Well, as many of you here know I am a die hard Mac user. I have been using Mac's since the days of Oregon Trail. That being said, I have been using PC's since the 80's. However over the last few years I have been Mac only. I am an MCP, and was a network admin for several years, and most recently sold Mac's for a living.
Recently, a friend was moving to Utah, and needed to sell his Dell PIV 1.5GHZ Dimension 8100. So, to help out him, and to have a system at home that I can get games for my daughter from Wal Mart, I bought the system.
After two months, here are my observations.
1st. Windows is still Windows. It is a pain in the ass. For example. Bought a new ATI 8500 All In Wonder DV the other day, and although the card worked, the USB Remote would not. No matter what. It would not see it for the driver to install. SO, exchanged for an Nvidia 5200 Ultra 128MB, and that install took all day, and required a clean install of the OS. But, now it is fine. The machine is fast, real fast. Much more so than my 17" iMac. It is cheap, everything is easy to find for the system except the expensive RDRAM.
2nd. Mac OS X is the greatest OS on the planet. It does what is meant to do, let you work. Hardware is pricey, but my God, it is beautiful, and worth it. Software is a pain to find, and drivers, well, we all know how that goes. 3 years for scanner support in X was sick. I love the Mac. The G5 will be the saving grace. But for consumers.....
3rd. Consumers would have more fun on a Mac, and less headache, but they would have to learn the OS, and they would have to get used to being treated like a second class customer. The computer industry doesn't respect the Mac customer. Nor does the average consumer know that Mac's still exist, or how they work. I have actually had people say that he did not wan't a Mac because you could not get on the internet with a Mac. (Sidenote: Do we really want people like that using our beloved Macintosh?)
So, I have decided to sell my iMac, because we need the money. Not because we want to, but beause we had to. I will be getting a G5 before to long, but I would love to see it move to the consumer systems. They need a serious power boost. When you consider that a 2 year old Dell will scorch a brand new iMac.
Recently, a friend was moving to Utah, and needed to sell his Dell PIV 1.5GHZ Dimension 8100. So, to help out him, and to have a system at home that I can get games for my daughter from Wal Mart, I bought the system.
After two months, here are my observations.
1st. Windows is still Windows. It is a pain in the ass. For example. Bought a new ATI 8500 All In Wonder DV the other day, and although the card worked, the USB Remote would not. No matter what. It would not see it for the driver to install. SO, exchanged for an Nvidia 5200 Ultra 128MB, and that install took all day, and required a clean install of the OS. But, now it is fine. The machine is fast, real fast. Much more so than my 17" iMac. It is cheap, everything is easy to find for the system except the expensive RDRAM.
2nd. Mac OS X is the greatest OS on the planet. It does what is meant to do, let you work. Hardware is pricey, but my God, it is beautiful, and worth it. Software is a pain to find, and drivers, well, we all know how that goes. 3 years for scanner support in X was sick. I love the Mac. The G5 will be the saving grace. But for consumers.....
3rd. Consumers would have more fun on a Mac, and less headache, but they would have to learn the OS, and they would have to get used to being treated like a second class customer. The computer industry doesn't respect the Mac customer. Nor does the average consumer know that Mac's still exist, or how they work. I have actually had people say that he did not wan't a Mac because you could not get on the internet with a Mac. (Sidenote: Do we really want people like that using our beloved Macintosh?)
So, I have decided to sell my iMac, because we need the money. Not because we want to, but beause we had to. I will be getting a G5 before to long, but I would love to see it move to the consumer systems. They need a serious power boost. When you consider that a 2 year old Dell will scorch a brand new iMac.