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Skeptical to buy Mac, have questions!

T

tawcat

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 3, 2011
209
1
I posted here before and most questions were answered, but I have a few questions that I would like specific answers to.

I am and have been a PC user for more years than I can count. So making a move to Mac is quite scary.

Presently we have ATT U-Verse for internet. I use the provided modem/router that ATT installed. First Question: Will I need to replace this modem/router or will Mac operate on it? Presently I am wired to the modem via ethernet, so I am a bit lost on the "wireless" setup. Will I need a wireless router? If so, which is reccommended?

Second Question: My wife has a Dell laptop that connects to the wireless network I have installed. Will this affetc her ability to connect?

Third Question: Will I need a new printer and scanner? Both are HP and both for use with Windows. Will this affect my wife's laptop printing?

I apologize for the probably mundane silly questions. I can hook PC's up in my sleep, but switching to Mac scares the heck outta me!!!!

Thanks so much. Oh, I am considering purchasing the new iMac i5 with 4gb memory and a 500gb hard-drive.
 
1. If the router is wireless you will have no trouble connecting to it, and it will be easier than a windows pc, if it is wired you can just plug it into the ethernet port.
2. It shouldn't in any way affect the other laptop any more than having a different windows pc on it would.
3. No, macs are great with drivers for hardware, you can plug in the printer and it will find the drivers automatically, no install. Or if you have a wireless printer it will find it automatically.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
tawcat said:
I posted here before and most questions were answered, but I have a few questions that I would like specific answers to.

I am and have been a PC user for more years than I can count. So making a move to Mac is quite scary.

Presently we have ATT U-Verse for internet. I use the provided modem/router that ATT installed. First Question: Will I need to replace this modem/router or will Mac operate on it? Presently I am wired to the modem via ethernet, so I am a bit lost on the "wireless" setup. Will I need a wireless router? If so, which is reccommended?

Second Question: My wife has a Dell laptop that connects to the wireless network I have installed. Will this affetc her ability to connect?

Third Question: Will I need a new printer and scanner? Both are HP and both for use with Windows. Will this affect my wife's laptop printing?

I apologize for the probably mundane silly questions. I can hook PC's up in my sleep, but switching to Mac scares the heck outta me!!!!

Thanks so much. Oh, I am considering purchasing the new iMac i5 with 4gb memory and a 500gb hard-drive.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, nothing to be scared of! :D

If your Windows PC is currently connected to the modem via ethernet, then you will also be able to connect your iMac up via ethernet if you choose. You also mention that your wife's computer connects wirelessly, so you could connect your iMac wirelessly instead as well. The introduction of the iMac will not affect your wife's wireless connection, unless your wife is connecting to the internet connection through your PC via internet sharing and not a wireless router connection.

Your HP printers will work just fine with your iMac. No need to replace them. Are they wireless? Or are they shared via your PC? Either way, it will be simple to do the same via the iMac.

I hope you take the plunge! Think you will love the iMac! :D
 
tawcat said:
I posted here before and most questions were answered, but I have a few questions that I would like specific answers to.

I am and have been a PC user for more years than I can count. So making a move to Mac is quite scary.

Presently we have ATT U-Verse for internet. I use the provided modem/router that ATT installed. First Question: Will I need to replace this modem/router or will Mac operate on it? Presently I am wired to the modem via ethernet, so I am a bit lost on the "wireless" setup. Will I need a wireless router? If so, which is reccommended?

Second Question: My wife has a Dell laptop that connects to the wireless network I have installed. Will this affetc her ability to connect?

Third Question: Will I need a new printer and scanner? Both are HP and both for use with Windows. Will this affect my wife's laptop printing?

I apologize for the probably mundane silly questions. I can hook PC's up in my sleep, but switching to Mac scares the heck outta me!!!!

Thanks so much. Oh, I am considering purchasing the new iMac i5 with 4gb memory and a 500gb hard-drive.
Click to expand...

You are good on all your concerns. the Uverse home portal will work fine as well as the printers and your wife's computer. even though you might want to upgrade the ATT router.. I have it and it is very bad.. now i have an airport extreme doing the work..
 
i was a pc user until end 2008. been using mac since i don't really miss pc.
everything annoying i used to get with my pc, i don't get it with the mac.

you don't need to change anything on your wireless setup.
the imac will connect to any wireless modem. in my flat we have pcs xbox iphone blackberry and mac connected to with.

