Mac vs PC, Laptop Choice, Computer Degree: Advice Please

[TheIcyKissOfDeath]

I'm looking at buying a laptop, and I immediately assumed I would get a standard windows PC computer. However, my sister just bought a Mac laptop, and she's been raving about them. Which is better?

I would need it to do all of the standard things a college student needs a laptop for - email, browsing, and the like. I would also need to use it to complete a minimal amount of programming, as I will have to take a few low level programming classes for a business information systems major.

I might minor in film or music, which is where the mac sounds handy. I hear they are better for that sort of thing, though why, I have no idea.

Finally, I want to be able to run games. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do enjoy playing games now and then (think guild wars, call of duty level games).

Suggestions? Thanks.

[Thrax]

Mac will do the music better.
PC will do the games better.
They'll compete evenly on common tasks.
PC will be cheaper.

[primesuspect]

If you want to go into film, you pretty much must get a mac because you will be learning final cut pro at some point, and you'll just have to be used to mac OS when that time comes.

It's the same with music stuff. Most pro audio apps lean towards the mac side of things.

Functionally, the machines are the same nowadays. You can do everything you need to do on both. The mac is more expensive for the same speed as a PC. Gaming will definitely be much better on the PC.

[TheIcyKissOfDeath]

ooh that's a hard choice then

[lightnin]

as a programmer, i'd rather cook my balls on a george foreman grill that go back to programming anything on any windows computer. if you're gonna code at all, i say get a mac.

sure macs are more expensive for the same processor, usually, but i gotta say my powerbook is the most well-built laptop i've ever owned and i've owned a large array of laptops, from acer to ibm. so they may cost more, but you get nice hardware. same goes for the mini's and desktops.

[leishi85]

i'd say get a mac.

i'm currently a student at university of michigan, EE major, and i love my macbook.

and if u ever need to run windows, u can always get parallels desktop, i am using it as well, works great.

[lightnin]

i also run parallels. it's pretty slick. winxp boots up in it's own little window in the corner.

[Deano]

Parallels? what is this?

My friend luke has a mac and he's always raving about how good they are too. But i've noticed most Media courses now-a-days always use macs.

[lightnin]

parallels is a vm environment that allows you to install and run one OS 'inside' of another OS.

http://www.parallels.com/

[Deano]

oh rihgty!

kewl :D

Thanks for the heads-up lightnin

[RWB]

Programming on a MAC? But that commercial basically says "NO!".

SEE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tySx0g0LUjE

[FoldingAddict]

Is it me or did that commercial just slap programmers everywhere in the face?

~FA

[airbornflght]

Is there any advantage to running xp in a vm rather than just using boot camp?


I'm either going to be a CompE or EE major next year and I'm seriously thinking of getting a mac book if the price is right and running boot camp so that I can run XP Pro also as some of my classes will require that I have XP. All of my classes require a laptop in the college of engineering at OU.

I have heard that I will be able to get software and the mac substantially cheaper at the universities store or what ya call it. Does anyone know if this is true? Buddy J, I know you went to OU, do you know anything about this? I have to have a laptop one way or the other next year.

[RWB]

Generally you can get a student discount at many places... when I attended Full Sail we had our own apple store for example.

[airbornflght]

Generally you can get a student discount at many places... when I attended Full Sail we had our own apple store for example.

The university of oklahoma does also if I have heard correctly, I am just wondering how much cheaper they actually are. If the cost is too high, I may end just buying a pc.

