Should I get a Mac or PC next?

[Cobra]

Well, my current computer is a total piece of crap- (Pentium III, old n' crappy CRT monitor, one broken CD-R drive and one CD-ROM, USB 1.1, 386MB RAM, no sound, 32MB integrated graphics card, etc.).

Eventually I'm going to need to buy a new one. I don't know whether to buy a PC or Mac next. I'm leaning toward Mac because my experiences with Windows over the years have been... well... an experience to say the least and I hear that Macs are more stable and whatnot. However, I'd like a professional/semi-professional opinion about it. I'm going to be using whatever I get to surf the web, download music, play games, watch videos, etc. I'm not going to settle for a mediocre PC/Mac this time around, so that'll be a price concern.

For programs, I think the Mac will be fine; most of my programs have either Mac-equivalents or I just won't need them on the Mac (all the spyware and virus stuff). For games, I suppose I can just keep my copy of Windows XP and use Boot Camp.

I'd just like to know if Macs are as easy to use and virus free as their infuriating commercials make them sound like. I say infuriating because they don't make sense in some spots. The PC is some stodgy old guy with glasses and the Mac is the "young and hip" guy? Riiiight. Yeah, that's reeeaaal subtle Apple. Real subtle. Macs don't have to worry about viruses and PCs get hundreds of thousands every year? Okay, true, but did you happen to mention that that's because Macs have like 2% market share so no one cares enough to spend time designing viruses for Macs? No? Didn't think you would. PCs don't come ready-to-use right out of the box? Mine did. I literally just pulled it out of the box five or six years ago, plugged it in and had plenty of fun.

Yeah... Done ranting now... Anyway, Mac vs. PC, which to buy- PCs are cheaper- I can get a pretty good one for like $600. Macs are more expensive- I went to Apple's site to "design" one and I ended up getting the estimate up to like $1600, but to be fair, the Mac I designed was way more powerful than the PC.

[tommie gorman]

OK, but just an opinion. I believe in PC's. They are more durable, upgradable, and cheaper. The only problem with a PC is the space. But part of that is organization. PC's can be plenty strong.

I no your pain, I upgraded in three years time from the old one. What a difference. If you are moving up 5 or 6 years, you'd better get a seat belt on because that long is like night and day. And make sure you get plenty of ram. I actually upgraded imediately when I first got mine from 1024 MB to 2048 MB.

Fast is all I can say. 

PS I was on a 128 upgraded to a 256.

[Cobra]

The most I've upgraded this PC since I've had it is Windows ME to XP, a new Logitech mouse, took the RAM from 128 to 386, and put in a new soundcard after the old one died... the new one died like four or five months afterward. I don't have sound anymore as a result.

I remember when I upgraded to 386- I couldn't believe how fast it was going. I was dumb.

I don't really mind about the cheaper and upgradable thing- having a good computer overtakes the cost in priority as long as it's within reason, and I don't really think I'll be upgrading whatever I get much anyway. Durable I don't know about. Macs don't really have viruses or anything, and after all these years... I don't think this computer is running as fast as the day I got it even with the extra RAM.

Really, for me, it all comes down to the OS, not the hardware.

[dlewis23]

Cobra if you get one of the new macs you can do both. OSX and Windows on the same machine.

[resopalrabotnick]

depends.

no, really. do you want to game on it? work on it? just surf on it? for media center, mac mini with the intel cpu. small, quiet, perfect.

for surfstation: imac sweet looking little rig with 20 inch screen. but also pricey.

and then the macbook. also intel.

the downside to all: pricey. the upside: you can now run xp on em.

as for virus and bug free? hell no. there are so many kinks found in macos compared to the number of running macs in the wild that the os looks unsafer than anything else. as for ease of use, yeah.

[Swimmer]

Well here is my opinion.. Mac is having quality control issues right now on the laptops that run Windows, i guess batteries are becoming an issue for some user and the heat problems are still around.. and until they move the G5 over to Intel I would wonder what is the point? 

If you are going to want the latest and greatest in any sense of the term.. Apple is not going to be it.. Microsoft control something like 80-90% of the OS market.. meaning that game, apps, and utilities/hardware are going to be written/built to run in a native windows environment.. 

With AMD saying that they are going to kill the 754, 939 and some of the AM2 platform soon I would look into maybe building a system.. again.  http://www.testmy.net/forum/t-14858

AMD is currently the leader in the CPU market for desktops.. with Intel highly anticipated Conroe processor due out soon that might change.. however, the current AMD chips should be decent enough to run vista and everything thing else that your heart could ever want to..

[dlewis23]

if your not going to game and dont want a laptop then i would go with a iMac if you can afford it. otherwise get a PC.

[Roco]

Well, my current computer is a total piece of crap- (Pentium III, old n' crappy CRT monitor, one broken CD-R drive and one CD-ROM, USB 1.1, 386MB RAM, no sound, 32MB integrated graphics card, etc.).

