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WINDOWS OR MAC.???

nathanever82
Posted 19/10/2008 - 20:10 Link
Argee,

You simply took it the wrong way.

I will always say what I think, and what my experience tells me - anybody is welcome to use my advice, or discard it at their will

Nothing to 'defend' myself from, I simply told a true story to make a point

I have learnt that often, with technology, price makes the difference. So i'd prefer to wait, save, and have ultimate quality. That's why I aim at buying PRIME lenses instead of cheap zooms. Mac Pro is probably the best computer you can buy (and not build) today.

I have had plenty of problems with pc's (SEE ABOVE - PERSONAL EXPERIENCE) where drivers had to be reinstalled, and voice/speakers/webcams/ wouldn't work because of complicated settings. This is MY experience, and I don't expect you to have the same one. On a mac this does not occur.

I am not an evangelist. I never bought a mac, its my partner's who is a musician. I have learnt to work with mac, and can therefore say with confidence that it is a better system.


- Little story.
About a month ago I was cleaning my pc from viruses, spyware, full HD, fragmented files, and all the usual crap (Inexistent or at least rare on mac). I mistakenly deleted a system file, and Xp did not give any risk message to warn me. The system crashed, and woudn't turn on again. Had to reboot and reinstall xp, risking loosing all my HD (because I am not an expert, and therefore I can't be expected to know the insight of my pc) - Still today I have little issues with the pc, because I had to reinstall all the drivers manually, and applications are still not working. - this does not happen on a mac. < PERSONAL EXPERIENCE EXAMPLE - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK....
'Between the lights there is always a shadow'

www.nathanservi.com & PPG
Tooks
Posted 19/10/2008 - 20:31 Link
User error then?...

Sounds like PC's aren't really for you, which is fine.

As I said, there is no 'better' system, only a system appropriate for a given user or situation.

These PC vs Mac debates only ever go the same way in my experience...
Edited by Tooks: 19/10/2008 - 20:35
Keen2Learn
Posted 19/10/2008 - 21:41 Link
My brother has a MAC and he brags how good it is.
I have a PC and I brag how great mine is.

My advise is to decide what you want to do with the computer first and spend your hard earned money accordingly. Buy to suit your needs, don't just buy because someone says how great something is.
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Computer buff
Music videos
Massive music collection
- Stephen -
Pentax K-7, DA 16-50mm F2.8, DA 50-135mm F2.8, DA 200mm F2.8, DA 300mm f/4.0, AF-540 FGZ TTL Flash, Sigma 120-400mm F4.5-5.6 APO DG, Manfrotto 190XProB tripod, Manfrotto 679B Monopod, Tripod Head 804RC2, Monopod Head 234RC,
Mannesty
Posted 19/10/2008 - 22:36 Link
I used to build and sell PC's servers for a living. Nowadays I buy ready built PC's and servers.

Some day, any piece of sophisticated electronics is likely to go wrong. When it does, I know I could find somebody who can fix a PC within say 10 miles of where I live. I don't have the same confidence if it were a Mac.
Peter E Smith - flickr Photostream
terje-l
Posted 19/10/2008 - 22:52 Link
There was a time when you could do things om a Mac which was not available on PCs (graphics, music). Today you can do anything on a PC that you can do on a Mac, and more.

And with a decent antivirus program installed, the risk of infecting your PC is minimal - at least that is my experience over the last few years. (Depending of course on which web sites you visit. Some are more risky than others).
Best regards
Terry

K20D, Optio I10, DA 18-55 1:3.5-5.6 AL II, A 1:1.7/50, D FA 1:2.8/100 Macro, Sigma 70-300 1:4-5.6 APO DG Macro, Pentax AF 360FGZ
Unlocker
Posted 20/10/2008 - 01:38 Link
These arguments about Mac v PC always make me laugh, and some of the 'fanboyism' is very fun to watch, but sometimes I just don't understand some of the arguments!

'Macs are not upgradeable'
Then buy an upgradeable Mac.

'I can't use Windows SW on it'
Yes you can, put Windows on it.

'How do I right click?"
Click on the right.

'Why would I pay 3 times the price for the same?"
For the same reason you would pay £200 for a 16-45 or £450 for a DA*16-50 when a kit lens 18-55 is available new for £30. Quality, features etc. Why the price difference between a Casio or a Rolex, they both tell the time? Why buy a ferrari for £100k when you can buy a KIA picanto for £6k and it has twice as many doors and can carry more passengers? You can see where I am going with this! Not sure where you can buy an 8 core PC with a full 64 bit OS with the same features for £600 though?

'No one local services Macs, PC's anywhere.'
No one local services Ferraris, not many people do, but Fords, no problem!