[lightnin]

the whole c++ gui programming jab was probably related to cocoa, but yeah, kinda odd.

i like parallels much better than boot camp because you don't have to reboot into windows just to test something and then shutdown and boot back into osx, you simply click the run button and boom, there's windows. when you get sick of it, shut windows down. you still have full control of your osx desktop, you just have windows running as if it's another app along with ff or eclipse or something.

edit:
added some screenshots.

edit 2:

lol i found more screenshots
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ss/

[airbornflght]

the whole c++ gui programming jab was probably related to cocoa, but yeah, kinda odd.

i like parallels much better than boot camp because you don't have to reboot into windows just to test something and then shutdown and boot back into osx, you simply click the run button and boom, there's windows. when you get sick of it, shut windows down. you still have full control of your osx desktop, you just have windows running as if it's another app along with ff or eclipse or something.

edit:
added some screenshots.

edit 2:

lol i found more screenshots
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ss/

so how is the performance with parallels? That is sounding like a good option if the performance is up to par.

[lightnin]

performance is pretty good, but when i have a *bunch* of my heavier stuff running it gets a tad bit choppy.

snapshot of right now

Processes: 73 total, 2 running, 1 stuck, 70 sleeping... 289 threads 14:56:29
Load Avg: 1.46, 0.66, 0.37 CPU usage: 15.1% user, 27.6% sys, 57.3% idle
SharedLibs: num = 191, resident = 18.4M code, 2.55M data, 3.04M LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 10467, resident = 206M + 6.97M private, 443M shared
PhysMem: 506M wired, 336M active, 169M inactive, 1012M used, 11.3M free
VM: 14.0G + 125M 352518(34) pageins, 259145(88) pageouts

uptime
15:00 up 3 days, 6:58, 4 users, load averages: 0.69 0.75 0.49

i'm using it right now, surfing on ie6 in parallels/winxp, i have an IM going, running eclipse, X11, evolution, ff, jboss, mysql, sqldeveloper for oracle and 2 bash terminals up, on top of that netscape is hung up yet again and my mini is chugging along very nicely. not slow, not choppy, and toggling quickly between windows is speedy.

if that gives you any ideas.

the mouse in parallels isn't always ultra smooth, but programs open and run quickly.

[Buddy J]

OU has an Apple student store and you can check the prices if you go through the educational section of http://store.apple.com. The savings varies between $50 on up depending on what you buy.

For engineering at OU, they say you have to have a laptop. I know some people who graduated without every buying one, but for the most part, it's a good thing to have. If I were you, I'd contact the school and ask what sort of programs you'll need to use for the major and buy off that spec.

I have the lowest end MacBook currently and love it. I dual boot OSX and XP Pro SP2 with BootCamp. No issues there. Everything is nice and stable. No crashes or BSODs or anything. I've had it since July.

Once you know what specs you need, I'd consider buying a refurb MacBook or MacBook Pro from the Apple Store online. You save quite a bit there, puting the price of the laptop closer to that of your average Windows laptop. You get all the OSX lovin without paying the premium, and often times, they tend to uprate the refurbs with extra ram or bigger hard drives!

As for Paralells, I've yet to use it. The development of it seems to be progressing at a very fast rate and now you can pretty much seamlessly run OSX and XP together using it without taking much of a hit to performance. As development progresses, I think it'll only improve until the two OSes are almost integrated.

[airbornflght]

OU has an Apple student store and you can check the prices if you go through the educational section of http://store.apple.com. The savings varies between $50 on up depending on what you buy.

For engineering at OU, they say you have to have a laptop. I know some people who graduated without every buying one, but for the most part, it's a good thing to have. If I were you, I'd contact the school and ask what sort of programs you'll need to use for the major and buy off that spec.

I have the lowest end MacBook currently and love it. I dual boot OSX and XP Pro SP2 with BootCamp. No issues there. Everything is nice and stable. No crashes or BSODs or anything. I've had it since July.

Once you know what specs you need, I'd consider buying a refurb MacBook or MacBook Pro from the Apple Store online. You save quite a bit there, puting the price of the laptop closer to that of your average Windows laptop. You get all the OSX lovin without paying the premium, and often times, they tend to uprate the refurbs with extra ram or bigger hard drives!

