First Apple purchase (Macbook) - need advice

[mazyiar]

I'm an electrical engineering student, going into my final year of college, and have thus far been a windows user all of my life. I've used Mac Pros in my research labs but never owned one. I'm considering buying a new macbook, but I want to know whether there is any justification for the price difference. Now i know this question has been asked loads of times already, but what I want to know is, with the mac os (which is the main benefit of the mac) will I have the amount of control over my system as I have in windows? Right now, I know about most of the processes and services running on my windows machine, know the registry, know of little tweaks and hacks and stuff that helps me in little ways. What I want to know is, will the 'easy-to-use' Mac OS do everything for me and cause me to relinquish control, or can i still be an 'advanced user' (don't know if i've used the term right).

I'm sorry this has gotten so long winded, but i'm honestly quite confused. I want a mac, but i want my purchase to be justified by more than that.

P.S. Hope I've posted in the right section of the forums...

Thanks a lot.

 

[ceezy3000]

to justify the price diff?
1. no viruses whatsoever in the wild
2.much more intuitive os
3.freeware, for some reason and i have yet to figure this out there is so much more freeware, and so much more quality freeware. we have quality and quantity when it comes to freeware. perhaps its because xcode is free and visual studio isnt
4.its safer to download torrents
lets be honest here. i havent payed for any software since ive had my mac. ive either gottent tons of freeware or ive downloaded torrents. u dont have to worry about viruses with osx so u can download as many torrents as u want
5.sexy

 

[VPrime]

I am a long time windows user and switched over this year. OS X is an aWESOME operating system and extremly powerful. Don't let the "easy to use" and user friendly interface trick you. Unlike windows (specifically vista) it does not make things "easier" by removing them and making it harder for more advanced users.,, The itnerface is simple, and user friendly, but allows you to do what ever you want.
Plus the terminal is awesome. IF there is some thing you can't do in the UI, the terminal will beable to do it for sure.

The OS is a UNIX operating system, so it is very very advanced and "un-userfriendly" under the skin , if you want it that way