PC versus MAC
 

So what's so great about MACs?

I've had an IBM laptop for 3 years. Its a T-42 Thinkpad with Windows XP. I've never had a problem with it. I use Norton Internet Security and keep it up to date.

MACs are more expensive and require additional steps to run window's based programs. Yet everyone I fly with either owns or is planning to buy a MAC, iphone, etc. Is it something in the coffee or am I just missing the bus???

Missing the bus

I've had a Apple Powerbook for about three years. Total Dell guy prior. Yes, they are a little more expensive but the latest versions allow you to run all your IBM software.
It works as advertised, and meshes with all other Apple products flawlessly. If you are a commuter dude hang on as Apple is bringing out a new very lightweight laptop shortly. It also has tons of embedded software. iPhoto for instance can download pictures from damn near anything without additional software.
They last a long time, run great, and work very well! Much more reliable than the Dells and Gateway I've owned prior.
Next desktop will be an Apple as well.

I was in Dell Hell for years... a brand new laptop, top of the line power machine. Updating the virus ware every day, changing drivers when I had to, after 6 months and my third blue screen of death I put it up on a shelf where it sits today. I got a macbook pro and will never go back.
For example, to update the software, drivers etc.. you go to the top left pull down menue, select the second item and it updates all drivers, software and any other patch that's out...

and I haven't had a firewall up or a virus protector up for over a year... probably need to just in case... but nothing so far.

Make the switch, you won't regret it. I went cold turkey and haven't needed any windows programs since I switched a year ago.. The machines literally "just work." I also like that the quality of workmanship is high, and they are aesthetically beautiful. I you like making movies and working with photos, it is seamless... makes anyone look like a pro.. I even made a website with the help of a "dotmac" account.

Even if you still need windows stuff, you can run Office, or even boot up the windows OS itself... (not that I wanted that).. I too haven't had a virus program and also haven't had a virus or any problems of that nature.

Welcome to the Apple nation!

Where can I read about this new lightweight Mac laptop? I tried searching apple.com.

check out http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

they have the latest in updates, upgrades and other rumors that are surpirzingly accurate. they also have a buying guide that keeps you up to date on when to buy and when to wait...

I went to the Apple store in Germantown and spent an hour with one of their sales / tech guys. Very helpful. After pressure from the bro's, I am switching as well. You can get a FredEx discount as well but I forget how much. I am buying this week. Good luck.

Additionally when you call mac tech support they are ususally located in the midwest ... of the US.

Wife has a MAC and I have a nice travel size Dell. Still love the PC

1) MUCH cheaper - $500 easily for same options
2) Still have software prob availability for MAC - look around this website as to programs for Fedex that just don't work with the MAC. Fact is every software program will always be made for the PC, LOTS will not be made for the MAC
3) Viruses are starting to creep up on the MAC now - lots of news articles recently on this
4) Ease of use - why the heck doesn't the MAC even have a right click button!?!? PC is more intuitive than the MAC (let's see would an internet program be called Internet Explorer or Safari? Which one is more intuitive?)
5) Often hard to get software for MAC - very little third party viewers. When I tried to buy a webcam for my wife's MAC there were zero made for it - it didn't have one installed and the one that Apple used to make was discontinued at the time (the Apple store guys told me I could probably find a used one on Ebay or something!). Might be different now but it was like that for 6 months - where as Logitech alone makes about 20 that work on the PC - problems like this will reoccur

Thanks! Great info.

CCan,

http://www.apple.com/getamac/

Take your pick:
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Yeah but macs are cooler!

1. Add up all the software that comes with a mac vs a PC and it narrows considerably.

2. Windows runs faster on MAC with bootcamp, then it does with my Dell.

3. Three plus yrs and my mac has never had a virus, spyware or anything else. And I go to some shady places :D My dell is a mess :eek:

4. It does have a right click. Along with a much better scroll button.

5. Had the same frustration with the webcam for my powerbook, but all new macs have an integrated web cam.

Ever had a problem with pc. Talk to some guy in India, mail it away for weeks! Now what do you do?

Problem or question with mac, take it down to your local Apple store. Talk to a genius for free!

I've probably had 10 Mac's over the past 15 years, both laptops and desktops. I've NEVER had any sort of hardware failure, no viruses, never "freezes" ... just push the start button and away you go.