As for Paralells, I've yet to use it. The development of it seems to be progressing at a very fast rate and now you can pretty much seamlessly run OSX and XP together using it without taking much of a hit to performance. As development progresses, I think it'll only improve until the two OSes are almost integrated.

Cool, I'll look into it. But with my computer engineering degree I was up there at Sooner Saturday and I talked to some of the engineering professors and some of the students. The professors told me that a laptop was necesary. The kids said it makes life so much easier as you 'plug-in' in your classes. It looked pretty sweet to me. I can't wait.:headbange

[Leonardo]

MODERATOR NOTICE:

Gentleman, it is so refreshing to see a MAC vs. PC discussion that is an intelligent discourse without flaming or useless cliches and absent of childish egos. You are giving Short-Media a good name! Thanks for a thread that is interesting to read and informative.:thumbsup:


and for those of you with childish egos who are suppressing them...good job!

[Buddy J]

This may be a late bump, but I was just told that Parallels 3 will support Vista Aero and assign multiple cores to each VM.
http://forums.parallels.com/thread8028.html

Sounds cool and should happen within the next couple months.

[edcentric]

Unless you need software that is only available in windows then the Mac is a serious option. They are relaible, and with curent hardware they may be more expensive, but at least they aren't slower also.
there are a lot more choices with windows machines (size, speed, graphics).
I see it as a matter of buget and machine size, not OS.

[GHoosdum]

as a programmer, i'd rather cook my balls on a george foreman grill that go back to programming anything on any windows computer.

This just... wow... made my day. ;D

Now I'm going to get back to work programming on this Windows machine at work.

Anyone have a George Foreman grill that I can borrow? You might not want it back afterwards...

[drasnor]

Before you get too worked up, be sure to test drive someone else's Mac to get a feel for the interface. I know a few people that were in the market and found out that they just can't stand the OS X user interface. It's better to find out before you blow a lot of money on a machine you hate.

Also, if you're currently a Windows user keep in mind that switching to another OS is like moving into a new house: all your stuff is there but you haven't quite figured out where it's hiding and there are a whole lot of switches and you don't know what they go to. Keep an open mind and you'll be fine.

-drasnor :fold:

P.S. At least you'll be moving into a friendly neighborhood.

[lightnin]

lmao

Anyone have a George Foreman grill that I can borrow? You might not want it back afterwards...

I don't need it anymore, it's all yours boss ;)

Before you get too worked up, be sure to test drive someone else's Mac to get a feel for the interface. I know a few people that were in the market and found out that they just can't stand the OS X user interface.

this is awesome advice!! if nobody you know has a mac, maybe find an apple store or a place that sells them that will let you test drive it a bit.

[Sledgehammer70]

I am all for PC Laptops :) I have used Mac's and also work on Mac's and well they are built well, but you can find just as well built PC laptops... Prime makes a poiint in video editing, but outside of Video a PC can just about do everything the same as a Mac.

TBH the only difference in the 2 types of systems these days are the OS.. and Graphics.

[primesuspect]

And final cut pro

and pro tools

and .... (insert high end pro video or audio tool of choice that is mac-only or is much more widely used and supported on a mac)

True, pro tools runs on a PC but the support team is very mac-centric (as well as the community)

[Buddy J]

What is comes down to is, do you want to spend the extra money getting the extra Mac goodies or not. That's really what you're doing. You're buying the magnetic power adapter, the snazzy white case and bright screen, and a bigass software package.

The base MacBook is $1000. A comprable HP or Dell or whatever is $700. Is it worth it, to you, to spend $450 ($300 + XP) to get a laptop that can take advantage of each OS's strengths?

For me, using a Mac is part of my job. It's the industry standard for publishing it seems. But I'm a car guy and I dig open source EFI projects. I want something that'll tune a MegaSquirt and 90 percent of it's software runs through Windows. I also want to play my old games. So I spent the money and killed two birds with one stone. Work and play are covered. To me, it's worth it.

