Macs
- Thread starter Crises^
- Start date
Recommended Videos
It was this page that seemed like it was lying http://www.apple.com/why-mac/better-hardware/wulf3n said:
the better hardware line is bull because pc's are so verified in specs and materials you can't say that like my pc for instance is high end.
It isn't really lying more misleading if you get me(specs wise).
Thank you all for your comments it has defiantly shed some light on the differences, pros and cons and have to say I'm happy that their was no flaming of any sort which is shocking being the internet but again this forum is great for discussions and debates so yeah 
Think I'm going to try that Hackintosh and also a linUx boot as well and mess with all three to learn about them some more.
Think I'm going to try that Hackintosh and also a linUx boot as well and mess with all three to learn about them some more.
I am a huge PC fanboy, but i have to admit macs are a little better than pcs for work related stuff as far as i know there are more and better software for fx music making/mixing, Movie making, 3D design, but is it worth the extra like 10%-30% for just that? maybe if your a company i can understand that but for home computers i think its a load of BS, but hey if you got the money for it go ahead.
My dad is currently a Mac user. Used to be a PC user for a long time and will be a PC user again very soon.
He's used to PC-cycles. Meaning you can keep your PC for over 5 years if all you do is basic office stuff and e-mail without having to replace them.
Microsoft generally keeps its older OS updated and supported for that amount of time, meaning you're not forced to upgrade.
Apple... not so much... Whilst at first his experience was great and smooth after 3 or so years without spending hundreds of euros to upgrade the OS problems start ramping up. Along with a generally incompetent Apple customer service he's getting quite sick of it all and will soon be buying a new Windows PC.
This probably doesn't impact most people here a lot, we gamers tend to purchase all the latest stuff. But do be warned that whilst using an Apple you're not just paying more up-front. You're also going to be shelving over even more money to keep up with the latest OS, which you'll need to keep your other software working.
He's used to PC-cycles. Meaning you can keep your PC for over 5 years if all you do is basic office stuff and e-mail without having to replace them.
Microsoft generally keeps its older OS updated and supported for that amount of time, meaning you're not forced to upgrade.
Apple... not so much... Whilst at first his experience was great and smooth after 3 or so years without spending hundreds of euros to upgrade the OS problems start ramping up. Along with a generally incompetent Apple customer service he's getting quite sick of it all and will soon be buying a new Windows PC.
This probably doesn't impact most people here a lot, we gamers tend to purchase all the latest stuff. But do be warned that whilst using an Apple you're not just paying more up-front. You're also going to be shelving over even more money to keep up with the latest OS, which you'll need to keep your other software working.
Hardware wise: Nothing, they are largely inferior in a cost-power ration, and probably inferior overall if you compared the best possible non-Mac PC to the best possible Mac-PC.xTc212 said:
OS side I'll cover with you're third point.
The price is so high because Apple knows they can rip people off. Some people are utterly uninformed when it comes to the world of PCs, and will see a $2500 Mac and say "That must be a powerful gaming machine", then see a $1000 desktop and say "That must be a piece of crap", when they'll actually have equal specs, and the only difference will be the operating system.
Neither is harder to set up or use, but Macs get away with being overpriced thanks to Apple's popularity carried from things like the Iphone and Ipad, and tech stores inflating the prices themselves and pushing them to people to earn a bigger profit. No, there is no extra stuff that it comes with that you don't know about.
Macs are supposedly more aesthetically pleasing, which is a cause for price increase, but personally I prefer the stark look of a good full tower case with LEDs and fans running, so that it screams of power, compared to the minimalistic and rather soft look of most Macs.
Depends on what you want out of it, and what you're used to.
For me, who is used to Windows, its a pain in the ass, though some people I know who have used Macs most of their life and are only now swapping to PCs can work it without any problem. On a basic level of just using it to connect to the Internet and such, its not that much different to Windows in difficulty if you know what you're doing, and thanks to the relative unpopularity of Mac systems to Windows systems, not many viruses are developed and put on the Internet that target the Mac OS. This does not, however, mean that there are none - as one of my friends found out the hard way.
