I'll be the voice of dissent then :eek:

I had a Mac for a couple of years and have gone back to Windows laptop. Yes, the Mac "just worked" out of the box. Very impressed with how easy the setup was. However when things started to go wrong after about a year, I couldn't get them sorted out. Repeatedly had to reinstall programs. Files that I'd worked on would corrupt.

I can fix those things on a Windows PC, but had no joy in OS X. I'm sure there's an element of user-education needed, but for me the pros of Mac (shiny, easy to set up initially) were outweighed by the problems.

I wrote the burglar a thank-you note for taking it away. However I don't know the address to send it to!

Don't go to the SK lounge in ARN T5 then, that's how they've got it set up.

I'm with heckenhocker and the silent majority here: PC user. PC would get my vote, but for what you're going to do, I don't think it matters too much. Assuming that you don't mean heavy multimedia production/editing when you say "photo, design and video stuff" that is. If that is what you do, then a Mac would probably be more appropriate, otherwise either one will work just fine.

I live in a Mac and PC household, right now it's the Macs (iMac G4 and iBook G4) that have been passed on to the children and an Aldi PC (£350) and a Dell Laptop (£220) that are used by the adults for "work".

I do like Macs - just can't justify the prices at the moment.

Vista is now what OS X was five years ago and it gives me little trouble. My PC does all I need quickly enough for now - I don't bother with Video, so it's just web, office, photos and iTunes.

My wife's low end laptop came with XP as an option and works just fine for email and Open Office.

That is unlucky :( My 1TB Time Machine sits in a double-bottomed 16th century built-in cupboard with a secret compartment made my my carpenter for that very reason! It's pure Harry Potter, and I'm amazed the wifi signal is at 90% in the rooms around it given the thickness of the wood!

Meanwhile a couple of GBs of capacity on my my .mac account handles the off-site backups of documents in a few specific folders in case of a fire :eek:

We are so computer-dependent these days that I wouldn't risk anything else.

Thanks, a distinction I wasn't aware of (having always assumed program = American / programme = British, which is right, with the apparently sole exception of computer programs).

Yet another mac vote. It just works. Period.

My office and my household have used macs for years. At least 2 dozen machines involved over time. Only one (the one I'm using now) came out of the box as a lemon instead of an Apple, and this is where the service shines through. Apple has by far the best service available. No talking to India. Knowlegable techs. Various other hardware problems over the years, like dead hard drives or cd players have been repaired/replaced without a hitch.

Anything I need a PC for I can do in Parallels and the performance is more than satisfactory.

I'm a Linux and PC user and I'm probably looking to purchase a mac in the not too distant future, as I need to know how to be able to teach people to use every type of OS. I have heard good things about Psystar sadly they're not in the UK at the moment, and have files for bankruptcy to try and delay the Apple court case against them. Although there is also a German outfit that are doing the same thing I'm not so sue about them.

After using PCs for years, I purchased a MacBook aluminium at the start of this year and haven't looked back since.

Everything is so intuitive - the laptop looks and works brilliantly inside and out - even the box and packaging was beautiful!

Mac OS X is a beautiful operating system and almost never crashes. Time Machine backup to an external hard drive is seamless.

The Safari web browser is lightening fast on both wired and wireless connections (of varying theoretical speeds).

I also converted from Office to iWork which is far cheaper and works in complete harmony with Office documents.

The Apple protection plan gives you 3 years warranty and service, and of course the Apple Store is available for free advice. I often pop along to the free tutorials in the Regent Street store to get used to a new software package (eg. I've just purchased Final Cut Express to edit my upcoming Asia trip movie with).

If you can find a student to purchase your Apple products for you, you will enjoy a substantial discount!

Go down the Apple route, and you will never regret it!

I use a PC at work and a Mac at home and must say that for what I want (Photo, Video, Tinternet and music) the Mac wins hands down as well as having significantly more style in the design of thier products and superior customer service (providing you live close to an Apple store that is - luckily NYC isnt short of them!)

Additionally, the syncing and integration of the various products and software that apple offers is much better (iphone/ ipod syncing with itunes / iphoto etc is significantly faster with minimal issues / reboots / resets) on the Mac

Apple is more expensive but you get what you pay for. Additionally, I find that amazon.com has significantly lower prices for Apple hardware and software which makes it comparable to purchasing a PC from a reputable retalier (should one exist....)

