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switch failed

V

vniow

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jul 18, 2002
10,266
1
I accidentally my whole location.
My parents were in the market for a new computer for awhile and they just got enough money to buy a new one recently so we went shopping Saturday at Fry's.

We wanted a decent machine, not a great one and we didn't want to pay too much over $1500 for just the computer.
Requirements were some decent photo management/editing software and video software.
The HPs and Compaqs were out of the picture since their software was either non-existent or it sucked horribly so the only other option was this Sony VAIO.
Specs are something like: 2.4 Ghz PIV, 512MB DDR RAM, 80GB, DVD+/-RW, TV tuner and video input ports, XP Home, other specs I can't remember and some really horrible software, all for $1400 or so with a $100 mail-in rebate.

Compared to a Superdrive eMac which was $1299 without any rebates whatsoever (although more RAM would've cost about $50 or so.

My dad never even looked at the eMac, he spent all his time in the PC aisles looking at what they had to offer, he didn't even come to the Mac aisle until I wanted to show him this presentation I made (in less than an minute!) on a Powermac.
That's nice, he said and went back to the PC aisles.
We tried to figure out how to figure out the multimedia software with some of the PCs (Sony especially) and we could get nowhere.
The menus were extremely cluttered (not to mention hideous) and completely non-intiutive, there were either too many options or too few and it wasn't managed well at all, everything was all over the place.

So guess what we bought.

Funny thing is when we took it home to my mom, he told her that the software wasn't as good as what's on a Mac, and it was more expensive (also bought Adobe Photoshop Album {PC iPhoto}) so that negeted half of that $100 rebate.

His reasoning for buying a more expensive machine with inferior software?

Not 'it's faster'
Not 'the hardware's better'
Not 'there's more software for the PC'

Because it runs Windows.

<sigh>
Some people are just hopeless.
 
I feel for you. It took my 6 months to convince my parents to get a Mac instead of a PC to replace their 5yr old NEC w/16megs of RAM running Win95. My dad was worried 'bout price but I sold him (and my mom) on the iApps (among other things). They also love the iMacs tilt screen because it helps w/their bi-focals (never thought of this before) but they tilt the screen so it's at "bi focal level" (lower than eye level) so they don't ahve to tilt their heads back to read the screen thru their bi-focals anymore.

The trip to the Apple store is what really sold them. They were really excited about getting the iMac and are starting to burn their own CDs and, in the future, DVDs. :)


Lethal
 
i've been having the same problem with my dad. he is just affraid that what the crowd has is actually worse i think...strange. i remember when i had a pc i'd be calling him up all the time with problems all the time. and now that i have a mac he asks me "hows is it holding up?" and i tell him its been perfect and i always tell him all the wonderful things about it and i think he is starting...slowly...to come around. he even mentioned looking into buying a powerbook at some time...i was amazed...just cause he is so stubborn about that sort of thing.
 
my in-laws got a new computer recently from a friend of theirs for doing legal work for him (he's a retired lawyer)... i mentioned quite a few times that they should get a mac, as it's so much less of a hassle...

they got a gateway, because they were convinced that he wouldn't be able to email files back and forth with PC users.

the bad thing is, she once deleted a system component because of an urban-myth virus, which she had to use goback to fix (losing a couple of days data)... and when their cable modem was giving them trouble, the tech support at gateway 'accidently' led her through the steps of reformatting her HD. *all* data lost. she just brushed it off as something that happens every day... i was appaled at the work and confusion that i certainly don't have to deal with.

i think the switch campaign is really target at younger people, who are often more knowledgeable about the differences (and similarities)... people who have learned to use windows as adults just don't seem to get it...

altho my sister-in-law, who's 22, is a PC nut-- she just shelled out $1500 for a DV camcorder, and i was looking at the software to use it-- i just wanted to be able to show her iMovie and iDVD...

as the post below states, PCs just suck for video work...

pnw
 
If he wants to edit video he is going 2 have one hell of a hard time editing on his pc. I've edited on both a PC and a Mac and I can do a whole video on the Mac in a few hours, while it takes me a few days to do it on the PC. Needless to say the PC does not edit video at all anymore.
If they need credentials to back up my knowledge:
I am PC A+ computer repair certified
I have 3 PC's and two Macs all networked on a wired/wireless network and sharing printers and files
 
I have a client that is 70/30 Mac to PC. And even though there are more Macs than PC's they still will not switch over the remaining PC's. More often than not they entertain the idea of switching the Macs over. (Even though at my sugestion they analyze my bills and see how much more they are spending on fixing the PC's verses Macs. (Like 90% of my bills are for the PC's)

Of course if they switched to 100% Mac I would barley hear from them anymore. There was a period of 6 months that I didn't hear from them when they were all Mac. They just didn't have a problem worth calling for in that period. :)
 
Not to take this thread OT but you can cut on a PC just as well as you can cut on a Mac. The biggest difference being that their are more potential pitfalls that need to be avoided on the PC side of things than their are on the Mac side of things. At a consumer level Macs have a a nice leg up w/iMovie and iDVD, but the higher up the editing food chain you go the the fuzzier the differences become.


