Why do you guys believe Macs are superior so PC's?

elphillo said:

Honestly I'm curious why you believe that Macs are better than PC's?

For the amount of money you would spend on a iMac you could build a PC with twice the specs. Hell I bet my $900 PC could outperform any of your iMacs.

The design seems to be the main selling points for Macs, why? If you have any sense you would know that performance is better than design.

I'm not trying to troll or say that Macs are bad I'm just wondering why you guys think this.

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Since Apple just sold about 4.89 million Macs in the last quarter, and since according to the numbers that I have Apple takes in one full eighth of all the money spent on PCs (plus almost the same amount again on iPads), some people think differently than you do. Mostly people who have some spare money, so these people seem to be doing reasonably well in life, so these people are probably not among the more stupid ones. You might reflect on this for a moment.

But your real mistake is when you look at "specs" and "performance". "specs" and "performance" should never be the thing that you look for when buying a computer, or anything at all, but the amount of enjoyment that you get out of a product. Now if having "twice the specs" is something that makes you happy, then you should surely spend your money on "twice the specs". However, I look at different things.

First, design _is_ important. The Mac Pro under my desk is an absolute beauty. Before that I had a Quicksilver Macintosh, around 2001. It was a beauty at its time, and only in the last few years started to look a little bit old fashioned (although the next model that Apple released wasn't nearly as good looking). My 2006 white MacBook just looks lovely. Everyone who sees it just smiles. My 2010 MacBook Pro projects style and professionalism. And the MacBook Air is just out of this world. You see, these are laptops that can be in my living room and make it look better. Which is an important thing once you are married or live with a girlfriend, because a laptop that doesn't make the room look better isn't allowed in. My daughter, on the other hand, bought a Toshiba laptop, and it has to be hidden. Which makes it a lot less useful. If it looked like a MacBook Pro, that alone would improve it quite a lot.

Second, there are specs that can be turned into numbers and there are specs that can't. You seem to be concentrating on the first. Apple concentrates on the second. Quality of the keyboard. Backlit keyboard that lets you use the laptop in darkness. Have you ever compared the trackpad on a MacBook Pro with that on any PC? It is just laughable. Is the trackpad listed in your specs? Look at service. If you have an Apple Store anywhere nearby, you'll find they have employees who are actually going to help you and fix your problems. Nobody else has that. There is a long, long list of things where a Macintosh will beat any cheap PC.

There comes a time when you appreciate the better things in life, I hope. When you appreciate something that is beautifully crafted.

The mac is superior to a Windows PC for its simplistic and low maintenance. That is the main reason I'm getting a mini for my mum so she can stop bothering me every couple of days because she can't understand how to do things in Windows 7.

However, there are some very basic functions missing in OSX which are present in Windows for over a decade. For example the ability to increase DPI without changing screen resolution, so we can make front bigger without reducing the resolution.

Both machine have their advantages, just buy the one suit your needs the best.

I dont find pcs to be very buggy at all, only vista. But with that said, i think macs are pretty good. But you get what you pay for usually and thats true with pc's (A mac is a pc after all). All i would like to say is that they both have their advantages. Mac would be in my opinion the best pc if they were cheaper. But they're not so thats why I use a pc, AKA im a young adult trying to keep my money in my wallet. But im kind of a nerd so i can fix many errors in a few seconds that others (my mom) cant.

elphillo said:

Honestly I'm curious why you believe that Macs are better than PC's?

For the amount of money you would spend on a iMac you could build a PC with twice the specs. Hell I bet my $900 PC could outperform any of your iMacs.

The design seems to be the main selling points for Macs, why? If you have any sense you would know that performance is better than design.

I'm not trying to troll or say that Macs are bad I'm just wondering why you guys think this.

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First, I don't believe you that you're "not trying to troll".

Second, the fact that you think higher specced hardware will outperform optimized software shows you don't know much about computers. I guarantee a linux distro will run circles around Windows performance wise on your specced out machine.

There are reasons why people choose Macs and Linux machines for high end work. As a Windows technician I can tell you Windows is not the first choice for stability, if it was I wouldn't have a job. Windows is chosen because of its compatibility with legacy systems and initial cost. (Over time though Windows is much more expensive than other OS's due to support costs).

