Long time Mac user switch back to Dell

[maccam]

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....

So, you just look at the internet, view pictures and listen to music? A g4 would have been plenty. So now I ask how much ram did you have in your g4? And how much hard drive space did you have left when everything was on it?
Please reply to this.

 

[DoFoT9]

i feel sorry for you.. ahwell whatever floats your boat.

 

[dwl017]

So, you just look at the internet, view pictures and listen to music? A g4 would have been plenty. So now I ask how much ram did you have in your g4? And how much hard drive space did you have left when everything was on it?
Please reply to this.

My usage is light aside from the fact that I am a heavy Photoshop user. My last G4 which I sold last week was an 1Ghz 17" G4 iMac with 1.2GB of ram running Tiger and it was a dog.

 

[AutumnSkyline]

My usage is light aside from the fact that I am a heavy Photoshop user. My last G4 which I sold last week was an 1Ghz 17" G4 iMac with 1.2GB of ram running Tiger and it was a dog.

All I have to say is, have fun with last years, I mean a five year old operating system : )
you'll be crawling back within a couple months

 

[James L]

Congrats on your new purchase! Don't let the nay sayers get you down. I think some people are a little to attached to this productivity tool we call a computer.

 

[dwl017]

All I have to say is, have fun with last years, I mean a five year old operating system : )
you'll be crawling back within a couple months

I really dont get this if a user is just checking email and doing some light surfing etc.. why do all these OS numbers and Processor speed plus memory even matter ? is everyone in the country really racing home to edit video using Final Cut Pro ? I really don't get this all I said was that the G4 technology seem slow to me and I could not afford a higher end Mac so I went with Dell.

 

[suneohair]

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.

I cal that a non-upgradeable computer, also known as the iMac. His Dell allows him to keep his display and get a new box whenever he wants. I and many others prefer this. Not to mention in many cases this spec for spec thing is bull. For price comparisons to see who is cheaper spec for spec, sure it is fine. But we are talking about someones computing needs. He may not need all the iMac offers over the Dell, which isn't really much overall considering the amount of money saved and the uses of the computer. His computer is very nice.

One note, the 20" Dell (2007WFP I am assuming) is $269 in the outlet. Did you get the cheaper TN panel model?

 

[dwl017]

Congrats on your new purchase! Don't let the nay sayers get you down. I think some people are a little to attached to this productivity tool we call a computer.

Thanks When I turned on the TV last week and saw folks sitting in line a week early for a cell phone I really started to worry about what has happen to people.

 

[AutumnSkyline]

I really dont get this if a user is just checking email and doing some light surfing etc.. why do all these OS numbers and Processor speed plus memory even matter ? is everyone in the country really racing home to edit video using Final Cut Pro ? I really don't get this all I said was that the G4 technology seem slow to me and I could not afford a higher end Mac so I went with Dell.

The point is you don't need a "higher end Mac" to do Photoshop. A used G5 iSight iMac would suffice. I am using an Intel iMac *points to signature* to do photoshop, and it runs it incredible. There isn't any waiting.

Also, like someone posted earlier, the PC will slow down so much after it has been used for six months. My dell laptop did the exact same thing, but my iMac is as fast as ever.

 

[dwl017]

I cal that a non-upgradeable computer, also known as the iMac. His Dell allows him to keep his display and get a new box whenever he wants. I and many others prefer this.

One note, the 20" Dell (2007WFP I am assuming) is $269 in the outlet. Did you get the cheaper TN panel model?

Hi yes I got the TN for $200 at the outlet store You are correct I did not want an all one in PC.

Thanks

 

[suneohair]

I really dont get this if a user is just checking email and doing some light surfing etc.. why do all these OS numbers and Processor speed plus memory even matter ? is everyone in the country really racing home to edit video using Final Cut Pro ? I really don't get this all I said was that the G4 technology seem slow to me and I could not afford a higher end Mac so I went with Dell.

You could have gotten a 17" iMac, but you got a 20" display and a nice computer. I think you did what was best. A 20" iMac isn't cheap, although you can pick one up in the refurb store pretty low. But, your setup is under $1000.

Windows Vista is a joke. XP is still the standard folks. New doesn't always mean better. My uni isn't moving to Vista for quite sometime. And this is on the business end which I support. The student computers are going to be even longer. Having XP does not put you behind, Vista offers nothing new expect for a fancy, ugly, bloated look.

 

[synth3tik]

I hope your not planning on using vista, with your Mac experience it should not be to hard for you to be a wiz at Linux. I have a feeling that after 8 years on a Mac you might be saving up again for that Mac. Hope to see you soon.

 

[killerrobot]

Also, like someone posted earlier, the PC will slow down so much after it has been used for six months. My dell laptop did the exact same thing, but my iMac is as fast as ever.

I said they BOTH slow down over time. If you don't believe me give me 5 minutes on your iMac and we'll see how fast it boots up. There's no such thing as a computer just as fast out of the box 6 months later--unless you just did a fresh reinstallation of the os.

 

[Fahrwahr]

All I have to say is, have fun with last years, I mean a five year old operating system : )
you'll be crawling back within a couple months

That's an interesting point considering that you can get a lot more mileage out of a five-year-old Microsoft operating system than a five-year-old Apple operating system -- Apple's rapid pace of releasing new operating system versions means that developers drop support for their software on older versions much more quickly.

 

[queshy]

well, you would have still felt the huge difference had you had an old PC as well...but I'm glad you're enjoying your new machine. next time you can get a mac

 

[maccam]

I said they BOTH slow down over time. If you don't believe me give me 5 minutes on your iMac and we'll see how fast it boots up. There's no such thing as a computer just as fast out of the box 6 months later--unless you just did a fresh reinstallation of the os.