Yes, there are some software programs that aren't available for Mac. I don't need any of those. If you do, the new Macs will boot in Windoz also.

When I was in between flying jobs, I was an aerospace engineer. We all had both Macs and PC's on our desks (provided by the company). NOBODY EVER USED THE PC's ... enough said.

My 2 button USB mouse works great on my Mac, if you only have the standard 1 button Mac mouse, then just push "control" and click the mouse, it's the same as the "right" button on a 2 button mouse. It's not that tough, I bet Tuck can do it?

I've "heard" that bootlegged software runs better on a Mac ... there seem to be fewer "authentication" issues. Auto updates are automatic.

Devils advocate
 

Yeh, I'm a mac guy and always will be and love BidX, but macs are not perfect. The umbrella corporation--uh..I mean fedex requires IE 6.0 or better to view the flight plan release or the lido viewer. Microsoft does not support IE for the mac anymore. Latest safari and firefox browsers are great, but I cannot view th FPR or Lido or certain expense report items, not sure if any other mac users have experienced this problem, but if you own a new mac with the intel chip and have a copy of windows xp your golden. To view the green screen you also have to run windows with IE and the support software as well.
Apple has great support and I would buy the extended warranty, but one would figure if the mac is so trouble free why is there always a line at genius bar in every apple store I visit :rolleyes:.
As others have said can't beat a mac for movie making, music, photos, ipods or building websites. Hey the U.S. Army is going big time to the mac just for the hacking problems with windows!

Appleinsider.com

Interesting thing a mac using friend told me, is that if you do run the windows stuff, you then open the door for all the standard windows virus, trojan, spam, spyware etc...that macs are normally immune to. Is that true?

I opened my Dell to a broken screen on an OAK layover last month. When I got back to MEM the next day, I walked into the Germantown store at 550pm and walked out prior to 6pm with a MacBook! :D 6% FredEx discount! I didn't have my id, but they gave it to me anyway. Must have been the wrinkled jeans and sneaks! ;)

What if the other hand is not available to push control? :confused:;)

I too have had a problem viewing the FPR using Firefox, but I haven't had any problems with the Lido FIV or expense report. On Lido I choose the charts I want and then print them as a PDF, then view them in Preview.It works great.

You actually try to print them as PDF in Firefox? I just click on the link for the chart I want and it automatially opens it in Preview. The first time I did this I had to associate the file type with Preview, but since I just click and view.

In Safari, I haven't noticed any issues at all. I open the charts I want and it automatically opens them in the FIV window on the right side of the screen.

FWIW - my Mac runs Leopard!

I hit print, then save as PDF. That way I have them on my desktop to look at when I'm not online.

That is true but you only have to worry about the partition that you have windows on. Its not like those viruses can creep over to the MacOS side of your hard drive.

Baron,

I agree FF works as you advertised in lido with pdf viewer.

cm

I agree my safari with leopard works the lido viewer as well. Stand corrected.

cm

seems like a great deal of comparison between MAC and Dell, not necessarily PC. I wonder if the same could be said about a MAC and Alienware (dell's high speed subsidiary).
My experience with MACs has been no worse than with any PC, but then again I've never used a MAC for extended periods of time.

Macs are for art students and stupid ipod kids that have no understanding of how underpowered their computers are.... I would never in my life every buy a MAC.... its like saying hey would you want a ferrari or a honda hybrid... of course the dumb art students would pick the honda hybrid.

Well yeah, how would they afford gas for a Ferrari? Not even smart art students make any money. :p

*this post was written on a mac, which makes it better than a post written on a PC*

PC's increase the porn experience by an additional 15%. I think that seals it.

Another uneducated PCer. Funny that the current crop of Macs runs windows faster than their wintel counterparts. Next your gonna tell me that Microshaft invented GUI/windows.

It doesnt matter if mac can run windows faster , its overall which computer is better, the PC or the mac... Intel is already in production on the 65 nano which is way ahead of its time, it will take years for Mac to even try to compete with the industry standards that the PC dishes out year for year... and i havnt even gone into the VGU category which i dont even need to talk about. If were looking at a cheap PC vs the MAC then of course the mac will win but the PC wins in all categories when it comes down to modifications, upgrades, and new technology. PC's have the ability to become state-of-the-art whereas you have the MAC that relys on reverse technology ( which you can see is not working for them in this department) and is trying to compete with everyone else. Macs are seriously junk when its up against a PC, if you cant realize how different these 2 machines are then you have no idea whats going on in the computer industry.