If you like control over your OS, however, a Mac is the worst path you can take. It is a lot more locked down than either Windows or Linux, and generally has less third party support as well. For advanced users, Mac OS generally fails compared to Windows in what you can accomplish if you wish to.
Macs are really well-designed. The build quality is solid and generally made to last, with a lot of thought put into ergonomics and user experience. Specs-wise, though, they definitely can't compare to PCs at the same price point.
I've owned two dell laptops, a thinkpad, and an HP, and the only one that has come close to my macbook air in terms of durability, battery life and ergonomics is the thinkpad. I actually still prefer the thinkpad's keyboard to the macbook's, but they're both good. The dells ended up falling apart after about 2 years of use. I'm careful with my stuff, but those laptops apparently aren't made for more than a couple years of use.
I've owned two dell laptops, a thinkpad, and an HP, and the only one that has come close to my macbook air in terms of durability, battery life and ergonomics is the thinkpad. I actually still prefer the thinkpad's keyboard to the macbook's, but they're both good. The dells ended up falling apart after about 2 years of use. I'm careful with my stuff, but those laptops apparently aren't made for more than a couple years of use.
I use both daily as a necessity to my job.
I can't see any realistic reason why people should own a Mac aside from aesthetics. The OS has some benefits, but it also has a ton of drawbacks.
The price is ridiculous, as are the restrictions.
The virus/stability is on par. There's nothing special about OSX being less prone to viruses, it's simply that they have been significantly less popular over the years meaning there was less gain in spreading viruses or other malware. Windows has gotten more stable over the years, and Mac OS less so.
Ultimately, Macs are simply not worth it. For those saying "it's easier" and that justifies the 1.5x or 2x price markup, you're deluding yourselves. Neither OSX or Windows is difficult to use, and both have the same basic principles that take minutes to understand.
They do have gorgeous screens however. The drawback once again is price and the fact you have to pay to remove the god-awful gloss coating that comes as standard. I'd prefer to pick up a high-end Dell or LG IPS panel for a few hundred quid less, since they have much better colour reproduction.
I can't see any realistic reason why people should own a Mac aside from aesthetics. The OS has some benefits, but it also has a ton of drawbacks.
The price is ridiculous, as are the restrictions.
The virus/stability is on par. There's nothing special about OSX being less prone to viruses, it's simply that they have been significantly less popular over the years meaning there was less gain in spreading viruses or other malware. Windows has gotten more stable over the years, and Mac OS less so.
Ultimately, Macs are simply not worth it. For those saying "it's easier" and that justifies the 1.5x or 2x price markup, you're deluding yourselves. Neither OSX or Windows is difficult to use, and both have the same basic principles that take minutes to understand.
They do have gorgeous screens however. The drawback once again is price and the fact you have to pay to remove the god-awful gloss coating that comes as standard. I'd prefer to pick up a high-end Dell or LG IPS panel for a few hundred quid less, since they have much better colour reproduction.
Duly noted, but I have to say a few things.BeerTent said:
I've found it generally easy enough to use any windows OS after 2000, easy to teach the use of to pretty well anyone to the point of, if you don't want to meddle with advanced options, you don't have to. My grandmother learned how to use a windows machine in a matter of hours, she has trouble with almost any piece of technology, so this amused me.
Same with a large number of people who I know mothers, grandmothers, generally the crowd mac aims to impress. Once they learn how to click on stuff, and to install things(see clicking on stuff) they tend to have no trouble.
Also, the number of computer repair places around is staggering, and free support forums for almost any problem you could concievably encounter are just a google search away.
The hardware specifications do not in any way justify the price, almost all of it is branding, I have seen ASUS PC products that are just as thin as apple products. The reason for the cost being so high is the result of the proprietary nature of the equipment, when you hold a monopoly, and a large rabid fanbase, you can price your stuff however you see fit.
This is all true, I've used macs before and I personally think that if they had an advanced settings option available somewhere for people who aren't finger stumblingly retarded with technology, so that there would be some actual options for customization.
