Lifelong Windows usr planning to buy a Mac

[Subu]

Dear forum members

I have been a windows computer user through out my life. I'm considering buying a Mac, Mac pro or Mac air or Mac computer, Based on the good advise that I will get here.

Main reason I wish to buy a Mac computer is because I have seen that Apple's build quality (of its products ) is generally superior to that of windows computers. Also there are less glitches, less ransomeare et cetera.

I use my ( current windows ) computer for the most common of purposes. Spreadsheet, word processing, PowerPoint presentation, some browsing, webmail, Facebook, YouTube, some amount of instant messaging, printing ( to a printer) , connecting to a scanner, virus checking et cetera

I have absolutely no idea of the Mack operating system and have been a life long windows user. assuming I do not want to spend too much money buying other software like word processor spreadsheets browsers exedra does it makes sense to buy a Mac?

If I went for what could be called a mid-level specifications what model and what specification should I buy?

Thanks in advance for your time and answers

Best regards
Subu

 

[Mr. Dee]

Based on what you do, the base model 2016 MacBook Pro 13 inch (non touch bar) or Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13 inch (if portability is important), should meet your needs.

If legacy hardware support is important, example USB A devices, HDMI and SD Card Reader and more traditional keyboard experience, go with the Early 2015 MacBook Pro.

 

[Subu]

Based on what you do, the base model 2016 MacBook Pro 13 inch (non touch bar) or Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13 inch (if portability is important), should meet your needs.

If legacy hardware support is important, example USB A devices, HDMI and SD Card Reader and more traditional keyboard experience, go with the Early 2015 MacBook Pro.

Thanks so much. This is really fast and a very good reply. Yes I need legacy hardware support. But I need one bigger question to be answered which I forgot to post. What happens to all the windows files that I have for example existing spreadsheets, text files, word processor Files et cetera

 

[mikeo007]

Thanks so much. This is really fast and a very good reply. Yes I need legacy hardware support. But I need one bigger question to be answered which I forgot to post. What happens to all the windows files that I have for example existing spreadsheets, text files, word processor Files et cetera

Most common productivity software on Windows is also available for macOS. For instance, Microsoft Word and Excel are both available, so your files will work perfectly fine. Apple also includes their own productivity software that can usually convert Word, Excel and Powerpoint files to work with them.

 

[c0ppo]

Thanks so much. This is really fast and a very good reply. Yes I need legacy hardware support. But I need one bigger question to be answered which I forgot to post. What happens to all the windows files that I have for example existing spreadsheets, text files, word processor Files et cetera

I would go for 2015 13 MBP.
About files - that has been answered.

As far as OS concerns you - it shouldn't. I was on Windows since 3.11 version, never seen or used a mac prior to 2010. It took me 2-3 weeks to get familiar with OSX, but after that, I've never looked back. I still use windows for .NET development, but macos is my primary OS ever since I've tried it.

Did I like it at first? Well, I found it interesting (new and shiny I guess), but I didn't like it that much. After a couple of weeks I've ground found of it, and after even more time, I love it. MacOS is the only reason I use apple products at all.

 

[campyguy]

A couple of tips from a longtime user of both OSes, including having Windows 10 Pro running in a VM via Parallels Desktop.

First, I see that you've been on MR for a while, so you may know that there are rumors that the laptop models could get "refreshed" very soon. Since you're not in the US and I am not familiar with Apple support in your home country, I sincerely offer waiting just a few more weeks for the WWDC to begin. Personally, I still have the iPad 3 that I bought years ago, just 5 weeks before the iPad 4 came out - too late to return/exchange my iPad. Avoid buyer's remorse for now, as I'm waiting for an announcement myself.

Second, MS Office is used every day in my offices and home. I use Office 2016, but in my Windows VM. Many of my clients use ActiveX and other native Windows "hooks" (including Visual Basic with references to the "C" drive but not addressing file paths in the OS X environment) - I also find that the Mac suite isn't as comprehensive as in missing features that I find in the Windows suite that I use every day. I live in Word and Excel, and I find the Mac apps getting in my way more often than I'd like.

I'll defer to others for recommending a new Mac. I always buy a Mac with the largest screen size available. My caveat is I also get a Mac with a powerful CPU - my Excel needs demand a fair amount of computing resources, most of my workbooks contain 20-25+ spreadsheets with hundreds of references, names, and links.

