Convince me to buy a Mac

[pintofguinness14]

I've never owned a Mac.  Most Mac owners I know wouldn't think of owning a PC.  I don't get it.  Other than because they look cool, why should I buy a Mac?

[Dave Gray]

You shouldn't.

Macs are cool, if you know what you're doing, and you are familiar with others in the PC community.  As a casual PC user, you have free access to much more software, advice, etc.

My girlfriend has a Mac (she bought it just before we got together).   She doesn't know how to use it, and since I don't use Macs, I don't either.  She got advice to buy from a graphic designer friend of mine (who uses Mac for their specialty multimedia software.)  If she needed software or wanted to know how to download movies or something, she's out of luck.  However, if I need apps for my PC, I have 10 different people I can call, or I can come on here and suggest something.

Unless you specifically WANT a Mac for some reason, don't get talked into getting one.

[Brian Fein]

Most Mac owners are simply revolting against the Microsoft empire.
They buy Mac cause they feel like they're sticking it to the man!

[ducks from TonyB0D's tomato throwing]

I don't see what all the fuss is about, except for endless compatibility issues.  Mac owners cry about how great mac's are, then bitch about how there's never enough software for them.  

Or you could be like Fau and buy a mac just to run windows on it!

[Dave Gray]

Macs definitely have their place.  They are very capable machines, especially if you're into graphic work or music production.  Apple makes good software that integrates well with that.  However, if you're just getting a computer for regular stuff, get a standard PC.

I also find that Mac stuff isn't carried in a lot of places.

[jtex316]

The problem with people who "hate" Microsoft is that they don't understand the first thing about Apple and who backs and finances Steve Jobs and all of his products - that's right, Bill Gates.

So Apple was going out of business, until MS decided to pump some money and buy millions of their shares of stock, essentially owning them. 

So this whole "I hate MS, I only use Apple" is like saying "I hate Viacom, I only watch MTV".

Anyways don't get one.  Sure Mac's are cool looking, but it ends there.  Forget compatibility with the rest of the planet, and forget about technical support.  Furthermore I find the OS Safari SLOWER then Win XP (believe me I've played with Mac's at the Mac store enough to see it for myself).

And you live overseas, I have no clue about international Apple support. 

Buy a Windows PC.

[Fau Teixeira]

WOW .. where to start ...

i've owned many different PCs .. either store bought or ones that i put together myself. And i also own a powerbook (mac's laptop).

Macs don't have any greater than normal use for graphics, sound or video as a few people mentioned above. This is a common misconcepction that stems from years ago. Since then PC's have evolved to the point that the differences are negligable.

What you are getting when you buy a mac over a pc is the following:

standardized and structured support .. you will never call mac support and they refer your error to microsoft .. since mac produces both the hardware and software elements

The technical support apple offers unlike what jtex said in his ignorant comments, is the best in the business. The screen  or video card on my mac started to fritz out .. the colors were all whack .. i called them on a wednesday, i had a DHL box at my house on a thursday, They picked it up on a Friday and i had my mac complete repaird at absolutely 0 cost to me on monday.

If you're looking for a laptop, i would highly reccomend the brand new macbooks .. they have built in "everything" .. lan .. wifi .. camera .. etc etc.

The operating system macs use is OSX 10.4 (tiger) .. it's a BSD derivative .. so you have a solid unix baseed OS. It has NEVER crashed for me.

I have virtual PC for mac and i have a 10gig windows XP OS installed as an application within mac os So i can run any program i want .. windows or mac. Further .. mac has much as much software floating around as windows does if you just look.

If you're 100% used to windows there are some things you'll need to get used to doing a little differently on a mac .. such as closing applications. On a pc you just click the red X .. on a mac you hit apple + q .. if you close a window hitting the x .. you close the current window only and the application framework still runs.

If you have specific questions i can answer .. as i have experience in using both PC and macs .. unlike some of the respondants here.