This is also mainly due to the monopoly they have, and want to maintain, would you want to allow for competition in a market you control, especially when it may hurt your proffit margins noticably? The answer they chose is a resounding NO, and I honestly, cannot blame them.
As for Pricing, I CAN and WILL argue the price, I can buy a PC, have it built by NCIX and shipped to my door, for less than $1000 it will have all of the power required to play all of the games I have or can buy on high settings, and will stay usable as a gaming rig for YEARS, and when I do wish to upgrade it, I can do so at a competitively low cost, even if I got someone else to install the parts, and payed them for it... take a stick of ram, if I save $100 or more on my ram over the same upgrade on a mac, paying someone to put it in for me a sum of $50 or so(as is average around here for upgrade installation) I still save $50... If I decide to install it myself, a simple matter of popping the door panel on my case open, and plugging it in(while my pc is off of course) I save $100, and I get to feel less like a cerebrally disfigured manually incapable idiot, and more connected to my PC at the SAME TIME!
Hell if I want to put my computer together myself, it's easier nowadays than most lego sets, comes with full instructions with PICTURES, and takes all of an hour tops including OS and driver installation, BAM ready to game, costs me a ton less money...
Better deal no?
I am posting this on from a mac.xTc212 said:
It is a MacBook running OSX Leapord an I had it since 2009 as a gift.
It is a piece of SHIT.
Cords always break, doesn't run many games, browser tends to crash a fair bit, so much is wrong with I don't even want to start listing. I have gotten a Trojan Horse once, had to use a third party virus finder to track it down and kill it.
Avoid like the plague, would of replaced it if I could afford it.
There overpriced for the hardware in them like pretty much all the apple hardware. And the one time i used them i found it horrible the mouse was slow (even when maxed), the keyboard was to thin and small, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn it on (who puts the power button on the back??), windows wouldn't maximize. The one thing i will give them credit for is the os is very smooth but that's about it.
I've been using Windows/linux all my life so i think i'll be sticking with them, hell i hate linux but i'd still choose it over mac.
I've been using Windows/linux all my life so i think i'll be sticking with them, hell i hate linux but i'd still choose it over mac.
Personally I hate the mac with a passion but before anyone gets angry I have reasons and even I'll admit they probably aren't fair and it was partly due to some failure on my part but here we go.
The keyboard sucks, I had to type a lot of stuff once and the keys were so unresponsive I was hammering them by the 2 minute mark they space bar also was so useless I just used spell check to fix whatever words were jammed together.
Everything is hidden, Going back to the keyboard for a minute when I was typing and then going back to fix all the places with no spaces I realized that there wasn't an undo button at the top so after a minute of searching I found it buried under at least 2 menus.
I have to save everything to the fucking desktop, I used an iMac that's in my schools computer lab because I had to make a video for a class and I couldn't find a place to save the video clips anywhere except the desktop which meant it ended up buried with all the other files everyone else just saved to the desktop because apparently no one myself included knows how to save anywhere else.
It makes no goddamned sense, This is probably the most biased point but I still think it counts I wanted to change the wallpaper because I was bored and once I picked a picture from my laptop and put it on the mac I discovered I couldn't just right click and set it so I went to the pictures file and it didn't show my picture file so I took it and put it in the pictures file, still not there so then I took the pictures and moved them into the folder with the other pictures, still nothing finally I copied the folder and put it everywhere I could and then it finally appeared I still don't know how but in total it took me a few minutes but still it was aggrivating.
The only other one I can think of is when I was first using the movie program I must have searched forever for the save function to save the movie I had taken 3 times the time I should have because the mouse hated me and I couldn't find the video files but after searching and searching I broke down and asked someone where the save was and they said oh there isn't one you just use the keyboard command and then they saved for me and I decided I'd just wait in line to use the one pc that has the videocards to run the movie software.
But there you have it the proof that I can't use anything but a PC and that I'm probably biased or something but hey clearly I'm probably not qualified to *****.
The keyboard sucks, I had to type a lot of stuff once and the keys were so unresponsive I was hammering them by the 2 minute mark they space bar also was so useless I just used spell check to fix whatever words were jammed together.