[airbornflght]

I'm seriously considering getting a mac book for college next year and running parallels. That is if I can get it at a decent price from the college. I really have no idea of what price to expect. But at any rate I'm saving all my graduation gifts to sink into a laptop. And I'm saving now to build a pc before I go to college, so hopefully quad core will be widely available by august.

[Nolf-Job]

airbornflght, at Purdue we have the same on-campus store/partnership with apple that many other major universities have. For the most part, you're usually looking at 10% off the retail price from apple. Hopefully that gives you an idea of whether you want to shop around beforehand or not.

[Nomad]

I am going to have to buy one next year if I end up going to U of M, their college of Art and Design mandates it. The unfortunate thing is the primary program I use, 3DS MAX, doesn't run on Macs.

[mtrox]

MODERATOR NOTICE:

Gentleman, it is so refreshing to see a MAC vs. PC discussion that is an intelligent discourse without flaming or useless cliches and absent of childish egos. You are giving Short-Media a good name! Thanks for a thread that is interesting to read and informative.:thumbsup:


and for those of you with childish egos who are suppressing them...good job!

Ditto, ditto, ditto.

I've been avoiding this thread for that very reason. This topic usually brings out people whose opinion is based on the one platform they've used all their lives, except for the confusing 10 minutes they spent on someone else's computer.

It is really nice not to hear the usual you-are-stupid-to-use-anything-other-than-what-I-use uninformed stuff.

[airbornflght]

I use both on a regular basis (XP/2000 and OSX) I do like OSX's interface, actually about the only thing I don't like about it is the price and when it decides to crash when I'm in the middle of a design. XP is a pretty good OS, main thing I like about it is the compatibility of hardware and software. Things I don't like..security and stability.

That said I like the prospect of a mac laptop and a pc desktop.

[tmh88]

When it comes down to it, macs are overpriced, most pc's aren't. Mac laptops are compact which is nice, but it comes with a big price increase.

[Nomad]

When it comes down to it, macs are overpriced, most pc's aren't. Mac laptops are compact which is nice, but it comes with a big price increase.

What you mostly are paying for are the frills, not just it's size. Things like the magnetic power adapter, the way OSX functions, etc. But also, the primary thing you are going to pay for on top of that is the fact they have become very popular. Its ease of interface and sleek design is very appealing from many standpoints, and it's just up to the person if they want to pay for that.

[primesuspect]

It's more than frills. Mac hardware is very well designed and well engineered. Open one up, look at it. What you are paying for is something designed in America, the motherboard, the chipset, everything. The thermal engineering, the chosen materials, etc. Everything is top notch.

[mtrox]

^^^^what he said, I agree^^^^

I disagree with Nomad though. If MACs were expensive because of their popularity, then a Windows machine would cost about 20 times as much. The other part of the reason they are expensive...besides what Prime said, is because there is one manufacturer. Period. One. And that one manufacturer controls it's retailers. You look for MACs on the net and tell me how many prices you see. There are two prices....regular, and student.

Then you go poke around and tell me how many companies are falling all over themselves to sell you a Windows machine. But that also means the average Windows buyer is a price buyer, not a quality buyer. That means there are some Windows stuff out there that can barely add 2 + 2.

Jobs really controls his platform. There are advantages to that...all Apple products talk to each other reasonably well, the hardware is always done well. But there are disadvantages, and price is high on that list.

[Nomad]

^^^^what he said, I agree^^^^

I disagree with Nomad though. If MACs were expensive because of their popularity, then a Windows machine would cost about 20 times as much. The other part of the reason they are expensive...besides what Prime said, is because there is one manufacturer. Period. One. And that one manufacturer controls it's retailers. You look for MACs on the net and tell me how many prices you see. There are two prices....regular, and student.

Then you go poke around and tell me how many companies are falling all over themselves to sell you a Windows machine. But that also means the average Windows buyer is a price buyer, not a quality buyer. That means there are some Windows stuff out there that can barely add 2 + 2.