2nd: your wife laptop will be able to connect to the wireless as before.

3rd: i use the same printer i use to used with my pc. i heard that macs have all the driver installed for pretty much any printer.

if you go for the imac you gonna love it. i own a macbook pro and everytime i see my friend's imac, i just wanna buy too. when you see the gorgeous screen, the nice preinstalled software, the easy of use, problem free etc you will be hooked.
go for the magic trackpad if you can.
 
All of your connections and things are ways to get the internet to your computer and do not require connections (i.e., wireless and especially ethernet). I have just helped 6 coworkers and another 2 adults (all lifetime PC users) make the switch to Mac. It takes about a month before you can start to get comfortable with things. The first weeks are tough and you will probably want to throw the machine on the floor, but in the end most users recognize the inherent beauty!

aramosc said:
I have it and it is very bad.. now i have an airport extreme doing the work..
Click to expand...
I have found that my Airport Extreme is the best connection ever, meaning that none of my Apple gear ever has an issue or loses its connection. When I was dealing with other people's Linksys crap this was not the case...
 
Dresevski said:
I have found that my Airport Extreme is the best connection ever, meaning that none of my Apple gear ever has an issue or loses its connection. When I was dealing with other people's Linksys crap this was not the case...
Click to expand...

Yea I've had the Extreme for a while with time warner and then I switched to Uverse and it was tricky setting it up but now it just works never fails and I have well over 15 wifi devices
 
**SIGH***

All that sounds great. I absolutely my iPad and have no reason to believe I won't love the iMac. I will have to figure out file transfer and all that, but not gonna get wrapped around an axle on that. Easy enough to copy stuff to dvd/cd/sd card and transfer it that way. I'm sure none of my software will work on Mac.

Any suggestions on absolutely needed software? I am just an everyday user, no gaming, video transfer etc. I use it mainly to surf, blog, forums, some online game playing (Pogo.com); I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.

Thanks again. And y'all feel the iMac i5 with 4gb ram and 500 gb HD is sufficient?
 
tawcat said:
**SIGH***

All that sounds great. I absolutely my iPad and have no reason to believe I won't love the iMac. I will have to figure out file transfer and all that, but not gonna get wrapped around an axle on that. Easy enough to copy stuff to dvd/cd/sd card and transfer it that way. I'm sure none of my software will work on Mac.

Any suggestions on absolutely needed software? I am just an everyday user, no gaming, video transfer etc. I use it mainly to surf, blog, forums, some online game playing (Pogo.com); I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.

Thanks again. And y'all feel the iMac i5 with 4gb ram and 500 gb HD is sufficient?
Click to expand...
base model is plenty enough for you and is quite powerfull. i have 320gb and never get filled to the max. Get a external hard drive if you need more space.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

tawcat said:
**SIGH***

All that sounds great. I absolutely my iPad and have no reason to believe I won't love the iMac. I will have to figure out file transfer and all that, but not gonna get wrapped around an axle on that. Easy enough to copy stuff to dvd/cd/sd card and transfer it that way. I'm sure none of my software will work on Mac.

Any suggestions on absolutely needed software? I am just an everyday user, no gaming, video transfer etc. I use it mainly to surf, blog, forums, some online game playing (Pogo.com); I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.

Thanks again. And y'all feel the iMac i5 with 4gb ram and 500 gb HD is sufficient?
Click to expand...

From what you say you do, you wouldn't need any extra software. It comes with really useful software. You can also install Windows and use your old software that way.
 
tawcat said:
**SIGH***

All that sounds great. I absolutely my iPad and have no reason to believe I won't love the iMac. I will have to figure out file transfer and all that, but not gonna get wrapped around an axle on that. Easy enough to copy stuff to dvd/cd/sd card and transfer it that way. I'm sure none of my software will work on Mac.

Any suggestions on absolutely needed software? I am just an everyday user, no gaming, video transfer etc. I use it mainly to surf, blog, forums, some online game playing (Pogo.com); I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.

Thanks again. And y'all feel the iMac i5 with 4gb ram and 500 gb HD is sufficient?
Click to expand...