Weird thing is having said that I'm in the market for a mac, I've just remembered I'll be having a few drinks with a couple Apple fanboys tomorrow. Will see if any of them are looking to flog any of their old macs to me cheaply.

Crickey! You've only gone and done it now - You've started a Mac vs PC thread :(

I predict this one will run and run.

Those of you who are Usenet veterans will surely remember the infamous "Sigh..Mac vs PC" thread. It generated thousands of replies and ran for years.

Personally I'd love one of those snazzy Mac laptops myself but they seem to cost a fortune. I can only glance enviously at them, sort of how most of us glance enviously into the F cabin before turning right :D

Another mac vote from me. If you're getting a laptop try to avoid the most basic white plastic model as this is the previous generation.

Used to be a big PC fan but converted a few years ago and never looked back. There's a massive list of benefits which the above posters have covered but my favourite feature has to be how quickly the thing switches on. The OS is rock solid and I often don't restart for months at a time. No constant popups which I often see at client sites too.

As has been said - it's a slippery slope though as you'll want everything to go with it, Apple TV, iPhone, Time Capsule etc.

Great pieces of kit though. Perhaps the only exception I can think of is if you're a gamer.

Application.


:p

It's worth mentioning, as said above, that they seem to breed after a few years and before you know it your house will be full of shiny Apple products...:p

Going slightly OT on the pushing towards very OT, Microsoft released ads about buying a PC over a Mac but before you all shoot me down check out the second link which is definitely NSFW... :D

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/27/...ts-mac-prices/

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a2f...p-hunters-jake

Mac for life
 

Mac for me - a wise department head told me in 1988 to think carefully about what computer I wanted, but he recommended Mac. Brilliant decision, as I confirm every day when I use my company Dell POS (Piece Of S**t). My company is paranoid about network security, but are trialing iPhones with our wonderful friend Lotus Notes.
The MobileMe app with Mac is fantastic - if only BA would upgrade Internet Explorer on the lounge computers, or better, install Firefox. And for that matter, enable the chat feature on G-mail. (Please note Dilly!)

I have just made the switch to the Mac (a Macbook Pro) and I am well impressed. I am running Windows via VMWare for applications that I will find 'handy' for work purposes.

I am only frustrated by my lack of knowledge about the Mac OS - but I will learn...

In very general terms, I do not regret for one minute moving to the Mac. It's a great piece of hardware, and it does not run hot at all.

Another mac vote! Design awesome, quality good, OS easy.

Microsoft Office for Mac blows, but thats about it. I guess you can just run the windows version through parallels....

Btw, in my experience of 5 mac laptops (some simultaneously), the average life expectancy before more serious issues arise (basically when I decide to replace) is about 4-5 years. By then tech has advanced so much anyway.

Yeah, the only problem is, the PC guys don't seem to have turned up ;) It's kind of become a 'I converted to Mac and I love it'-fest :eek:

Can we therefore stop before the idiot fanboys find us? (on both sides)

veering very off OT, for those who are >33yo - how about the Amiga v ST?!

Or Nintendo NES vs Sega Master System...

:mad: '#£(%(*")*_*"!~? Lotus Notes.

Hey! I'm still struggling with Outlook! And don't get me started on Sharepoint development..........

Glad you like it as much as I do! People in my organisation keep pointing out that it is a terrible e-mail and calendar app. IT tell us that it is not for those purposes, but for databases, for which it is very good. So why not buy an e-mail/calendar app that works??

That's because most computer users fit into one of two groups.

- Those that haven't tried Macs.
- Those that have tried Macs and now use them.

The second group are clearly a small minority, although unsurprisingly are well-represented in the affluent, computer-literate place that is FT.

There really aren't that many people who have knowledge and experience on both but prefer PCs. Most PC users I know who are also Mac literate use PCs because for compatibility with work systems, cost reasons, etc. Not usually because they prefer them.

I love my iMac, mostly because I'm a bit of a Luddite and therefore need the user-friendly aspects of the machine. Having said that, though, I indulged in an Acer sub-notebook to take when travelling, mostly for the size of the thing, as it weighs 800gm.