Jobs really controls his platform. There are advantages to that...all Apple products talk to each other reasonably well, the hardware is always done well. But there are disadvantages, and price is high on that list.

What Brian said is a good point and I agree. However, Windows isn't popular at all. For the longest time there was just no reliable alternative. Windows was popularized, and there is a significant difference between that and being trendy as Mac is now.

[tmh88]

For a laptop I'd go with a mac. Desktop i'd go with a pc though.....i dont like mac desktops for some reason.

[Lomoco]

Mac will do the music better.
PC will do the games better.
They'll compete evenly on common tasks.
PC will be cheaper.

Then when you upgrade the PC up so that it's even comparable with what a standered mac can do, the pc ends up costing a whole heck of a lot more.

[Harudath]

from limited personal experience with Macs I can't accurately say LOLMAX SUX or LOLBREAK TEH WINODW, but from what I have seen Macs are an excellant alternative to Windows, I love the OS X style, although when I first used it I found it difficult to use, not to say it is difficult to use but hey, I'm a windows user :tongue:

And that's not strictly true, you can get a very good PC/laptop for a low price, you just usually get less widgets, which I'm sure you can download an alternative for somwhere anyway

[kryyst]

I'm a firm Mac convert. My pc at home has been relegated to being a juiced up video game console as that's the only thing left to it where the PC excels.

Few things to consider, it's been largely mentioned but I'm throwing my hat in also. Mac's are more expensive if you look at the specs. However they are better engineered then a discount laptop, however if you compare them to say a non-discount laptop like a similarly spec'd lenovo T series they are in the same price range. In addition to that though on a Mac they come with some excellent software perks, the iLife package is amazing for video/photo editing and they also come with Garage band which is a premier package for any audio file. Some of these programs there are no really comparable alternatives on in the PC world or at least not in the same price range.

One other thing, the magnetic power cord has been mentioned. But let me just say I've had at least two encounters now where that magnetic power cord has saved a Macbook.

Plus on a mac you can, if you need to install windows in boot camp (for the dual boot method) or use parallels. Best of all if you install windows in boot camp you can also use that same partition as your parallels partition which is how I do it and it's really a best of both worlds situation. If I just need normal usage of something in windows I'll use it through parallels. If however it's more intensive and I need a full system resources I just go into boot camp.

One thing I feel it's worth noting about parallels is that it runs pretty good with 2gigs of ram, less then 2 gigs of ram and your machine will run slow, to the point of only using parallels if you need to. 2 gigs makes it generally usable and not to much of a system hog. However with 3 gigs of ram it flies and runs at almost near native speeds. Also parallels supports directX 8 so you can do some light gaming on it without having to dual boot into your boot camp partition.

[Leonardo]

I think Macs are great for the person who just wants to purchase a computer the same way as a toaster, lawnmower, or clothes washer - off the shelf. For those of us who enjoy building our own, there is no choice. I would love to build a Mac and run OSX. Can't happen. My last boxed computer was a purchase in 1995. Except for laptops, I don't see myself plunking down money for something that a mass production factory (Mac or Intel format) decides is best for me.

Upgrades too. My computers are in a constant stage of incremental upgrades. That's very difficult with Mac. One source for motherboards - Apple. No competition. Priced accordingly.

[Leonardo]

Then when you upgrade the PC up so that it's even comparable with what a standered mac can do, the pc ends up costing a whole heck of a lot more.Depends on what PC. Big difference between a custom configured Dell or HP and wonder budget wheezer from Wal Mart. If you want to talk BIG BUCKS, start upgrading a Mac. Yes, out of the box, Macs have a very good standard, but couple years down the down the road, the upgrade cycle often leads to purchasing a new Mac rather than upgrading. Sure, there are plenty of Mac compatible parts, but often the price premium for them is exorbitant.