That being said, a computer is a tool, you choose the best tool for the job. If Windows is working for you, great, but for many of us it doesn't.

OS X. I've proven to myself again and again that I'm more efficient working in OS X than Windows, no matter how many times I try to use Windows for work

The battery life you're able to get with Macs in combination with OS X... even on the same computer, in Windows 7 I get hours less battery life

The overall build quality of Mac hardware is fantastic

Note that I never said that Macs are superior to PCs. That's not something that I think, but this is why i prefer Macs. I would be perfectly happy with a PC if a Mac was unavailable.

When I converted to Mac a couple of years ago it took some time to get use too. But the absolute ease of use & little to no maintenance had been a big plus. Thats what apple does for us. Get the "work" out of the way & just let us do our thing. It just works. That's why I'm such a proponent of apple products now. Especially for the less tech savvy family & friends. I just don't have time to always fix your computer or walk you through doing something. I've gotten my dad to buy an iPad for my mom. Got my father-in-law to get an iPad for my mother-in-law.....guess what....I've never had a call about having to fix this & that. My wife is jealous of my MacBook also. Still same one from 2 years ago & it works great, where by now I would have had to replace a windows machine. If I ever can't use a Mac again, I'd rather get Ubuntu than windows.

elphillo said:

The design seems to be the main selling points for Macs, why? If you have any sense you would know that performance is better than design.

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This is just pure ignorance.

If you actually believe that we all should abide by the opinion that aesthetics are inferior to the speed in personal computing, then my friend, you have no sense at all.

Open your mind. There's a little more to life than you think.

I don't believe they are superior to a windows PC. I believe they work better for what I need them for.

miniConvert said:

People will tell you stories until they're blue in the face, but you won't appreciate the advantages of a Mac over a Windows PC until you actually get one.

I started out with a Mac mini, and never looked back

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I've used pcs all my life until the need for something smaller and lack of gaming changed my route to a mac. I never looked back

It's sleek and small . But very might. Myac mini never slows down. Never have any annoying mcaffee antivirus popping every time it boots. For me the biggest change was the speed after waking from sleep te mac doesn't need downtime to boot up the pc does.

I used to wait 2mins for my pc to boot and even then it was a fast as hell pc with i7 and all but my mac takes 0secs to come up fom sleep it needs no time to think.

I do miss the pc games though and yes all the pc software you will not get to use if you are that specialist. But hey there's boot camp if you're into that sort of thing.

I have iPhone 4s. iPod and iPad plus mac mini and it just works. Just like how tim cook quoted.

Did I mention that it's silent?
I never had a silent pc and you could always hear the fan and it heated up te room. I had to get a custom pc because my old one was ****. Even I got a new custom pc it still had problems and it was bulky and we move houses every 6 months so it's a pain to lug it places.

With my mac and apple stuff I can just shove it all in my bag and it's all there.

Lastly it's beautiful, and feels good to use, seriously get one and you will know what I'm talking about

There's something quite premium about having apple products but I guess if you are cheap then you will never understand what quality feels like. It's like the difference between going to back cafe to have cockroach sandwich and then coming down the road to a 5 star restaurant and being served 5 star food. Yes it's more expensive, yes it has slightly less specs, but he'll does it make you feel good having it.

We think so because of OS X. What other reasons do we need?

Here is another comparison

It's like switching my spring mattress to memory foam mattress.

Omg te difference! Same with mac and pc.

Fuchal said:

OS X. I've proven to myself again and again that I'm more efficient working in OS X than Windows, no matter how many times I try to use Windows for work

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This sums it up for me, our Microsoft engineer has struggled to use an iMac at work, and although he openly admits that Mac OS X is a joy to use, he has become so used to Windows that he is more productive on Windows 7 than he is on Mac OS X.

Like you I am the other way round.

Longevity
Customer Service
Better OS (as far as how it handles things)
Low to no maintenance

Hardware isn't everything. You can put better hardware in a PC and it will run worse than a mac. My 2008 macbook with a core 2 duo runs better than my friend's HP laptop from last year with an i5. His hardware is better but what does he not have? OS X, it makes all the different. The other things listed above just add to that.