 

[Audit13]

Don't forget that macOS can read from NTFS drives but not write to them. I used a program called Paragon NTFS for Mac to eliminate this issue.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Welcome!
I still use Windows for gaming, but I'm sure glad that's all I have to use it for.

 

[aevan]

Thanks so much. This is really fast and a very good reply. Yes I need legacy hardware support. But I need one bigger question to be answered which I forgot to post. What happens to all the windows files that I have for example existing spreadsheets, text files, word processor Files et cetera

You can transfer these files and continue to use them if you install the appropriate software - and almost all major apps are available for both OSes. As for transfering the files, there are various ways. I recommend using a cloud storage like Dropbox or OneDrive, but you can also use USB Flash drives or external drives. macOS can read NTFS, and read and write to exFAT and FAT so there will be no issues.

If you have an Office 365 subscription, you can just download all Office apps to your new Mac. And you can also use the free iWork apps for most of your stuff, they are quite nice (and can be great depending on your needs).

As for which Mac: probably a MacBook Pro 13" from 2015 or 2016. If you have the money to spare, go for the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, if you want to save some money, I recommend a non-TB model. Also, the 2015 is very good, although a bit heavier. I would get it if you find a good price. Don't worry about legacy ports, unless you rely on Thunderbolt 2, you can just buy new USB-C cables for everything you need, as well as a few cheap adapters. Some people here will try to convince you that the USB-C situation is an issue, but just ignore that, it's not true.

Also, don't worry about not using macOS before - you'll get used to it very fast. Just remember, CMD is CTRL

 

[Subu]

A couple of tips from a longtime user of both OSes, including having Windows 10 Pro running in a VM via Parallels Desktop.

First, I see that you've been on MR for a while, so you may know that there are rumors that the laptop models could get "refreshed" very soon. Since you're not in the US and I am not familiar with Apple support in your home country, I sincerely offer waiting just a few more weeks for the WWDC to begin. Personally, I still have the iPad 3 that I bought years ago, just 5 weeks before the iPad 4 came out - too late to return/exchange my iPad. Avoid buyer's remorse for now, as I'm waiting for an announcement myself.

Second, MS Office is used every day in my offices and home. I use Office 2016, but in my Windows VM. Many of my clients use ActiveX and other native Windows "hooks" (including Visual Basic with references to the "C" drive but not addressing file paths in the OS X environment) - I also find that the Mac suite isn't as comprehensive as in missing features that I find in the Windows suite that I use every day. I live in Word and Excel, and I find the Mac apps getting in my way more often than I'd like.

I'll defer to others for recommending a new Mac. I always buy a Mac with the largest screen size available. My caveat is I also get a Mac with a powerful CPU - my Excel needs demand a fair amount of computing resources, most of my workbooks contain 20-25+ spreadsheets with hundreds of references, names, and links.

Very valuable comments.

1. Regarding new macs I will wait for a few weeks. I am in no hurry as far as I can see. I can wait for a month or two.

2. But what you said about the Microsoft office suite, worries me much more... I too live on Microsoft Excel and world. My excel spreadsheet also have a lot of data and references in them. What sort of computing power would you recommend for an above average excel user ?

3. The more I read about this Microsoft Excel thing I Feel I should go back to the windows world

 

[Number-Six]

I don't know what to recommend hardware wise.

But here is some insight based on my experience: be prepared to waste ridiculous amounts of time looking for things.

The best metaphor I can come up with is this: how much does it bug you when your someone else than you cleans up your desk? While most everything is still there, it's not where you usually place it!

Because that's pretty much how it is to make the switch from one to the other. That will be especially true in office, as campyguy said some things are either misplaced or downright missing from the Mac version

 

[Subu]

If you have an Office 365 subscription, you can just download all Office apps to your new Mac. And you can also use the free iWork apps for most of your stuff, they are quite nice (and can be great depending on your needs).

I do not have an office 365 subscription. This is a very important point you have raised.

I was assuming that I can use the worksheet program that comes with Mac. But a couple of posts here convinces me that it may not convert all complicated excel files.

Do you have any experience in this area, meaning using an Mac spreadsheet / numbers whatever it's called to convert and continue with the Microsoft XL file. ?
[doublepost=1495221418][/doublepost]

I don't know what to recommend hardware wise.

But here is some insight based on my experience: be prepared to waste ridiculous amounts of time looking for things.