Basically as mentioned, buy what suits you within your budget, and be happy with it, if you are not, change it. It's the same with anything, how many times do we have to defend our choice of camera when ever we go out?

People do forget that the MAC is a premium product, and is priced accordingly. But you do get a premium product for that price! Normally when people compare prices, they are never like for like, the 3x price quoted here is the one that irritates me the most, and is blatantly not true! Yes you can get a PC for £600 that is very good, not denying that, but the quality is nowhere near on a par. The case alone on a MAC Pro must be a retail value of over £250, and if you have worked in one, you will know it's money well spent, the case design alone is just sublime.

Points that tend to be overlooked in the PC v MAC debate are normally the ones that make the difference, and for me make fantastic reasons on their own for the switch.

1) The people who make the OS make the hardware, therefore they know it inside out, know what you've got, problems and compatibility issues are enormously reduced.
(For example, you could buy music from the MSN music store, but, it would not be usable on a Zune (Microsoft's 'iPod'), which itself would not work on Vista when released! Work out the logic behind that!)

2) Extended Warranties
Go into PC World to buy a PC, and a lot of you will agree that the staff are more interested in selling you the warranty rather than the PC, that's where their profit margin lies. The £199 3 year warranty that we bought for our Mac Pro (that we were not given the hard sell on) covers over £3k of Mac AND monitor, and here's the twist, 3 Year telephone support for hardware AND software!

3) Retail Stores
Massive, massive plus point, vastly underrated. Go into any retail store for a PC and you can just tell that the staff are under pressure to sell, because they know that if you walk out without a PC, you could buy a different product from a different company.
With the MAC, only Apple makes them. Wherever you buy it from, Apple make money. Therefore the emphasis in store is genuinely 'how can I help'. We used them for several hours before plunging for the Mac Pro, and the reason for it is the staff. Most of them are part time! Why? Because they are normally working in other industries!
We have spoken to web designers, graphic designers, musicians, photographers, videographers and others from other walks of life, who were all very proficient with Adobe products, Apple products, usability and had a genuine passion for the platform. If they don't know an answer to a problem, they find someone that does, they do not try and bull***t their way through!
Can't over emphasise this point enough, go to one and find out!

4) Design
Major part of Macs, it is an integral part of what they do! Materials are top notch, they look fantastic, easy to use et. etc. There are no beige boxes here!

5) The OS
Again it's the bits that are not normally discussed that make the difference!
It's 64 bit all the way through (The Mac Pro can use 32 GB of RAM, ours has 10GB. Most of you lot are using 32 bit windows which 'can' handle only upto to 4ish GB but whenever I have done that on a PC it is so unstable that it crashes a lot!)
There is only one individual version to choose from (what was Vista at the last count 7?)!
Spaces. Time Machine. Spotlight, Expose etc. etc.

6) Windows
Yes, i know, not what you expected to hear, but our system is dual booted with Vista. Made sure it was the 64 bit version so that it can also use the 10GB RAM in our machine. Which by the way was very easy to do!
The point here is that if there is the odd program you have to have Windows for, you can, ours only gets used for poker and curiosity, but there you go! In effect if you can't decide between a Windows PC or a MAC, then have both by adding on the price of a copy of Windows.

7) iLife
All Macs come with a large suite of software that is integrated very well.

At work I have to use Windows, at home, i choose to use a MAC. It's not perfect, there is the odd thing that just really pisses me off, but that happens say once a month compared to every 5 mins using our Windows machines. The level of thought that goes into them, the level of design, the ease of integration, even the packaging just adds to the whole experience.

Don't forget, we all chose Pentax, and it does seem that the Mac V PC debate is very similar to Pentax V Canon (or whoever). We all have our reasons for buying into Pentax, the one for me was the feel of it in comparison with similar models from the other 2, for you the reasons will be different.

Hope there is some info there that is useful to some, because a lot of it you just will not appreciate unless you are a MAC user, same as the Canikon crowd just don't appreciate a lot of what Pentax offers. As with cameras, go and test them out, you may just hate the feel of a MAC, therefore decision made.

Most of all, enjoy whatever you go for, and if anyone ever would like to sit down and try a MAC, you are quite welcome to come round and have a play. Go on, you might just like it!
johnriley
Posted 20/10/2008 - 07:51 Link
My son Mike is an architect and he uses Macs for preference when working or for home use. The way they work is simpler, faster, more reliable and not prone to attack from viruses.

I work on PCs and have had a wider range of programs available, that I don't want anyway, but PCs are more universally used. I have to be very careful to protect against viruses.

You can run Windows on a Mac if you want to, so there is quite a good case for using them, certainly for imaging.

