Mac or PC?

[Beefbowl]

I'm thinking about upgrading my computer and I was leaning toward a mac. I know there's a few people in this forum that owns a mac and I wanted to get their opinions. I was also debating on getting a desktop or a laptop. Any thoughts?

[Lord_Phan]

What do you want if for? All gamers use PC's. It's better tech. But if you just want to view the web and play a song or two or do spreadsheets etc. then get the cheapest thing you can get.

[Spankey]

Originally Posted by Lord_Phan

What do you want if for? All gamers use PC's. It's better tech. But if you just want to view the web and play a song or two or do spreadsheets etc. then get the cheapest thing you can get.

And disregard EVERYTHING in that statement. Since switching to the Mac my computing experience has been more pleasurable than ever. OS X is just a more stable, quicker OS than either XP or Vista. Every program I could need on Windows is available for Mac. Whether its Adobe, MS Office, etc. they are there for me. I still need Windows for work and I can either run Windows natively by dual booting, or run Windows seamlessly through a VM. I use Fusion which has been a pleasure to use.

Now what is better for you? I love my 24" iMac, but the graphics card is superior in the new Macbook Pros. I don't find gaming to be an issue at all on a Mac. Again, you can dual boot into Windows if a game will only run on that OS. Personally, I would go for an iMac unless you need portability and don't have a great widescreen monitor.

[BStecke]

My wife (a PC tech) and I both switched to Macs and we both love them. No hassles, great support (if needed . . . neither of us have had any issues outside of a few questions), and generally a pleasure to deal with.

[desmond]

mac (get the laptop). great quality, very few bugs.

[Elandyll]

I have worked with macs for ever, and generally love em (I am a video prod. specialist).

But let's be honest, if your main thing is gaming, go PC. Dual booting is just ridiculous if gaming is what you intend to mostly do.
Not only will the rig be less expensive and customizable, but right now Vista is in my experience (I have a laptop with it) just as stable as OS X (and yes I have had my dose of crashes even in OS X, but again my applications makes it more demanding than games for my Macs).

I know it's good policy to demonize anything MS on this board, and I dislike their actions just as much as the next chap, but Vista isn't the POS some try to make it pass for, and you can get some very powerful PCs for the money.

This being said, if you are at all interested in movie editing and/or DVD authoring, don't even think twice, Go Mac. Just love the combo FCP + DVD SP.

[Zvi]

Go for PC. Cheaper, much better upgradeability(If you're a builder it'll cost you a lot less too), a lot better software choice, including free soft. At least your mouse will have two buttons

As for the statement that all the soft you need is available for macs I highly doubt it. I never used Mac really, except for some work projects, but if you just look at sourceforge and other sites like that Mac soft is 5-10% of what's available for windows. I guess in the end it all depends on what you need.

Originally Posted by Spankey

I love my 24" iMac, but the graphics card is superior in the new Macbook Pros. I don't find gaming to be an issue at all on a Mac.

Anyway, which mac would you recommend for gaming? And can you tell us why? I just went to apple store to check out what's up there. For one, imacs are pretty much useless for modern games. The best imac has ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with OMG, whole 256mb ram. Customization is limited to just ram and HD, plus of course more accessories and soft from Apple. In other words you're not upgrading video card or cpu ever. And that costs 2250$ for basic package.
Compare that to Dell XPS gaming pc. Basic package costs 1500$ and comes with quad core CPU vs dual core on imac, much beter video card NVdia 8800gt 512mb, 3gb ram vs 2 gb on apple, and better ram too. Optical media is twice as fast on dells. The only advantage apple has it 500gb HD vs. 250gb in dell. But that upgrade is real cheap with HDD prices 40cents per GB. And I'm comparing top imac to basic gaming XPS. True, imcs were not meant for gaming, but that's what the recommendation was. Of course if all you play is tetris and 3 year old games imacs will do.

As for the Mac Pro. 2 xeon processors in it. Impressive, but again, for gaming and 99% of home/office applications xeons give nothing but extra expenses. Default config comes with 2.8ghz xeons, and upgrade that to 3.2 ghz and you add 1600$. Base price 2,799.00$. Do I want 2 server CPUs in my home rig? It's not like they're giving it for low price either.
I can't find right now comparable system because dual socket lga 775 mobos aren't available for PCs except server arena.

In the end it's typical apple - very limited choice. Dunno if apple has other comps for general public, couldn't find it apple store

[Sean4000]

I used Vista as my cue to jump ship to another OS. I landed in the ubuntu territory and canot be happier. It's a very technical nuts and bolts OS that suits me fine. But it is not for everyone.

I would tell newcomers to switch to Apple. There are no viruses, no spyware. Mac's darwin Kernel is rock solid and stable. And if you need to use XP/Vista, yes, you can dual boot.

VISTA:

Virus
Inside
Switch
To
Apple

As far as applications go, out of the box you have iTunes, Iphoto, iWeb, Garage Band, iMovie, iDVD. Right there is your audio jukebox, photo organization, web making, music recording, movie editing, and DVD authoring. Now, these are relatively easy programs an are geared to entry-level users. But the pro features might surprise you.

Let's see what else is out there, CAD, Quickbooks, M$ Office, Photoshop, AVID, Final Cut Pro, iChat, VLC player, Mac the Ripper, iWork suite, Turbo Tax, etc.......That about nullified every "there is no software for Mac" arguement I've ever had.