The best metaphor I can come up with is this: how much does it bug you when your someone else than you cleans up your desk? While most everything is still there, it's not where you usually place it!

Because that's pretty much how it is to make the switch from one to the other. That will be especially true in office, as campyguy said some things are either misplaced or downright missing from the Mac version

I suppose you're talking about the Microsoft office suite. I am proceeding on the assumption that you are discussing the Microsoft office suite & not other programs.

If it is difficult to use the Microsoft office suite for Mac , can I completely switch to the Apple Versions ? Numbers ? Keynote ? Pages ? Etc

 

[turbineseaplane]

I do not have an office 365 subscription.

You could buy Office for Mac outright if you'd prefer (that's my preference).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/officeformac

 

[Subu]

You could buy Office for Mac outright if you'd prefer (that's my preference).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/officeformac

Does anyone here have experience using apples versions? Numbers? Pages? Keynote?

How do they stack up against Microsoft office suite?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Does anyone here have experience using apples versions? Numbers? Pages? Keynote?

How do they stack up against Microsoft office suite?

Pages & Keynote I could get by with (and have in the past), but Numbers is no competitor to Excel.

Excel is the only reason I even have MS Office at this point.

 

[Subu]

Looks like the hardware itself is not an issue. Microsoft office suite and it's performance on Mac OS maybe the final clincher. Do others think so?
[doublepost=1495221729][/doublepost]

Pages & Keynote I could get by with (and have in the past), but Numbers is no competitor to Excel.

Excel is the only reason I even have MS Office at this point.

And oh boy, I live on excel

 

[aevan]

Looks like the hardware itself is not an issue. Microsoft office suite and it's performance on Mac OS maybe the final clincher. Do others think so?
[doublepost=1495221729][/doublepost]

And oh boy, I live on excel

Performance is great. The iWork versions are nice, but if you rely on more advanced stuff, you'll need MS Office, especially Excell. But, and don't take this the wrong way, if you can afford a Mac, I'm sure you can buy a Mac version of Office, or get a 365 Subscription.


[doublepost=1495222134][/doublepost]

If it is difficult to use the Microsoft office suite for Mac , can I completely switch to the Apple Versions ? Numbers ? Keynote ? Pages ? Etc

iWork apps can opet Office documents, however, Number lacks certain advanced formulas of Excell. Not sure, just what I heard.

 

[Number-Six]

I do not have an office 365 subscription. This is a very important point you have raised.

I was assuming that I can use the worksheet program that comes with Mac. But a couple of posts here convinces me that it may not convert all complicated excel files.

Do you have any experience in this area, meaning using an Mac spreadsheet / numbers whatever it's called to convert and continue with the Microsoft XL file. ?
[doublepost=1495221418][/doublepost]

I suppose you're talking about the Microsoft office suite. I am proceeding on the assumption that you are discussing the Microsoft office suite & not other programs.

If it is difficult to use the Microsoft office suite for Mac , can I completely switch to the Apple Versions ? Numbers ? Keynote ? Pages ? Etc

I am mostly talking about the office suite yes. I've tried very briefly Numbers and it's no competitor to Excel, Pages is fine but I am not a big user of text processor

The Mac version of Excel is definitely better than Numbers. Unfortunately, the Windows version of Excel is just better than the Mac version.

For most other software that is used occasionally however, it's fine.

 

[Subu]

Strangely, no one mentioned the advantage of having less virus, less ransomware etc on Mac .. So it looks like antivirus programs are must on both operating systems? And a good antivirus & regular operating system updates takes care of viruses

 

[campyguy]

2. But what you said about the Microsoft office suite, worries me much more... I too live on Microsoft Excel and world. My excel spreadsheet also have a lot of data and references in them. What sort of computing power would you recommend for an above average excel user ?

3. The more I read about this Microsoft Excel thing I Feel I should go back to the windows world

Honestly, running Excel in a Windows VM is very easy, I do it every day. I do try out the Mac app periodically, putting the Mac suite on the "Fast Ring" for updates and it's getting much better, and quickly, but I have no intent of moving any of my Excel/Word files to the Mac suite (I started out with Word 4 and Excel 3 in the late 80s).

There's a chart that highlights some of the missing items embedded in the following web page, I need several of what's "Yes" for Win Excel and "No" for Mac Excel:
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2015/feb/excel-windows-vs-mac.html - even though it's an older summary much remains accurate. MS recently added access to the "add-in store" to the Mac Office apps so more feature-parity may come soon - I just need to work today.

