Mac or PC?

[foreignkid]

Why? or Why not?

[Dragon Star]

PC. Because it's simple and user friendly.

[C18H27NO3]

PC because my first computers (at work) were PC and that is all I knew. When I bought my own computer, I went with what I knew.

[Eroica]

PC. Because it's simple and user friendly.
Ditto here. I might try a Vista/linux combo next time I upgrade.

[Metricyard]

I have a pc running XP professional, an old Emac running OSX 10.3, and a pc running Novel-linux. Why not have the best of all worlds?

[DOOMMaster]

I have a pc running XP professional, an old Emac running OSX 10.3, and a pc running Novel-linux. Why not have the best of all worlds?

Because a Mac is an overpriced waste of money? Especially now that they don't even offer a different hardware (all run Intel chips now, rather than the old PPC chips). All you get is a different OS that isn't any better than Windows. If you want a real OS that doesn't crash, use Linux. It's free and it's MUCH better than OSX could ever hope to be. If you aren't computer savvy and need a computer to surf the web and such, just get a cheap WIN box for $500 or less. No need to spend $1000 or more for a MAC.

And before this turns into a "well, you've never used a Mac before" argument, I have. I've also used Linux, all versions of Windows (from 1.0 to XP, haven't bothered with Vista yet), all DOS, Unix, MAC OS to OSX, and many other OS systems. MAC just isn't worth the money, time, or effort.

[Captain Kidd]

My wife use to be a die-hard MAC fan being a graphic designer. But one of the jobs she got a few years ago only had PCs. She discovered at that point that the MAC advantage in graphical work had pretty much disappeared.

Heh, she laughs now remembering when she screamed with the rest when Photoshop blasphemously started selling for PCs .

[Serenitude]

My old eMac was worth the money, even though I rarely use it. Guess that blows the hell out of that theory.

[Chuck]

When my TRS-80 died, one of my friends sold me a nearly new 8088 system cheap. Since then I've wanted computers that would run the software I'd been running on the previous computer so I keep getting PCs.

[foreignkid]

I personally use a Mac, since:
1. They don't crash every other day.
2. I don't have to spend as much time with antivirus software.
3. It is a UNIX machine, too.
4. It just works.

(and no, I am not a die-hard fanboy, but it seems to me that I have this advantage over many of my friends)

[Dragon Star]

I personally use a Mac, since:
1. They don't crash every other day.

My computer has crashed a total of 1 time, and that was when I was benchmarking it during a overclocking test. That sir, is simply not true, and this is coming from a user of AMD in a $360 system.

[zenbudda]

i'm not sure if the poll is to determine who HAS a mac/pc or which one is better. i voted which one i have.

i've used both macs and pcs and i have to tell ya, it makes no difference to me. pc's and mac's have had their share of problems. with the invent of the winxp platform, PC's are completely stable in my opinion. i hear a LOT of people claiming MAC's are better for graphics. says who? being from the Austin, TX area, most graphics designers will admit that designing on a PC or a MAC is all a matter of preference, not performance. most of them flat out admit that they prefer mac's just to stick it to Gates. i admire their honesty.

if you know how to use both, pc = mac.

[DOOMMaster]

My wife use to be a die-hard MAC fan being a graphic designer. But one of the jobs she got a few years ago only had PCs. She discovered at that point that the MAC advantage in graphical work had pretty much disappeared.

Heh, she laughs now remembering when she screamed with the rest when Photoshop blasphemously started selling for PCs .

This used to be the major reason to own a Mac, due to the superior capabilities of the PPC architecture over the x86. However, due to advances made by both Intel and AMD, the x86 ended up being able to do graphic design just as well (now, with the Athlon 64 and Core Duo, even better).

Serenitude I'm sorry if you think your Emac was worth the money, but you'd have been better off buying a less expensive WIN box or building a cheap Linux box. Linux would have allowed you to do everything your Mac does and more, Windows would have allowed you to run far more programs.