That's easy it can't. They pick a few test and lean in their favor and that's it. How do I know? Because MACs have the same internal parts as PCs. Same hardware. Saying a portal of windows on a Mac is faster than windows on a dedicated machine is nonsense. It's all sales hype. They say one thing now to sell and they'll counteract their own statement a year from now as they have in the past. As far as windows goes that's just one part of a PC. PCs can run many unix based operating systems including OS X. What you mean to say is OS X on a mac runs faster than Windows on a PC. Might be true but then again I'd rather have twice the functionality and more important, function with performance. I've owned both.

The whole big "Mac's are so good for media" etc. junk was when they used the IBM based G4/5 processors which ran at lower clocked cycle speeds but were able to accomplish more operations per cycle. IBM yanked those chips from Apple and uses their fab plants to make the chips for motorola phones and Playstation IIIs. Now a Mac is nothing but a GUI and a sales hype that's designed for people who want less control over your system, so less errors occur because just like with planes most of the errors are user related.

Mac uses intel parts. So it will be no wonder if their "slim" laptop is a reconfigured one of these. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/notebook-...azr-263359.php
And it looks like my assumptions might be dead on.
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/05/24/...ok-from-intel/

Very well put lol. That about sums it up. I love to tinker and love the PC for it. I like the integration a MAC has. You can't have that level of integration with individual user input on all aspects so they take that away. On my mothers computer I've limited her access to just about everything vital so she can't randomly click "ok" when she doesn't know why. Her PC has been running for 3yrs now with no errors :D Also stay off the porn and you won't have errors.

To be honest I would have purchased a macbook if I could have afforded it. However the price and performance of the one I just purchased was too good to pass up. My current one died and that's the only reason I had to get one now. First year FO pay is a pain.

I wonder how many people out there have decided to buy a MAC just because of the lumbering Vista. I recently bought a new sony laptop that came infected with it and sent it back. VISTA SUCKS!. XP is better. The sony took like 2 mins to boot with it and then when it ran it was slow as hell. It had good stuff in it too like the dual core 7200 and 2 Gb. but now everything PC is going Vista and I hate it. I went to best buy last week and played on the Macbook and im impressed.

Vista does suck overall. It has great advantages but not to the naked eye much Much more integrated and in reality it's a little ahead of it's time. When you first get a notebook with it you need to leave it on for a day or so. It will run all through the night indexing everything on your harddrive. It also defragments continually. Downside is that the size of the install went from 6gb(xp) to over 30gb(vista). The amount of processes running is over 50 from the start. Vista is generic and tries to please everyone. Go to the run menu and type services.msc and look at everything that pops up. you'll find many things you never use like messenger(not msn), remote access, etc. Disable these processes and your computer will jump. Also the biggest downfall is most computers being purchased now are 64bit processors yet the factory installed operating systems are 32bit. The processors are backwards compatible so it's cheaper for the companies this way, however, it does murder the speed. Upgrade the vista to 64bit, send me a pm if you're wanting to know how, and you'll see the real horsepower come alive. Problem is that joe public, ie my mother, doesn't know this so when they pay for the machine they just assume it sucks. I guess in reality it does since you're the one having to tweak it. There has been widespread hate about Vista's performance and Microsoft currently has a patch out that's in beta mode currently being tested by a few thousand+ users. It should be released any day now. It will be relatively large download and might take 10-20min to install but it's reported that it fixes the speed issues. Also when you first purchase a machine make sure to uninstall all the software from the proper menu. They put this "crapware" on your pc, full of trials etc., as advertisements for those products. Its the reason they are able to lower the cost of the units so much. Once removed you'll also notice a significant speed boost.

I had a friend who is much more computer savy do alot of that for me and sped it up quite a bit and reduced the boot time, but it was still a little bit too slow. it was slower then XP on my 4 yr old desktop and that is why i sent it back because it is not essential for me to have one right now and maybe in a few months somthing newer will run it faster. When XP came out it was clearly better then win2000 or whatever i had, at least to me, but vista isnt so obvious. So for me not being a computer quiz im thinking mac might be for me.

The macbooks at bestbuy were about the same price as the sony and they are nice looking units, even a bit sexy.