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Need new Computer- PC or MAC?

While Scoop does have a legitimate thought - a complete cleanup might restore the old one to a speedier & more stable state - if it's more than 5 years old it may be time for new hardware in any case.

Since the OP says all they basically use the machine for is web & email. Why they would want to pay a big premium for a Mac to do those simple things doesn't seem to make sense. It would require some relearning & there just doesn't seem to be any real pay back.
 
timeos2 said:
While Scoop does have a legitimate thought - a complete cleanup might restore the old one to a speedier & more stable state - if it's more than 5 years old it may be time for new hardware in any case.

Since the OP says all they basically use the machine for is web & email. Why they would want to pay a big premium for a Mac to do those simple things doesn't seem to make sense. It would require some relearning & there just doesn't seem to be any real pay back.
Click to expand...

I have a 10-year old clunker of a laptop that I use for browsing and e-mail and not much else. It uses the stripped-down version of XP I previously mentioned. And it runs Firefox and Thunderbird just fine. Tossing it just because I can't crank up Starcraft 2 in an airport seems wasteful to me. When the people who make these gizmos threaten mass suicide, something is horribly, horribly wrong with the industry. And I don't want much to do with it. (And Foxconn makes both PC and Apple products.)


One thing nobody has mentioned is software. I don't DO the "PC vs. Mac" argument. Anyone who answers anything other than "they both stink" when asked "PC or Mac" simply doesn't know very much about computers. But, since nalismom has a PC, she should STICK with a PC. Because she can take all the software she's purchased, and install almost all of it in the brand new PC, with no problems at all.

If she were to buy a Mac, she would either need to load a copy of Windows onto the Mac to run her software; or she would have to re-purchase all the software she uses; or she would have to embrace open source software.

But I would try reformatting first. A web-browing e-mail machine can be 10 years old and still perform it's job acceptably -- provided the user doesn't load a bunch of unnecessary programs onto it, thus slowing it down.
 
Computer / Auto

After reading all these responses (including mine) I see a lot similarities to having a car. You may like to drive a car for a long time and as long as you maintain it that is one route to go. Or you may like to buy a new car every few years with the latest and greatest gadgets. Some cars cost more than others. There is no right or wrong answer here. Yes moving to the Mac may cost you some more money and you maybe buying new software, but again your also getting the most recent versions of the software which maybe of interest to you.

I am sure the reason you are considering it is because you have an iphone and the ipad and you love them both...same reason I switched to the Mac...

Since your primary needs are pretty simple, emailing and surfing, it will be an easy transition for you.
 
I was a die-hard PC user. 2 years ago my daughter and hubbie got Macbook Pros, and my daughter admonished me not to switch to a Mac; she felt that even though she loved it, and that I was very computer facile, that I would have a hard time switching over.

I played with my hubbie's laptop and loved it. There was virtually no learning curve. I bought a 27" Imac last year and love it. Instead of rebooting several times a week I can go a month without rebooting. Restarts in less than a minute rather than hanging while the anti-virus and firewalls, etc., load up. Question or problem- a quick phone call and the person who answers speaks English, and the first words out of their mouth aren't to reformat the hard drive. Had a few very minor hiccups that were easily resolved. Oh- and for $99 you get a year of any courses but, more importantly, they'll transfer all your files over (which in retrospect was probably a waste of money, but as a new Mac user it was worth the convenience at the time.

Back-up- simply connect an external hard drive and the built in Time Machine program does the rest- with frequent, automatic back-ups. So it's easy to get back anything you accidentally lost, and you're well protected in case of hardware failure. Or do it wirelessly. Easy and automatic.

On the negative side, you're paying more. But I gotta say- the first time your machine boots up almost instantaneously you'll be glad you made the switch!
 
We're an all-Mac family now, after years of our son Steve admonishing us to stop wasting money on PC's. In addition to what everyone else says about the ease of use and consumer-friendly customer service, the one thing that I think proves we made the right move is we trashed four! PC's over the same amount of time our one iMac has been running. The one and only repair that was necessary for the iMac was due to faulty upgraded memory cards and the warranty covered the repair - a simple trip to the Genius Bar and they fixed it no problem, actually upgraded it at no cost. We spent far more money running, upgrading, repairing and replacing those four PC's than the one iMac, that's for sure. And our Mac laptops are a joy to use.
 
Being a computer professional and wanting to work for the university I applied for a number of positions. I had 20 years experience with Microsoft Windows. Wouldn't you know the one position offered to me was in a primarily Apple environment. I began to slowly learn about Macs. I liked administering them. As a Windows administrator your have to treat your customer like bad guys. Don't let them do anything and have the system report back if they try.

As a Mac administrator you are more a partner with your clients. You can trust them with Administrative rights. There's no virus coming in, updates come when you want them and they don't reboot your computer without permission.

