sure what I'll do when the time comes. I was extremely happy when I picked this up off eBay for around £900- an absolute bargain for a perfectly functioning machine.

I've yet to try out SSD, I hear it's absolutely amazing- with a stunning price to match! is it worth all the hype?

For me, the true test was setting up a recording session one day. I'd dragged the Pro from it's natural habitat in my home studio, so it was still wiping the sleep out of its eyes when I demanded it to take 18 tracks of 96kHz, 24-bit audio. It did it, flawlessly, for 7 hours straight!

I'm not one to daisy-chain FireWire. If you ejected FW HDs on my old MacBook Pro, the FW400 audio interface would throw a truly stupendous hissy fit! I'd hate to imagine what it'd be like if you did it with an extender bus. I think worlds may well fall.

Agreed on the Pro's humungous heat. It's warming my feet right now.

Another thing I like about it compared to pretty much every other Apple product is the fact you can feasibly change stuff without getting grazed knuckles or getting told off by Apple for 'tampering'. The only one that comes close for ease of change is the MacBook that allows you to just yank out the hard drive and RAM from under the battery. All laptops should allow that.

Regarding the Air, how do you boot up to repair a hard disk? I know it's got no CD drive... does that stuff you completely?

[gac]

I've yet to try out SSD, I hear it's absolutely amazing- with a stunning price to match! is it worth all the hype?

Depends on what you do. I recently blagged a 64Gb freebie (old tech) from a friend, and it did make Windows boot quicker, but tbh once it was up and running it didn't really improve anything that I did on my desktop (mostly web browsing) with one exception; loading large games like Team Fortress 2 from it was pretty nice.

Regarding the Air, how do you boot up to repair a hard disk? I know it's got no CD drive... does that stuff you completely?

You buy an Apple Superdrive for ~£60, or any generic USB2 CD drive (I have an LG bus-powered DVD-RW drive which cost around £20) and then just treat it as any Macbook with a built-in drive.

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

That makes sense! Wasn't sure if Apple were in the mood to totally screw their loyal customers, as I've performed quite a few disk changes on kaput 'Books.

I won't bother with SSD I think... seems like an awfully large outlay.

[David 8]

I won't bother with SSD I think... seems like an awfully large outlay.

You gotta be kidding me, it's the most noticable upgrade I have ever done, you notice it as soon as you start installing the os.

I've had big jumps after upgrading in applications(encoding etc), But the SSD is very obvious.

Price could pose an issue I guess though

[Chronicbint]

An SSD was one of the best upgrades I have ever added to my PC. Just in general windows use I see a huge difference. I only have an 80gig one so it only has the OS and a few key programs plus whichever game I am playing at the moment. Prices are coming down all the time, a very very good upgrade.