[kryyst]

Big difference is a few years down the road there is still little need to upgrade a mac. They have a longer hardware life cycle. Also keep in mind that most PC's need to be upgraded to keep up with gaming. Because Mac's aren't gaming machines you don't follow into that need to upgrade.

For iMac's you are fairly limited to what you can do, they are basically as upgradeable as a laptop. You can upgrade the harddrive, CPU and Ram. However the Ram is the only really serviceable upgrade. The harddrive and CPU require you to open up your iMac and really get your hands dirty, not for the timid. I've done it and it requires a good amount of work.

However if you want to be the big pimp daddy. Get a PowerMac. It's a full tower upgradeable and fully expandable to your hearts dream.

[Leonardo]

Big difference is a few years down the road there is still little need to upgrade a mac. They have a longer hardware life cycle. Also keep in mind that most PC's need to be upgraded to keep up with gaming. Because Mac's aren't gaming machines you don't follow into that need to upgrade. Can't disagree with that.

[Gnome Queen]

I'll agree with what most people have said here- Macs- Better for video/art stuff, PCs- better for gaming, PC- cheaper. Macs are well made machines, I'll give you that, but they just seem overpriced to me, and the friends I know who's Macs have broken have been SOL sometimes, because the Macs upgrade so fast. My friend Ken's mac broke, and they had to do a worldwide search to fix the missing part, and his mac was only 3 years old. Ironically, his Dad bought him a new mac, and then they found the part.

Besides that though, I get turned off by macs just because of all they hype. Everyone I know just LOOOOVES THEM, and it seems to me that it's just a huge trend thing. I mean, I'm probably just biased because I had such bad luck with Ipods, but while I think that Macs ARE good machines, and ARE innovative, they really aren't as fantastic as everyone says.

Just don't get a dell. Trust me. Don't get a dell.

[Harudath]

Just don't get a dell. Trust me. Don't get a dell.

You say potato, I say BURN DELL

[mas0n]

Just don't get a dell. Trust me. Don't get a dell.

You say potato, I say BURN DELL

Dell serves their purpose. I wouldn't personally buy one (or any other pre-build) for home use, but I buy the hell out of the Dell Vostro and Dell Precision lines for my clients. They are good quality hardware for a decent price and don't come loaded with crapware as they are meant for the workplace.

[pragtastic]

Mac ftw. I've had mine (MacBoook) since last summer and haven't regretted the investment for a moment. I use Photoshop on it, program, play around in the shell, used to play WoW... pretty much does it all. I really can't think of a reason NOT to get one :)

[Harudath]

Well, from what I've seen, an average Dell computer performs as well as a regular laptop of the same price, bad integrated graphics, bad sound, they're slow and I've actually had friends ask me to come and remove alot of crap that came with their Dells, perhaps US Dells are different :tongue:

[Gnome Queen]

Dell serves their purpose. I wouldn't personally buy one (or any other pre-build) for home use, but I buy the hell out of the Dell Vostro and Dell Precision lines for my clients. They are good quality hardware for a decent price and don't come loaded with crapware as they are meant for the workplace.


My dell, which is a laptop I got for school use, is a piece of crap that forgets to charge the battery half the time, and the battery is only a year and a half old (the laptop is 3). We got way overcharged on it too.

[jared]

You can hate on Dell all you want.

BUT, at the end of the day it will be a cold day in hell before I recommend a different OEM (gateway/compaq/hp/generic brand here) to my friends and family who aren't tech savvy enough to build their own machines.

[Gnome Queen]

What's wrong with HP's or gateway? I thought they were supposed to be good for laptops. My parents have a gateway and it seems pretty spiffy.

[Qeldroma]

I've been video editting for 3 years and going. Perhaps it's just my tasks: sports and theatric. I can do it with a PC laptop. I've seen Macs and play with them, been shown a couple ... and I still can find no compelling reason to convert. I don't know why I'd spend the extra $. The big weakness in a PC is the same as it is in a Mac: The Hard Drive.