However, I'm sticking with PCs simply because we use so many of them and starting to replace with macs would be quite an thing to do.
Best regards, John
Tooks
Posted 20/10/2008 - 09:27 Link
Unlocker, a fine piece of purchase justification there!

The Mac is positioned as a premium product, but really it isn't. Ferrari's, Rolex's et al ARE premium products, and they're built, engineered and perform very differently to your Kia Picanto/Casio watch, but a lot of the price is still a result of 'halo marketing'. Having had my hands 'dirty' inside both PC's and Mac's, I don't think the components are all that different, and so there is a sense that you're paying a premium for what exactly? They certainly don't perform any better than a good PC. You need to ensure you're comparing your £2500 Power Mac to an equivalent PC too, not the underpowered £199 specials that PC World knock out.

A lot of your comments I feel are based on not having looked at a decent PC in a while. When did you last see a 'beige box' PC for sale anywhere for instance? My own PC's are housed in Lian Li cases, which are every bit as nice (and expensive!) as Power Mac cases, and they too are a pleasure to work in.

I'm not sure why you've found your PC's unstable with 4GB of RAM, but your experience doesn't mean that all PC's are rubbish, just as my experience with them doesn't mean they never go wrong, or users will never get into a pickle doing something they shouldn't!

64 bit Vista is a fine operating system, and mine with 8GB of RAM is the most stable computer I've ever owned. Yes, PC operating systems in the past did have a checkered history, but that's progress!

Yes, professionals seem to use Mac's, and people like me use PC's. For many people, my brother included, the Mac is the default choice and he will admit he got one because all the people he worked with had one! The support from Apple stores (and I'd be intersted in how much that costs, and what they actually do, really) sounds good though, but heavens above people shouldn't buy PC's from 'What's a PC World' anyway... Or Macs for that matter. Support from a lot of PC manufacturers is great, and you can pay for a lot of it, if required, with the money you will save going for a PC.

I would like to turn your argument around though and say that a lot of Mac users don't appreciate a lot of what the PC offers... It's almost a Canikon style evangelism, and they just won't be swayed to the argument that Mac's aren't what they used to be vs the PC. The PC is the Pentax brand really...

We use Mac's and PC's at work, the Mac's for publishing (because, hey, Mac's are what the printers use!!), and having used both for tasks that I want to achieve I can't really see any difference. Once I've got MS Project or Adobe Photoshop open, it could be running on anything for all I know and they both do the same job.

I recognise that the Power Mac/iMac are fine pieces of computing hardware, and the OS they use is also great. Heck, I'm tempted by an iMac every time I see one!

I don't understand though why Mac owners (and I've had this debate several times on other forums) get quite so defensive over this.

Is it because you can get the same quality, performance and user experience for half the price of a Power Mac elsewhere I wonder?...
Edited by Tooks: 20/10/2008 - 09:28
MattMatic
Posted 20/10/2008 - 09:29 Link
Others would call me a computer geek. My OS experience covers a fairly broad range. I use Windows because I have to I have very stable Windows XP machines - I almost never reinstall (I use soooo much software it takes me several weeks to get everything installed!!).

Lately I've been looking at Ubuntu - which I quite like, but there are some things that aren't 100% for me. I also took a long, hard look at the iMac. Interestingly its core is FreeBSD (a Unix version as is Linux), and is an incredibly stable operating system. It's also secure - meaning that most viruses that affect Windows don't stand a chance even without AV software.

Graphics-wise the Macs have it sorted (and that was one reason for considering OS X). However, since moving to ArgyllCMS I have a much more controlled colour managed system.

What IS interesting is that the WINE project (www.winehq.com) provides enough Windows emulation on a iMac and Unix/Linux/etc to run a large proportion of Windows apps directly. So you can switch to iMac and not have to ditch all apps. If that fails, there are at least two other virtual machine products for iMac that will allow a full install of Windows XP/2000/98/etc inside a virtual machine "container" so you can run true Windows on the Mac desktop. And if that's not enough there's the last ditch thing - BootCamp - which allows the installation of full Windows on the iMac (you choose on boot up whether to boot to OSX or Windows).

It's a real, real shame you can't easily install OS X on PC hardware (though it can be done... and I'm not sure of the legality).

As for day-to-day applications I would use these apps anyway:
* Firefox
* Thunderbird
* Openoffice v3

All these are available in native Mac formats off the web. So, switching to OS X would be relatively trivial for a lot of things .

