Discussion PC computers Vs Apple

[nellien]

Hello,
Do you think it would be foolish to go from PC to apple system. I have never owned an Apple laptop but want to upgrade. I am going to be studying so will need to be able to do word processing etc. Am i making ti hard for myself coverting to apple system? Can i still have Windows Word etc excel?

 

[brialona]

you can get a much better pc for the same price as an apple cuz macbooks are way overpriced. you should stick with PCs. if you are only doing word processing and other simple tasks, you can buy a decent pc for half the price of a macbook.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

yes you can still install windows, word, excel etc on a mac. But then that defies the point of getting a mac. People only get macs to use software particular to a MAC. If your just using excel, word etc, then there is no point getting a MAC, your just wasting money. Some people get a MAC because they think they are better somehow, but theyre not, theyre just more expensive and more limited by MAC OS. They are less secure and just as/more prone to viruses, despite what moronic salespeople will tell you, I have had my fair share of experience with this. Macs are only for people in the graphic arts industry/music industry due to the software available, and even then similar alternatives exist for windows PC's too. So basically, unless there is some software that you MUST have a mac to use, that you want to use, then stay away from macs and save your money.

 

[amdfangirl]

Why change the way familar way you operate for something that doesn't exactly yield benefit? If Windows gets everything you want done why change?

Personally I use applications that can be run on Windows, Mac and Linux. I'm not tied or compelled to use any one more. Just the cheapest one 😉.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Why change the way familiar way you operate for something that doesn't exactly yield benefit? If Windows gets everything you want done why change?

Personally I use applications that can be run on Windows, Mac and Linux. I'm not tied or compelled to use any one more. Just the cheapest one 😉.

+1. "If Windows gets everything you want done why change?" - that is the first question I ask everyone who wants to get Linux or Mac OS in my town. Answers differ in content - "viruses" (as if!), "I hate Bill Gates" (rofl), "Mac is so much better" (iFlame), "Ubuntu is free" (so was pre-installed Win7 that came with your laptop), "I want to learn/experience new things!" (go read about Windows Registry, then) - but are all equally stupid. Windows gets the job done for 95% of the users, period. They don't need a PXE boot/install server in a VM or an exclusive application available only on Mac OS such as Final Cut Pro or whatever is the software that Mac fanboys consider great and unique. They just want to "check their mail and Facebook, watch movies, do Office". Well, rejoice, since if you're only going to do these things, you will NEVER get a virus and Windows provides you with all the tools for these tasks, and if you're not happy with the default tools, there're free open-source or closed-source alternatives.

So stay away from Mac unless you've got a REAL reason to buy one (developing for iOS, for example). Value your money.

 

[slhpss]

yes you can still install windows, word, excel etc on a mac.

I know I'm cherry picking this quote here... but I think it's hilarious... I bet you that microsoft makes more money off macs sales than they do off generic PC sales... every single person I know who has a mac uses either parallels or boot camp and runs WINDOWS!!! lol.... and they pay for full retail copy of windows... while people who use PCs get OEM copies at a significant discount... cracks me up everytime I hear about someone "gaming" on their mac.... :

 

[amdfangirl]

+1. "If Windows gets everything you want done why change?" - that is the first question I ask everyone who wants to get Linux or Mac OS in my town. Answers differ in content - "viruses" (as if!), "I hate Bill Gates" (rofl), "Mac is so much better" (iFlame), "Ubuntu is free" (so was pre-installed Win7 that came with your laptop), "I want to learn/experience new things!" (go read about Windows Registry, then) - but are all equally stupid. Windows gets the job done for 95% of the users, period. They don't need a PXE boot/install server in a VM or an exclusive application available only on Mac OS such as Final Cut Pro or whatever is the software that Mac fanboys consider great and unique. They just want to "check their mail and Facebook, watch movies, do Office". Well, rejoice, since if you're only going to do these things, you will NEVER get a virus and Windows provides you with all the tools for these tasks, and if you're not happy with the default tools, there're free open-source or closed-source alternatives.

So stay away from Mac unless you've got a REAL reason to buy one (developing for iOS, for example). Value your money.

There are real reasons such as familiarity of interface/OS exclusive applications. But it is hard to fit OS specfic feature that no other OS has and basic function cannot be duplicated.

I use Linux because I idle at 124MiB RAM usage 😉.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

There are real reasons such as familiarity of interface/OS exclusive applications. But it is hard to fit OS specific feature that no other OS has and basic function cannot be duplicated.

I use Linux because I idle at 124MiB RAM usage 😉.

