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Former PC users - what made you make the switch to Mac?

The honest to god defining moment that made me want Mac, was when I set up my first hackintosh.

I more or less accidentally found the osx86 project website. After test driving it on a desktop and a netbook, I HAD to have the real deal.
 
CHSeifert said:
I use both.

Mac OSx because Mac laptops are better designed, have better battery life and accesories are nicer :apple:

Win 7 - because I prefer Microsoft Office for Win 7
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Couldn't have said it better myself.

Mac laptops= no competition. Battery life is my most important thing on a laptop. Apple wins that hands down. Also longevity on macbooks are amazing. they take a lot of abuse and "just keep working".

However, i couldn't live without my desktop pc beast. Hp quad core, 16 gb ram, ocz ssd, 7200 rpm 1 tb hdd, 6970 gpu, 2 monitor display (1920x 1080 each), and hdmi hook up for my 50" plasma. This thing kills any mac short of the $3500 dual xeon mac pro in pretty much any activity. Havn't seen a mac that can beat its video encoding times. And it only cost me $1200 with monitors.
 
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s.hasan546 said:
Couldn't have said it better myself.

Mac laptops= no competition. Battery life is my most important thing on a laptop. Apple wins that hands down. Also longevity on macbooks are amazing. they take a lot of abuse and "just keep working".

However, i couldn't live without my desktop pc beast. Hp quad core, 16 gb ram, ocz ssd, 10k rpm 1 tb hdd, 6970 gpu, 2 monitor display (1920x 1080 each), and hdmi hook up for my 50" plasma. This thing kills any mac short of the $3500 dual xeon mac pro in pretty much any activity. Havn't seen a mac that can beat its video encoding times. And it only cost me $1200 with monitors.
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I'd like to hear how you built that for $1200 since the graphics card must have been $300+, I can't comment on a 1TB 10,00rpm drive because I've never seen one listed, but a 600GB drive goes for about $290, etc. What are you using for a motherboard, cpu, powesupply, RAM etc?
 
Switched in October: I wanted to write iPhone apps

I only just switched in October.

What tipped me over the edge was wanting to try writing iphone apps, although I had been getting the sense that the really "fun stuff" in computing had been moving to macs for a while. A tipping point if you like, where most geeks seem to be into macs now, whereas a few years ago we hacked on PCs.

Someone above said:

But I still resent the "holier than thou" smugness that....
Click to expand...

That kept me from switching for a while too.

Duncan.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
I'd like to hear how you built that for $1200 since the graphics card must have been $300+, I can't comment on a 1TB 10,00rpm drive because I've never seen one listed, but a 600GB drive goes for about $290, etc. What are you using for a motherboard, cpu, powesupply, RAM etc?
Click to expand...

Oops typo, 7200 rpm drive (mixed up my work setup).

Hp p6624y + 23" LED monitor + Printer= $600 (black friday deal)
Antec PSU + Sapphire 6970- $350
G. Skill Ram- $130
Samsung 22" monitor used- $75
OCZ Vertex 2 64 gb- $75
Total: $1230 Also tax free 🙂
 
When one of my Vaio ($2000) screen died and being damn hot (you can fried an egg) then another Vaio ($2000) being VERY slow after two years of usage. As you can tell, i am into design of product because i bought two Vaio. So i was like, WTF let's try Mac and it's cheaper than Vaio. Here i come, 3+ years with my white MB and still running strong.

I stayed with Mac because it's easy to use. Don't have to worry about spyware and beautiful OS. Will be getting 13'' MBP when back to school promotion and Lion is out.
 
im relatively new to Apple, especially macs. i had the first iPhone but i didn't enjoy my first mac until the First gen uMB. I was in the market for a good pc, and i had about 1800. i had NO intention of buying a mac computer, because i thought they weren't good enough. dear lord was i wrong. I was at best buy looking at dell laptops. And i noticed they lit up apple and the numerous people around it. I then asked 4 different best buy people what the best PC was i could buy for 1800. they showed me 2 Dells and one sony Vaio. i then asked them if they would choose these PCs or the maxed out mac (at the time it was a C2D 2.4Ghz i believe, at least instore anyways) funny, they all without a beat said the mac. i played with it for about 10 minutes and the whole "new" "sleek" feel had me sold. I played with it so much the first week i had it my GF told me i was crazy. I will never look back, i loved that mac and i still have it, i sold it to my mom for 500 as a downpayment for the one that is in my sig.

The main selling points for me were:
Ease of Use
The OS, very quick responsive and just runs smooth
NO viruses
Lit up keyboard.
And although all the PCs i was looking it had better specs and hardware, i still feel like my mac was quicker when it came to processing tasks. could just be in my head because i wanted it to be but i just don't think so. im pretty sure my mac as faster than them.
I had no idea how good the battery was on my mac at the time, i thought 6 hours on a laptop was decent (first notebook i had bought) until i went to class the next day and noticed that every pc user had their charger with them😀
my best friend had a toshiba and he said he was lucky if he got 3 hours out of his. I told him i was getting 7 if i had the brightness low and no back lit keys, he couldn't believe it!
I like the way you download stuff and have that little page that shows you and lets you open it right there.
I Like the mail it comes with
The screen was a big plus for me, i really liked the glossy clarity.
Safari is my favorite browser, recently i started using chrome but ill always like safari the best.

Andddddd most of course, it just looked so dam clean !!!!! i was one of the first people with the new mac, no one had it yet and everyone was jealous! i apparently bought it like 1 week after it came out. and people everywhere i went were so excited to look at it. it was deffinately the must have item of the year!

I love apple notebooks, you can call me a fanboy all you want but i think they truly are the best computers out there. They do not have the best specs but the OS just runs so much better than it does more than make up for it. I can confidently say ill never own another PC again unless work makes me use one!!!!!!
 
s.hasan546 said:
Oops typo, 7200 rpm drive (mixed up my work setup).

Hp p6624y + 23" LED monitor + Printer= $600 (black friday deal)
Antec PSU + Sapphire 6970- $350
G. Skill Ram- $130
Samsung 22" monitor used- $75
OCZ Vertex 2 64 gb- $75
Total: $1230 Also tax free 🙂
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
Dalton63841 said:
The honest to god defining moment that made me want Mac, was when I set up my first hackintosh.

I more or less accidentally found the osx86 project website. After test driving it on a desktop and a netbook, I HAD to have the real deal.
Click to expand...

Is it easy to set up ? What potential pitfalls are they ? I want a mac desktop, can't afford a power mac , the mac mini is underpowered and the iMac glossy screen is a migraine magnet so I can't go there

I'd love to build a small form factor PC for win7 gaming , that will also boot hackintosh so I can give my MBP a well deserved rest
 
beyondthesmile said:
Former PC users - what made you make the switch to Mac?
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The hideous build quality and buggy drivers for my previous 2010 Fujitsu SH560 laptop which made the machine hang frequently. Also, they cut the price in half 4 months after introduction, which pissed me so much that I swear I will not buy a Fujitsu again.
 
Nightarchaon said:
Is it easy to set up ? What potential pitfalls are they ? I want a mac desktop, can't afford a power mac , the mac mini is underpowered and the iMac glossy screen is a migraine magnet so I can't go there

I'd love to build a small form factor PC for win7 gaming , that will also boot hackintosh so I can give my MBP a well deserved rest
Click to expand...

Depending on your hardware it will be either noob simple, or pull-your-hair-out agonizing. Lifehacker has hackintosh guides that are simple. No matter what hardware the rule of thumb is to be comfortable with Terminal, and be weary of system updates until they are verified to work.

That being said, I don't hackintosh much these days. The OSX86 project is literally the reason Apple found a new customer in me. I also never had an iPod or other Apple product before that point. Im not smug about it though. I have a custom build with a Phenom CPU that has ran both Windows 7 since alpha builds, and Debian ever since whatever build was before Etch.

One thing I could be called smug about though...Mac is the only brand of pre-built PC I will ever buy.
 
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beyondthesmile said:
Former PC users - what made you make the switch to Mac?
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1. Macs are expensive. I am not rich enough to buy cheap things.

2. With PC I had:
-1 power cable for monitor,
-1 power cable for computer,
-1 power cable for speakers
-1 data cable connecting monitor with computer
-1 keyboard USB cable
-1 mouse USB cable
-4 wires for creative speakers + their "remote" control (2.1)

With iMac I have only one power cable.

3. Style.
4. The device is generally less obtrusive
5. I like the white colour. Even the shell of my backup disk is white/silver
 
I have been using Windows since past seven years and I switched to Mac this year. And here's my story.

I stepped into the apple eco system with the iPhone, then bought an iPad. The new Macbook Air 11.6 was the first macbook which actually convinced me to buy a Mac. The thing looked so sleek and sexy so I decided to use it as a secondary pc next to my windows 7 Asus gaming laptop. Shortly after using the air, I realized how finished and polished the Mac OS is. Not that Windows 7 was bad but I just loved the ease of use of mac, less bugginess and most of all a beautiful trackpad and not having to install an anti virus. And I really like the idea of Apple manufacturing the hardware themselves.

I did get into a few quirks with MAC OS initially, with simple things such as usage of command key and opening multiple finder windows at a time. However It was just a quick learning curve. One thing I am still hoping to master is Excel on MAC because I work in accounting and I'm too quick with the alt keys on Windows.

Anyways, it didn't take me much longer to decide that i'll use mac as my primary pc (Yes I still call it a pc). So I gave away my Asus to my brother, sold the macbook air and bought 2011 macbook pro 13 and havent looked back since.

In all this I do have to admit, if you want a gaming pc, Windows is still way ahead of MAC OS. In terms of both hardware as well as software support. However in my case this was a non issue because I recently bought a ps3🙂
 
Bought my MBP in 2007 because at the very least it was pretty much the best Windows laptop you could get but I was going to give OS X a chance since I could just boot camp if I didn't like it. I have never installed Windows on it, not even as a VM. From day one I was saying something along the lines of "well that just makes more sense." I went from being about as anti-os x as you could get to being one hell of a proponent of Apple. I sell Macbooks to people at Bestbuy and the Apple store better than most of their employees.

What made me switch? It just works, better.

Sadly my day job has me doing IT in a mostly Windows environment. But they did buy me my 17 inch MBP.
 
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beyondthesmile said:
Former PC users - what made you make the switch to Mac?
Click to expand...

It was a process. It began when I got the 1st gen iPod touch (I have a theory that this is a common way to start on your way to the mac).

I truly loved it. The user experience was without peer. After that I really got interested in getting a mac, however I always talked myself out of it because of gaming and the price.

A little more than a year ago I stopped gaming on my PC. I had other stuff I prioritized higher and something had to go. There went the gaming issue...

I started reading about OS X and the included applications (Garage band, iPhoto and iMovie). I do play the guitar once in a while so I thought Garage band could be fun to play with, although it was not what tipped the scales.

I downloaded a free trial of a couple of photoshop programs to my computer. Can't even rememeber their names, but one was for image editing and the other for movie editing (Essential? Express? Excessive? Export? See right there. Who forgets that photo on a mac is iPhoto and movies iMovie? ).
There was a photo sorting program included there and it opened my eyes to the fact that I really needed that (opposed to having photos manually sorted into directories on my HDD). I tried that photoshop movie thing and it was horrible. Slow and crashed, but making a movie was fun.

OS X seemed better in terms of stability and "issues" you have to handle in windows. Given the included programs on the mac and what their counterparts would cost me on a PC made me think the price of a MBP was actually not that bad. All the stories of how long a mac lasts also helped.
That was the last problem, so shortly after the release I got my first mac, a 13" MBP (2011).

After less than two months I can already say that I will never go back. It just works! Less compatibility issues than on my PCs with old printers.

One more thing. I had no idea the trackpad was this good. I have always used a mouse with my PC laptops, because quite frankly the trackpads on them suck. I still haven't connected a mouse to my MBP. Have not felt the need. Those gestures are awesome. Two finger scroll, rotating pictures etc.

I confess that I am totally hooked. Last week I had to get a new mobile phone... Needless to say I got the iPhone4. The whole eco-system with Apple is just plain great!

Disclamers! When I say things are good, bad, horrible etc. it is just my opinion.

Sorry for the essay. 🙂
 
1. One of the best looking laptops on the market.

2. Prefer the keyboard on the macs

3.I have been using Windows since i started using computers, so i thought it was time to try something new. I am liking what i see so far.

4. Battery life is amazing.
 
Having to provide tech support to family that didn't know how to use windows.
Now they don't know how to use macs.
 
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Portability. Seriously. Netbooks are pieces of crap, imho. Had one.

With my old laptop i was carrying around at university:

-Laptop bag
-Heavy laptop
-Big ass cable with the transformer
-Mousepad
-Mouse

Now i carry

-MBP with secondskin in my bag

And apart form that I find the OS to be better for my needs.



One thing I dont like isn't the mac itself, but many mac users. The general "i have a mac and therefore I am following the true way of life, people who don't agree with me are just ignorant idiots" attitude annoys me.
 
I switched because of better build quality and the lack of Spyware / Viruses.

I don't miss my PC at ALL 😀
 
I switched to using a Mac after I bought my iPhone 3G (Aug 2008) and wanted to do some iPhone/iOS development (Mac only). I would have switched earlier but I couldn't justify the Mac price premium over PC's. I don't miss Windows on PCs anymore lol
 
There are several points:

- lighter (had a HP pavilion dv3785ez - 17")
- iOS Developing
- nice design
- nice screen
- the i7 Sandy Bridge CPU's ^^
 
I switched back to Mac about a month ago.

I was a devoted Mac User back in the days of the MacPlus. I used my MacPlus for several years and the monitor died. Since it was an all in one unit, and by that time obsolete, I bought a shiny new Mac system that had color. I used that a few years before that monitor died. Because back in those days Apple and other companies always seemed to change the ports and cabled to peripherals it would have cost more to buy a replacement monitor than getting a new Windows PC. that was more up to date and modern and had Windows 98 on it.

Since I used Windows at work I got the Windows PC and put the Mac to rest. I had been working on Windows PC's since because they were cheaper to buy and I was able to do everything I needed to do on them. In 2003 I bought the new 3rd Gen iPad, since now iTunes for Windows was out there and it reminded me of the Mac Days of the past. Still Macs were so overpriced.
Then in 2008 I bought the iPhone 3g and replaced that iPod with a new iPod classic. I started wanting a Mac again, but the costs were still prohibitive. I started saving for the Mac and then in 2010 I bought the iPad and now the only thing I needed was the Mac. I was almost halfway to buying the Mac I wanted and my laptop died. I ended up getting a Windows 7 laptop and I loved it and figured it would be great until I could get the Mac. I had to fly up to Chicago, and on the flight I couldn't watch a whole movie because the laptop battery died out with 10 minutes left in the movie, and the battery was fully charged at the airport before boarding.

About a month ago I bought a new MacBook and have only used that Windows 7 twice since getting the Mac. The Mac is so much easier to use and it's lighter, batteries last longer etc. I also love that the Mac starts up so fast compared to the Windows 7 laptop. After getting the Mac set up I did a small test. I turned both the mac and the Windows 7 laptop on at the same time. The mac was already at the password screen before the Windows logo even came up on the W7 laptop. I was already reading my email before the password screen on the other laptop showed up.

I can actually carry the MacBook in my backpack and use it on my breaks at work, I could never do that with the Windows 7 laptop. It's too heavy and by the time it would start up, my break would be almost over. On top of that, the seamless integration with the iPad, iPhone 4, iPod Classic, and even the iPhone 3G (which I now use like an iPod Touch) is great. Even though I've used MobileMe since it was introduced, there always seemed to be an issue with syncing to Outlook every time Microsoft or Apple would upgrade or send out patches to either software.

It feels great to be back in the Mac playground again.
 
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