MAC vs. Windows

[Kenshin]

Hey,

I'm going to buy a new PC\MAC,
and I've never used MAC before.
- Is MAC OS. easy to learn?
- is there many differences between the two OS's

Apple MAC mini (http://www.apple.com/macmini/)

I'm going to use it for school, media and surfing on internet.

and can I use 'normal' pc components, or do Apple have any thing fancy shiny stuff.. ?

-Kenshin

[Varelse]

Hey,

I'm going to buy a new PC\MAC,
and I've never used MAC before.
- Is MAC OS. easy to learn?
- is there many differences between the two OS's

Apple MAC mini (http://www.apple.com/macmini/)

I'm going to use it for school, media and surfing on internet.

and can I use 'normal' pc components, or do Apple have any thing fancy shiny stuff.. ?

-Kenshin

Mac OSX is insanely easy to learn and use.

There's a lot of differences, but it's still a computer. You have a keyboard and a mouse, you'll figure it out quickly. The level of cross-compatability on documents these days is fantastic, but you need Mac versions of your apps.

You use normal components, available from websites like ebuyer.co.uk etc, just have to be sure they're the right ones like with a PC. There's less room to "pimp" your mac like you can with a PC, though, and the only components you're likely to change would be RAM and maybe hard drives.

And finally......

You can run Windows on a Mac. WIN.

[Pygmalleon]

You can run Windows on a Mac. WIN.

Only reason to buy a Mac.

[Eulanna]

I'm going to use it for school, media and surfing on internet.

You could use either for these reasons to be honest, but if you want to be *trendy* while utilizing a machine for these three things, I would go for a Mac. They are the most hassle-free 'plug it in and it works' machine. I know that over here in the states, there is currently a deal where you can get a free iPod nano with the purchase of a laptop (if you're a student).

Setting up the wireless printer at home on my brother's Windows laptop - 5 trials and a lot of headaches.

Setting up my mom's PowerBook - all of 5 minutes.

That's just how Mac is. I like both PC's and Mac's for different reasons. Until I have enough money saved up to buy my own I'm just switching between both myself.

My two pence. :) Good luck.

[Tetzuo]

Hmm well alot of it is all down to preference i havnt had alot of experience with Macs but they are easier to use than Windows, if you know what your doing and like to mess about with stuff Macs probably not the choice to make, they dont have as many problems as Windows but if something fucks up then its alot harder to fix..

[Kenshin]

You use normal components, available from websites like ebuyer.co.uk etc, just have to be sure they're the right ones like with a PC. There's less room to "pimp" your mac like you can with a PC, though, and the only components you're likely to change would be RAM and maybe hard drives.


Do you know if it's standard pc parts, or is it laptop parts in a MAC mini?
Thinking of RAM, and HDD.

[Kerde]

Im using a MacBook instead of a Win-laptop. I decided to go with a Mac mostly because friends of mine said they were easier to work with.The main reason I invested in a laptop was in fact to write my thesis and other projects like that. It's ridiculously easy to learn, as previously stated, its still a computer.

Some things takes some getting used to, but nothing a quick google can't fix. The interface and the general feel of the system is sleek and hassle free. The easy setup works as well as Eulanna says. HoweverI do notice that apps like Skype, MSN and those kind of smaller programs seems to crash a bit too often, minor issue but don't buy the "Mac never fails!" cries.

All in all, I do everything non-game related on my Mac, and it is superior to the PC in all those areas. As for gaming and all the performance related issues...hell, I dont know, ask Lyara. He seems smrt.

[Elydian]

It really depends on your knowledge level. If you know a bit about computers and want a little extra control over and knowledge about what is happening behind the scenes, then PCs are better. I've tried Macs before and can't stand the fact they try and hide the actual mechanics behind everything, and superimpose a more complex representation of those mechanics. They also impose overly complex ways of achieving things, which you can't override.

As I say, if you have no idea how computers work anyway, then these things won't frustrate you, but if you have a lot of experience with and knowledge of filesystems and general IT stuff, Macs will frustrate the living crap out of you, because you can see they're doing things badly and you can't switch to other methods.

Also, as previously mentioned, Macs have a bit of trouble with compatibility. For your general every day tasks they're likely fine, but there's simply less support for them by third party software/hardware makers.

Also, don't buy the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" TV advert shit. It couldn't be further from the truth. Macs are style over substance, and it follows that all the disadvantages of having no substance come with them.