According to your signature, RAM shouldn't be an issues for you...

I tried both Mint and Ubuntu 11.04 on my netbook, and both took quite a bit of resources. In fact, Windows XP is way faster than either of them (dual boot on an Eee PC 900 - barely any space, lol), especially on boot. XP boot = 15-25 seconds; Linux boot = 1 minute minimum, 30 seconds to fully log in.

Mint pissed me off due to its extremely screwed up repositories - removed OpenSSH server, couldn't get it back because default repositories don't even have it, had to add Debian ones... I liked the look a lot, but since I couldn't work (and neither could the touchpad clicks, for some reason), I reverted to 11.04 and don't regret it. I customized pretty much everything to make sure that ugly purple doesn't pop up anywhere...

But that's me. I have a PXE install server at work (which makes any installation really damn fast!) and I know what I'm doing; average user has no time at all to mess with these things. There's a difference between customizing your Windows to suit your needs and trying out different distros to see which one suits you better.

As for OS-specific function, even that stupid Mac dock exists for both Windows and Linux... I do not understand why people prefer it to traditional taskbar, it's an abysmal experience - not being able to see what you have open, but it exists.

 

[amdfangirl]

I prefer LXDE because I need the lightweight speed. I find I have trouble finding a Windows XP license this day and age. Also, you dual-booted and I'm assuming you used Mint4Win/ whatever the Ubuntu one is called.

The Windows 7 they force onto my s10e runs like a hog. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give my s10e Windows 7 and Adobe CS5.5 then a ton of tracking software that reinstalls itself if you change the OS (except for Linux).

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

I prefer LXDE because I need the lightweight speed. I find I have trouble finding a Windows XP license this day and age. Also, you dual-booted and I'm assuming you used Mint4Win/ whatever the Ubuntu one is called.

The Windows 7 they force onto my s10e runs like a hog. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give my s10e Windows 7 and Adobe CS5.5 then a ton of tracking software that reinstalls itself if you change the OS (except for Linux).

I used Mint Rolling, it has LXDE and it's not anymore lightweight than, say, Gnome. Want lightweight, use XFCE - that's what I set for the diskless clients by default

I had WinXP pre-installed on my EeePC and it's the only XP computer I have left. I would use Win7 there, but 900 MHz isn't powerful enough, I think.

Apparently, your Win7 is overloaded with a ton of bloatware... I understand that this thing has an Atom and Atoms are horrible, but it should still run a bit better. Actually, I'm not so sure - I know your s10e is locked down by your mean government, but can you at least boot form a LiveUSB? Check the speed in a non-bloated OS.

 

[musical marv]

you can get a much better pc for the same price as an apple cuz macbooks are way overpriced. you should stick with PCs. if you are only doing word processing and other simple tasks, you can buy a decent pc for half the price of a macbook.

You get what you pay for in life remember that.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

You get what you pay for in life remember that.

With two exceptions: pirated software and Apple products

Tell me this: my friend got his G73Jh for $1500 and believes that he got what he paid for. What are you getting with a $1500 Mac, though? :lol: Not restarting that argument, since the comparisons are all over Tom's, but I request that you quit ignoring the obvious; it doesn't suit your age.

I like the resolution on the iPod Touch, though, the fonts are really nice. I was comparing it to the Galaxy Mini that I'm test-driving right now, and of course, the Touch was far superior. Controls are a pain in the ass, though... When compared to SGS2, the fonts were the same. Certain things about Apple are really nice, but you can get them elsewhere.

 

[Saga Lout]

It's nice, and very unusual, to see that posters in this thread have stuck to the facts and not been taken over by zealots and believers on either side. I use XP and will continue to do so 'til the mast minute, I have PCLinuxOS on a laptop, Windows 8 in Beta on another, an ancient Suse 9 on my server and a Mac Powerbook that came in for a repair which was never paid for, so I kept it.

All the above work well enough in themselves but I would never have paid for the old Powerbook while Windows laptops are under £350.

 

[amdfangirl]

You get what you pay for in life remember that.

You do get what you pay for. The apple brand is what you get for your hard earned cash.

It's like Kardashian clothes. Made in the same sweatshops, but with good marketing.

 

[daship]

Stick with PC, get a ultrabook is macbook looks is what appeals to you.

 

[musical marv]

You do get what you pay for. The apple brand is what you get for your hard earned cash.

It's like Kardashian clothes. Made in the same sweatshops, but with good marketing.

So is Nike and Adidas made with child labor.Buy Made In The U.S.A.

 

[Pyree]

I think amdfangirl would rather buy made in Australia.

