Keep the mac or go for a PC

sbattey wrote in post #12789174
Did you buy a PC? Was there crapware? Did you remove it?

If so, than yes..you did...

As stated. I have Dell XPS , and had Dell Inpiron. So i guess it IS a PC. The only crapware is Norton 30 days trail, but I have the option not to install it when installing Windows 7 Pro edition.

My only gripe with PC's is the constant updating of virus software and os updates and security fixes... it seems neverending....

I have a 5 year old macbookpro that hasn't hiccup'd on me at all- where as my partner has gone through 3 laptop PC's in the past 3 years.

mac's may be expensive but they are extremely reliable.... what it costs my partner in repairs, and new PC's.... she has already gone over and above what I paid for my mac.

Just sayin..........

How many drivers know how to change their cars oil? A spark plug? Or the battery? Most don't and don't want to know. Computer owners are the same way. That is why the number one reason for people upgrade there computers is due to loss of speed and the number one reason for loss of speed is malwear. If you know how to maintain a car or a computer it is going to last. If you don't it's going to break down. Apple products are built with easy of use in mind - for people that don't want to be bothered with learning how to fix them. OS X automatically defrags in the background, there are very few malwear threats, and with limited upgrades there is fewer chances of people messing them up ugrades. Every company that has sold a computer to the same specs charges just as much, which isn't profitable within there business model. Every consumer site places Macs in the number one spot for a reason.

Here are my thoughts on whether you should buy a Mac or a PC:

If you like to tinker, tweak, upgrade hardware yourself, and just generally play around with the computer, then you should probably buy a PC.

If you don't know much about computers OR you just want to know that your computer will work properly when you turn it on, then you should probably buy a Mac.

Neither choice is wrong. Pick what suits you the best.

MaxxuM wrote in post #12789488
How many drivers know how to change their cars oil? A spark plug? Or the battery? Most don't and don't want to know. Computer owners are the same way. That is why the number one reason for people upgrade there computers is due to loss of speed and the number one reason for loss of speed is malwear. If you know how to maintain a car or a computer it is going to last. If you don't it's going to break down. Apple products are built with easy of use in mind - for people that don't want to be bothered with learning how to fix them. OS X automatically defrags in the background, there are very few malwear threats, and with limited upgrades there is fewer chances of people messing them up ugrades. Every company that has sold a computer to the same specs charges just as much, which isn't profitable within there business model. Every consumer site places Macs in the number one spot for a reason.

That's odd, two of my Mac using photographer friends have had to buy new machines over the last few months because they just started slowing down as their various editing tools and such were upgraded, there are no other factors involved that I'm aware of. Fact is that things as simple as a new version of CS can cripple a machines performance because it's such an intensive piece of software. From a PC perspective, I absolutely HATED Vista, it had so many processes running needlessly in the background that were actually required...disgusting. Win 7 has been a massive improvement. we actually emulated Win 7 on a Macbook at the office and it ran even quicker.

Leftcoast_Mike wrote in post #12790320
That's odd, two of my Mac using photographer friends have had to buy new machines over the last few months because they just started slowing down as their various editing tools and such were upgraded, there are no other factors involved that I'm aware of. Fact is that things as simple as a new version of CS can cripple a machines performance because it's such an intensive piece of software. From a PC perspective, I absolutely HATED Vista, it had so many processes running needlessly in the background that were actually required...disgusting. Win 7 has been a massive improvement. we actually emulated Win 7 on a Macbook at the office and it ran even quicker.

There is no way to tell. I don't know how old the machines were, how big the library's are, if they lacked patches... The list could go on and on. It could just be that they precived a slowdown due to running new software.

Note: I've gone back to read some of my posts and saw all the errors. I need to brush up on my iPhone typing skills

MaxxuM wrote in post #12789488
How many drivers know how to change their cars oil? A spark plug? Or the battery? Most don't and don't want to know. Computer owners are the same way. That is why the number one reason for people upgrade there computers is due to loss of speed and the number one reason for loss of speed is malwear. If you know how to maintain a car or a computer it is going to last. If you don't it's going to break down. Apple products are built with easy of use in mind - for people that don't want to be bothered with learning how to fix them. OS X automatically defrags in the background, there are very few malwear threats, and with limited upgrades there is fewer chances of people messing them up ugrades. Every company that has sold a computer to the same specs charges just as much, which isn't profitable within there business model. Every consumer site places Macs in the number one spot for a reason.

Except you're paying for a Lamborghini and only getting a Porche. Especially with their higher end models (MBP 17", Mac Pro).

Besides, a lot of their designs are flawed. Any engineer worth the paper their degree is printed on can easily spot them.

For one, the heatsinks on their 15" and 17" MBPs aren't big enough for the quad cores that are in them. When doing any sort of CPU-intensive work the entire casing heats up (heating up other internal components including the battery, reducing the lifespan of everything), and the CPU gets hot enough for speedstep to kick in to slow everything down (defeating the purpose of the fast CPUs to begin with).