At home I found myself clearing out viruses from my wife's computer that somehow snuck by Synaptic. Eventually she relented and she now likes the Mac.
 
mshatty said:
If you want to be able to surf and operate on the entire internet get a PC. Otherwise, a Mac will only surf and operate on about 90 to 95% of the internet. You will have to purchase virtual machine software as well as a OEM copy of a Windows operating system to run on your Mac.
Click to expand...

Can you paste in some examples, please?
 
For those that want the beauty of the Mac hardware and still have the ability to run Windows 7 (and beyond), there is a wonderful program called Bootcamp that will allow you to run Windows on your Mac computers. :)

I do Windows development, so all of my computers are running Win7 but when I was needed an Ultraportable laptop (laptop under 3.5lbs), the price point and quality of the MacBook Air was untouchable. So I bought one, put Bootcamp on it and have the best of both worlds. :)
 
I know from personal experience that many folks working at Microsoft in the late 80's and early 90's were assigned computers built by Apple.

We were an all pc family until dd went to nyu in 2001. Dd wanted Apple laptop and Dw and I converted shortly after. Dw has tower and iPad and I have the Macmini.
 
hypnotiq said:
For those that want the beauty of the Mac hardware and still have the ability to run Windows 7 (and beyond), there is a wonderful program called Bootcamp that will allow you to run Windows on your Mac computers. :)

I do Windows development, so all of my computers are running Win7 but when I was needed an Ultraportable laptop (laptop under 3.5lbs), the price point and quality of the MacBook Air was untouchable. So I bought one, put Bootcamp on it and have the best of both worlds. :)
Click to expand...

I have to admit I do this also. I liked the design of the 11 inch MacBook Air so much that I bought one for myself for Christmas. I then used boot camp to install Windows 7 Ultimate and I mainly use the Windows side and it works beautifully.

With the SSD hard drive it's actually priced pretty well as I couldn't find a comparable Windows laptop with the same hardware specs for any cheaper.
 
I build my own.

I am the exception here.

I like to tinker, and take things apart, and put the back together.

Impossible for the MAC.

Apple has a good product, but they just drive me crazy that their devices are not meant to be serviced.

If you are not constrained by price, tired of the PC, by all means get a MAC!
 
SueDonJ said:
I don't know which 5-10% I'm missing but my Mac takes me all the way to the end of the internet.
Click to expand...

I didn't know there was an end, but wouldn't Fargo make more sense.

For those too scared to click thru --
-------------------------------------
Sorry, but you have reached... The End of the Internet.
That's right, this is the Last Page on the very Last Webserver of the Entire Internet!
(In case you were wondering, the end of the Internet is located in the heart of San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.)
 
Talking about Mac warranty/repair service ...

I hardly ever use the disk drive on my MacBook Pro. But yesterday I remembered that back in early December when I tried to copy CD's into the iTunes library every CD was kicked out of the machine. So yesterday I tried the AppleCare disk that came with the extended warranty and that kicked out, too. I scheduled a 3:00 visit at the local Genius Bar and took it in to see them. I've been thinking about getting another external drive for this just to doubly protect my photos (I always forget to plug it in to the external drive connected to the iMac in our home office,) so when they figured out that the drive was bad and needed replacing, I figured it was a good time to get the back-up. I bought a simple external drive that connects with the included USB cord, took my comp home to do the back-up and then brought it back today when the store opened at 11. They weren't certain exactly when it would be fixed but guaranteed a 48-hour turnover. Surprise, they called at 3:30 and it was done. All fixed, under warranty. And they didn't try to oversell me an external drive that was much bigger than what I needed. You just can't beat their service.
 
pjrose said:
Can you paste in some examples, please?
Click to expand...

I have a couple work related sites that require Internet Explorer, they don't open in Safari or Firefox. JM&A Connect, for example. There are a lot of business sites that optimize their website for IE only. I run W7 in Parallels on my Mac.

I don't know that it's 5-10%... it's more like, if you need Windows for work, you probably need IE for about half of your web-related work. But, if you don't need Windows for work, you'll probably never come across a website where you need IE.
 
Last edited:
Mosca said:
I have a couple work related sites that require Internet Explorer, they don't open in Safari or Firefox. JM&A Connect, for example. There are a lot of business sites that optimize their website for IE only. I run W7 in Parallels on my Mac.

I don't know that it's 5-10%... it's more like, if you need Windows for work, you probably need IE for about half of your web-related work. But, if you don't need Windows for work, you'll probably never come across a website where you need IE.
Click to expand...