And yes, you are trolling

elphillo said:

Honestly I'm curious why you believe that Macs are better than PC's?

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I personally don't, and I'm sure many other on this forum don't as well. They are two different beats-- different strokes for different folks.

elphillo said:

For the amount of money you would spend on a iMac you could build a PC with twice the specs. Hell I bet my $900 PC could outperform any of your iMacs.

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That's an age-old argument, and it's never legitimate. For one, a good bit of mac components are proprietary for the purpose of specifically working with a mac, and they usually can't be compared cost-for-cost with regular aftermarket parts you'd use with a custom tower. Second, that argument in particular has been disproven a good couple of times with the 27 inch iMacs, primarily because of their 27 inch panels are very expensive. Third, it's hard to put a price on the form factors that apple uses for their systems.

elphillo said:

The design seems to be the main selling points for Macs, why? If you have any sense you would know that performance is better than design.

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Purely subjectivism bullcrap at its best. Who are you to tell other people what their priorities should be in life? Not everybody uses their computers primarily for games, and wants to replace their gpus every 3months to always play their games at 100fps. Some people might enjoy the looks of their computer in their offices more, or some might enjoy the experience they get while working on the OSX operating system, or even the software that's only in OSX.

elphillo said:

I'm not trying to troll or say that Macs are bad I'm just wondering why you guys think this.

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It's an age-old argument, I wonder why you'd even bring it up? Most ironically is how much more it gets brought up by pc enthusiasts on any forum compared to mac cultists-- judging from my experiences. We get it that pc enthusiasts really like their computers, but it shouldn't be to the point where they have to argue over computer preferences on their spare-time only for the sake of arguing over it.

Why are you all feeding the obvious troll?

I really hate that people think "design" shouldn't come into play or isn't a reasonable justification. It's all specs, specs, specs.

Look, if I'm gonna spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a computer, that thing better look like I spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on it.

Simple answer: the fit and finish of the hardware and (most importantly) the operating system. I've been in IT since 1977 when we called it data processing. I put up with everything that an IBM mainframe could dish out and then 10 more years with windows-based machines. December before last, my perfectly-running windows machine lost its mind over a paltry little sound card driver update pushed by microsoft and I had to re-gen from nothing twice in 10 days. (Blue screen of death crash on boot before the initial windows logo could even finish fading in.) Then some months later, he starts dropping my printer for no reason because my wife printed something weird.

Then last November I accompanied a friend to the Apple Store where he bought a 21" iMac. I was impressed (stunned actually) that at 10:30 in the morning, the store was already jumping with more customers than they could handle. The professionalism displayed there was impossible to ignore. He took the iMac home, planning that I would come by later that weekend to set it up for he and his family. The oldest daughter however (age 15) had other ideas and set it up that night herself and it all just worked. THAT impressed me.

I was already an iPhone and iPod user. Then I bought and was impressed by Apple TV. I then went in May this year to get a Macbook Pro, thinking I wanted the 15". My sales rep analyzed my processing requirements and talked me down to a 13.3", saving me a few hundred and I've been perfectly satisfied with it. So much so that I went back 3 weeks later and bought a 27" 2011 iMac. Followed later with a 2TB Time Capsule.

None of these systems has burped EVEN ONCE! All the networking problems I've ever had disappeared; everything talks happily to each other (even the windows machine) and it just works. After 35 years in data processing, reliability and simplicity is the priority for me.

Apple builds their own hardware. They build their own software. There's no driver or DLL hell. The stuff just works.

THAT'S why!

elphillo said:

Honestly I'm curious why you believe that Macs are better than PC's?

For the amount of money you would spend on a iMac you could build a PC with twice the specs. Hell I bet my $900 PC could outperform any of your iMacs.

The design seems to be the main selling points for Macs, why? If you have any sense you would know that performance is better than design.

I'm not trying to troll or say that Macs are bad I'm just wondering why you guys think this.

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Ease of use combined with design is all it takes. I wanted something that just worked and looked good doing it. I certainly did not want another box of fans. Price was not important, the other points were.

