Should I buy a Mac or a PC?

[Chris is me]

I've used a Mac for 5 years now. Personally, they're not perfect machines, but I've been much less frustrated with machine problems overall as compared to Windows XP. The idea that it's a miracle machine that "just works" is dumb, but I've personally not had more than a handful of frustrating bugs and problems with it.

I'd say get a Mac if you can afford it and dual boot. Best of both and all that.

[Ryan Dognaux]

The real question should be - What is your major and what programs / applications do you envision using your potential computer for?

Macs are said to be better for graphics applications, I personally don't think this is the case as you can get any Adobe product on a Windows machine as well. If you can work photoshop in Windows you can easily do it on a Mac.

The only reason I would buy an Apple computer is for Final Cut Pro. It's a great piece of video editing software. However, Adobe Premiere will work just as well.

I've gotten a lot more bang for my buck by purchasing a Dell Studio 15" laptop last Christmas. It was several hundred dollars less than buying an 'equal' laptop with the same specs from Apple. Absolutely no problems with viruses and whatever else the mac fanboys above stated.

I'll echo what mostly everyone else has said - Do your research and find what fits you. If you come back with some computers, specs, etc. to this thread, I'm sure people could comment to better help you choose.

[Herodotus]

If you do buy a Windows based laptop my recommendation is that you take the time to clean it of all the bloatware the tends to come loaded with pre-built machines. I've had zero problems with either my desktop or laptop as I built the desktop (no bloatware) and I cleaned my laptop when I got it. However I've had tons of problems with stock machines before, which leads me to believe the majority of problems are caused by the programs the computer company loads onto the computer, not Windows.

[Joe Matt]

I'm dual booting 7 and OSX off of my new MBP 13". Find a machine for the same price and specs, you can't (2.56ghz stock one.) I can run Autocad and Inventor great and fast and boot into OSX for everything else (including webmaster for my fraternity's site, graphic work, to answering emails.) It's thinner than any other machine I'v seen, solid built like crazy, and beautiful. You can't go wrong with it.


As for Chief Pride, yeah, that's good for you. Irrational posts don't deserve rational responses.

[Rick TYler]

On our team, anyone discussing Apple vs. Windows is fined $1, which goes into the year-end party fund. There was a lot of money in it last year.

For what it's worth, I bought a Dell Studio 15 running Vista a while ago, and it has been absolutely bullet-proof and fast the entire time I've owned it. I can't see what all the fuss about Vista was all this time.

[bobwrit]

Like people have said before, it depends on what you'll be trying to do with it.


Me, personaly, have both Windows and Mac, as well as running Linux on a few computers. I like to use windows when dealing with games, Mac, when I work with music, photo's, video's, and word processing, and Linux when I'm programming, or looking for raw power from my computer.

[Steve W]

I am a Mac user first. I own a Mac Pro which is not a laptop. I run Vista and OS X on the computer. Call of Duty 4 was recommended as a great 1st party shooter game so I got Vista and use bootcamp when I want to play.

My daughter has a Macbook and just loves it. We have had a few small issues that were easily solved. I would however recommend getting the extended warranty if purchasing a Mac. Get the one from Apple not Futureshop etc. My daughter is not very respectful of laptops so it has gone through a lot. We had one power supply go ($120.00) and a problem with her internal wireless part ( $200.00) and they replaced her keyboard (they noticed the chipped pieces) all under warranty at no cost. When purchasing as a student you get cheaper rates on the warranty.

I use an IBM laptop for work and only have complaints about the speed because of all the Business stuff that the company puts on to keep security at a max. The PC I have at home costs me for spyware and virus protection that if not kept up is a disaster. I am pretty good at working PC's and do most of the troubleshooting in the office and most of the problems are are caused by internet access or adding "questionable" programs.

Most important is what a lot of others have been saying. What programs do you need at school. Both a Mac and Windows based machine will allow access to the network and internet so you need to explore the niche programs that you will be using.

Good luck and remember, I am a Mac user (since the Apple 2).

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Steve W

The PC I have at home costs me for spyware and virus protection that if not kept up is a disaster.

Strange....I've been using PCs for 20 years and haven't had any viruses....and I don't use AV software.

I guess a Mac would be the way to go if your computing habits cause virus problems with a PC.

[J-Brock]

You get what you pay for.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by J-Brock

You get what you pay for.

hmmmm...I'd say it's more of a sure thing that you won't get what you don't pay for.

[artdutra04]

Some people will fight all day long saying their side is better, cheaper, faster, more efficient, etc, or just plainly, "best". They may also use snide comments about the other side, claiming they are buying overpriced gizmos or useless, virus-infested piles of sludge to name a few.

Yet as my favorite example, a Chevy Malibu and a BMW M3 will both get you from point A to point B, just as would a Toyota Camry and a Ford F250. Yet everyone buys different cars for different reasons. Some like really opening up the throttle on the curvy mountain roads when the cops aren't looking, while others just need to commute to work and back, while still others need to haul six cords of firewood every day. No one in their right mind will argue with someone all day long about how their car is superior to someone else's car. Different people have different needs and desires, so they buy different cars. Same goes for computers - there is no overall "best" computer or OS - just what is best for that particular person.