There are a number of .NET developed sites that require Internet Explorer in order to function. These are typically from corporate sites for specific applications. Microsoft's .NET developers prefer it at times for various reasons, notably because it's relatively easy to build in and doesn't require a lot of retraining (assuming they were using Microsoft tools previously). Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't like allowing those sites to be platform/browser agnostic so there are limits. The real number is much, much less than 1% of sites (nowhere near 5-10%) that have these restrictions, and are typically only for membership or restricted access sites (with a small and likely underfunded development group). Almost all publicly accessible web sites are usable on any browser on any platform.

This does affect Mac users. I know a number who have to find ways around these limitations in order to access certain sites for work. For instance, I know the UCLA medical sites (for doctors, etc) to view patient data is only accessible via IE, so most Mac users access it via boot camp or using Parallels or vmWare Fusion. While this is unfortunate, there are a few Mac options to permit access without requiring a Windows box.
 
billymach4 said:
I am the exception here.

I like to tinker, and take things apart, and put the back together.

Impossible for the MAC.

Apple has a good product, but they just drive me crazy that their devices are not meant to be serviced.

If you are not constrained by price, tired of the PC, by all means get a MAC!
Click to expand...

You're not an exception, there are a number of people on TUG who like to build their own PCs. In fact, while I'm primarily a Mac user, I have a Windows box I built myself and just upgraded last month. Most Macs can be upgraded with RAM and hard drives but not much else. If you have a Mac Pro (doubtful there are any owners of those on TUG these days) you can upgrade via PCI options, but most Mac users don't require that.

Fwiw, most PC users aren't hobbyists and don't want to muck around inside their computer. They buy from HP, Dell, etc. and are usually happy with the product. Others (perhaps you) want to tweak the box with various cooling systems, overclock your processor, etc. The are plenty of options out there for all of us.
 
Clemson Fan said:
I have to admit I do this also. I liked the design of the 11 inch MacBook Air so much that I bought one for myself for Christmas. I then used boot camp to install Windows 7 Ultimate and I mainly use the Windows side and it works beautifully.

With the SSD hard drive it's actually priced pretty well as I couldn't find a comparable Windows laptop with the same hardware specs for any cheaper.
Click to expand...

FYI, I saw lots of cool ultrabooks at CES last week. I expect if you were to buy in future you might prefer one of those as they seem to have all the advantages of the MacBook Air yet are designed for Windows. Of course, I think the flexibility of booting into either Mac OS X or Windows to have a certain appeal over the long term.
 
If you decide on a PC, I just bot an all-in-one 23" with all the bells and whistles (tv tuner, blue ray dvd, wifi, bluetooth, window 7 home premium, etc.) Plus it has the intel I7 processor....Toshiba just got into the desktop biz and made a special for Best Buy for $1K!
 
Ken555 said:
You're not an exception, there are a number of people on TUG who like to build their own PCs. In fact, while I'm primarily a Mac user, I have a Windows box I built myself and just upgraded last month. Most Macs can be upgraded with RAM and hard drives but not much else. If you have a Mac Pro (doubtful there are any owners of those on TUG these days) you can upgrade via PCI options, but most Mac users don't require that.

Fwiw, most PC users aren't hobbyists and don't want to muck around inside their computer. They buy from HP, Dell, etc. and are usually happy with the product. Others (perhaps you) want to tweak the box with various cooling systems, overclock your processor, etc. The are plenty of options out there for all of us.
Click to expand...
DW's tower is a Mac Pro. We have upgraded by filling the slots for extra HD. Can't remember if we have total of 3 or 4, but it is maxed out with each drive being 2 terabytes. Have added ram.
 
We've been wanting to replace hubby's ol slowpoke PC, and now we're waiting to see what kind of desktop system Vizio will be marketing this spring. It just got a good write-up in USA Today, and since their tvs are so cheap...and nice... I'm hoping their computers will be too.
 
Ken555 said:
FYI, I saw lots of cool ultrabooks at CES last week. I expect if you were to buy in future you might prefer one of those as they seem to have all the advantages of the MacBook Air yet are designed for Windows. Of course, I think the flexibility of booting into either Mac OS X or Windows to have a certain appeal over the long term.
Click to expand...

I was there as well and though the PC Ultraportables were pretty sweet, I don't think they're going to match the MBA price point for what you're getting. Especially the Samsung's. Most of what was shown at CES will likely be 1500-1800.

I hope Im wrong but I dont see it happening. :)
 
Carol C said:
We've been wanting to replace hubby's ol slowpoke PC, and now we're waiting to see what kind of desktop system Vizio will be marketing this spring. It just got a good write-up in USA Today, and since their tvs are so cheap...and nice... I'm hoping their computers will be too.
Click to expand...

If you can hold out to Julyish timeframe, the back to school sales will begin and thats when the real deals can be had, often better than Black Friday.

Dell usually has the best deals. Stay away from HP!
 
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