Long time Mac user switch back to Dell

[dwl017]

Well let me first start off by saying I have have had many used older Mac's over the last eight years but could never afford the high end Mac's so I always bought second hand G4 Power Mac's and old style G4 iMac's.

I finally had enough of the slow G4 used line of machines and bought a new Dell on the 4th of July The speed and performance that I have been missing by using the old slow G4 line of Mac's is mind blowing.

I wanted a high end Machine regardless of the OS platform and could never save up enough cash for the high end Mac line of products having a family and all but I finally saved up enough to buy a new Dell, I am not against Mac but just could not afford there high end line of products so thats why I went with Dell.

To all the G4 users out there save those pennies and get out of that old technology and into the real world of high end Apple products or high end Windows products the performance jump will blow your mind

 

[suneohair]

What did you end up getting from Dell? Specs and model would be great. Price too.

 

[PlaceofDis]

so you couldn't justify saving up for a Mac?
/shrug. okay. whatever works for you.

even the macbooks blow away the G4s.

 

[skye12]

You'll be back before you know it.

 

[Willis]

should of looked for a G5... there pretty speedy...

I can understand your situation though... anyway... post specs of your new PC

 

[johnfmaguire]

G4

I have a G4 IMac in work and G4 Powerbook at home as well as many Dell PCs in work some new some up to 4 years old. And my boss wanted a MAc so i got her a MacMini. None of the Dells are a patch on the Macs. The anti virus slows everything up. And the Dell Laptops, dont even get me started they started out OK, now they take so long to start and open applications that people refuse to use them. After 4 years my iMac seems like new and I have updated it to Safari, the 4 year old PCs are now basically bin jobs, and weve given most of them away now. i wouldnt stop anyone buying a Dell but I'd never buy one, not after using a Mac for 20 years.

 

[Killyp]

Fair enough, whatever does it for you.

I'd more rather have functionality over out-and-out performance though, although you could have always looked at a second hand machine...

 

[toughboy]

drive your "ugly but very powerful" Mercedes in the bumpy roads of hell.. I will always go with my "not that much powerful" convertible Audi TT in the coastal road with a summer breeze in my hair..

 

[sailnavy]

Abandoning the platform

Sorry to hear that you've leaving us.

There are lots of older Macs on ebay that might suit you. I got an Intel Mac Mini for my mother not too long ago for under 500$.

Depends on what you need I guess, but just remember to add in the cost of the associated software, unless you're just not paying for it. I've had many a Dell at work, and perhaps it's just the bloatware required by the network, but I have never been impressed with speed and stability with multiple applications open. Something always seems to hang. I hope you got what was best for you though.

 

[StealthRider]

drive your "ugly but very powerful" Mercedes in the bumpy roads of hell.. I will always go with my "not that much powerful" convertible Audi TT in the coastal road with a summer breeze in my hair..

Ugh...you just brought back the bad memories of endless computer-car metaphors that were cycling through MR when I first joined...

...right after that G4 iMac was introduced. God time flies...

 

[flyfish29]

Soooo, you didn't like the speed...but...I guess the others have hit on that.

My only two cents would be you must be doing some "power" type using of the G4's or you don't have enough memory or your system has not been maintained. I have three G4's and two of the three are speedy. The one that is not has way too little memory- my wife is upgrading it this month. We do quite a bit of multitasking including having mail, safari, iTunes, First Class, Address book, iPhoto, iWeb, Stickies, and several others open all at the same time.

good luck with your Windows and Dell Machine- almost all the Dells at my school are so slow I can't even use them. Now, they are the cheap dells but if you say you could'nt afford a new Mac then I would assume (?) that you bought a cheaper dell. The Windows is what is running them slow and we have had so many hardware issues already in the first two years of running the Dells. Luckily I had a Mac I used and didn't have to use them very often.

I am not saying Macs are for everyone, but you need to compare apples to apples (no pun intended- really!) - of course any new Dell will probably out perform an outdated G4 Mac.

 

[portent]

I am the "proud" user of a fairly new, high-performance Dell desktop machine at work. Much more powerful than my lowly, two-year-old G4 laptop: much faster, hyperthreaded CPU, twice the RAM, and a 7200RPM desktop HD.

My work frequently involves installing and testing new applications, which often just end up being uninstalled at the end of the week.

After six months, my old G4 beats the Dell hands down. Windows crawls. It takes five minutes from the time the desktop appears to the time the machine is ready to work.

Enjoy your speed while it lasts. When it's gone, feel free to report on how fast the Windows reinstallation process is.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I am not saying Macs are for everyone, but you need to compare apples to apples (no pun intended- really!) - of course any new Dell will probably out perform an outdated G4 Mac.

Anything will outperform a G4. Specifically because of the slow FSB. My old XP machine (256mb ram) out-performed a G4 with 1/2 a gig of ram, same clock speed, but much faster FSB.

 

[dwl017]

What did you end up getting from Dell? Specs and model would be great. Price too.

I was able to purchase a Dell Precision 390 workstation through my job which came in at $700 and change. I also picked up a Dell 20" wide LCD ultra display from the Dell outlet store for $200 total price $900 The 17" new iMac starts at $1000 before tax so it was a easy call for me to make ( NO I DO NOT WANT A MAC MINI )

I chose this porcessor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz/1066MHz/2MB
L2/Dual-core/VT

Here are the specs:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_390?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

 

[DerekS]

Dude...you got a Dell.