[Nasgath]

Also, don't buy the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" TV advert shit. It couldn't be further from the truth. Macs are style over substance, and it follows that all the disadvantages of having no substance come with them.

The spoofs are funny though. <3

And then there's this golden oldy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyBeOhLjwLA

But yeh, don't take this video's word for it, or mine for linking it for that matter, as I've used a Mac only a few times YEARS ago to have classes in Quark Xpress, which took a bit of getting used to. Particularly the one-buttoned mouse they had on those machines in teh college. And finding just about everything I needed program-wise, but I'm sure that's a bit easier when you actually work with it more often and install the things you need on it yourself :)

[Lyara]

That mac video is comedy gold.

-Lyara

[Kirabo]

Hello,

As the owner of both a P.C and a Mac I felt I'd lend my 2 cents to this.

Whilst not being P.C savy I know my way round both sytems enough to give an opinion.

Like people have said before, it is all down to what you want it for.

Macs are great all round multimedia machines. They are simple, easy to use off the bat, reliable and can be a dream to interface with such things as ipods, cameras ect simply because the built in software you get presents the information from these devices in a simple and easy to understand way.

PCs, whilst not as well crafted as Macs can be more flexible in what you want them todo. Don't get me wrong Macs can specialise (I use mine for design work, I don't even need any hardware for it todo what I want - it's all the right software.) PCs allow you to have abit more control and customisation over what you want. They are also slightly easier to get repaired.

Which do I like better? That's easy. Mac.
I've had my Mac for about 4 years now and it has never broken down. I've had to re-install the OS once in that entire time. OSX is beautful, clean and quite simply hardly ever breaks. XP on the other hand.....I've hade to reinstall that sucka more times than I care to count. It tends to lobotomize itself after 3 - 6 months of usuage, which is kind of a pain in the ass.

So to sumarise. If you want a machine that can be a great multimedia hub go Mac.
If you want a hard-core gaming machine with lots of room to upgrade go P.C.
If all you're gonna do is play abit wow then I think the benefits of a Mac out-way the hassle you can get with some P.Cs.

[Elydian]

They are simple, easy to use off the bat, reliable and can be a dream to interface with such things as ipods

As a counter to this, and an example of what I was saying earlier. Macs pretty much force you to use iTunes to deal with iPods. iTunes is one of the most poorly designed and implemented pieces of software I've ever used. It's absolutely disgraceful.

For example, let's say, as I did, you have, say ten mp3s on your hard drive that you want on your iPod. Surely it's as simple as dragging the files from the drive to the iPod. Wrong. iTunes decides that in order to transfer them you have to search your whole system to find mp3s first, which takes like 30 minutes or more if you have as many as I do. Remember I only wanted 10 tracks on the iPod, tracks I knew the location of myself already. When it's done searching, I then have to search inside iTunes for those specific tracks. Can I find them? No. Because iTunes uses ID3 tags to identify them and I never bothered tagging them as I ripped them fresh merely to put on my iPod Shuffle which doesn't even care about tags. So in order to make it work I have to manually tag all the tracks and re-search in iTunes. Finally after another long time, I can find them. Then in order to transfer them I have to do all sorts of arbitrary things just to get iTunes to talk to the iPod. I eventually get the tracks onto the iPod, but surprise....they're in the wrong order. No problem, I can just use iTunes to re-order them, surely? No, iTunes won't do it, and at that point there seems no intuitive or obvious way to re-order them on or off the iPod.

At this point, I give up, uninstall iTunes and install Anapod, a third party iPod program available to the PC only (afaik) and drag the tracks from the hard drive onto the iPod, then reorder them. What took nearly an hour on iTunes (and not successfully either) took me less than 30 seconds using a program about a tenth of the size, that cost nearly nothing.

As I was saying earlier, Macs enforce an overly convoluted way of achieving things, which is only fine if you don't realise that you could be saving about 9/10ths of the time you're spending on the Mac, if you use a PC.

[Kerde]

Open iTunes, drag files onto iPod in left hand listing of directories from you "bahaboys" folder. Done.

[Kirabo]

I've never had any problems like that with itunes.

Only thing I tend to get mixed up with was the auto update, which is easily disabled.

Certainly any time I've used itunes its as simple as copying songs straight from c.d, or mearly down loading them straight from the store...