Everything is hidden, Going back to the keyboard for a minute when I was typing and then going back to fix all the places with no spaces I realized that there wasn't an undo button at the top so after a minute of searching I found it buried under at least 2 menus.
I have to save everything to the fucking desktop, I used an iMac that's in my schools computer lab because I had to make a video for a class and I couldn't find a place to save the video clips anywhere except the desktop which meant it ended up buried with all the other files everyone else just saved to the desktop because apparently no one myself included knows how to save anywhere else.
It makes no goddamned sense, This is probably the most biased point but I still think it counts I wanted to change the wallpaper because I was bored and once I picked a picture from my laptop and put it on the mac I discovered I couldn't just right click and set it so I went to the pictures file and it didn't show my picture file so I took it and put it in the pictures file, still not there so then I took the pictures and moved them into the folder with the other pictures, still nothing finally I copied the folder and put it everywhere I could and then it finally appeared I still don't know how but in total it took me a few minutes but still it was aggrivating.
The only other one I can think of is when I was first using the movie program I must have searched forever for the save function to save the movie I had taken 3 times the time I should have because the mouse hated me and I couldn't find the video files but after searching and searching I broke down and asked someone where the save was and they said oh there isn't one you just use the keyboard command and then they saved for me and I decided I'd just wait in line to use the one pc that has the videocards to run the movie software.
But there you have it the proof that I can't use anything but a PC and that I'm probably biased or something but hey clearly I'm probably not qualified to *****.
You've pretty much agreed me with this on every point other than the price of the OS, as I understand? Before the Win8 Price tag came along, the upgrade from Mac OS to Mac OS has essentially fallen on the $20-$40 price range. Considering I'm used to dropping $300 on a new OS that won't nag me for all eternity, I have to be fair and complement Mac for this.DoomyMcDoom said:
Furthermore, a quick search for a Macbook Pro, 15 inch brought these to my attention.
I dunno about you, but those are some nice specs. I'd say this is much more than a home user would ever want, and it's not as good as my machine, but it's damn close which makes me put the label of a Mid-to-high end machine. Again, It's not worth $2000, but when you have all of that propreitary equipment in a tiny little laptop that doesn't melt your legs, I'd go for it if the 30% markup was removed.
On the topic of how easy Windows is to use. I agree. The information is out there, but more Windows students employ me despite the %50 off price I offer Mac users. (It evens out to be the same price in the end, because Macs are frustrating as fuck.) I generally find that Windows requires more maintenance than Mac, which is another positive they have, but it's also what's paying my Student loans, so I'm not complaining that students don't want to take the 5 seconds to run Ccleaner.
I do agree with you on the limitations and the areas we both wish mac OS would be improved(for me because it would be nice to have a reason to even consider them, even if I don't end up using them, it's just nice to have middle ground between competitors when it comes to my business).BeerTent said:
Thing is, even with a windows OS, I never spent more than $200 on windows, I would grab OEM versions, because I generally never switched my shit around enough to need a new OS install, and due to my understanding of A: having an antivirus program installed, and B: not deleting important registry keys, I never had to reinstall Windows past win 98, which I reinstalled a few times due to data corruption issues with the 9x build being an unstable *****.
And due to my reluctance to use vista(I stuck with windows xp x64 til 7 came out) I've spent like $200(I think the bill was actually $167 or something I had a few other things on the bill with it and it was a bit over $200 in total so, since I can't find the receipt right now, let's call it $200) in the last 7 years or so on OS, and I've never had any major issues...
Lemme just link you to some of the competitors made by ASUS, arguably the most reliably high end PC hardware manufacturers in existence.
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=77444&vpn=K75VJ-QH31-CB&manufacture=ASUS
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=65174&vpn=K53SV-DH51&manufacture=ASUS
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=72034&vpn=A53Z-TH61&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1354
Yeah, price difference is fucking terrible with macs... That is one of the reasons I will never buy a mac, because if I want to blow $2000 on a laptop or a desktop, it's going to be a MONSTER!
