[Landonh12]

Honestly it comes down to personal preference. On the software side, if you want an OS that is used by the masses and has the biggest repository of programs to use, then Windows is your best bet. Windows is good for the end-user. It has a relatively easy filesystem to use, has excellent gaming performance, can be used with any hardware (including Macs!), and you can do CAD work on it.

If you want an OS that is nice, clean, easy to use and simple, and has the meat of UNIX under it, then go with OS X. OS X is the best mix of Linux and Windows that anyone has to offer. *.app's are easy to install and use, it has a great development platform in Xcode, uses Objective-C and Swift, and all-in-all is a productive OS for people that need to get work done.

Linux is for the hackers out there. You can do anything with Linux. Build your own OS? Sure! Use a terminal that has all the commands you would ever need? Yea, it has it. Linux is for the more advanced user.


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Now for hardware. A PC is going to give you mixed results based on how much you want to pay. You can get a crappy little netbook for next to nothing or you can get a gaming laptop that even has a mechanical keyboard built into it. Not to mention building your own PC and upgrading it piece by piece over the years.

Macs are very solid machines when it comes to hardware. I got my Macbook Pro mainly because of the support, build quality, and the relatively good specs for what I do. When I first got it, it was a graduation present. I had a job making an app for a small tech firm, and I needed Xcode for iOS development. I easily made back the money I spent on it just because I got that job that required a Mac.

Apple's support system is unmatched. I drove an hour to New Orleans to get my Mac serviced, as it had problems booting. At the Apple Store, it was an easy process. They diagnosed my Mac, said they had never seen the problem before, and took it in for a fix. They shipped it to Tennessee, replaced the entire motherboard (that includes the CPU, RAM, and SSD!) free of charge, and shipped it back to me within 3 days. I almost didn't notice it was ever gone.

Windows PC's have stepped up their game lately with build quality though - if you look at PC's such as the Dell XPS and the Surface Book (ooo that Surface Book is nice. Feels like a Mac, but with a Microsoft twist).

All in all, it's personal preference, and I prefer my Macbook Pro with OS X and Windows 10 on it.