I'm a working professional and there're no advantages for me there. I'm also a hobbyist amateur in video editting that sees no benefit going to a Mac. I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want a high-end gaming video spoiling on my LT, so I can play dang near anything at lower settings. In short, I'm squarely in the other camp- unless I require it I'll pocket the money I saved in not getting a Mac.

[kryyst]

You know Mac's make desktops too and that's where most video editing is done. Price a 17" iMac vs any other comparable box brand and the iMac is extremely well priced.

[Harudath]

Mac released some sick PCs not so long ago... Two Quad Core processors....

[Snarkasm]

I love pricing those towers. Max it out, get a pair of 30" screens, and bask in a $30k pricetag.

That, by the way, is the only Mac I'd buy, myself. That is one hell of a machine.

[NiGHTS]

Big difference is a few years down the road there is still little need to upgrade a mac. They have a longer hardware life cycle. Also keep in mind that most PC's need to be upgraded to keep up with gaming. Because Mac's aren't gaming machines you don't follow into that need to upgrade.

Unless you're buying a gaming laptop, I see very little difference in lifecycle length. If you were talking about a gaming laptop, then you're not comparing apples to apples, IMO.

To me, an HP/Dell/Acer/Gateway/whatever purchased for web browsing and word processing has the same hardware lifecycle as the MacBook you buy.

[Leonardo]

Not quite sure what you mean by "lifecycle." Of the Mac owners I've known who purchased their Macs new, they seem to keep them longer. For whatever reason, the seem to be satisfied with their machines for longer than 'Intel' PC buyers.

But again, I look at both camps and just shake my head. My machines are continually upgraded. It's actually hard to tell you when one of my computers actually is new - they are never actually 'new' or 'old,' just evolving. :cool: In my mind, my machines win the longevity award.

[Harudath]

Laptop VS Marmite

Marmite wins the lifetime test :tongue:

[Snarkasm]

I think there's a good concept behind the "Macs don't game," but it's only one of the reasons. Windows drives hardware sales, we all know that. New versions of Windows bloat some, require better hardware to feel as snappy, whatever. OSX, thanks to its locked platform, could afford to optimize over time and whatnot, so even upgrades from Tiger to Leopard don't impact system performance very much. The two things PCs do that Macs don't - game and run various upgrades of Windows - point out the hardware's limits faster than you'd ever notice it on a Mac. I imagine that's why life cycles would be different, if they are. That and that normal people often just notice their computer slowing down, so they run out and buy a $700 shelf unit rather than diagnosing and fixing their problems. You buy good components and your life cycle will be just as long as a Mac user's.

[Harudath]

PCs probably have shorter life cycles because people buy off-the-shelf PCs that manufacturers make as cheaply as possible, and cheap components usually mean shorter life

[Lomoco]

...I don't see myself plunking down money for something that a mass production factory (Mac or Intel format) decides is best for me.


That's why when you select your computer, with some of them, like the Mac Pro, you can specify exactly what you want. Now, you can't do that on say the iMacs because in order to keep them so dang thin as they are, everything needs to be in just the right spot. That's including the laptops too.

[Lomoco]

However if you want to be the big pimp daddy. Get a PowerMac.

You mean: Mac Pro. Apple no longer makes the Power Macs.

[airbornflght]

Aside from the operating system. Macs are now identical to pc's. The only difference is a tpm module (iirc) that allows the os to run. But that shouldn't be a problem for much longer as the OSx86 project is working on it all the time. It kinda works right now for hardware that is close to the macs hardware. But the problem is that there isn't a whole lot of driver support for macs since they run on 1st party hardware.

Anyway, point is, when you buy a mac you are buying their (really nice and ohh so sexy) engineering/design and also the operating system. Which again, is so sexy. I love it. But, vista isn't too bad.