Second, the Aluminum casing is a bad choice. Sure it looks nice, but the materials used in other laptops (in this price bracket) are more rigid and more abrasive resistant. In other words, they're both stronger and they stay looking new for longer. Furthermore, when the laptop heats up, the Aluminum casing conducts a lot of heat to whatever is touching it - including your legs (causing Toasted Leg Syndrome). So from an engineering perspective, Aluminum is one of the worst materials they could have used for their casing.

Third, Lithium-Polymer batteries are extremely inefficient. Li-Pol batteries were designed for very weak devices where space is one of the top concerns: things like Cell Phones, PDAs, TV remotes, etc. These sorts of devices won't draw more than 5W of power, and that's if they're really pushing it. When you want to draw 20W or more from these sorts of batteries, their capacity actually goes down due to internal resistance (as the current goes up the resistance goes up as well, and so does the heat). To put this in plain English - the typical 17" MBP lasts for 7hrs "web usage" and 1.5hrs full load. With a standard Li-Ion battery with the same rated capacity, this could have easily been 8hrs web usage and 4hrs full load.

Fourth, their power adapter may not always be able to deliver sufficient power to the quad core laptop to run at full speed (my guess is their connector). Apple even admits this openly, and forces the CPUs to slow down if the battery is not present or not working. It doesn't sound like a big deal because, hey, when are you ever going to take out the battery, right? But what this really means is that if you load it up it could start drawing some power from the battery instead of the wall, even when it's plugged in.

This isn't all of it either, I can go on and on with their design problems. I highly doubt it's the engineers, as like I said, any engineer should be able to spot these problems in a heartbeat. But whoever it is, the end product itself is sub-par. It's very obvious that even the models with the high end quad cores and all the fancy stuff were designed for people who don't actually do anything on their computers. People who just browse the web, watch movies, and listen to music.

You have valid points and I don't deny them. I could cook an egg on my MBP and my Mac Pro sounds like a jet when I'm rendering an hour long video, especially now that SL uses the video card. Yet, with all those 'flaws' Apple computers have the lowest service related problems and the highest consumer satisfaction of the top ten OEMs. Of the three thousand or so Macs I service they fail far less than our PCs (percentage over a year in work orders generated).

And it's more like an Audi or BMW. The most expensive computers I've worked on cost $250,000 and have 32CPUs and I've seen some custom Mac Pros in the $80,000 range at CBS where I used to work. Of course, the rooms they were in were kept pretty cold and had raised floors too

MaxxuM wrote in post #12792396
You have valid points and I don't deny them. I could cook an egg on my MBP and my Mac Pro sounds like a jet when I'm rendering an hour long video, especially now that SL uses the video card. Yet, with all those 'flaws' Apple computers have the lowest service related problems and the highest consumer satisfaction of the top ten OEMs. Of the three thousand or so Macs I service they fail far less than our PCs (percentage over a year in work orders generated).

And it's more like an Audi or BMW. The most expensive computers I've worked on cost $250,000 and have 32CPUs and I've seen some custom Mac Pros in the $80,000 range at CBS where I used to work. Of course, the rooms they were in were kept pretty cold and had raised floors too

I don't think Apple gets such high ratings because their computers are that good, I think it's because people keep on buying the cheapest and worst models from the others. There's an enormous difference between companies' consumer lines and business lines (i.e.: Ideapad vs Thinkpad, Inspiron vs Lattitude, etc). MBPs are priced alongside the business lines, but keep getting compared to the junk.

Also - are all those failures and services hardware related, or PEBKAC? Because it's also very unfair to comapre software to determine the quality of the computer. I mean, if Apple shipped their computers with blank HDDs and nothing but a downloaded copy of the Arch Linux install disc I'm sure they wouldn't have such a high satisfaction rating.

All our systems are business class machines. They come with Windows, Office, Dell software and Google bundles. And yes, they are put though he'll, but the Macs keep ticking. Apple is now number three of all OEMs selling over 2 million computers a month.

Your right though, the blunt of bad systems are coming from the consumer lines.

MaxxuM wrote in post #12794461
All our systems are business class machines. They come with Windows, Office, Dell software and Google bundles. And yes, they are put though he'll, but the Macs keep ticking. Apple is now number three of all OEMs selling over 2 million computers a month.

Your right though, the blunt of bad systems are coming from the consumer lines.

I'll take your word for it, but I still have a hard time believing that it's from an actual quality difference, not a usage difference.

I can give you two examples of poor design from Dell off the top of my head. The Optiplex 2xx series had thin ribbon cables attached to the laptop style cd roms and they kept coming loose. It happened almost every day. The 6xx and some 7xx series systems have issues with memory. Again, almost every day a computer would have a BSoD due to memory errors. Sometimes reseating them or switching them would work, but if that didn't we would have to RMA them. I'm a Dell Premier member so at least Dell would pay me to service our computers, but it was still a pita.

Ok yeah, that's pretty dumb on their part.