The Mac won me over — long time Windows user after a month of Mac only use

The Feld Report ^ | August 3rd, 2010 | Brad Feld

[palmerizedCaddis]

An unusual post, folks rarely brag about contacting social diseases. Does your significat other know youare infected with apple cod rot?

Caddis the Younger

[Swordmaker]

A long time PC user takes a challenge to use a Mac as his sole computer for one month and the inevitable happens... He's a Mac user now, wondering why he resisted so long! PING !

Please!
No Flame Wars allowed!
Discuss hardware.
Don't attack people!

Apple Mac Switcher Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[CaspersGh0sts]

At nearly double the price, he’s welcome to it.

I’ll stick with Windows 7.

[PA Engineer]

Did you get Jim’s memo?

[Moose4]

Nothing wrong with Macs or Mac apps at all—the price point is a killer though. I can put together just as good a Windows machine as a given Mac for about 60% of the price.

I don’t doubt that OS X is “better” than W7 (I’m still running Vista x64 personally). It’s just not worth several hundred extra dollars to get the same performance.

}:-)4

[Mr. Blonde]

500GB solid state drive? That costs more by itself than the base MBP.

[JoeProBono]

[RachelFaith]

Yep!

There is a REASON that PC Magazine once had MAC as their PC of the year.

Of course they took such a huge hit in emails and cancellations from their PC subscribers that they never did it again.... but... the stats haven’t changed.

Mac is still cheaper, and more effective than ANY comparable PC.

[dartuser]

If the Mac wasnt so pricey more people would buy them. You can get a laptop for half the price and that is the determining factor for many people.

I wrote my thesis on a Mac, at the time it was the only computing platform that offered WYSIWYG equation editing. But when I went into industry there was not a Mac to be found. Fast forward 20 years and I look around the engineering building here ... and I still see no Macs.

I maintain it is not because they are not good machines, they clearly are ... they are priced 2x what they should be.

[Clara Lou]

After 14 years of using both Mac (work) and PC (home), I opt for PC’s any time I need a new computer. Macs are nice, but I cannot see myself spending money on one. They’re just not that great.

[hiredhand]

Why people continue to suffer with Windows is just beyond me anymore. I dropped their poor excuse for an operating system back in 2000 and never looked back. Often people come to me wanting help after a viral infection on a Windows system, and I'm just not "there" anymore. The best I'll do is to recover the data onto CD or DVD media. But my stock answer nowadays to people with Windows malware problems is to BUY A MAC.

I am grateful to the piss poor Windows operating for one thing, and one thing only. They're largely responsible for keeping me employed in defending my current employer against malware. I never thought I'd be grateful to stupid, malicious people, but I am. :-)

[Svartalfiar]

Macs are really only worth the extra price tag for two reasons:

1. People who work in video editing/videography. Macs do excel in this area.

2. People who have too much money and want to let everyone know they can spend 2-300% more for their computer.

Macs do, overall, run a bit better in general, but not worth the price tag for just that. And if you want to play a game, you’re mostly stuck with, um, about nothing. Starcraft II and thats about it.

[aquila48]

I’ve switched from windows to Ubuntu and love it - it just doesn’t get much spam, viruses, etc. (I guess it’s below the radar screen for vandals) I can leave it on for weeks at a time without rebooting. Most updates don’t require rebooting. And it’s got solid free apps for just about everything.

[PA Engineer]

I’m typing this on my brand new spiffy MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8GB RAM, with a 500GB solid state hard drive.

The author of course is bragging but there is much to be said about replacing the travel computer with the iPad and using the new Pro for crunching. I can only imagine the speed of VIs from LabView on this thing.

I also wonder if DMA buffered waveforms are even necessary with a SSHD. The library of generated tests would increase based on storage without the DMA overhead.

I like the Air, however I may have to relegate it to a field only computer.

[hiredhand]

Mac is still cheaper, and more effective than ANY comparable PC.

People would realize what you wrote IF they considered the total cost of depending on a Windows system. But most people are too short sighted.

[dfwgator]

If the Mac wasnt so pricey more people would buy them. You can get a laptop for half the price and that is the determining factor for many people.

True, but the one thing you leave out is, the resale value of Macs. You can probably recoup at least 50% of the purchase price on resale even two or three years later, which of course you can apply to purchasing the latest and greatest model.

[tacticalogic]

I maintain it is not because they are not good machines, they clearly are ... they are priced 2x what they should be.

There's also the propretary hardware platform. No company in their right mind builds a mission critical infrastructure on a single source hardware platform.

[dfwgator]

My thought is to get a Mac Mini, and simply access it via my Windows 7-based laptop via VNC. Has anyone else done that, and would it be worth it?

[PA Engineer]

1. People who work in video editing/videography. Macs do excel in this area.

There are others..