Dude not true, my iBook g4 is still the same speed! And I only have 1 GB room left. Have fun with your hell... I mean dell.

 

[nplima]

The point is you don't need a "higher end Mac" to do Photoshop. A used G5 iSight iMac would suffice.

I find it kind of hard to rationally recommend buying a G5 in 2007.
.PPC is dead;
.a used computer will hardly have a guarantee like a new one would;
.there's more to hard drive speed than can be measured with RPM;
and I won't even check the specs of the RAM chips used through the generations of iMacs...

if the OP can be happy with a x86 running something other than OS X, great for him/her. being platform agnostic can be a big money-saver.

 

[killerrobot]

Dude not true, my iBook g4 is still the same speed! And I only have 1 GB room left. Have fun with your hell... I mean dell.

So you just reinstalled OSX? Thanks for backing me up

 

[AutumnSkyline]

All I have to say is what did you expect from a Mac Forum, OP, if you are wondering why some are "naysaying". We aren't go out and recommend you get a dell, or anything but an Apple for most cases.

Killer Robot, My iMac boots in roughly a minute, as fast as it did six months ago, believe it or not. I have 0 login items, but I do have my iPod connected, so iTunes has to start up.

I rarely ever restart my iMac anyway, my friend tries just to put his PC to sleep, but he has to reboot it every once a while. But that is after he needs to re-install Windows every month because he downloads viruses, I swear he finds enjoyment out of it...

EDIT: roughly a half hour ago, I sat in front of a two year old PC Laptop booting up, 512 MB RAM...for ten minutes with a month old install.

 

[portent]

I said they BOTH slow down over time. If you don't believe me give me 5 minutes on your iMac and we'll see how fast it boots up. There's no such thing as a computer just as fast out of the box 6 months later--unless you just did a fresh reinstallation of the os.

All I know is, my 2-year-old G4 with a 2-year-old Tiger install is noticeably more responsive than a 6-month old PC with a 6-month-old XP install and vastly superior hardware. Maybe the Mac isn't as fast as it was out of the box, but the slowdown is nothing like what happened to the PC.

 

[dwl017]

Thanks for the all the replies I am the original starter of this thread and would like to say good luck to everyone have a safe and happy summer.

 

[nakile]

I cal that a non-upgradeable computer, also known as the iMac. His Dell allows him to keep his display and get a new box whenever he wants. I and many others prefer this. Not to mention in many cases this spec for spec thing is bull. For price comparisons to see who is cheaper spec for spec, sure it is fine. But we are talking about someones computing needs. He may not need all the iMac offers over the Dell, which isn't really much overall considering the amount of money saved and the uses of the computer. His computer is very nice.

One note, the 20" Dell (2007WFP I am assuming) is $269 in the outlet. Did you get the cheaper TN panel model?

True.

However, just because an iMac is not officially upgradeable doesn't mean that it's not upgradeable at all. You could crack it open and get to much more components. A lot of them are hooked right to the logic board, but a optical disc drive swap and other things could be preformed. Besides, once it come time to upgrade a PC, standards could have changed. Finding hardware that would work with your older computer might be difficult.

As for a display, this is a plus of a tower PC. But if you wanted a larger display with an iMac, it's not like you could hook up a larger display to it. Apple is behind on display size, but if this iMac update rumor is true (dropping the 17" model), this will be less of a problem.

But for specification thing was not the right thing to do. His computer suits what he does well. But on the other hand, the G4 he has would have suited him well minus the Photoshop part.

This could be a legitimate thread. But half of me wants to say that this is just flame bait. Why would he post such a thing on a Mac Forum?

 

[killerrobot]

All I know is, my 2-year-old G4 with a 2-year-old Tiger install is noticeably more responsive than a 6-month old PC with a 6-month-old XP install and vastly superior hardware. Maybe the Mac isn't as fast as it was out of the box, but the slowdown is nothing like what happened to the PC.

Yeah, the OSs play a huge part. But machine is a machine and if you tell it to do 50,000 extra things on startup, then it'll take longer to do than 10 -- and all that mainly happens from 3rd party virus software. (Antivirus programs slow stuff down just as fast as the virus programs-and that's the major slow down factor/kink in windows.)

@OP I think your story proves that there is a gap in Apple's line that they need to look at or knock a few hundred bucks of their prices while keeping the same quality.

 

[BenHoleton]

If you noticed, he said he bought the computer through his work. Assuming he didn't get anything more than a cd-rom drive and no Firewire, he would have spent $1500 on his Dell. Similar to a 20" iMac, or a G5 Power Mac I just got off eBay with 360 gb hd, 2 gb ram, and a 23 ACD

 

[Sean Dempsey]

It is an interested pricing gap, though.

Just recently, my friends Acer laptop went dead. I tried and tried and tried to convince he and his wife to buy the 1000 dollar macbook. 1000 was too much to spend!! (I don't agree, but they wouldn't be budged).

Being "frugal (stingy)" people, they went to Best Buy, saw the 750 dollar HP "multimedia" laptop, and were sold.

Of course, a Mac Mini wasn't an option (they had long ago become a 1 laptop famliy, no monitors or periphs to be found), and even the cheapest macbook, plus tax and shipping, was too much.

I mean, BMW doesn't make a economy car. But for people who just need something to get by, there's no apple option.

(Don't look at me, I've just spent over 4000 on my Mac Pro)