Eventually I'm going to need to buy a new one. I don't know whether to buy a PC or Mac next. I'm leaning toward Mac because my experiences with Windows over the years have been... well... an experience to say the least and I hear that Macs are more stable and whatnot. However, I'd like a professional/semi-professional opinion about it. I'm going to be using whatever I get to surf the web, download music, play games, watch videos, etc. I'm not going to settle for a mediocre PC/Mac this time around, so that'll be a price concern.

For programs, I think the Mac will be fine; most of my programs have either Mac-equivalents or I just won't need them on the Mac (all the spyware and virus stuff). For games, I suppose I can just keep my copy of Windows XP and use Boot Camp.

I'd just like to know if Macs are as easy to use and virus free as their infuriating commercials make them sound like. I say infuriating because they don't make sense in some spots. The PC is some stodgy old guy with glasses and the Mac is the "young and hip" guy? Riiiight. Yeah, that's reeeaaal subtle Apple. Real subtle. Macs don't have to worry about viruses and PCs get hundreds of thousands every year? Okay, true, but did you happen to mention that that's because Macs have like 2% market share so no one cares enough to spend time designing viruses for Macs? No? Didn't think you would. PCs don't come ready-to-use right out of the box? Mine did. I literally just pulled it out of the box five or six years ago, plugged it in and had plenty of fun.

Yeah... Done ranting now... Anyway, Mac vs. PC, which to buy- PCs are cheaper- I can get a pretty good one for like $600. Macs are more expensive- I went to Apple's site to "design" one and I ended up getting the estimate up to like $1600, but to be fair, the Mac I designed was way more powerful than the PC.

Hi , I have never used a Mac, and have no experience of them , but I kinda get the feeling that I should try, keep us posted on your final choice , and how it works out

[S7R1D3R]

see this video and ask yourself that question again:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8317851492628123681&q=mac+hate

you should REALLY think about it before u buy anything again see the video

[Cobra]

@resopalrabotnick: Well, the Mac Mini was my first choice, because I figured it'd be cheaper, and it is... until I tacked on the monitor and keyboard. Then it shot up past the iMac. I'd need a monitor, so I guess the Mac Mini is out of the question. As for viruses, I don't think I'm so concerned about that aspect of either right now- people I know with Macs say that they never get viruses, spyware, any of that, and I never even used to bother with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, ip blocker/peerguardian, all of that stuff and I've only ever had like three viruses in six years, all extremely minor, but lots of spyware.

@Swimmer: I've heard about the heat issues in MacBook Pros and such, but I'm not too concerned about that either since I don't want a MacBook, notebook, laptop, etc.I've heard about Conroe- supposed to be like $250 but outperforms AMDs $1000+ right? I'm not too excited about Vista though. I've been reading about the new features and everything and it just doesn't seem to be too much of a step up from XP... and then all the delays... I don't know.

@Roco: I'll be making my decision soon, but I've still got to fix up my car before I can get back to job-hunting, and then it'll take a few months probably to get the money needed to buy a Mac or PC.

@S7R1D3R: I don't have sound, so all that is lost on me.

[resopalrabotnick]

when choosing comps and on a budget the mac automatically disqualifies itself. as for mac users claiming they don't get viruses, that may be true. they have even more security by obscurity than a linux box. linux you can actually find working systems online. how many macs are online at any one time? not enough to make hacking them interesting.

[Swimmer]

Like I said before.. If you want to go mac.. wait until the G5 moves to Intel, if it ever does.. 

Conroe is going to be one hell of a chip for Intel..  AMD is going to have to do something big to stay king.. My guess is that since they are dumping most of their old platform chips they are going to try and compete on the price point..

[resopalrabotnick]

amd is going to have to do something to /stay/ king? iirc the intel chips are faster than the amd ones? and with conroe coming out the p4s are going to be dumped by intel, hurting amd even more. i think amd has really fallen behind by a generation now. they are playing catchup ball.

and even when the g5 comes out, which it should with the core duo 2, it will still be too expensive compared to a pc. if you need the macos fine. otherwise stay away unless you can afford the extra markup.

[Cobra]

Well, I emailed the guys over at UrbanCoffee.net- they're a podcast I listen to about politics, current events, technology, etc. It's really funny.

They're self-proclaimed Mac nerds, so they told me they'd do a video podcast for me and the other listeners/viewers showing a Mac running side-by-side to a PC with similar specs and show how each do various day-to-day tasks.

That'll probably be the catalyst in my decision.

However, with my limited knowledge of Mac hardware, what would the benefits be of waiting for the G5 to go to Intel? The iMac I was looking at had a Core Duo in it.

I think I need to see if there's an Apple store around here since Best Buy doesn't seem to have any Macs on the floor that I can try out.

[resopalrabotnick]

the g5 will have the core duo 2. or is supposed to, anyway. even more grunt. (for most things an imac with a 20 inch screen should be good enough though. already powerful processor and big screen with decent graphics. although as far as gaming goes i don't know how well it would hold up. as for the mac vs similarly equipped pc, the pc is going to be half the price. i'm not sure that macos can make up that much to justify it. personally excess cash would go into an imac simply for the chic case.

[dlewis23]

However, with my limited knowledge of Mac hardware, what would the benefits be of waiting for the G5 to go to Intel? The iMac I was looking at had a Core Duo in it.