[Leonardo]

Windows drives hardware salesNo, not really. That only applies when new Windows versions are released. What's the time gap between XP and Vista - seven years? And yes, I haven't changed operating systems in that time period (and still won't for probably another year or more).That's why when you select your computer, with some of them, like the Mac Pro, you can specify exactly what you want. 1) As you can with Dell and several other mass production brands; 2) that wasn't my point anyway. As a home builder, not choosing proprietary architecture or parts, I can continually upgrade all my systems any time I feel like it, procure the components form a choice of hundreds of online sites, traditional stores, or private trading markets. I don't depend upon a limited set of options from a mass production corporation. I also don't get taken to the cleaners - Dell or Apple motherboard, in example - when I wish to upgrade. Just one example: (I bare my soul, this is embarrassing) last night I destroyed a motherboard (doing something stupid, in a hurry, late at night - perfect storm). After determining that the motherboard was indeed a useless collection of wire traces, heatsinks, capacitors, and microchips, I paid for and ordered a new high performance, high quality motherboard within a few minutes. Now mind you, I live on a mountain side in Alaska. The shipped-to-my-door price, two-day service, was $114. After the mail in rebate, it will be $84. The ease and low expense of upgrading is likewise.

Try that with a Dell or Mac, or any other proprietary boxed computer.

Laptops are another matter. It is possible to build a laptop, but it's like building in a Mac in that options are very limited. If I were in the market for a laptop, I would seriously consider a Mac. My employer provides my laptop so I take what is provided. (I'm huge fan of IBM ThinkPads, too. Haven't tried the Lenovo flavor yet.)

[cambrose]

I have a dell latitude 830 and say it's by far the best laptop I've ever used. Dedicated graphics card, c2d proc, 2gb ram, and a 5hr battery life to boot. It's a marvelous machine and will most likely give me brand loyalty to dell for laptops. For desktops though, I will always build my own. Why buy a mac when I can build a c2d or c2q pc and put osx on it using the x86 project?

[Snarkasm]

Disclaimer: I run OSX via OSx86 on my rig and it's in perfect working order. I still live in Vista day-to-day. OSX is just a fun diversion every once in a while, a toy to play with and see how it works and whether I can use it viably someday. Right now, I use my Windows stuff (Steam, 2xSMP with AffinityChanger, TiVoToGo - but that's a whole other story) way too much to be able to stay in OSX for more than a day or two.

TiVoToGo really irks me, though. It's free to transfer any show off your TiVo to your computer while in Windows, but to get the same functionality in OSX, you have to spend $40 or $50 to get a Toast plugin or something. It's like they know Mac people will pay more for things, so they charged them for it or something. Screw that. So I transfer them in Windows and DirectShowDump them to mpg for the portable viewing.

[shwaip]

I have a macbook pro as my "work" computer. To be completely honest, very little work gets done on it, it's all done remotely through vnc to another pc. It dual boots (bootcamp) osx and xp. Because I don't do anything intensive on it in either XP or OSX, it doesn't really matter what OS I'm in. That said, I'm much more comfortable in XP than OSX. When I'm in OSX, I'm constantly upset that things aren't where I'm used to, or that something just doesn't seem quite right. However, I like that OSX is *nix based, as it gives me a functional shell without cygwin.

While I'm sure that's not all that helpful, I'd probably suggest a PC. Macs are pretty, they have some nice features, but I just like the XP platform better. And I'd definitely take vista over OSX, still.

[Qeldroma]

This is an old saw for me, but others in this community and I have been delighted with this outfit (http://powernotebooks.com/). You basically can put together your laptop and, on some systems, have them put on or NOT put on the OS and do it yourself.

[Buddy J]

My only complaint about my macbook is the craptastic onboard graphics hinders my TF2 playing. I love being able to dual boot, but find myself using OSX more often for chat, web browsing and document editing. I run 10.5 and XP SP2.