I'll hope for a new, more powerful Mac but I already have one that works perfectly for my needs - I can't write/say the same for the Mac Office apps.

 

[Subu]

Honestly, running Excel in a Windows VM is very easy, I do it every day. I do try out the Mac app periodically, putting the Mac suite on the "Fast Ring" for updates and it's getting much better, and quickly, but I have no intent of moving any of my Excel/Word files to the Mac suite (I started out with Word 4 and Excel 3 in the late 80s).

Thank you. You seemed to have understood my dilemma like quite some of the posters above. Microsoft Excel is key to my laptop usage.

Having said that, I see from your post that running Microsoft Excel on the windows virtual machine is quite easy. Could you please explain that a little more? How does a home user, who does not have a server or an office server, or another third party / cloud server get to use XL on a virtual machine?

Honestly, I do not know about virtual machines, so. you may have to start at beginner level... Thanks in advance.

 

[aevan]

Strangely, no one mentioned the advantage of having less virus, less ransomware etc on Mac .. So it looks like antivirus programs are must on both operating systems? And a good antivirus & regular operating system updates takes care of viruses

You didn't ask

You don't need antivirus software on a Mac. Just update regularly.

Feel feee to ask anything that interests you about the Mac. The reason people here are not listing the advantages is because it's an old discussion. Obviously, this is a Mac forum and we're biased, but I'd say nothing comes close to a Mac for your kind of work.

macOS is beautiful, apps are amazing (you can't find such beautiful, thought out apps from independent developers on Windows), the system is more secure and easier to use and there are tons of really amazing things.

Windows is good too, don't get me wrong, I just think macOS is better. So ask about specific things if you want, I'll try to answer.

 

[Subu]

... you don't need antivirus software on a Mac. Just update regularly.

Feel feee to ask anything that interests you about the Mac. ....

macOS is beautiful, apps are amazing (you can't find such beautiful, thought out apps from independent developers on Windows), the system is more secure and easier to use and there are tons of really amazing things.

Thanks

Is there a is there a thread that lists those amazing applications or amazing things?

 

[aevan]

Thanks

Is there a is there a threD that lists rhode amazing applications or amazing things?

Um, there are a lot of threads, not sure if there's one that talks about apps in general. There's too many. Perhaps you can say what kind of work you're interested in.

For example, if you like time-management productivity apps - check out Fantastical 2, 2do, Things, Omnifocus, etc.

If you like note taking: check out Bear and Notability.

Or if you use Twitter - check out Tweetbot.

Or if you like automation apps, or apps to make your workflow faster - check out Alfred, LaunchBar, Hazel, Better Touch Tool.

If you use SVN - check out Cornerstone.

These are not only Mac exclusive apps - there are no Windows equivalents. You just can't find anything similar. They are so well designed.

And I know looks aren't everything (and these apps don't just look great, they are really well thought out and made) but here's an example I like to give. If you want to see what is eating up your disk space, you use those disk space analyzer apps. The best one (according to Lifehacker) for Windows is WinDirStat and it looks like this

Or second best, called Space Sniffer:

Ok? And here's Mac equivalent - Daisy Disk

See what I mean?

 

[Subu]

Um, there are a lot of threads, not sure if there's one that talks about apps in general. There's too many. Perhaps you can say what kind of work you're interested in.

For example, if you like time-management productivity apps - check out Fantastical 2, 2do, Things, Omnifocus, etc.

If you like note taking: check out Bear and Notability.

Or if you use Twitter - check out Tweetbot.

Or if you like automation apps, or apps to make your workflow faster - check out Alfred, LaunchBar, Hazel, Better Touch Tool.

If you use SVN - check out Cornerstone.

These are not only Mac exclusive apps - there are no Windows equivalents. You just can't find anything similar. They are so well designed.

And I know looks aren't everything (and these apps don't just look great, they are really well thought out and made) but here's an example I like to give. If you want to see what is eating up your disk space, you use those disk space analyzer apps. The best one (according to Lifehacker) for Windows is WinDirStat and it looks like this

Or second best, called Space Sniffer:

Ok? And here's Mac equivalent - Daisy Disk

See what I mean?

What a thought out reply !

Amazing

Pendulum swings to max again