Get A Mac? Why Should (Or Shouldn’t) I?
Posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
I am going to upgrade my computer. My current PC isn’t the flashiest box out there at the moment, in fact, with a Celeron processor and 256MB of RAM it’s pretty sluggish. I am due an upgrade.
What’s with the title then? Well I have been considering my options for this upgrade and I am leaning towards the idea of getting a Mac. I was hoping you could help though. I’ve never had a Mac and I have never seriously used one (wandering into the Apple Store and playing about on one doesn’t count). I have always used PCs (except for my old Amiga 500, those were the days) and need some help deciding what is right for me.
Can You Help?
Do you have experience, good or bad, with Macs? Can you tell me why I should be getting one? Can you tell me why I shouldn’t, why I should stick with a trusty PC?
I like coding and making websites, listening to music and surfing the web. My girlfriend loves uploading digital photos. Should we stick with what we know or change things up a bit?
If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. I’m a little confused right now as I try to justify spending almost double on an Apple over a PC. I hope you can help me out, or at least point me in the right direction.
Thanks!
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1May 22nd, 2007 at 1:05 am
Yvonne Says:I’ve had an iBook for two years now and I’ve hardly ever used a PC since. I’m not going to give a step by step list of WHY Macs are better … they just are ;)
The only tiny pitfall is that there are some PC apps I love that I can’t use on my iBook (though there are usually alternatives).
But, yeah, if you’re looking for something personal with an uber-wonderful UI, go with a Mac!
2May 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 am
Webomatica Says:For what you describe a Mac would work great. You can use iTunes for listening to music and iPhoto for photographs. They come with every Mac. As for making websites, you have freeware text editors or iWeb. Firefox is available on the Mac for websurfing.
I enjoy having a Mac as a home computer because it works well and I find I don’t have to do much troubleshooting when two people share it.
I suggest you go to an Apple Store and ask one of the salespeople to show you the iLife Apps…
3May 22nd, 2007 at 1:35 am
Char Says:Phil - I have both. My PC is a Dell Pentium4 with 3GHz processor and 3 GB of RAM. I also have an iMac G5.
The G5 is slick! I love that there is no clunky space hogging CPU. I love the flat screen. The graphics are phenomenal. But, remember, you will need to purchase software for it.
Let me know if you have other questions. I’d get the Mac just because and keep your PC to use as needed and aid with the transition.
4May 22nd, 2007 at 3:08 am
Douglas Karr Says:There is a cool factor involved with having a Mac. I’ve got a brand-spankin MacBookPro 15″ and love it. I have one really unique problem right now but I don’t have the time to take it in and get it fixed!
I run Parallels on it as a necessity for work to run Windows XP applications and it works great. So, with the Mac you can now have the best of both worlds.
I think the experience is a little more elegant and it is truly easy. As well, since it runs on a Unix core, you might learn something outside the MS world.
Now… the real question… would I purchase a MacBookPro myself?
Nope… can’t afford it! I’m afraid that I wouldn’t personally pay for design over practicality. There’s really nothing extra that I ‘get’ for running a Mac… especially when I’m in DreamWeaver or Firefox most of the time!
Good Luck!
5May 22nd, 2007 at 9:55 am
Thomas Guest Says:I’m a recent Mac convert and use both an iMac and a MacBook. The computers are a delight to use. They cost a bit more but do a great job of bundling in everything you’ll need. I’m not particularly into iPhoto, iTunes and all the multimedia stuff myself, but I can confirm that OS X is a fully powered software development platform.
There are a couple of risks: 1) you might become a tiresome Mac evangelist 2) you might find it painful when you have to work on a Windows platform.
6May 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
Hayley Says:This is long, but I hope it’ll help.
I got my first Mac, an iBook G4, in 2004…because it was pretty and I was working in sales so money was no issue. Initially, I found the operating system (Mac OS X) not as intuitive as people claimed and, rather than taking the time to get used to it, I stuck with my old laptop and the Mac got shelved.
Then my laptop was stolen. This was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I was forced to use my iBook and once I’d got over the initial learning curve, it was awesome. It was so much quicker, my graphics software ran so much better, it didn’t crash and even a year after I bought it, it didn’t need upgrading to run the latest Adobe stuff.
When the Intel MacBooks were released, I bought one. I now run both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows using Parallels so I can run PC software just as quick as if it were on a PC. It means I can use Adobe etc. on the Mac and run things like PaintShopPro and EditPad (my old tools of choice and what I go back to when I hit creative block) on Windows.
If you can afford one, get a Mac (get the basic spec and then stick some more RAM in it - cheaper to do it yourself). Then get Parallels and install Windows XP (or Vista, but probably best to wait till more software’s released for Vista) so you can have the best of both worlds.
7May 23rd, 2007 at 1:23 am
ms.angel Says:I bought an iBook in 2002 and another one in 2005 and I love them! OSX is very easy to use and it’s not that different from Windows. It really doesn’t take too long to get used to the different commands and where things are.
I use iPhoto for my pictures and it’s very easy. I love how it puts everything in order by date and it uploads mpegs too.
If you switch over, you should keep your PC for a while until you can find all the Mac versions of programs and get used to it. I’ve never used Parallels but I would probably try to use a Mac version of a program if available and only use Parallels to run programs that don’t have Mac versions. There are Mac versions of Firefox, I use NVU for html editor (opensource) and text edit instead of notepad. For FTP I use Fugu or Cyberduck.
good luck!
8May 23rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Phil Says:Thanks everyone for commenting! You all sound like you’re having a great time with Macs (except, perhaps Doug and your rather cold MacBook). I kind of want to get one just to join the party now!
I like the idea that Macs run smoothly and quickly and don’t crash. I have a laptop as well as this old desktop, so I am definitely not throwing Windows out the window.
It seems that the only problem will be if I buy one and proceed to bore the pants off of anyone who still owns a PC!
Nice to see that no-one could come up with a reason not to get a Mac too.
Thanks again for your help guys!
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September 22nd, 2007 at 10:49 pm
9March 5th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Eric Says:If anything I would get a pc. Dont become one of those people who claim a mac is the best. Plug n play a great windows feature. Upgradability that is easy. Less expensive. A lot less. Custamizability and compatibility. A mac is good for someone who likes to use a computer for creative things and only creative things. If you want to do anything else on a computer then get a pc. Sure you can get viruses if you dont know how to protect yourselut who makes viruses for a computer that has less than 10 percent market share. Plus many great freeware and open source programs are only on a pc. If you want something that looks and runs like a mac OSX then get Linux. Plus people who think macs are just better for no reason other than just being macs are just d bags.
10July 7th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
mark.lim Says:i don’t know much about mac but i think it’s OS is very interesting. and it’s good for graphic task,but programs that support mac is less than others.