Mac vs PC debate thread

[YourFoxyGrandma]

I've been a lifetime mac user, although I've had considerable experience with PCs as well. I was wondering if people still hate macintosh computers as much as they used to. I'll agree that for a while, an apple computer wasn't up to par with its PC equivalent, but I think that the macintosh has come a long way in recent years. Thoughts?

[BusterStacks]

Raised on a mac, converted to PC, never going back. Sure I could use a mac, but I think the bigger question is why? They are:

* More expensive
* less versatile
* useless for modern gaming
* difficult to upgrade
* impractical for file sharing

[wacki]

They both have advantages. For some things Mac is a lot better than PC, for other things PC's are better. Overall I think Macs are more robust and elegant, plus the OS is Unix based so you can do a lot more with it. I'm a PC/Linux user, but macs are growing on me very quickly.

[YourFoxyGrandma]

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* More expensive

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True, but I think you get what you pay for. I think OSX is the best operating system availiable on the consumer level. I have a g4 that I bought 1 year and a half ago. I use it daily and it has never crashed. Not once.

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* useless for modern gaming

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True. Although software is slowly becoming more avaliable as macs are becoming more popular.

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* difficult to upgrade

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Maybe in the old days or with the imac or emac models. I put a new video card and hard drive in my computer with no problems.

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* impractical for file sharing

[/ QUOTE ]

Acquisition and DC++. All I need.

I don't really play games so much, so for me, it comes down to the operating system, and I think that OSX is unparalelled. Sweet-ass features are as follows.

Expose - Lets you shrink every open window so that you can see all of them at once. Useful for moving files from window to window and navigating a cluttered screen. Also lets you move all windows off the screen to access the desktop.

Independent applications - all applications (including the finder, which is the macintosh equivalent of explorer) run independently of one another. If one application is hung, the others run normally.

The dock - sits at the bottom or left of the screen and holds shortcuts to any application, folder, or document that you want.

Super compatability - Drivers are practically non-existent. Plug and go.

[Blarg]

I thought Macs were a religion, or some kind of weird political statement. But you say there's a computer involved?

[YourFoxyGrandma]

[ QUOTE ]
They both have advantages. For some things Mac is a lot better than PC, for other things PC's are better.

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These are my feelings as well.

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I'm a PC/Linux user, but macs are growing on me very quickly.

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This answers my main question. There used to be alot of haters out there. It's nice to see that some people are warming up to the possibility that perhaps macs aren't completely useless.

[wacki]

If you go into Academia, Life Sciences, and some varieties of graphical computing you will see way more Macs than Windows machines. In fact at my last job I think there were three windows machines on the entire 3rd floor.

[YourFoxyGrandma]

I'm a film/animation major. We use nothing but macs. That's actually what spurred my initial question. This one girl always complains. I don't like her, although that's for other reasons. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[mikeyp]

From a software standpoint, PC's are better because of the selection. But excluding software, I feel that Macs are better, I just like the feel that I get when using them.

[plaster8]

I use a Mac at home and a PC at work. I would never allow a PC into my house, though I think I may a bit biased since we're running Windows 95 (yes, 95) at work. It's very crappy.

[Tron]

Man... I have a PowerBook G4 and I absolutely love it. I've used both Macs and PCs throughout my short life, and I'm going to have to say that pretty much every piece of software available for both PC and Mac works much better on a Mac. It kind of sucks that it can't run, oh, every poker site except PokerRoom, but other than that, there's pretty much nothing I've needed to do that I couldn't on my Mac. Plus, it's never crashed, and it's stylish as hell.

In short, Macs are much better.

[fatmongo]

Other than gaming, the most intensive work I do on my PC is Photoshop, occasionally. I've heard that Macs are better for music and video production. And in the past even Photoshop. But now I have a top of the line PC, do you think Mac would run Photoshop any better? Or would it be almost equal.
Also, on the PC, half of my style revolves around the right mouse button. I haven't touched a Mac since middle school. How do you get around using one mouse button?

[Tron]

[ QUOTE ]
Other than gaming, the most intensive work I do on my PC is Photoshop, occasionally. I've heard that Macs are better for music and video production. And in the past even Photoshop. But now I have a top of the line PC, do you think Mac would run Photoshop any better? Or would it be almost equal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here (http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/) is a link to the Apple site, which shows some Photoshop CS test results. The benchmark is a Dell Dimension XPS 3.4 GHz, and apparently the Dual 2.5 GHz G5 outperforms it by 98%. I don't really know much about these tests, which is why I included the link... You can check to see if they're credible.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, on the PC, half of my style revolves around the right mouse button. I haven't touched a Mac since middle school. How do you get around using one mouse button?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't. It's little known, but you can use any USB mouse with a Mac... The first accessory I bought was a Logitech MX700.

[fatmongo]

Thanks for enlightening me. I'm not considering getting a Mac or anything, but it was interesting to check out those comparisons.
Is this Dual 2.5GHz G5 a consumer model? It seems to me to be more like a server. I know as far as Windows PCs go, dual processor PCs are almost exclusively servers. Windows will only engage that 2nd processor when tasks require it from what I understand. What about the Mac, from these comparisons I'm led to believe it is running dual processors full time. That would kick ass.
Like I said, I'm content with what I have, but I always like to check what other people are up to.
As far as the mouse goes, I never heard that. I think that would make the PC to Mac transition way more comfortable for anybody attempting it.

[Tron]

Yeah, the dual 2.5 is a consumer model, but it's the absolute benchmark. It's base price is $3000. And I figure if you're going to get two 2.5 GHz processors, you probably won't be content with the standard RAM, hard drive, or video card, and the price could easily reach $5000.

To be honest, I really don't know about the processors. Maybe this section will explain that more:

http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html

[YourFoxyGrandma]

I really don't know what apple is thinking not switching over to a 2-button mouse. It's pretty much a necessity. I bought a new one right away as well.

[johnnycakes]

[ QUOTE ]
Sweet-ass features are as follows.

Expose - Lets you shrink every open window so that you can see all of them at once. Useful for moving files from window to window and navigating a cluttered screen. Also lets you move all windows off the screen to access the desktop.

Independent applications - all applications (including the finder, which is the macintosh equivalent of explorer) run independently of one another. If one application is hung, the others run normally.

The dock - sits at the bottom or left of the screen and holds shortcuts to any application, folder, or document that you want.

Super compatability - Drivers are practically non-existent. Plug and go.

[/ QUOTE ]

All of these things are also true of/can be done with Windows XP.

[turnipmonster]

at home, I use a windows machine for online poker and a mac for everything else. I used to run windows, but I got a free powerbook G4 from my old job and bought OSX and it is doubtful I will ever go back.

reasons:
- music scoring software I use (sibelius) way more stable
- unix based, which is huge for me and makes everything much easier.
- builtin apps (calendar, mail etc) are very nice and integrate really well.
- UI of pretty much everything is much better. I love the dock, the finder, expose, the shortcuts, all that stuff. I can do stuff very quickly on the mac, and I like that. also the OS just looks way nicer.
- since it's unix based, you can compile and run lots of cool freeware built for unix.

the unix thing is not for everyone, but since I was "raised" on unix for me it just simplifies everything.
--turnipmonster

[turnipmonster]

a lot of programmers I know are switching to macs.

--turnipmonster

[AncientPC]

To answer your question, no people don't hate Macs. A lot of people use them, it's just that the more vocal groups online are usually gamers or geeks with a preference of PCs.

Some people are better off with a Mac, some are better off with a PC, there's no "one size fits all" computer.