The sub-notebooks are available with a Linux OS (with plenty of applications installed) which I chose over Windows; as a travelling companion a sub-notebook is a handy thing to have but it won't take the place of a proper home computer.

ZX Spectrum vs Commodore 64 (with Amstrad CP464 as the outsider)

But I never converted. Have only owned Macs since first computer in 1992, still got them all.

Recently bought 4 Macs for my staff as the total lack of IT support in rural Ghana means we can't run PCs for very long before they crash and we can't fix them. Even I can sort out most (rare) problems with the Macs. The only one we couldn't fix here was an i-Mac (beside me as I type) walloped by a voltage surge.

I have knowledge and experience of both. I personally just prefer the way PCs work. That said, with Vista and now with Windows 7, my enthusiasm is starting to wane. Windows is looking too much like the Apple OS nowadays for my liking.

Apple's "security through obscurity" approach isn't going to last forever either. Give it another 5 years and you probably won't be able to tell the difference between Macs and PCs.

Hey, what about MSX?!

Ok, I'll get my coat...

:D

For me, the #1 reason that I have stayed with Mac for all these years is Apple's technical support. Anything goes wrong, you call these guys and you're talking to somebody in Austin, TX or such. Not offshore. Not outsourced. They're there to solve your problem, period. And no waiting either. Most calls are answered within 5 minutes. Those time savings alone pay for the so-called Apple tax.

You have to pay for the privilege though. It's called AppleCare and it costs $170-$350 depending on which Mac for 3 years of coverage. If you qualify for the Educational discount, you could easily knock $400-$500 off your total cost, including AppleCare for three years. Oh... they're running a sale right now through September where you get an iPod touch with the purchase of any Mac.

Mine does run to the hot side. As soon as any video content is on be it a simple youtube or CNN clip, the fan kicks in right away. With surfing and office duty no fan. But the video will make it start every time and despite the fan it gets practically too hot to be on the lap. Heat is concentrated on upper left quarter where the power comes in.

Fan cannot be turned off at all. My previous PC laptop had a switch for the fan. Unless it was really much too hot I could turn it off.

Battery life is barely 3.5 hours without video. 2h with video. I am not terribly impressed by these things or let's say the impression is rather negative.

I have the 2.53GHz with 4gb ram. 13" screen.

What is very nice is that there are less glitches than with PC and no slow down in performance due to the registry getting junked up. Also no virus software to run and basically no maintenance.

Start-up and shut down times are MUCH better. I do a complete restart maybe once a week. I restart my PC daily.

TOuch gestures are very nice.

What I like more about PC is that the menu system is more intuitive and you can find stuff by just clicking and trying things out. There are always several ways how to accomplish things. On the Mac there are only two or three ways and one of them is a cryptic keyboard shortcut.

I'll give you an example of two things that I do almost daily and that are FAR easier on a PC. They have to do with pictures that are supposed to be easier to handle in Mac.

I open a folder with pics. All the pics show as thumbnails or other variations. I do a single click on View as Slideshow and I can view the entire folder as a slideshow in Full Screen mode. With Mac that takes five or six clicks and it is so not evident that I forgot it again after somebody explained it to me.

Resize pictures to integrate into a mail. With PC there are two ways. Either click the send as mail button and it will ask you how to resize them. Or you use the powertool resizer. Simply select all the pictures you want to resize. Right click and select Resize. Bingo. All pictures appear in the same folder in the resized version with an amended file name. The originals are still there. With Mac that same operation is super complicated. I checked it out online and followed the steps. It took three times as long. I decided I will continue using PC for photo work. Even MS Pictureviewer is easier to understand than bloody Iphoto where I need to import stuff before it works. Stupid!

Not being able to maximize windows with a single click is also ridiculous.

Spotlight on the other hand is sheer genius and works very well.

Besides this, Mac is the superior end user experience but it does cost twice the money.

I'm a physics professor with a research group that includes a computational aspect. We're pretty techie, using MPI parallel computation on our own cluster, and now CUDA computation on a numerical computation server, and run our own web server, and run specialized experimental hardware. One of my graduate students introduced a Mac to the group, and at this point we're all Mac users. I think we're somewhat techie...

