Need advice - HP Pavilion vs. iMac

[pappy53]

Okay, I have recently purchased a HP Pavilion desktop with Intel i7, 12 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive, etc. I have about $1200 invested. I have an opportunity to return the HP and get a 2-month old 21.5" iMac 2011 model with Intel i5, 8GB Ram, 500GB hard drive, Office 2011, Illustrator, Indesign, and Final Cut Pro Adobe CS5.5 Master Collection. I have never owned a Mac, but I think that I would like to try one. I have recently gotten a 4S and an iPad2, and so far I like the Apple products. Any thoughts on which is a better deal, and thoughts on Mac vs PC?

 

[XofDyer]

This is a mac site - full of overly enthusiastic mac users. If anyone criticises mac products here, they are called a troll. Do not expect impartial advice here.

My two cents: Mac's are a lot of fun. Especially if you like working with photos, video editing, making music. At a very basic level - they are just better thought out, and this is reflected (magnified even) at the user level. It takes a lot of stress out of using a computer, and makes it fun. On a PC, you may spend hours trying to workout how to get something to work. On a mac, it works first time (mostly) or not at all.

BUT - do not buy a current imac. They are way overdue for an upgrade. If you can wait, do so and you may end up with something quite spectacular by October (most bets). If not, then the value currently lies with a PC (particularly if you are already familiar with the programs you already use) - Windows 8 looks quite good.

 

[flatfoot]

I'm not an expert on that, but I think that Adobe software tends to run better under Windows than under OS X.

 

[JustMartin]

It's difficult to say without some idea of what you want the machine for. Given all that software bundled in with the Mac, it looks like a good deal, but of course, only if you need that software. From the point of view of Windows versus Mac, we made the move in our house for a number of reasons, but one was because as the family technical support/Chief Information Officer, I wanted an easier life. There's an awful lot of 'just works' in the Mac world.

 

[iMcLovin]

no OSX, forget it. I'd rather buy the current iMac then.

 

[turtlez]

my girlfriend has an HP laptop and it drives us both nuts with all the extra bloatware software from HP that goes onto it. Some of it causes 100% cpu usage for no apparent reason for a long time and occurs very often. Always going into task manager and killing processes that shock the system, only to have them return about 45 minutes later. Ridiculous. Just that reason alone is enough for spend a few extra on the iMac and have a flawless system.

My brother's girlfriend also has the HP laptop haha. This is her second one in 2 years because the first one just decided to die. My brother claims her new one is getting slower by the day and is under the speed of my mum's 2006 iMac with 1GB of ram.... Pathetic

Oh and Aluminium + Glass > Plastic. Especially for heat dispersion

----------

This is a mac site - full of overly enthusiastic mac users. If anyone criticises mac products here, they are called a troll. Do not expect impartial advice here.

My two cents: Mac's are a lot of fun. Especially if you like working with photos, video editing, making music. At a very basic level - they are just better thought out, and this is reflected (magnified even) at the user level. It takes a lot of stress out of using a computer, and makes it fun. On a PC, you may spend hours trying to workout how to get something to work. On a mac, it works first time (mostly) or not at all.

BUT - do not buy a current imac. They are way overdue for an upgrade. If you can wait, do so and you may end up with something quite spectacular by October (most bets). If not, then the value currently lies with a PC (particularly if you are already familiar with the programs you already use) - Windows 8 looks quite good.

You will find a bunch of Apple haters on this site that are only here to troll around too

 

[robgendreau]

I'm not sure about the price of the Mac and software, but what you list is worth more than $1200 for just the software. If the implication is that the Mac + software is $1200, I'd go for it...even with somewhat older hardware.

 

[bchreng]

That software bundle sounds pretty shady. As robgendreau mentioned, the price of the software alone could run you about 1200. Before committing to anything, you should ask the seller to show some proof of purchase and ownership of the programs.