Macs.

[afghooey]

Don't see a thread about macs in here, so I thought I'd make one. Any other mac users out there?

I know most window users are quick to shout "MAC SUX OMGZRZ YOU CAN'T RIGHT CLICK WTF" ...But honestly, it's a GREAT operating system, in my humble opinion.

I will point out a few advantages (and disadvantages, to be fair) for those who are curious. Feel free to point out more advantages/disadvantages!

Advantages:

Nice interface. Yeah, probably least important. But macs are pretty. Windows seemed to pick up on this and made Vista very similar. ;)

Speed. These are very speedy computers, great for image manipulation programs like photoshop, illustrator, etc. The search feature (spotlight) totally kicks windows' ass. It's FAST. This feature alone makes me love my mac.

Dashboard. Yeah, I'm a sucker for gagets and pretty things, so I <3 my dashboard. Included a picture of it below for those who are curious. It's just this little screen that you can pull up any time with a bunch of mini-programs (called widgets) that do various things. There are tons and tons of widgets you can download.

No virus/spyware problems. It's good to have an antivirus program anyway, to make sure you aren't accidentally spreading viruses to your windows-using friends. But chances are you won't ever have to worry about one infecting your system.

No crashes. My mac has crashed maybe once since I got it. (because I'd had it on for several weeks without rebooting, and it finally had had enough... it was my fault, I abused the poor thing). But I can have my mac on for days at a time with no noticable lag or crashes.

Disadvantages:

Compatibility. Windows still has the market dominated as far as software goes, though many many more things have become available for macs now that they are becomming more popular again. They also now make macs that can boot both your Mac OS and a Windows OS so that you can play your games and other programs on Windows, then switch over to Mac for other stuff. I can't say much about this feature since I only have a Powerbook G4. ;)

Not Gaming Computers. (unless you have a dual core that can boot windows). I don't. I am not a gamer. ;) Some games are compatible with the mac OS but many are not.

Price. These aren't cheap computers. They're pretty freakin' expensive. But for me, the awesome search feature and the lack of worry about viruses makes up for it.

Price for repairs. Okay, now this does piss me off. I had one problem with this computer since I got it 2 years ago, and it wasn't covered under warranty. I had to pay over $300 to get it repaired (new topcase because of a faulty trackpad sensor). As far as I'm concerned I shouldn't even have had to pay because I still had coverage, but since there was slight damage to my topcase (from the laptop being dropped... oops) they wouldn't cover it with my warranty (even though the damage had nothing to do with the way the trackpad was acting).

Apple mini's: If you want to get one of these, get it fully loaded. Because if you get a stripped down version with the hopes of upgrading the RAM yourself, good luck. There are no screws, you have to pry the fucking thing open with putty knives in order to put in upgrades, waaaaay too much hassle. (Apple charges $30 for RAM upgrades and like twice as much for their RAM as can be found on Newegg and similar sites.. RIP OFF).

... OK, I realize I'm rambling now and this thread is getting spammy so I'll shut up. :D But hopefully if someone's thinking about getting a mac this will help them decide if it's the right OS for them.

[psteve]

I have two macs and one PC.
The macs are for serious work, and the PC is just for surfing and paying bills.

[babystarbud]

Ive got nothing against macs, but the disadvantages are too many,

PC advantages....


You can do anything with a pc, build it to your spec, its like lego for grown-ups lol

graphic artist? quad cores, quad graphics, 8x 30" high def widescreens lol

gamer? what ever game you like pretty much, where theres a will, theres a way. controllers and peripherals, take your pick, if it dosent fit, customise it.

upgradability? how far do you want to go? change or customize the OS, hardware or looks to suit you.


speed? how fast would you like it, 8gigs of DDR3 anyone? raptor drives?
100%+ overclocks?


software....if you can think of it, theres a prog out there that will do it.

stability re: crashes and viruses....urban myths lol, keep your computer up to date with antivirus and a good system optimization every once in a while, oh, and dont go to seedy porn sites lol
ive not had a problem for a good few years and my pc does not crash, ever.

oh, and the biggest advantage, it dosent look like it belongs to my 4 year old sister:cool:

[psteve]

You can do anything with a pc, build it to your spec, its like lego for grown-ups lol

graphic artist? quad cores, quad graphics, 8x 30" high def
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
You just keep believing that!
My 5 year old powerbook still smokes any PC out there.
If you want to play games get a PC.
If you have work to do, get a mac.