...only trouble is I'd have to buy new versions of Adobe Creative Suite etc etc

So, for me, it's the expense, and time that prohibit me right now. However, if I was setting up again I'd go with Mac

(I do have an issue with some of the laptop Mac displays. The MacBook display isn't good for me, and even the MacBookPro I'm not 100% sure about - there were some LCD modules that were actually 6-bit per colour, not 8-bit and produced some odd effects for photographic work. Whether this is a problem in real life, and whether Apple have changed their LCD panels in newer MacBookPros are questions I haven't had fully answered)

Hope that helps!
Matt
http://www.mattmatic.co.uk
(For gallery, tips and links)
Bellie
Posted 20/10/2008 - 10:56 Link
I understand from a forum on EPZ that if you are using adobe software on your PC, and change for a mac, you won't have to buy new software, you can contact Adobe for a change of licence and get it changed.
Bellie
Posted 20/10/2008 - 11:13 Link
I think also you have to be careful when saying PC v Mac, as because Mac is an actual product - like for example a BMW, and PC is a generic format - like say 'a car'. you are not necessarily comparing like for like. Therefore your 'car' could be cheap and cheerful and breakdown a lot, or it could be a high spec sportscar.

I have seen plenty of PCs that look spec wise great but the components were rubbish and so the user always had problems. I have also seen PCs that were fantastic and solid workhorses.

With a Mac you know what you are getting quality wise.

I use both PC (Dell) and Mac. There is very little to choose between them when running the same apps. You can go on about comparative speeds etc. but both mine (mac and PC) process faster than I work anyway!

I must confess I prefer OSX for its ease of use, especially when it comes to drivers etc.
ttk
Posted 20/10/2008 - 11:14 Link
As i said in the post it won't be till next year BUT anything can happen and might be sooner, yes you are right Adobe will change the licence but I will be giveing Aperture 2 ago as well..
Tel,
Unlocker
Posted 20/10/2008 - 11:45 Link
Tooks, completely understand where you are coming from, but I can only go on my personal experience. We have 6x Windows machines in our shop, one of which I would describe as decent that is dual booting XP & Vista, not to mention the 8 core Vista 64 machine at home (otherwise known as the Mac Pro!) It's also good to get proper feedback from someone who uses both systems, helps to give a more balanced point of view.

As I tried to describe earlier its genuinely the little things that don't get highlighted so much that help make the whole experience a joy, the level of thought and attention to detail. Simple things like not having to press the cancel button 5 times to cancel, or turning on your machine to find out it has forgotten about the drivers you have installed for your additional equipment, or not having to re-install drivers if you use a different USB port, or opening 2 windows right clicking on the toolbar and selecting 'tile windows vertically' to find the right hand button controls the left hand window, and the left hand button controls the right! I know they are simple things, but they are extremely frustrating and I just don't get these issues and many, many others at home.

Yes an equivalently powered PC may or may not have better performance, but it is the user experience that makes the difference, just like the K10D can be a joy to use compared to the competition as soon as you have learned how to set it up to suit you best. Also just because a lot of components are 'shared' with PC's too doesn't stop them becoming a premium product, Ferrari's do have Fiat components in them after all, and the Aston Martin DB7 was cheapened by using things like Ford Granada electric window switches!

I don't think there is any right or wrong here because unlike other forums most people on here do seem to be level headed and are willing to learn about competing products, people switching to & from Pentax is a common theme on here, and the PC V MAC debate will rage on eternally, just use the one you prefer. I have exactly the same hardware in use for both OSX & Vista 64 and OSX is the preferred choice.

Matt, if you are running current versions of Adobe products you can migrate form PC to Mac or vice versa, once, for free, or if you are say upgrading from a PC copy of CS2 - you can upgrade to a MAC copy of CS4 and pay the same price you would have for the PC Upgrade. We upgraded a PC copy of Macromedia studio MX to a MAC copy of Web Premium Creative suite CS3.3 back in May as an example!

I sure don't know everything, and I would be the last to say that the MAC platform is perfect, but for me it is better, a lot better. Having used one I can appreciate the differences, which is why I have invited anyone who regularly uses this forum, who seriously needs to look at one the opportunity to come round and have a play with ours, just give me a PM and be prepared to travel to Aylesbury!
Edited by Unlocker: 20/10/2008 - 11:59
ChrisA
Posted 20/10/2008 - 12:44 Link
What are Macs like (under Windows) for running something like Crysis?
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Pentax K-3, DA18-135, DA35 F2.4, DA17-70, DA55-300, FA28-200, A50 F1.7, A100 F4 Macro, A400 F5.6, Sigma 10-20 EXDC, 50-500 F4.5-6.3 APO DG OS Samsung flash SEF-54PZF(x2)
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Unlocker
Posted 20/10/2008 - 12:57 Link
Have never done it, but don't see any reason why from a performance point of view it wouldn't be any different at all from an exactly specced PC.

Interested in getting Call Of Duty 4, if I do, will get the PC version and let you know how it goes!

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