By the way, I also want to buy made in America product (Well, I don't want to buy all things American, but I have a vintage Sheaffer fountain pen and I broke it. I was hoping to buy a new one to replace it since the work table looks rather plain without one for decoration. Guess what?! No longer made in USA). Looks like you can only buy weapons made in USA now days, with all the F-35 purchase.

@nellien

I suggest you to make sure the software you are using now have OSX version before changing to Mac, especially work program (I can confirm your chance for OSX support of scientific software is slim), so make sure the software you need to complete your study can run on OSX.

About getting used to OSX, if you use it long enough, you will get used to it.

Sure you can run Window on Mac hardware or make a hackintosh, but if you only need one or the other, why pay more or go through all of the effort to make a hackintosh (I take it you are the type of computer user who prefers easy and budget smart computing).

 

[acerace]

To the OP, it heavily depends on your usage and money, of course. Also, the answer is very obvious for which is the most bang for the buck. 😉

 

[jessterman21]

You do get what you pay for. The apple brand is what you get for your hard earned cash.

It's like Kardashian clothes. Made in the same sweatshops, but with good marketing.

+1

 

[amdfangirl]

I think amdfangirl would rather buy made in Australia.

By the way, I also want to buy made in America product (Well, I don't want to buy all things American, but I have a vintage Sheaffer fountain pen and I broke it. I was hoping to buy a new one to replace it since the work table looks rather plain without one for decoration. Guess what?! No longer made in USA). Looks like you can only buy weapons made in USA now days, with all the F-35 purchase.

Sure you can run Window on Mac hardware or make a hackintosh, but if you only need one or the other, why pay more or go through all of the effort to make a hackintosh (I take it you are the type of computer user who prefers easy and budget smart computing).

I would rather not buy Made in Australia for anything except fresh produce (more strict food safety laws). When the Bonds underwear factory closed it was an example of how globalisation was streamlining the way we buy products. We couldn't compete with overseas underwear companies on quality or price. It wasn't like Bonds Australia had some miracolous technology to make super underwear.

Why buy Australian made? It gave me little benefit and was subsidised by our government. The price carried a massive premium.

I would idealy like to see Australia move onto a service/information based economy. Why earn money as a underwear maker when you can be a doctor, computer server technician or teacher? I can replace a person working on an assembly line. All they do is the same action a million times. There is no requirement for a PhD. or even high school education. It's not valuable. You can easily be replaced by anyone and everyone. That's why manufacuring makes no sense for Australians.

I suggest you to make sure the software you are using now have OSX version before changing to Mac, especially work program (I can confirm your chance for OSX support of scientific software is slim), so make sure the software you need to complete your study can run on OSX.

About getting used to OSX, if you use it long enough, you will get used to it.

CERN and Fermilabs make a distribution of Linux called 'Scientific Linux'. It is more prevailent to find scientific applications for Linux and Macs than for Windows. 'Scientific Linux' has many CERN and Fermilabs applications that you can install at your will.

NASA: http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/data/analysis/software/
CERN/FERMI: http://www.scientificlinux.org/
So yes, Mac OS X/Scientific Linux if you like NASA and Scientific Linux in general.

(Mind you Scientific Linux is free). In an effort to reduce costs, most scientific applications are being ported to Scientific Linux.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080117021610/http://www.nas.nasa.gov/News/Archive/2007/08_22_07.html

An article from 2007 showing them changing to RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) it was what their super computers used at the time, since then they have reverse-engineered RHEL (Scientific Linux).

http://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/faq/general1

 

[cadder]

I would not buy an Apple PC in order to run Windows and/or primarily Windows stuff. And I would not want to buy an Apple PC because of the learning curve to get up to speed with using the different OS.

If you want the fancier and prettier hardware, if the cost is not that important to you, if you don't mind taking the time to learn how to use it, if it will do what you want to do, the choice is yours. There are a lot of pros and cons to weigh and only you can make the decision for you. Most people would admit that it is not cost effective. If you do research on the net you find that Apple hardware is not as reliable or foolproof as people want you to believe.

I currently own and use 2 Windows desktop computers, 2 Windows laptop computers, 1 Mac desktop computer, 1 iphone, 1 ipad. IMO a Windows computer is easier to use and more flexible than an Apple computer, and at least the ones that I own are all about equal in reliability.