As for the Mac never crashes, this is simply not true either. The WIN NT kernel is just as stable as the Mac kernel, regardless of what Mac fans might say. I've seen both systems crash, regardless of what you are doing. Yes, Mac OS might be less suseptible to virus/worms and malware, so would WIN systems if people would just take a responsible system administration and not run everything under an administrator account. Using a limited account would prevent 99% of all those virus/worm/malware problems. Please note that none of this applies to the WIN 9x kernel, which was probably one of the worst horrors ever unleashed upon the computing world.

If you REALLY want a system that never crashes, use Linux. Of course, this would require people to actually know something about how to run and operate a computer, which is never going to happen. Which is why Microsoft still maintains such a huge market on the computing world.

[Trebuchet]

PC. Because Steve Jobs is an idiot who tied a superior product, the Mac operating system, to his proprietary overpriced hardware, which 20 years ago I could not afford. (A Mac would have cost about three times the price of my first PC.) Once I took that first step and was tied to PC software and peripherals, there was no going back. Jobs could be where Gates is, if he had any sense. Hardware is a marginal business anyhow.

Today there's probably not much difference anyhow.

I do have to relate my first experience with a Mac, also 20 years ago, although I think I had already bought the PC. My company had bought a first or second-generation one (512?) and allowed us to borrow it for a weekend. I was a VAX guy at work (so MS-DOS came naturally) but the Mac was a complete mystery. I couldn't understand what it was ordering me to do half the time. (Now I'm that way with Windows.) By the end of the weekend I'd realized that sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures.

[Cougar]

Because a Mac is an overpriced waste of money? Especially now that they don't even offer a different hardware (all run Intel chips now, rather than the old PPC chips). All you get is a different OS that isn't any better than Windows..... If you aren't computer savvy and need a computer to surf the web and such, just get a cheap WIN box for $500 or less. No need to spend $1000 or more for a MAC..... MAC just isn't worth the money, time, or effort.
I've always had a MAC. I've got a new PC at work. I think you're right.

Same with MS Word. I was a Word expert. Then I had to use WordPerfect at work. It does everything Word does and more. Word doesn't have reveal codes, which are very handy.

The times.... they are... a-chaaaangin'. [harmonica solo]

[foreignkid]

I have a Mac, I would prefer a Linux machine.

Life is tough...

[Pleiades]

My first computer was a Mac SE, which I still have and runs fine. I have stayed with a Mac ever since. I use PC's at work, they crash constantly but that's probaby has do do with the fact many people have access and tinker with the operating system when they don't know what they are doing.

[Captain Kidd]

I have a Mac, I would prefer a Linux machine.

Life is tough...Check out a live CD. For example, Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/) offers one. You can download an ISO image and burn it to a CD. Boot up with it and now you're running Linux. You can even set aside some of your hard drive for the files.

The joys of dual booting without having to reformat and partition the drive.

[mickal555]

XP, PC

Macs seem like toys too me, don't feel real for some reason.

Havn't tried linux, I want to put it on my old laptop, but it has a dead optical drive so I dunno what to do about that...

[cjl]

XP PC, with the occasional spatter of linux.

I (for some strange reason) have had the worst luck with macs. I have had a mac crash on me more times in an hour than my PC has in a year. The PC's have been amazingly stable with only one or two problems a year.

[ToSeek]

My first computer was a "Fat Mac", bought back in 1985 when that was the only computer with a graphical user interface. I bought it for two reasons: For me, I wanted a computer I didn't have to learn yet another command line interface for (at work, I needed to know the CLIs for Data General, CP/M, Rolm, and HP-1000, each of which was just distinctive enough to be confusing). And I figured a Mac is the only system my computer-illiterate wife would consider. After that, it's mostly been inertia and facing the difficulty of converting all my Appleworks documents, Panorama databases, etc., to some Windows format. They're all pretty much Macs these days, with the mouse and the windows and all, so I get repetitive stress symptoms no matter what computer I use, Windows or Mac or Sun or Linux.

I agree that once upon a time Windows crashed a lot more often than Mac OS, but that was a long time ago. I think the only strong advantage Macs have over PCs is the near-immunity to viruses, and that's largely because PCs are so much the bigger target, not any inherent advantage.