Lethal
 
Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Not to take this thread OT but you can cut on a PC just as well as you can cut on a Mac. The biggest difference being that their are more potential pitfalls that need to be avoided on the PC side of things than their are on the Mac side of things. At a consumer level Macs have a a nice leg up w/iMovie and iDVD, but the higher up the editing food chain you go the the fuzzier the differences become.


Lethal
Click to expand...

Ugh... Final Cut Pro anyone? Last I heard that was Mac only... right? Okay so you have Avid but that's way too similar to Final Cut... but look who got the awards, eh?



irmongoose
 
I have two quick stories that WILL have happy endings, just not yet.
My mother-in-law wanted a computer. She didn't want to bother me (being a tech director and all!) so she ordered one on her own... a Gateway P3 with "the works". The beast was $2,500.00. She got it up and running, but a week later was sent a virus by a family member. This virus cold-cocked her Gaeway, so I re-formatted it for her. Took about 2 hours, and everything was lost. Two weeks later it happened AGAIN, even after installing anti-virus software. Again, all of her work (family tree stuff) was lost. I reformatted and installed again. She turned it off and hasn't touched it in a year, says she's afraid to break it again!
My father-in-law believed me when he wanted a computer and I suggested a Mac. But I live 700 miles away, and my brother-in-law is close by. He's in his 70's and had a HELL of a time. After 4 months all he could do was write a letter, print, and occasionally get on the net. His crashed one day. So my brother-in-law drove the 100 miles to fix it... took 2 days. Couldn't find the right drivers for the video and CD-RW... both were incorrect on the restore CD! A month later, when I was visiting, it crashed again. A virus. Dead. Couldn't get on the net to get the virus definitions. I had my TiBook, went on, got all the stuff and drivers, burned a disk, and got him running. I also blew him away with my TiBook. He was AMAZED how powerful it was and how easy it looked. Some months later his PC wouldn't scan or print. I was back home of course, so up comes my brother-in-law to fix it.
Know what? Both are getting Macs... but not just yet! Aye CARUMBA!
 
its weird to see vniow positng more than one line, frnakly for me it would had made more senwse if she had made twenty different posts with her story. ..... j/j
 
Originally posted by irmongoose
Ugh... Final Cut Pro anyone? Last I heard that was Mac only... right? Okay so you have Avid but that's way too similar to Final Cut... but look who got the awards, eh?



irmongoose
Click to expand...


Ugh...FCP is a great program but it's not the end all be all of NLE software. Give it Avid's media manager and Vegas Video 4's software RT and fantastic audio editing ability (w/o changing the price point) and I'll have a few less things on my FCP wishlist.

"... you have Avid..." Who has Avid? All their post NLE's come in Mac and PC versions w/the exception of their 2 DS pacakges. Avid similar to FCP? Don't you have that backwards?

If you think one platform is hands down better than the other you are either a fanboy or misinformed.


Lethal
 
Re: switch failed

Originally posted by vniow
<sigh>
Some people are just hopeless.
Click to expand...

i feel your pain.
i thought i was on a roll. i nabbed two switchers in one month: two 1ghz 15" tibooks w/SD (damn i should be a salesman). i had a third lined up who had all the right signs: windows machine just died, wanted a cheap laptop, liked OSX, so i figure 12"ibook. NP, right? WRONG. he saw one of those $600 compaq boxes and bought it on the spot. he didn't even get a laptop! Some people just don't treat a computer purchase as an important one. It's like he went to the dealership looking for a sporty two door coup and bought an electrified razor scooter. ah well. as meatloaf said, two out of three aint bad.
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel


i think the switch campaign is really target at younger people, who are often more knowledgeable about the differences (and similarities)... people who have learned to use windows as adults just don't seem to get it...
pnw
Click to expand...

Exactly. Many people (potential Mac buyers) out there are still afraid of compatibility issues. It's no good telling everyone how good OS X is (which it really is!) if the listener doesn't know that you can email, use Office docs, browse the internet and so on, just like if you were using windoze.
This evening I'm selling my good old G4 400 Mhz to a friend of mine, who is pretty interested in computers. But... he thouht that Macs are all living in a world of their own. Now that I could convince him that its trully compatible, he wanted it right away! We should spread the word :cool:
 
Re: switch failed

Originally posted by vniow
My parents were in the market for a new computer for awhile and they just got enough money to buy a new one recently so we went shopping Saturday at Fry's.

We wanted a decent machine, not a great one and we didn't want to pay too much over $1500 for just the computer.
Requirements were some decent photo management/editing software and video software.
The HPs and Compaqs were out of the picture since their software was either non-existent or it sucked horribly so the only other option was this Sony VAIO.
Specs are something like: 2.4 Ghz PIV, 512MB DDR RAM, 80GB, DVD+/-RW, TV tuner and video input ports, XP Home, other specs I can't remember and some really horrible software, all for $1400 or so with a $100 mail-in rebate.