What I like about the Mac is that the everyday stuff is easy, yet because it is Unix underneath you can open a terminal window and do anything you want that a Linux/Unix server would do. I think that's pretty techie...

I'm 27 and a MAC LoL. I picked up my first mac 12" ibook in 2005 and haven't looked back and now a 15" Macbook Pro. I have a XP desktop which hasn't been turned on for a while.

I spend too much time and energy trying to maintain my WinXP pc from viruses, spyware and usually go thru 1-2 x a year reformatting it. Not the case at all with my mac.

I'd recommend getting AppleCare. I learned my lesson when I had to replace the screen on my powerbook and it cost me a whopping $600. I just recently replaced the SuperDrive on my MacBook Pro and it was covered my AppleCare.

I bought my first Mac when the Intel Mac Mini came out. Occasionally someone would have a problem with how a web page worked with Safari, and it was an excuse for a new toy to play with. Initially, I pretty much used it as a "media server" -- iTunes, my pictures and some software called "DVArchive" which pulls (and serves to) shows recorded on my networked ReplayTVs. I had a KVM switch so I could switch back and forth.

I also used it whenever I had to reboot my PC after installing software. Just switch over and continue browsing or what not.

Then my traveling computer started to go about the same time the MacBook Air came out, so I got one. This was the first time I used a Mac on a "day to day" basis. When got home from a trip, I would reluctantly go back to my PC.

Last summer my PC was getting a little long in the tooth when She Who Must Be Obeyed's old Dell desktop finally died. An excuse for a new iMac and She got the old mini. She had a few problems with the differences at first but was soon won over.

That being said, there are a lot of things I don't like about Apple as a company. I've never used an apple mouse that had a decent right button. And while iMacs are fine, I wish they had more choices for using your own monitor (nothing between a mini and the MacPro)

I've had to call Apple's technical support three times (over a 2 year time span). Not once has my phone call been answered within 5 minutes.

Try 20 to 30 minutes. Each time.

Regardless, I'm with the "get a mac" camp.

you can also visit an apple genius at an apple store and get free tech support, apple care or not. however, if the mac needs repair and is not under warranty or apple care, then the repair (not the visit) will cost money.

open the folder, select all (command-a) and tap the space bar. when the quick look window appears, click the play button or if you prefer, step through the images one by one. you can also click the full screen button or move and resize the quick look window. this works with movies as well as photos, along with various other file types such as pdf, text, excel, etc.

assuming apple mail, drag the image into a mail message and at the bottom of the window is a popup menu to resize the image. there is no need to use iphoto, but iphoto can also export an image directly to mail in various sizes. the resize is done on the fly so there's no need to have duplicate images in multiple sizes.

the mac has a zoom button, not a maximize button and they're not the same. the function of the zoom button is under the apps control, not the operating system (the app just gets a zoom message), and it usually resizes the window to best show its content. having a window be full screen, particularly on a 24-30" monitor, is wasteful of screen space.

macs do not cost twice the money for a similar configuration. prices are fairly close when specs are matched (which they are often not).

[Sarcasm]Buy a PC. Otherwise looking at this thread, there won't be many machines running an MS operating system soon. Do you really want your software managed by the iTunes App Store or coming via Software Updates?

It's becoming a MonApplely.
[/Sarcasm]

I'm beginning to wonder what else is happening in the computing world these days. I bought a TiBook when OSX was first released for my personal use. I wanted to get away from the personal computing mono-culture and back to thinking of computers as tools and creative outlets for problem solving.

I stayed with a "Mac for home use" and "Thinkpad for work" for years until ~18 months ago when I bought an Air. I wouldn't have done it if they'd given me something reasonably small. But the T61 I got threw me over the edge. I bought a 1st Gen MBA and haven't looked back.

I have great respect for MACs but I prefer my pc for what I do. Sure, pc's take it on the nose but then they have a much, much larger base to serve which I'm sure if that was the case, Apple would be no different....

I've been running windows 7 beta now as a server and it has been rock solid going on 4 months now...which, I think this will be a winner for the pc world....

in the end, do what makes you happy...i build computers for friends and you can get the stability out of the pc platform that you get with MACs, just usually not out of the box