My condolences.

 

[nsbio]

I am a Mac user but I do not think that Windows machines are unusable - this is simply not true, especially when properly supported. At my workplace, we have plenty of PCs and Macs and both platforms work well, with each platform having their own issues, each requiring support. Hardwarewise, the reliability of Dell boxes is on par with Macs, again, each not without glitches. Softwarewise, both platforms work and yet again, each OS has its own problems.

As a Mac user, I am disappointed by networking in MacOS: we have a shared server (used by both Mac and Xp machines) and I can not even make an alias to a particular folder on that server from my iMac, having to reconnect to the server manually every day and then again manually navigate to the folder. The same task, which I must do every single day, takes exacly one mouse click on an XP machine. I also have issues connecting to another server on a local network from my iMac but not from an XP machine. We have very good teams of specialists, one of which supports Macs and another - PCs, and none of them has a clue why I am having problems, although they do acknowledge that there is a problem.

Now, if I were a Windows user I would have physically crushed my PC into small pieces within a week out of frustration. XP boxes simply can not stand multitasking, no matter how many giga bytes or blue teeth are installed there - been there, done that. However, many people are fine with Windows and a Windows machine will not be a disappointment for them.

 

[anti-microsoft]

Man, where did your Mac spirit go! I mean a DELL!! DE-L-L HELL! Dude I'm dissapointed!

 

[AutumnSkyline]

I was able to purchase a Dell Precision 390 workstation through my job which came in at $700 and change. I also picked up a Dell 20" wide LCD ultra display from the Dell outlet store for $200 total price $900 The 17" new iMac starts at $1000 before tax so it was a easy call for me to make ( NO I DO NOT WANT A MAC MINI )

I chose this porcessor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz/1066MHz/2MB
L2/Dual-core/VT

Here are the specs:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_390?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

How much RAM do you put in it?

XP or Vista

How much Hard Drive?
EDIT: Or did you just keep the base model??

If you did, I hope you ordered XP : )

 

[dwl017]

How much RAM do you put in it?

XP or Vista

How much Hard Drive?
EDIT: Or did you just keep the base model??

If you did, I hope you ordered XP : )

XP of course no need for Vista the machine I ordered it with 2GB of ram and it will support up to 4GB

Hard drive: 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ and 8MB DataBurst Cache

Man, where did your Mac spirit go! I mean a DELL!! DE-L-L HELL! Dude I'm dissapointed!

Dude I'm as happy as a pig in Sh-- I never use iLife I dont was .Mac I dont edit video, Dude!! Im happy I dont have three Mac's that I need to sync etc....

 

[flopticalcube]

I was able to purchase a Dell Precision 390 workstation through my job which came in at $700 and change. I also picked up a Dell 20" wide LCD ultra display from the Dell outlet store for $200 total price $900 The 17" new iMac starts at $1000 before tax so it was a easy call for me to make ( NO I DO NOT WANT A MAC MINI )

I chose this porcessor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz/1066MHz/2MB
L2/Dual-core/VT

Here are the specs:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_390?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

That is exactly the space where the Apple desktop line has a hole. Above the mini but below the pro.

 

[dwl017]

so you couldn't justify saving up for a Mac?
/shrug. okay. whatever works for you.

even the macbooks blow away the G4s.

Lowest price Apple product outside of the mini is a 17" iMac all in one unit for $1000 plus tax. Sorry but Apple needs to offer more in the way of mid range two piece desktop units which currently start at $2500! come on lets be real!

That is exactly the space where the Apple desktop line has a hole. Above the mini but below the pro.

So I wonder why Apple does not patch that hole and offer the public a desktop under the pro and under $2500

 

[Machollow]

Stay with Mac

To all the G4 users out there save those pennies and get out of that old technology and into the real world of high end Apple products or high end Windows products the performance jump will blow your mind

Sorry you arrived at this decision. I tried the same experiment while suffering through an older dual G4. Then I saved up my money and bought the Imac. I am using parallels and I have now sold the 2.4GHz Dell. There is no comparison. My new Mac kills the Dell even running windows. A buddy with a new Dell workstation at his job cannot see any difference between my Mac and his PC.

Anyone else out there considering the same upgrades should look into any Intel machine and will see fantastic performance and you get the well thought out machine.

 

[Shotgun OS]

Sorry for your loss. Hope everything works out okay.

 

[nakile]

So I wonder why Apple does not patch that hole and offer the public a desktop under the pro and under $2500

What the heck do you call this?!

I don't think the Dell has all the stuff that the $1199 iMac has anyway. I configured that Dell up to the iMac. Upgraded the CPU, RAM, HDD, disc drive, and monitor. It was $1,362. iMac was $1299 after CPU upgrade. And I hadn't even moved on to the networking, software, and peripherals for the Dell.

 

[killerrobot]

Congrats on buying what you needed. Seems like you got a good deal. I hate Apple's prices on their displays--that's half the cost of any computer you buy with them.

I go between Dells and Macs all day long, and both machines get slowed down especially with all the programs that install startup files. The more "crap" you have on any machine, the slower it will go, period. If you manage it in XP and OSX they will both run a lot smoother the older the machines get.