25 months ago the frustration level with our Pentium Compaq machine became so great that I threw up my hands, collected the wife, the credit card, and headed to the Mac store.
I was less than pleased to do this for a few reasons:
1. I had invested so much time on the PC that learning even 50% more to be an advanced Mac user was a thought almost too much to bear.
2. The fear of not being being compatible with 90%+ of the world's computers was worrisome.
3. Those Apple machines were expensive.
The result:
-The Mac is so easy to use, I have since FORGOTTEN 50% of what I've learned about computers.
-There isn't any computer with which I have compatibility issues.
-A couple months went by, the credit card charges were paid off and forgotten.
Further, in the last two years there have been a grand total of ZERO crashes on the (TWO) machine(s). Every device that I have plugged into it has worked flawlessly and simply. I have no viruses (virii?). I have no spyware. There isn't anything that I can't do on the Mac that I can on a PC, but I can do much more than a PC will allow.
I suggested in a PC help thread here on FR that the user should switch to Mac. One Freeper jumped into my stuff suggesting that switching from "a Ford" to "a Chevy" was unhelpful, useless and cynical. My retort, should I have posted it, would have been that Chevys and Fords do indeed break down at similar intervals. The dirty truth is that PCs have serious, maddingly and unacceptably high failure rates and that the Mac is a true alternative. In other words, the Ford-to-Chevy and Apple-to-PC comparison is worthless.
In the past, I have been excited to get a new computer or OS, but that excitement usually wore off in a few weeks. Two years later I am STILL excited about what my Mac can do. As a footnote, I am neither an Apple zealot nor a Metrosexual, just a very satified customer.
Do yourself a HUGH favor and check out the new $499 Macs. You can still use your old keyboard, mouse, display and printer. All that you lose is the Advil.
Thank you.
I'm looking hard at those new little Macs for 500 bucks.
I have a nice spare keyboard and mouse, and this way, I could be Freeping while the Kid or hubby are doing things on the new G5
I'd have to get a monitor, but that's what eBay is for...
Bump.
As your former flight student, I wholeheartedly agree!
At 499, the new mac is a bargain, and it does circles around typical PCs.
I have macs, PCs, a SUN, and even a DEC ALPHA (though these days the Alpha is just a coffee table).
Of all the computers I have, I use the macs for my daily work. they never EVER crash, work flawlessly, and exhibit none of the issue I find with the Windoze platform. For instance, I recently lost copious amounts on data on my XP machine, and anded up being forced to reformat and reinstall. I've never been faced with that on a MAC.
Andy