[stinkyattic]

I love macs and still use my 1995 cs2500 laptop. It was a GREAT computer and still is!
I don't really like the OSX interface, too shiny and overdone- a computer is a TOOL, lol!

I like the speed, the resistance to viruses, and even the 'look' of the hardware. Macs arebeautifully designed.

Problem is, I can't afford one- they are PRICEY!!! I got a laptop recently at a wholesale club for $600 - a compaq presario with dvd burner and 2 gigs memory. For that price, I'd be looking at an OLD used mac. Oh well. I can only drool over my friends' little trick white laptops... drooooooool....

Oh and if anyone remembers Dark Castles, lol! I STILL have my Mac SE in the storeroom at work! :D

[Iambreathingin]

Macs are fantastic.

[babystarbud]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!
You just keep believing that!
My 5 year old powerbook still smokes any PC out there.
If you want to play games get a PC.
If you have work to do, get a mac.


Just found a rather interesting article, looks like macs are pretty much what they seem...pure hype, According to ADOBE, yes thats right :D



1. ==== NEWS AND VIEWS ====
(contributed by Paul Thurrott, [email protected])

* PC VS. MAC REVISITED: ADOBE SAYS PCs ARE FASTER
The debate between PC and Macintosh partisans over which platform performs better reached an interesting impasse this week when longtime Apple Computer partner Adobe Systems published a document on its Web site that supports claims that the PC is indeed faster. This development is interesting for two reasons. First, Apple has always used specially written Adobe applications to demonstrate the Mac's performance claims, so it's a bit problematic when the creator of those applications basically refutes the information. Second, Apple has actually responded to the claims.

Adobe's Web site (see the URL below) republished information that first appeared in July 2002--a performance comparison of a then top-of-the line 2.53GHz Dell Precision Workstation versus an equally decked-out dual-processor Power Mac G4 running at 1GHz. The single-processor Dell Precision crushed the Mac in every test; Adobe noted, "While the computers used in this study are no longer the fastest in their respective classes, the information is still valid. The PC outperformed the similar Macintosh machine, at an impressive rate." Today, the fastest PCs feature clock speeds faster than 3GHz, whereas G4-powered Macs have jumped to 1.42GHz.

For years, Apple has been fighting what it calls "The Megahertz Myth." On the company's Web site, Apple describes its high-end 1.42GHz Power Mac as "32 percent faster than the fastest PC on the market with a 3GHz Pentium 4 processor [when] using nine commonly used actions and filters that stress overall system performance--including processor, memory, system bus, and hard drive--in [Adobe] Photoshop." And this week, Apple responded to the Adobe site specifically. "Apple stands by our claims that our latest Power Mac systems perform equal to or better than competing PC systems," the company wrote in a statement. "The reported tests on Adobe's Web site showing slower performance of After Effects on a Mac than a PC is more an application test than a platform test and is not indicative of all Pro [nonconsumer] application performance on the Mac." Apple's claim, apparently, is that the Photoshop tests it touts are somehow more indicative of the performance of all Pro applications than are the After Effects tests that the Adobe site describes.

My experience with both platforms refutes that assumption. After long-term tests with several desktop and notebook Macs, the only area in which I've found any Mac to outperform any comparable PC was notebook battery life, and the Centrino chipset, which powers new Wintel-compatible notebooks, recently overcame that advantage. I'm not saying that Macs perform unacceptably for everyday tasks; even my low-end iBook works fine for such tasks as Web browsing, email, DVD playback, and light word processing. But for resource-intensive tasks (e.g., video editing, graphics work), PCs running Windows have long dominated the Mac.

