PC or Mac?

[Steve Bullman]

Im thinking about making the switch over to a Mac, has anyone done the same, and how is it adjusting to the new interface? It seems universally agreed that its a better platform for doing most specialist applications on, and as im due for an upgrade anyway im thinking this may be the way forward....you comments appreciated

[Quickthorn]

I'd definitely get some advice before switching. It's been a long time since I used a mac, but I worked at a place where the manager of our department bought macs in a company that mainly ran pcs. The main use for me was typical office applications, like word processors/spreadsheets/databases etc. Macs seemed a lot more highly strung than the pcs, and were forever crashing in the middle of your work, and it was hard to transfer work between mac and pc without some sort of problem or another. Things might have changed, but personally, I'd never consider a mac.

[ecolojim]

ive got both.

 

long and short of it is... what do ya want to use it for?

 

what specialist applications are you thinking of using?

 

Mac's are certainly not for everyone. so many people put up with lack of compatability for the sake of fashion, there is very very little that a mac will do that a pc wont, but there are a number of things you can only easily do on a pc.

[Steve Bullman]

primarily i need speed and reliability...obviously im doing a lot of web design these days too

[ecolojim]

theyre certainly no faster or more reliable than a good pc. and they definitely dont have the bang for your buck of a pc.

 

I have a mac powerbook g4 because ive got a degree in music production, and when im not doing tree work im doing recording and production work... Even this could be done without a mac without much drama, it just depends on the software packages you want to use

 

as for webdesign... I would say stick with PC

 

macs struggle with things like wmv files which are arguably the web video yardstick.

[Peter]

All mac here, desktop and laptop. Bit more money for the same spec, but they work much better. My macs never crash, the desktop is a little slow but it always gets there in the end, unlike a pc which just gives up if you ask too much!

 

The microsoft office suite, ie Word, Excel ect was written for mac in the first place, so you wont have any trouble in that department.

 

Some websites dont work that well with Safari, the standard mac browser, or Firefox, the mac users browser of choice, as they are all written for IE. There are ways around this.

 

You can get an interface program to run windows on the mac anyway, so you can run any software you want.

 

Intuit dont make any software for mac, so you'll need that to run Quickbooks.

 

The specialist applications for Mac are usually media, music, photo, or video, and if you want a top end machine capable of running the top software you are looking at a lot of money, probably £3-5K. An equivalent spec pc will cost exactly the same though, so dont be fooled by the £400 laptops in PCWorld!

Just for normal home/ small business needs though, an iMac or Macbook is fine, and will probably still be working fine when the equivalent pc is obsolete.

[b101uk]

Well are Mac not using Intel chips in now?

 

When they were running there own chips in there G5’s they were faster able to do more FPOPS, but that was ~5 years ago, now windows & OS# are using near the same hardware.

 

Why not make your self a PC using the best parts with the best proven reputation (best is not the most expensive!)

 

PC’s can be super reliable, mine hasn’t crashed in 3.5 years and sometimes it on for a week at a time working 24h a day.

 

As with anything PC, the motherboard is the backbone, the better the quality of it and its components the more reliable the PC will be.

[Rich Rule]

Intel Mac all the way. I made the switch when they first went Intel, as did a lot of people I know. Most were just fed-up with Internet xploder and Bill gates corner on the pc market. Well they were my reasons anyway..!

 

I would say though, they take a bit to get used to. Rock solid reliability, they do exactly as they say it does on the tin. Although they are a bit more buck for the bang compared to the pc. but I fancied a change and tbh never looked back. Most 'office' type work is done on openoffice software which is free to download from the web. They even do Microsoft office for Mac, but did I mention earlier I don't like Bill Gates. These day there are no problems with compatability as the Mac software lets you save files in a PC friendly version. Most of my friends who use the Mac's are designers (Web and Graphic), musicians or architects. As someone said earlier it depends on what you want to do with the machine. For web, vid and music they are pretty straightforward to use and there is some good industry standard software out there.

 

Plus I like Apple, just upgraded to the Iphone 3G and it rocks. Say no more - Apple all the way at this end...

[ecolojim]

I always found my mac to be super fickle.

 

my PC laptop (just a fujitsu siemens) gets all manner of abuse, both in treatment, being used in the workshop, dusty environments etc etc, and in the amount of bits of software it gets installed on it, the amount of stuff i save off the net and get sent etc etc. and hasnt caused me one single problem.

 

My mac very quickly became only used for music production and music production alone, internet browsing, anything resembling a game etc etc made it hellishly slow, and caused me no end of problems with the software i was using for the music

[Rich Rule]

I always found my mac to be super fickle.

 

 

My mac very quickly became only used for music production and music production alone, internet browsing, anything resembling a game etc etc made it hellishly slow, and caused me no end of problems with the software i was using for the music

 

I think the key the either is to have the correct amount of RAM and then some... I have had countless Pc's over the years in office and home environments and must say that I have had more problems with a PC than I have ever had with a Mac. I cannot understand how people think the Mac is unreliable. The OSX operating system is based on UNIX Darwin. UNIX being possibly the building blocks of the majority of the worlds major backbone Networks. I think if there are problems with the Mac compared to the PC. the Mac will be harder to fix, but then again I haven't had any problems thus far. As for my Pc I have lost count in the times I re-installed XP on my Viao:thumbdown: