How do you compare a Mac to a PC?

[Diatribe]

I'm not so sure I want each and everyone to be using a mac. A little bit more exposure yes, but not to all those Dell people that NEED to be convinced. If they cannot remove that board stuck 2 inches from their eyes by themselves why bother?

 

[crachoar]

Don't tell your friend to get a CrApple computer. They're over-priced and over-hyped. Not to mention slow! I mean, look at the iMac! It's like, a housewife PC! ROFL ROFLR FOL!RRF!!!

Macs are for people that don't know how to use (or customize) their own PC!! LOLZ!!!!!!!!!!11111

That was sarcasm, for those of you that didn't notice...

Just returning the favor for all the pointless PC bashing that goes on around here (Dull? Come on, what is this? Third grade?) - being a satisfied (gasp!) Dell Computer user myself...

I'd suggest that your friend wait at least until the expo to see what's coming out. Not only might we get the $500 headless 'iMac', but when new goodies come out, the former 'new goodies' become 'year old goodies' and hence, drop in price (weee!).

If your friend is on a budget and just needs a computer with 'average user' functionality, I suggest the iBook. Or, if he can find them new - the 'old' G4 iMacs. Those are decent 'all-in-one' solutions..

However, the problem with the iBook line is that they don't (without being hacked at least) support dual monitors. And even if you hack it, you can't use DVI (boooo). That was a huge selling point for me when I got my first 12" Powerbook.

The only big problem with the iBook is that they use the 'yesteryear' technology of old iBooks (slower FSB, slower RAM, slower GPU, etc.)

So, if your friend can afford the 12" Powerbook (with all the bells and whistles - RAM acquired from a third-party), then I can only support that choice. I recently got a 15" Powerbook and I can honestly say - the build quality is not very good. It feels like it wants to fall apart - the keyboard is loose, etc. The 12" was a very solid machine. It felt like a brick.

If he knows Windows, works well with Windows, doesn't have a problem with PCs and wants one. Then by all means, let him.

The propaganda you hear on these forums is about as truthful as an AOL commercial.

Yes, the mac is a 'safer' solution. However, PCs aren't nearly as bad as everybody says they are.

To Apple's credit - OSX is pretty slick and is (usually) a pleasure to use. The 'iLife' package is 'decent', but I would never call it '$1,000 of free software'. I wouldn't even pay for the thing to be honest. Final Cut Pro is a much better program (obviously), and once you use it, you will never want to use anything else.

If you're friend is a student at a university, he should try using his student discount, and also, ask to see if his school gets a special 'extra' discount for equipping their school with macs (mine does )

Don't forget though, that pretty GUI eats RAM. I'd say, 768mb minimum for the 'full experience' on a mac. If you can afford to pop a gig or more into a mac, you'll really appreciate its multi-tasking capabilities.

Each side has their pros and cons. I find it's best to live in a 'dual platform world'. However, if I had to pick one side (and if I weren't a gamer / mIRC fan), I'd pick my mac.

 

[JFreak]

Don't forget though, that pretty GUI eats RAM. I'd say, 768mb minimum for the 'full experience' on a mac. If you can afford to pop a gig or more into a mac, you'll really appreciate its multi-tasking capabilities.

i'd say 512MB minimum and that's plenty - you have a full-blown workstation if you have 1GB ram.

 

[syntrophy]

i've been using the mac for a year and 2 weeks, yep pretty short time, but hey i'm only 20. anyway i've gotten 11 people to switch to a mac and its not that hard to convince them, i give up on gamers but for most people, you've just gotta show them. i'm on an ibook. and there's no laptop owners in my entire work place that dares to claim what the ibook can. i can print on every printer, every digital camera there is, it would work.

its just the ease of use. my frn was deciding on laptops. jus let them use for a couple of days. leave the mac on, everybody will want to play it now and then, and they'll be amazed.

what's there to compare? mac rules, hands down
---
but really pc aren't so bad as to hamper work and everything. i own a dell too, but when my dell died on me, and i tried to format it. thats when a person really really appreciate macs and the service apple provides. fixing my dell was a bitch and it took me all of 2 days, and a lenghty 2 hours on the phone w my 'friendly' dell assistant.

really if he can't change his mind, forget. you'll be the one laughing (as me and my mac buddies always does) when his pc spoils within 3 months of purchase and not many can help. or if its a laptop, if crashed during presentations, there wld be no projection on the white screen, of how keynotes would absolutely amazed the audience.

be a little selfish, save all the goood benefits for yourself and your switched friends

 

[slooksterPSV]

Well, he's right about the RAM... but the speeds are not comparable at all because they're different kinds of processors. Other people here will give you more details on that...

I don't have a PC -- I have one at work but I couldn't tell you too much about it.

Other things to consider is the quality of Apple hardware, OS X, better resale value... but if he's into games then it's not ideal. Also, it may be worth double-checking whether Quicken is available for Mac before going for the hard sell.

Of course, you could always show him some stories of recent switchers on this site to soften him up... Very few go back to Windows, once they've gotten used to their Mac.

Yes they have quicken for Mac. The processor speeds are actually very different. Power PC processors are actually very fast. They compared them using a program that ran different processes for different simple calculations and that. If I find the article I'll post it, and they proved that the Power PC G4 & 5 processors are faster than the P4. I think it was G4 1.0GHz would beat a 1.6GHz pentium and a 2.5 GHz would beat a Pentium 3.8. I may be wrong about the numbers, but I'm thinking thats what it was. - Here's a link I found that shows some things: http://www.infohq.com/Computer/appleG4-pentiumIII-showdown.htm

Here's a nice one, it has graphs too: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/f...tm&url=http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

And a nice PDF: http://forgetcomputers.com/~jdroz/websitePDFs/09WhoHasThePower.pdf

 

[Timelessblur]

if you want to stand any chance of convincing him you have to really just let him use you computer for a little while and play around in its OS. Other wise you sound like another zealot out there who well lets face it crappy and I rather just slug them then listen to them. It not that they are not seeing the facts it the fact that they are only words. words only mean so much unless you physicly get to play around with the OS and they become more believeble.

 

[mrgreen4242]

and every time you do you so call compareson I normal see an extra 100+ worth of blot you add make it look better. first drop XP pro to home how long until you all get it though you think head everyone who getting pretty much an imac or less DOES NOT NEED XP PRO and should not get it. You dont know the diffence bettween the 2 and why some should get pro or not. use XP home to compare if you can give me a good list of reason why some should go pro over home and the diffence bettween the 2 I may consider listening to it but until then you dont know anything about the really diffece bettween them. I used to be like that you should always go pro until I really started looking at the 2 and realzed unless you know you need pro you dont need it

SIgh, I love how EVERYTIME someone wants a Mac/PC comparrison and someone points out that OSX has all the features of XP Pro someone ALWAYS says that the person pointing doesn't know anything about XP/PCs/etc/etc.

I am a proffesional PC and network tech. I have been doing this in the the military or proffesional level for about 7 years. The comparrison is made because use it or not the features are there. Lots of people use them. I'm getting an iMac and I would definately opt for XP Pro. Some little things off the top of my head, are File Encrytion, Remote Desktop functions, and Active Directory logins. May or may not use them, or the myriad of other features in Pro.

However, drop the $79 upgrade (that's what Dell charges) and my original comparrison is still pretty valid, and it's a nice way to illistrate the power of OS X to someone not familiar with it. Show someone who is deciding wether to switch that MS charges you $80 for the 'pro' features and that Apple is giving them to everyone 'free'.

Before you go spouting off about something or someone you should really think about what you are saying. You simply make assumptions about the person you are responding to, which will generally turn out to be wrong. You look at the face of an issue, but fail to examine the PURPOSE of why something is being said.

Rob

 

[slooksterPSV]

A friend at work is looking for a new computer. For what he wants to do I suggested that he get an iMac. He wants to play with some video editing, saving photos, web surfing, email and quicken.

He told me that he thinks that Apple is over priced. I told that for what you get (Super Drive, iDVD, iPhoto, ect...) they are the same or cheaper then a PC. He said ok prove it and took me to Dell.com ans said to build the same system. So, how do you compare the Mac to a PC?


When he see 1.8 G5 he thinks that is is going to be slow compared to 2.8 Pentium 4. He also thinks that he must have a min of 500mb ram.

thanks,
Doug

Do you have a spare Mac laying around that you could let him borrow and try out and that? Or maybe, if you have an iBook, you could take that over and let him play with it, or bring him over to your house and him use a mac that you have or that? I like how you can play QuickTime movies in the preview box (the column list). I found that feature with Linux and I loved it, but because its on a Mac its so much better. (I hate Linux (damn theifs), I absolutely hate it, along with Windoze)

 

[yuc7zhd2]

The hp has much better battery life also; my sister in law just bought one, it has a Centrino and it lives more than 5 hours unplugged. Apple only claims 4; some claim to squeeze 4.5 hours out of the powerbook but most people I've seen here claim a bit less than 4 hours as a realistic battery life.

I know he's talking about his sister's experience with actualy 5 hour life, but this reminded me of another thing... PC companies are usually misleading when it comes to performance stats. I was looking at a Dell ad for the mini dell jukebox last night and they had the nerve to write something like "Holds 3 times the songs as the iPod mini". It has the same capacity in gigabytes, which means they used a lower encoding rate for the songs, and maybe a lower average song time from that of apple's estimates. Of course apple could say "Hold's five billion songs*" "*if you encode at 2 kbps, each song is 2 seconds, and they all sound like this 'beeeeeeeeeeep." Apple usually doesn't do that though.