They can do all the transfer for you in the apple store for free. the i5 with 4 gb and 500 gb should be plenty you can always upgrade the ram down theline..
 
tawcat said:
**SIGH***

All that sounds great. I absolutely my iPad and have no reason to believe I won't love the iMac. I will have to figure out file transfer and all that, but not gonna get wrapped around an axle on that. Easy enough to copy stuff to dvd/cd/sd card and transfer it that way. I'm sure none of my software will work on Mac.

Any suggestions on absolutely needed software? I am just an everyday user, no gaming, video transfer etc. I use it mainly to surf, blog, forums, some online game playing (Pogo.com); I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.

Thanks again. And y'all feel the iMac i5 with 4gb ram and 500 gb HD is sufficient?
Click to expand...

Transfer can be made easy with the items you listed if it is mostly documents and photos. It's never a bad idea to have a small external drive. You can get a USB one for ~80$ US with a few hundred GB of storage.

You can not install Windows software to Mac OSX unless it specifically says it is also compatible (both version on a disk or seperate disk). From what it sounds like what you will want to do on the machine, OSX is preloaded with something to do it all.
Surf: Safari (feel free to install Firefox, Chrome, or any number of other browsers). This also will take care of your web based activities. Anything you did in IE you can do here.

iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb also come pre-installed on new Macs and will let you be create.

Productivity, if you use Google Mail, you have access to Google docs, or there are some free office suits like NeoOffice and OpenOffice that work with Microsoft Office files.
 
tawcat said:
Third Question: Will I need a new printer and scanner? Both are HP and both for use with Windows. Will this affect my wife's laptop printing?
Click to expand...

That is what surprised me most about my first mac, a Mini. Got it for my wife. Plugged in her Epson USB printer and it immediately found a driver for it, then it notified me that it found the Color Laser on my network and asked if I wanted it installed as well.

I spent probably a couple hours of my life trying to keep the Color Laser connected to my wife's old Window's machine and here the Mac immediately found it and set it up. So far it has never lost its connection with it.
 
tawcat said:
**SIGH***

All that sounds great. I absolutely my iPad and have no reason to believe I won't love the iMac. I will have to figure out file transfer and all that, but not gonna get wrapped around an axle on that. Easy enough to copy stuff to dvd/cd/sd card and transfer it that way. I'm sure none of my software will work on Mac.

Any suggestions on absolutely needed software? I am just an everyday user, no gaming, video transfer etc. I use it mainly to surf, blog, forums, some online game playing (Pogo.com); I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.

Thanks again. And y'all feel the iMac i5 with 4gb ram and 500 gb HD is sufficient?
Click to expand...

If you are buying one of the following: (with no upgrades a base model)


21.5-inch: 2.5GHz
2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
1920 x 1080 resolution
4GB (two 2GB) memory
500GB hard drive1
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB
Ships: Within 24hrs
Free Shipping
$1,199.00

21.5-inch: 2.7GHz
2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
1920 x 1080 resolution
4GB (two 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive1
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB
Ships: Within 24hrs
Free Shipping
$1,499.00

27-inch: 2.7GHz
2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
2560 x 1440 resolution
4GB (two 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive1
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB
Ships: Within 24hrs
Free Shipping
$1,699.00

27-inch: 3.1GHz
3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
2560 x 1440 resolution
4GB (two 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive1
AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB
Ships: Within 24hrs
Free Shipping
$1,999.00


you can purchase it from an Apple Store and bring your PC and they will transfer your files for you in the store. But if you do any upgrades then it is shipped to you. You could still bring in both computers then but a lot to lug. However they still will do the data transfer.
 
Once again kudos to the MacRumors Forum members!

I think all my questions have been answered. I would order the 21.5" with more Ram and the 1TB HD, but being that I am ordering through the military exchange system, I am limited to the base 21.5" model. Advantage of using the military exchange, free shipping and no tax!!!!! Whereas the Apple Store offers free shipping it does attach a nice 7.5% tax for the State of Arkansas.

I may purchase a newer printer, I currently have the HP 5440 and I'm thinking about maybe getting a wireless.
 
tawcat said:
I would order the 21.5" with more Ram

Whereas the Apple Store offers free shipping it does attach a nice 7.5% tax for the State of Arkansas.

I may purchase a newer printer, I currently have the HP 5440 and I'm thinking about maybe getting a wireless.
Click to expand...