I honestly cannot see a single reason to buy a mac, windows is easy enough to use, it takes very little effort to use it for all the normal uses you would see people using a mac for, and it costs sooooooo much less...
I mean for people who just REALLY like the Mac OS, and have no problem essencially spending $700+ more on a computer just to have a different GUI with less options, power to them, I guess... I saw more promise in apple products along the lines of the original iPods and the fact that with how those evolved it kinda pushed along mobile devices of that kind by forcing competitors to get off their asses and try stuff(whether or not they did anything useful on the other hand is questionable *cough*zune*cough*), but as far as desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, they've got little to no real draw to anyone who is at all concerned about price/device flexibillity.
EDIT: Also the notebooks I linked were just chosen randomly from a lower but not dirt cheap price bracket, with averaging performance stats that would rival the Macbook, feel free to look at the rest of the notebooks/laptops on that site if you really need more reference material, there's a ton of them that are better for cheaper than the macbook, I'm just a lazy bastard.
I owned a Mac laptop a few years ago. I liked how easy the os was to figure out and how stable it ran, never giving me problems. My only criticism
was trying to figure out how to make a movie full screen. It was some obscure button combination and I ended up having to ask a friend how to do it.
was trying to figure out how to make a movie full screen. It was some obscure button combination and I ended up having to ask a friend how to do it.
Well, there's the design which makes people make a second glance and become interested. Apart from that the OS is more optimized for the hardware than Windows because it takes away the choice of hardware. Windows supports drivers to pretty much all the different hardware being produced for home computers while Apple support almost none of it so it's easier to make them work together and specializing where Windows has to be more generic.
Less chance of getting a virus is what draws in some, but is something I consider a bad thing. Less chance of getting a virus may sound like a flawless reasoning behind why using a Mac is safer, but that also means there's less chance you will be protected against getting a virus. You'll be less careful because you don't think it's possible to get one.
Now I am in the PC crowd and the time I have spent using a Mac has been quite nightmarish because of the quality of the computers I have used. I don't like the prices for a decent rig or Apple's business methods and how Apple products require further Apple products to work properly.
As for Macs being more durable... I have a friend with a 6 year old Dell and that still works like a charm. It's all about taking care of your stuff.
Less chance of getting a virus is what draws in some, but is something I consider a bad thing. Less chance of getting a virus may sound like a flawless reasoning behind why using a Mac is safer, but that also means there's less chance you will be protected against getting a virus. You'll be less careful because you don't think it's possible to get one.
Now I am in the PC crowd and the time I have spent using a Mac has been quite nightmarish because of the quality of the computers I have used. I don't like the prices for a decent rig or Apple's business methods and how Apple products require further Apple products to work properly.
As for Macs being more durable... I have a friend with a 6 year old Dell and that still works like a charm. It's all about taking care of your stuff.
FIVE GRAND? Even the most expensive Alienware laptop is only £2500, which works out at about $3000 given how royally we get screwed over in conversion.Calibanbutcher said:
What on earth is it made of? I can only envision a platinum wired, ivory keyboarded with diamond tipped wires, dipped in gold with fan blades made from the wings of freshly slaughtered angels and a cooling system instilled with the urine of christ himself.
I mean I've got a Dell XPS15 and I rag that, it gets so hot it's physically painful to touch, but I've yet to have any problems with it, and I've had it for over a couple of years now.
Apple is like a religion. It's all good until you start to wonder "why?". It makes no sense for the litiral-minded people.
HOWEVER.
The good thing about Apple products is that there'a hard limit to what you can and what you can't do. On a Mac, you can only do what it's to do. On Windows / Linux, you can do EVERYTHING. This means a user-sided misake is easier to make, as well. This means that overall, there will be less errors and things going wrong.
In the end, it's all in how you use it. But yes, Mac is relatively expensive.
HOWEVER.
The good thing about Apple products is that there'a hard limit to what you can and what you can't do. On a Mac, you can only do what it's to do. On Windows / Linux, you can do EVERYTHING. This means a user-sided misake is easier to make, as well. This means that overall, there will be less errors and things going wrong.
In the end, it's all in how you use it. But yes, Mac is relatively expensive.