Also, the increasing performance gap between Macs and PCs comes at a tough time for Apple, which is reportedly examining a replacement for the Power PC platform. Apple once touted the RISC-based Power PC as the future of computing, but the Pentium line, in which Intel has incorporated various RISC-like technologies, long ago surpassed the Power PC in performance, blurring the line between CISC and RISC architectures and ending the debate over which is superior. Apple's choices appear to come down to an IBM advance on the Power PC platform called the Power PC 970 or possibly moving to an Intel-based architecture. Whatever the company chooses, it needs to move quickly; Apple's market share continues to erode. The company's high-profile Switch campaign has proven ineffective, and changing platforms is always risky. However, the company pulled off a similar change when it moved to the Power PC platform years ago. You never know, Apple could do it again.
Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/motion/pcpreferred.html)

[CYRAX]

PC's for life, I game for hours a day and in my opinion the speed is perhaps better! My friend has a mac and wants a PC horribly bad because of lack of gameplay on his mac.

[not_the_kitty]

I have had a mac for 2 years and I will never go back to a PC. It never stops me from doing what I want to do with my computer and my old PC did atleast on a daily basis. When I got my iBook it was on and ready to go in less than a minute, my mom's hp that cost more took almost 2 minutes to boot windows vista and then you had to click through bs just to get started. And I never have problems that I cant fix, but my college cant fix problems on their PC's with a whole enitre tech department. But I guess if you can run your PC like babystarbud then go ahead and get one, but I wont have a part in it.

[babystarbud]

macs to PC's are like AOL to a decent ISP

The PC platform is open to anything, the MAC is a closet homosexual

[babystarbud]

thats a metaphor by the way; before anyone jumps onto the horse of righteousness
and bashes me for being anti-gay :jointsmile:

[ghosty]

i bought my mac book last year and i fucking love it, the OS is so much more user freindly and as far as i can tell stable... I'm only on a laptop but i made sure when i bought it that it had the max possible ram and specs... this little bitch has some power, i need it though for my track macking i do now and the sound editing i will be geting into from what i learn this year. It's nice not really having to worry about viruses and shit either

[Krishwag]

pretty much the only thing PC users have over macs is the games, and bout that:

no, I don't wanna buy a new graphics card every other month, I wanna play games, so I go and buy a PS2 or something, honestly if u really wanna get into PC gaming (which most don't) you are gonna hafta cash out some serious cash and for what? so you can trade some stupid sword for some gold, and then get called a "fag" or get "p0wnd". no thanks, and even if you really wanna do PC gaming and have the cash? buy a mac then dualboot if you must, there.

[doublefatstrat]

If Linux didn't exist, I'd have a Mac. fuck windows. :thumbsup:

edit: forgot to mention why I like Linux more than Mac lol; completely free OS, just as good as any other (nowhere near as technical these days as used to be the case, and the reason everyone was so scared of it), and the fact that I do still like being able to mix and match my own hardware. that's the one thing thats sorely lacking with Macs, upgradability? not on your life.

[Krishwag]

If Linux didn't exist, I'd have a Mac. fuck windows. :thumbsup:

edit: forgot to mention why I like Linux more than Mac lol; completely free OS, just as good as any other (nowhere near as technical these days as used to be the case, and the reason everyone was so scared of it), and the fact that I do still like being able to mix and match my own hardware. that's the one thing thats sorely lacking with Macs, upgradability? not on your life.

yeah I always admired linux, and the community, but i have the same problem as most, you have to kinda be really techy to do shit with it, and most find it intimidating, LOL

although I think the orange look of ubuntu is great, way better then XP :)

[TallCoolOne]

Right click? lmao...simpletons, heres a fucking thought...if right click means so much to ya'll, just buy a $20 usb mouse, they have right click, and is what i use on my laptop for at home use. Macs rule. Leopard will be the greatest OS since....well Tiger!