What's so great about macs? Why are they better than PCs?

[eric2006]

If you're used to PCs, and won't even look at the benefits of Macs, you won't see them. Many of your points are untrue or not completely correct, from a Mac user's perspective.

You've got to remember, though, that many people expect their Windows computers to "just work", with drastic consequences. I've seen many BSODS (in XP), removed thousands of adware, spyware, and viruses from XP machines, and replaced many different pieces of hardware on PCs. If you're an experienced Windows user, you can usually hold down the fort, avoid most spyware, and reinstall only once a year. But for people who use the computer only as a tool, the Mac requires little or no upkeep, and focuses on user experience.

Oh, and I have an SE/30 from 1989 that works like new, so I've got you beat

[contoursvt]

See my experience is different. I have been building PCs for the longest time and almost nothing I've built has gone down due to faulty hardware. I believe generic PCs built by inexperienced builders may be unreliable but its not true to say that PCs are unreliable. It depends on the manufacturer. For example, at my current work we have about 20 macs and 120 PCs and at least in the past 3 years I've been there, I've seen more mac failures from power supplies, hard drives (in the G5 imacs...heat I guess), a logic board, ibook keyboard...etc. I've had between the 120 PCs, a HD that died, a PSU and a DVD burner. Its luck of the draw if equipment is well built.

You may have a good point about the viruses and spyware because inexperienced users may get more of those.

PS. I still have my first PC and its running as well Its a 386-25Mhz with 4meg RAM. Its a retro dos gaming box at the moment. Its also from around '89

[nixgeek]

Originally Posted by dave-dave

Isn't more software compatible with PCs? Such as though free song software, Monopoly and such? Why does everyone favor macs? What am I missing!

I guess it's kind of like jazz: if you have to ask, you'll never know.

Seriously though, why not give one a try? If you have an Apple Store in your area, go there and take them for a test drive. But I do ask that you be open to the operating system and not expect it to be like Windows because it's NOT Windows. Being open is what allowed me to give Linux a try and I'm totally in love with it (I started as a Mac user, so you can imagine). I also was open about learning Windows even though I didn't like it at all during the 90s. I grew to like it, but then once I learned about Linux and opened up to that I eventually started moving away from Windows on my PCs to the point where now I don't even run Windows at home. I'm still a Mac user, so I have my iMac G5 for mainstream use and a Macintosh Quadra 650 that's acting as a web server for my family homepage and some other uses. This isn't to say that I don't use my Linux PCs for mainstream use....I do my surfing, e-mailing, productivity, and music composing on them as well. So for me, the applications are there for Macintosh and even Linux....so why bother with Windows and all of its issues?

[fryke]

contoursvt, you've revived a very old thread in order to continue its OS war bashing theme. I'm not sure whether this is really a healthy path. We all know that these things can heat up pretty quickly. You're content with your PCs that you put together yourself. You also don't find the fact that you have to use antivirus-software and anti-spyware a problem. Your Windows 2000 Server has a good uptime. Well: Be glad is all I can say. But you're not the average Windows user fed up with all the problems they encounter. I'm pretty sure there are _ways_ to make Windows work as intended, mainly because there _is_ an intended way. I remember being quite content with Win2K myself. But why _was_ it more stable at the beginning? Because Microsoft didn't let it run old problematic drivers and software in the first place. With XP, MS brought some compatibility back, and sure as hell many of the problems came back as well (plus a couple of new ones). I'm sure there are a lot of valid reasons for why Windows isn't that bad at all - even for less tech-avid users than yourself. But this thread's about what's better about Macs. And your personal experience, imho, doesn't defy the points set up by ElDiabloConCaca in June of 2006:

"Better user interface" - I guess there _can_ be a debate about that one. Maybe it's down to opinion. So let's forget about this one, although I *personally* strongly disagree with anyone saying Windows XP or Vista having a better user interface. You mention "no full screen button" for Mac OS X, neglecting the fact that making any app fullscreen kinda kills drag and drop or at least makes it a *lot* harder.

"Ease of use" - Well, that goes with above point, I'd say, so I wouldn't count it as a separate point.