[TonyB0D]

everything bad peoplee say about macs now was true about 3 or 4 years ago.  however, it's night and day now.

macs ae faster and more powerful than PCs.
they're FULLY compatible with PCs and hardware (its easier to get most PC hardware up and running on a mac instead of a PC!)
i send documents from MS Office Mac to my friends PCs every day with no problems.
all the software you can ever want, unless its a really company-specific engineering program or somethign like that is available for the mac (you can always run virtual PC anyway!
people say there's no software available, thats just NOT true (its also much easier to find and pirate software for macs).
the macs are easier to learn and most of the programs are seamlessy integrated for a better overall experience.
no popups, viruses, or spyware to worry about, EVER
no endless heirarchy of millions of folders and files scattered everywhere. sometimes on PCs when a key file gets delted or corrupted, it manifests itsellf in several ways ie crashing other programs when you're not expecting it, etc (this doest happen with macs)
no locking up, crashing, or freezing.  the only program that's every froze on my mac was a microsoft program....go figure.
apple doesnt just slap components from 34 third worrld countries together, tie it together with some shitty windows code, and hope t runs (that's why PCs are always crashing and shit).  their code is based on Unix (what the gov't computers run on; most stable).
apple's customer/tech support is second to none.  they'll walk you through on the phone for hours, and if they cant figure it out they overnight you a air-mail box, or you can just go to an apple store in person.
on top of that, they're just so great for managing multimedia (photos, video editing, audio, etc)
all in all, if you want an ultra powerul cutting edge computer that won't crash, lock up, get infested with secret programs, be obsolete after a year, and generally JUST WORKS, then get a mac.  the best thing about macs is that once you get used to them you can do soo much more and be so more productive than on a PC because of the ease of use and seamless integration of everything i was talking about above.

so there you have the basic facts about the macs, all the bad stuff you hear about macs is just coming from ignorant people (they dont' realize how much apple has evolved since the iPod revolution)

ps - safari is blazingly faster than any other browser, yes, even mozilla.  anyone with half a clue knows you can never go by the performance of the display models....everyone fucks with them all day and they are ALL slow as shit eeverytime i'm in an apple store. (you know that like 100 computers are sharing a single connection too)

[Fau Teixeira]

asm far as your initial topic .. there's no big difference between a mac and pc nowadays .. it's like convincing someone to buy a chevy truck over a ford truck .. they'll both drive around and haul for you .. but they're a little bit different. The only difference is you can't really buy a low end mac .. all macs come at a pretty high performance rate .. the cheapest mac laptop you can buy right now is 1999 .. which is over double what the cheapest PC laptop you can buy is .. but to get a PC to equal the mac's performance.. you'd be looking in the 1999 range anyways.

[TonyB0D]

fau, that's not true, macs are the workhorses of the multimedia industry.  most major multimedia companies (magazines, record companies, TV/video companies, rely on the superior processing power of macs for chewing thru all that huge data....walk into any one of these companies and macs are abound

[Brian Fein]

I have used a Mac for a day, and I couldn't WAIT to get away from it.  It seemed so counterintuitive.  I guess my big beef with Mac is the OS and software, and those "some things" Fau mentions.  I was hugging my Windows PC...

If maintained properly, a Windows PC can behave as well as a Mac, if not better.

[TonyB0D]

fau, sorry about the quotes...thhats the ONE THING that doesnt work on my safar LOL....

this is is response to the post above^^^

the cheapest mac laptop is $1000, the plastic iBook.  powerbooks start at 1500, whereas the macbook is 2Gs

[Fau Teixeira]

i personally don't like safari .. but firefox is available on the mac .. so i'm ok !

[TonyB0D]

^^^^

i use mozilla for a few things, but i find it doesnt work as well with some java pages as well as safari
the only browser that works with ALL the java pages i've been to is IE for mac, but it BLOWS in every other aspect, not to mention its been discountinued

[Fau Teixeira]

macs may be the workhorses of the video industry but that isnt' becasue pcs can't do exactly the same job and maybe better .. but rather that the industry is already mac-proficcient and used to them so changing is difficult.

[BeefStewert]

Macs also just switched to Intel processors, so I doubt they will be more widely used in these industries because of any differences in processing power.  The software and integration is the key here.  Apple does a good job of making sure the HW and SW work together well.  And the user pays a premium for that feature.