Compared to a Superdrive eMac which was $1299 without any rebates whatsoever (although more RAM would've cost about $50 or so.

My dad never even looked at the eMac, he spent all his time in the PC aisles looking at what they had to offer, he didn't even come to the Mac aisle until I wanted to show him this presentation I made (in less than an minute!) on a Powermac.
That's nice, he said and went back to the PC aisles.
We tried to figure out how to figure out the multimedia software with some of the PCs (Sony especially) and we could get nowhere.
The menus were extremely cluttered (not to mention hideous) and completely non-intiutive, there were either too many options or too few and it wasn't managed well at all, everything was all over the place.

So guess what we bought.

Funny thing is when we took it home to my mom, he told her that the software wasn't as good as what's on a Mac, and it was more expensive (also bought Adobe Photoshop Album {PC iPhoto}) so that negeted half of that $100 rebate.

His reasoning for buying a more expensive machine with inferior software?

Not 'it's faster'
Not 'the hardware's better'
Not 'there's more software for the PC'

Because it runs Windows.

<sigh>
Some people are just hopeless.
Click to expand...

i know how you feel. well atleast, i got my dad to say that if he didnt have to buy a laptop that would run an app that was pc-only, he would get a powerbook :D
 
I hear you

My mother ALWAYS used to say "When I get my NEXT computer I'll get a Mac.", mostly 'cause my brother and I told her how much easier it would be for her. Believe me, she was always having computer/software trouble and after a while we both stopped helping her with it.

Then my sister got married to a guy who uses Macs. Now there were 3 of us getting after my mom.

Then her excuse turned to "I can't run the same software on a Mac." She "learned" this from a guy a work.

What software is it that she can't run? Office.

This got the "Are you KIDDING ME?!?" response from all of us. Uh oh, mom. You need a new excuse.

Now she's found software that she can't run on the Mac, Microsoft Publisher, and that's her main reason for not switching. She doesn't want to hear that there is equivalent or better software on the Mac that will do the same thing. If it's not Publisher, she is not interested "and until Publisher is on the Mac I'll just have to stay with Windows."

Also, about 4 years ago a friend of mine bought a digital camera so that he could send pictures of his son to his wife's family who live in Hawaii. A couple of months later he picked up a DV cam for the same reason.

Well, he always had trouble managing his digital pictures and didn't like sending them in email 'cause it took too long.

He also discovered that his computer didn't have FireWire so he had to buy a card. The software that came with the card sucked. He couldn't resize the video or change the frame rate AND couldn't figure out how to get his edited video back to the camera.

When he decided to buy a new computer about 2 years ago he came over to my house and I showed him iPhoto and iMovie. He thought both were great.

What did he buy? A Dell. Now his DV cam goes unused and he rarely uses his digital camera. He even complains that he never got to do what he really wanted with them.

That bugs me.
 
Re: I hear you

Originally posted by DVDSP


When he decided to buy a new computer about 2 years ago he came over to my house and I showed him iPhoto and iMovie. He thought both were great.

What did he buy? A Dell. Now his DV cam goes unused and he rarely uses his digital camera. He even complains that he never got to do what he really wanted with them.

That bugs me.
Click to expand...

Any idea why he did get the Dell? Was it pure price? I really don't get that guy. Here's a person who has found a gr8 reason to use iPhoto and iMovie, and knowing there really isn't o good windoze-version of 'em, he went out and bought a Dell???
So, now he has a cheap fast ugly looking PC which he uses for gaming and the internet I pressume.... what a waste.
I feel for you.
 
It is a strange thing. Many of the older generation people think PC's are computers and Mac's are... well... something else. A novelty item perhaps. Maybe they think it is too cool looking to be a machine designed to do work. I know a dozen people who went with PC instead of Macs. Silly thing is, many don't even use them much anymore because they think it is "complicated."
 
bull.gif

feces.gif
 
Re: Re: I hear you

Originally posted by MacsRgr8
Any idea why he did get the Dell? Was it pure price?
Click to expand...

Familiarity, I think.

So, now he has a cheap fast ugly looking PC which he uses for gaming and the internet I pressume.... what a waste.
I feel for you.
Click to expand...

Actually, when I grilled him about it he told me that was because he wanted to be able to play his flight simulator game (the only game he has) and AOL.

Oh, and the other day I helped him with his first PowerPoint project. Still no video editing though.

John
 
Thankfuly!!

In my family, I’ve educated everybody to be smart and not get a PC. I have a nice G4 tower and I’ll be getting a new 15” Al PowerBook when it comes out. I’m the oldest brother so I educated my young sisters well. One of my sisters is going to college this fall and she will be getting an ibook. My girlfriend is getting a 12” PB. And my mom is the only one who uses a PC (but that is because her work provides the computer.) She just got a New IBM thinkpad with a P4. I played with it for hours and even though IBM has pretty decent laptops I wasn’t impressed. The only tip I can give you people is “START WITH THE YOUNG.” They will understand……jaja:p
 
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