"Don't crash as much" - I'd write "doesn't" instead of "don't", but in my years of experience with unexperienced users of both Macs and Windows PCs, I'd say statistics are with me.

"Spyware/Viruses are virtually non-existant" - You yourself give that point a little validity and I agree with you there. I add some emphasis: It really _is_ a problem for many non-experienced users.

"High quality of craftsmanship" - Skip that one. If that was the _one_ point for decision, I'd be using an IBM Thinkpad by now. Well, a Lenovo Thinkpad, maybe.

"They're aesthetically pleasing" - It _is_ a reason, although maybe not the most important one.

"They last longer" - I think your 8-year-old PC is really a personal experience, and you have given it a _lot_ of not exactly inexpensive hardware upgrades in order to make it still a decent PC. And yet it's not exactly a good candidate for Vista compared to a cheap new PC. But I personally don't really enjoy that old G3 in my signature much with Tiger. It'd need updates as well.

"They can run Windows now, negating your entire argument about quantity of software available" - Heck, that _is_ true, you know. But I'm glad my copy of Windows XP that I can run in Parallels Desktop stays closed for all but the occasional time when I have to test websites against IE. I often decide to let users do that nowadays, though. It's just too much hassle. Start up Windows, hope that the virus defs are not tooooooooo old by now, let Windows do all its updates and let the antivirus software do all _its_ updates, then reboot and finally load _one_ page in IE. Err...

[MrTAToad]

Mac has :

Faster searches in files
Boots up and shuts down quicker (and the former probably applies to Vista too).
In 10.5 - full 64-bit operating system, without driver hassles
Sharp, uncomplicated display.
Dont have to worry about DRM issues
Dont have to worry about authorising the operating system.
Dont have to worry about silly security systems.
Using standby actually works, and doesn't crash the machine a couple of minutes after coming out of said system.
No need for frequent updates.

[contoursvt]

Originally Posted by MrTAToad

Mac has :

Faster searches in files
Boots up and shuts down quicker (and the former probably applies to Vista too).
In 10.5 - full 64-bit operating system, without driver hassles
Sharp, uncomplicated display.
Dont have to worry about DRM issues
Dont have to worry about authorising the operating system.
Dont have to worry about silly security systems.
Using standby actually works, and doesn't crash the machine a couple of minutes after coming out of said system.
No need for frequent updates.

Hmm from this page, it looks like you do have DRM
http://www.matthewgifford.com/2005/0...drive-me-away/

You might find the search faster but searching by file type and or file extensions dont work nearly as well. Guess you could drop to commandline. Pitty that sharp clean shell doesnt do it all

OSX has less driver hassles because it has very little hardware selection and options. I dont like paying 2x the price for the exact same card just because its a Mac card. Hardware options are a good thing.

Please define silly security systems. If you mean Vista, well you can turn that off with a couple clicks and never deal with it again.

Dont know what PC you've tried standby on but please dont base your experience on some 5 cent computer or one from 5 years ago. I use standby all the time on my boxes and on one of them I also implement suspend to disc which works great as well.

Less frequent updates... just huge lumps to download at one time. I'd rather I get an update every day thats tiny than to be notified that I have to download 25 megs and have to reboot. I also enjoy having updates install themselves without any user intervention other than it telling me its done.

I also actually like that XP has been around so long. That means that since buying XP Pro as an OEM license with my HD purchase when it first came out for $150, my mac friends had to go through 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4. I dont think each revision was a free upgrade if you didnt buy a new machine each time. My guess is if you wanted to keep up, you needed to purchase it. You could just stick with 10.1 and not pay, but I love to see how well 10.1 is supported by apple and other software vendors. Chances are a lot of new software may not run right on such an old version.

[contoursvt]

Originally Posted by fryke

contoursvt, you've revived a very old thread in order to continue its OS war bashing theme.

Ya I looked back and noticed that I didnt see how old the thread was...just read a post and thought I'd respond. Oooops

[MrTAToad]

Dont know what PC you've tried standby on but please dont base your experience on some 5 cent computer

You may be interesting in cheapo computers - but I certainly am not. All desktop machines I have had have trouble returning from standby. The only ones that dont, were my laptops...

And I forgot to add to the list :

No need to defrag