 

[Pyree]

I disagree. A country should always have a portion of its industry remain. It is a strategic asset. What we need the most is not industry that sales mass volume of product to earn money, but high tech industry. Weapon is one of them, so is auto mobile, scientific instruments, drugs, robotics and industrial machines, spacecraft, etc. I know the manufacturing of these product require highly qualified workers so not everyone can work as a skilled labourer there. However, it diversify the skills of workers within a country. Then the country should also have some industry that sells mass volume (although the country can't compete). Even for low tech industry, not everyone will be stuck as a labourer forever. Some portion of the worker can become management staff. A workplace is not only a place for productivity, but also for training and for discovering people with potential.

Also, how many Ph.D, doctor and teacher do you need? And not everyone can be one of them. Then what happen to the rest of the population? Do we just put them on social benefit? What would be the socio-economic consequences? Furthermore, if the entire population is working on such job, the wage will be low and the people will migrate to another country to find jobs anyway- we loose skilled people that Australia spend time and money to train.


The program I installed to control instruments like microscopes, laser profiler, and various sensors and statistic analysis and modelling/model projection program only have software and driver supported in Window and to some extent Linux (where I am, it is all Window based for convenient). It is a safer bet to go for a non Mac hardware for undergrad. If you are in other level of study (honour and above) you share resource with the people you work with and you can ask your supervise for a Mac if you need one, so it is not a problem to not have a Mac anyway.

 

[dpcrush2112]

I couldn't resist this thread....

I am not an Apple "Fanboy", but you have to at least respect what they have accomplished.

For me, the question gets down to whether or not you "buy" into the Apple ecosystem. From iPOD, to iPhone, to Computer (laptop or desktop), to iPad - all of their products work together seamlessly (loosely tied together by iTunes). This should be expected of a closed, proprietary hardware / software environment, and they pull it off quite well.

The true cost of Apple is not just the initial cost of the system, but the upgrade costs as well. From 2001 until now, Apple has released 7 OS upgrades from Puma all the way to Lion. Each of these upgrades costing money, and in addition, older systems using PowerPC chips can't upgrade beyond Leopard since Apple went to Intel chips at that time. Windows, on the other hand, in the same time frame has only had 2 OS upgrades requiring a purchase (XP-Vista-Win 7). This discussion is solely related to PC's and not servers.

I understand that all of the things done on an Apple system can be done on non-Apple based systems, but not always with the same ease of use especially when it comes to cross device functionality (networking, streaming video, etc.). For example, when Apple releases a new version of iOS, all phones get it, as opposed to the extremely fragmented world of Android devices.

Let's face it, Windows systems are much cheaper, but they require regular maintenance to function (just look at your registry), whereas Apple just assumes you will throw out the hardware and buy new when you want to upgrade (-:

(Still building PC's and loving it!!)

 

[amdfangirl]

I disagree. A country should always have a portion of its industry remain. It is a strategic asset. What we need the most is not industry that sales mass volume of product to earn money, but high tech industry. Weapon is one of them, so is auto mobile, scientific instruments, drugs, robotics and industrial machines, spacecraft, etc. I know the manufacturing of these product require highly qualified workers so not everyone can work as a skilled labourer there. However, it diversify the skills of workers within a country. Then the country should also have some industry that sells mass volume (although the country can't compete). Even for low tech industry, not everyone will be stuck as a labourer forever. Some portion of the worker can become management staff. A workplace is not only a place for productivity, but also for training and for discovering people with potential.

Also, how many Ph.D, doctor and teacher do you need? And not everyone can be one of them. Then what happen to the rest of the population? Do we just put them on social benefit? What would be the socio-economic consequences? Furthermore, if the entire population is working on such job, the wage will be low and the people will migrate to another country to find jobs anyway- we loose skilled people that Australia spend time and money to train.

I'm saying that we should be transitioning to a services-based economy (tertiary+ economy) where value-adding production (secondary) and resource extraction (primary) are not the basis of the economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_hypothesis

So people advance in terms of living standards.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/30277/icts-industry-and-the-new-teacher-model/

Now I just need to stop correcting everyone every single time... Let's continue with the topic.

The program I installed to control instruments like microscopes, laser profiler, and various sensors and statistic analysis and modelling/model projection program only have software and driver supported in Window and to some extent Linux (where I am, it is all Window based for convenient). It is a safer bet to go for a non Mac hardware for undergrad. If you are in other level of study (honour and above) you share resource with the people you work with and you can ask your supervise for a Mac if you need one, so it is not a problem to not have a Mac anyway.

Most universities will provide computers. I think the OP will be fine not buying one until he knows what they want him to buy.

 

[musical marv]

To the OP, it heavily depends on your usage and money, of course. Also, the answer is very obvious for which is the most bang for the buck. 😉

The OS in Mac is not very hard to learn at all.