So my advice is that since the majority of people have experience using Windows, go to an Apple Store or Best Buy or borrow a friend's Mac and use it for at least 20-30 hours to really get a feel for the OS. (Why so many hours? Windows, OSX, and Linux are all structured differently. It can take 20-30 hours to really become familiar with how each operating system operates. Put a lifelong Mac user in front of Windows for one hour, and a lifelong Windows user in front of OSX or Linux for an hour, and I guarantee they'll both be equally frustrated and annoyed. Only after you get past the initial getting-familiar-with-the-OS-stage will you be able to fully experience the true OS user environment). Only after you've experienced the all the options, can you decide what is best for you.


One comment I will say though is that you do get what you pay for. On the Windows side, Lenovo Thinkpads and some of the Dell and HP workstation-class notebook and desktop computers are amazing, and of similar quality (and price) as Macs. And for any engineering college work, any computer cheaper than ~$1000 to ~$1200 will really be at a disadvantage. (Trust me, I went through the first two years of college with a $800 Dell Inspiron laptop...) As for engineering work, the Mac to Windows ratio I've seen at WPI seems to range from 1:3 to 1:4 (e.g. much higher than average), with about half of the Windows computers being Lenovo Thinkpads. So chum up the extra bucks and get a quality Thinkpad T400/T500/W500 or Macbook Pro (or a Dell or HP workstation class computer), because once you graduate into an engineering job, you should have no problems with the price.

Also, if you are going for ME, look for models with serious graphics cards, such as the NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FireGL. If you thought SolidWorks or Inventor or Pro|E worked great on your consumer class NVidia Geforce or similar ATI GPUs, prepare to be amazed when using a x64 OS, x64 software, and workstation GPU.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Asus for the PC flavored option, I have two and you seem to get a lot for the price!. My older Asus F3 series I guess has been retired to be my desktop now and my laptop for the road is my newer Asus G50V. What made me look at Asus is because I work in news use and are rapidly expanding the use of live video streaming/encoding and that means graphics and these are laptops geared towards gaming so a bit better resources.

So far so good, physically they are not Thinkpad or toughbook tough but I have had no major problems as all and we who work in news are not always so gentle with equipment.

I "almost" went Mac a few years back but there were a couple of things that even under bootcamp were not guaranteed to work and since I needed those programs for work I couldn't take the chance on.

If I was going into school for video production, graphics, editing then yes I would probably go Mac but one thing about a PC that I like is when something goes wrong you can fix it, working under the hood keeps you're skills current and I kinda like that sometimes.

One thing I try and do if I can afford it at the time is buy they highest end laptop I can just to help future-proof me for a few years to come, for example I have no troubles at all running Vista because of that.

M

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Some people will fight all day long saying their side is better, cheaper, faster, more efficient, etc, or just plainly, "best". They may also use snide comments about the other side, claiming they are buying overpriced gizmos or useless, virus-infested piles of sludge to name a few.

Yet as my favorite example, a Chevy Malibu and a BMW M3 will both get you from point A to point B, just as would a Toyota Camry and a Ford F250. Yet everyone buys different cars for different reasons. Some like really opening up the throttle on the curvy mountain roads when the cops aren't looking, while others just need to commute to work and back, while still others need to haul six cords of firewood every day. No one in their right mind will argue with someone all day long about how their car is superior to someone else's car. Different people have different needs and desires, so they buy different cars. Same goes for computers - there is no overall "best" computer or OS - just what is best for that particular person.

So my advice is that since the majority of people have experience using Windows, go to an Apple Store or Best Buy or borrow a friend's Mac and use it for at least 20-30 hours to really get a feel for the OS. (Why so many hours? Windows, OSX, and Linux are all structured differently. It can take 20-30 hours to really become familiar with how each operating system operates. Put a lifelong Mac user in front of Windows for one hour, and a lifelong Windows user in front of OSX or Linux for an hour, and I guarantee they'll both be equally frustrated and annoyed. Only after you get past the initial getting-familiar-with-the-OS-stage will you be able to fully experience the true OS user environment). Only after you've experienced the all the options, can you decide what is best for you.


One comment I will say though is that you do get what you pay for. On the Windows side, Lenovo Thinkpads and some of the Dell and HP workstation-class notebook and desktop computers are amazing, and of similar quality (and price) as Macs. And for any engineering college work, any computer cheaper than ~$1000 to ~$1200 will really be at a disadvantage. (Trust me, I went through the first two years of college with a $800 Dell Inspiron laptop...) As for engineering work, the Mac to Windows ratio I've seen at WPI seems to range from 1:3 to 1:4 (e.g. much higher than average), with about half of the Windows computers being Lenovo Thinkpads. So chum up the extra bucks and get a quality Thinkpad T400/T500/W500 or Macbook Pro (or a Dell or HP workstation class computer), because once you graduate into an engineering job, you should have no problems with the price.

Also, if you are going for ME, look for models with serious graphics cards, such as the NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FireGL. If you thought SolidWorks or Inventor or Pro|E worked great on your consumer class NVidia Geforce or similar ATI GPUs, prepare to be amazed when using a x64 OS, x64 software, and workstation GPU.

[FTC G-FORCE]

GET A PC!

[Wiz]

Mac

Much less hassle

[21Jake21]

Lets not forget Macs you can also put windows on
so win win for mac