Show me PCs constructed from aluminum with brilliant screens and compact size that also don't sport enough fans to lift a 747

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z71nTqRPOjE



-OSX
-Design
-stability
-customer service.

Beware, long rant ahead.

I don't need the best specs in the world to surf the net comfortably. However, I will start getting irritated when files I download refuse to run properly because my windows PC lacked some specific driver or codec, and I then have to scour the net for that elusive file. How many times have you encountered a file with some odd extension that just won't open, and you have to goggle up what it means, then locate+download+install it? Even then, it is no guarantee that the file will run smoothly, if at all. It completely spoils the anticipation when I spend so long to download a file, only to find I cannot run it.

Or a program does not uninstall cleanly and leads to registry/reinstallation issues, forcing me to fix the problem with CCcleaner.

No such rubbish with OSX. Somehow, my files just run perfectly. Oh, and did I mention that preview is much snappier and smoother than acrobat reader ever was?

Another pleasant surprise when I first got my Imac. It came with the ability to type in Chinese characters, so my dad did not have to fall back on his bug-ridden chinese software.

I rarely use the Ilife suite, but the few times I needed to edit a video to present to my superiors, I was amazed at how easily I could put together a fairly professional-looking clip in minutes! It's really just drag and drop the parts I want, select an opening, type in the title and bam! I am done! And this is from someone with no video editing background or experience whatsoever!

All I can say is, Apple is somehow able to anticipate what the typical customer wants and gives it to them. For me, past a certain point, better specs start losing their relevance. I don't need 16gb ram or 3gb dedicated graphics card to run games at top settings. I sure would appreciate a seamless and hassle-free user experience on my comp though, and in all honesty, Apple is the only one to have provided that thus far.

Seriously, I doubt these sort of threads will ever stop. However, I think what we can do is to continue responding in as civil and as constructive a manner as we can. There is no shame in being a Mac user, so I don't see the point of suddenly getting all defensive or offended. If possible, why not create a sticky compiling all our positive experiences with Apple products so far, and direct future threads there?

bryanc87 said:

Here is another comparison

It's like switching my spring mattress to memory foam mattress.

Omg te difference! Same with mac and pc.

Click to expand...

Bad comparison for me. I got rid of my memory foam after about 3 months, I couldn't stand it. It gets hot when you sink down into it, and I felt like an egg in an egg carton and just rolling over took too much effort.

Obvious troll is obvious.

Live and let live, I say...

Anyone that says they're not trolling, typically is. I don't go to MS forums and ask how they could justify their use of Windows over OSX and Apple computers. That being said...

I have no issues with Windows, I have several PCs at home with Windows 7 and it's not a bad OS. I do prefer OSX, my wife prefers Windows 7, although if she ever gave my Mac a chance, I think she would like it. However, I'm not pushing it on her and I'm not going to push it on you either.

The most interesting observation is with my kids. My two oldest who are 10 and 8, naturally gravitate toward my MBP over my wife's laptop or the desktop PC we have. In school they also use PCs so it would seem to me that the familiarity they have with the PC would drive them toward using one at home, but that is not the case. Maybe it's the novelty of the Mac but, I think if that were the case, they wouldn't complain when using my wife's laptop (which they do).

I'm sure there are kids out there that have exposure to both and choose PCs but it's interesting to me that my oldest two who are starting to use computers for real tasks (research, papers, etc) have both preferred my MBP.

rjbruce said:

I'm sure there are kids out there that have exposure to both and choose PCs but it's interesting to me that my oldest two who are starting to use computers for real tasks (research, papers, etc) have both preferred my MBP.

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I wounder how much of the "cool" factor of using an Apple product have to do with their preference. It would be interesting to have OSX and Windows in two identical machines to see which OS the kids prefer.

One of my nephew took some pictures and screen shots of my imac when he saw it the 1st time. This never happened with any of my Windows PC, even a hand build water cooled one with side window; neon light; LED fans; colour coolant and light up the room like a Christmas tree.

Think about cars. The difference between high performance and reliability.

What good is a 200mph Lamborghini if the engine won't start?