Or Nintendo NES vs Sega Master System...

'#�(%(*")*_*"!~? 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...

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)