The main reason is a PowerMac G5 or what ever they are going to call it will probally have 2 Core Duo's and will have a pertty good graphics card.

[Dark06]

ook heres the deal

Read this

Hardware is only as good as its software

and software is only as god as its hardware

meaning???

It can b a top of the line computer if u dont like the Operating system u wont like it

if u like the operating system but berarly got enught power 2 run it u wont like it

if u have never tried the mac os experiance i seriously recomend u try it out

they might b safer but not every1 likes how it looks/reacts and stuff

i know from experiance

at my school we built a $1000 system mosty donated parts from amd and Fry's

We had an Amd Athalon 64 bit dual core

a sata hard drive-Fast

2 gigs of ddr2 ram

256 mg of video card

a nice ass case with the neon lights and everything

anyway

we quad boot it

we put Windows Xp pro

PCLinuxOS

Linspire

& Xandros

we put a lot of  ppl to test it out c what operating system they like best on the same system

no1 like linspire cause it was slow -- and u saw the specs

every1 like the look of PCLinuxOS but not every1 agree on its fetures

Windows xp got mix reviews because of pop ups and ppl needed to make canges before they can use it-- we gave the a clean install of every os every time

Xandros acutually took the price everything was pre configured almost every1 agree it was faster and it look "OK"

it ope  lot of minds up to linux and most of these ppl were hesitating at first

also we did not help at all they figureeverythingout themselves

So consider the OS you will put into it

[disturbed]

i dont know what this talk about hating windows is all about - i use both linux and windows, and i have honestly never had trouble with microsoft - i dont experience slowdowns, i dont have freezeups, no bsod's - just smooth - what people do not realize some of time is that when their system starts freezing up and throwing errors, it can often be caused by hardware, not by the o/s im happy with windows....7 months running already on the new install and not a single error/freeze up

[amc11890]

Macs: more expensive, less viruses. sometimes hard to go from windows to mac, less compatible, more expensive to fix

pc: cheap, easy to build, you can find parts easily, viruses are an issue but just use a virus blocker, easy to fix(more people know about pc's,

If your mac brakes it is gonna be very hard to to get it fixed at your local computer store.

[dlewis23]

If your mac brakes it is gonna be very hard to to get it fixed at your local computer store.

thats not totally true, they can get parts from apple very easy, and if its a software problem most stores have people that know macs.

[amc11890]

thats not totally true, they can get parts from apple very easy, and if its a software problem most stores have people that know macs.

yeah but still not as convient as a pc

[dlewis23]

yeah but still not as convient as a pc

its pertty close, you go to any compusa or bestbuy and they will be able to do it.

[tommie gorman]

its pertty close, you go to any compusa or bestbuy and they will be able to do it.

You mean home of the geek squad?

And how many close compusa's are there. My closest is like 45-50 minutes away. For PC I am 5-10 minutes away.

[resopalrabotnick]

most parts on a mac except of course the board you can grab straight from the pc shelf.

[HuskerDu]

Have to chime in on this one..

First let me say that I've been using PC's since the early 80's, ran my own PC repair / custom build shop for a period of time in the 90's, used every PC operating system under the sun, Linux, *BSD, etc. Bought my first Apple computer, a G4 Mini in November, 2005 for my wife who was fed up with all of the issues may Windows users simply accept as part of using a computer.

Fast forward to today. There are now 3 Mac Mini's in my home. The last remaining PC is sitting in the closet collecting dust bunnies.

It all comes down to needs..If you need a great, easy to use, trouble free computer for everyday use, email, web browsing, word processing, music, photos, etc, the Mac *out of the box* is a hands down winner. Unless you have some hardcore gaming needs, everyone should consider a Mac. And OS X..I can't begin to tell you how great it is. It's a lot of *fun* to use, let's just say that.

As far as software goes, I've not found anything lacking. The included applications with OS X such as the "iLife" suite alone represent several hundred dollars in PC applications. Also, the availability of 3rd party applications is plentiful..Tons of shareware and freeware apps out there..also there is a version of the FreeBSD ports system (Darwinports) which allow you to compile and install a good portion the packages and ports available on FreeBSD.

With that said, yes, you do pay more for a Mac when compared to a similarly priced/spec'd PC, however, IMHO, you more than make up for the difference in software, support and machine quality.

Now, concerning the new Intel Macs.... This is a big switch for Apple, I personally would wait for the next revision of their iMacs and Mini's. Second generation Apple hardware tends to be less problematic, or so my new Mac friends tell me. (All of my Macs are PowerPC processors)

Big plus to the Intel Macs is being able to do WinXP..Rumor has it the next version of OS X will include virtualization technology that will allow Windows to run within OS X. There are already 3rd party solutions which people are raving about.

Find an Apple store near you, if possible and have them demo a Mac for you. CompUSA sells them, however I don't think you'll find anyone in there who knows anything..Or at least that's been my CompUSA experience...

Some good Apple sites:

www.macrumors.com

www.macintouch.com

and of course.. www.apple.com

Good luck with whatever you choose!

-H