Don't upgrade the ram from Apple. Get your machine and order from OWC or Newegg. Same ram, much cheaper.

Apple is offering $100 a printer if you buy at a store or online. Weigh that against the 7.5% tax. Of course you are limited to the printer's they offer.
 
Herdfan said:
Don't upgrade the ram from Apple. Get your machine and order from OWC or Newegg. Same ram, much cheaper.

Apple is offering $100 a printer if you buy at a store or online. Weigh that against the 7.5% tax. Of course you are limited to the printer's they offer.
Click to expand...

What he said. There are many threads on which RAM to buy and also lots of videos on YouTube on how to do it yourself, very very simple if you know how to operate a screw driver :)

Wireless Printers are great for a home with multiple computers.
 
tawcat said:
; I also use it to create an occasional photoshow or picture book, greeting cards etc.
Click to expand...

iPhoto that comes free with your Mac will do printed products such as cards, books, calendars etc. I have used it lots of times and, whilst a little bit pricey, the quality is great. The ease of use is a big bonus too. :D
 
Honestly, using a Windows PC is a lot more scary than using a Mac.

1. If it is the regular wireless modem/router gateway provided by at&t for U-verse, the Mac should be able to connect just fine. The Mac comes with "Airport" wireless capability just like any other PC. If you need a wired connection, just connect the Ethernet cable from the router to the Mac.

2. It will not affect anyone's ability to connect. Everyone's connection to the router is separate, and the Mac is just like any other computer.

3. Just plug in your printer and it should work. If it doesn't just download the software from the HP site.

Go ahead and buy a Mac. Your experience will only be better.
 
Same shoes

I was in the same shoes as the OP and just recently received my 2011 base model 21.5" iMac. What a great machine this is. I also agree about buying ram from OWC or some other 3rd party instead of Apple. I installed another 4GB in less than 5 mins. Before, I would use my Windows PC because I had to do something, now I use my new iMac because I want to do something. This thing really screams. I've already made some really nice photo slideshows and burned them onto dvd's for people at church. This thing is great. Transferring all my photos/music/movies was a breeze as well. I bought a 1TB external HD to do that and now use it for time machine backups. We have Uverse as well and it works flawlessly with it. Don't be scared, you'll be glad you switched!
 
I was a PC user for over 20 years before a buddy of mine let me borrow an old PowerPC G4 running at 467MHz. I couldn't believe how smoothly it ran, even a vintage Mac model that was much "slower" than the 1.25GHz PC I was using at the time. That was five years ago and I've never looked back. Go for it...you will not regret it.
 
Just to jump in and reassure the OP -

I was a PC user until I got an iPad. I resisted for years, thinking it couldn't do what a 'real' computer could do. Boy, was I wrong. The iPad has replaced a laptop, calendar, much of my smartphone and can carry thousands and thousands of pages worth of pdf files for work. Now I can have any document from my office with me in an instantly scannable format on a device that has amazing battery life and... just works.

That was my first apple computer device. Because of just how well it works, I have now replaced my perfectly fine PC with an iMac. Love it.

Here was the transition for me:

* go to apple store and purchase. Walk through setup with sales person.
* Take computer to office, plug the single plug into the wall, enter wireless router login info and I'm up and running.
* add cable for printer (not wireless, but any replacement printer sure will be!) and it worked. No hunting for drivers to download or install, no need to install CD that came with the printer to configure it. It just worked.
* I did all my data transfer myself with a 16G thumb drive. No problem.

All in all, my switch to a mac took all of 20 minutes after I unboxed it.

Haven't looked back once.

To answer your original questions - my assistant's PC (wireless) was not affected, nor was my phone's wifi or any of the other original issues you were concerned about.

Enjoy your new computer.
 
+1 I was also a PC user before I bought an iPad. Unfortunately windows has trained us to be skeptical of things -just working- but setting up a new iMac really is that simple. I plugged in my printer and modem, turned it on and about two minutes after the fancy intro movie I was on the net and able to print. It walks you through it too, I think I only had to enter my password.

I have spent days of my life getting things to work on windows :(

PS. Just wait until you install a program, you'll be wondering how on earth you managed doing things the windows way. It is literally as easy as dragging a single file from one folder to another.

PPS. Invest in iWork, it is amazing! (There is a learning curve but the help menu is excellent)
 
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