# New laptop - Mac or PC?



## Godzilla (Feb 20, 2007)

I am thinking of getting a new laptop.

The thought f getting a Mac has started to creep into my brain. However I have never used one, any advice from people who have had or used both?

Thanks


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Stick with the PC, more software, cheaper and if you buy a good one they looks just as good.


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

http://www.apple.com/uk/getamac/ads/

All the reasons you need to move from Windoze...


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Those are the same ads apple got sued for.

Same argument applies in reverse.


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> Those are the same ads apple got sued for.


Under what grounds, stating fact?

Clearly they didn't get very far with their action against Apple, because the ads are still there, oh and so are the facts.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

It was up held and apple have pulled/toned down all the ads in the US is my understanding. UK Law is not the same.

Mac or PC is like arguing about which food YOU like the most.

I have a mini mac and i simply cant stand it. Both systems do about the same if you cut to it - you need ie on your mac just like your pc to do things like banking and other key websites. you need office to be able to share between what you do at work and home. Macs approach to security is to simply switch off functionality windows approach is its up-to the user.

On viruses and security osx is no more secure, the only difference is if you are going to spend time causing chaos why target 3% of computers with the mac? they dont hence why the PC catches it.

Buy what you fancy, but A is not better than B and the adverts are total crap. Apple is like the MKI TT form over function - as long as it looks good who cares.


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> apple have pulled/toned down all the ads in the US


Nope, they're all still there in their original form: http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/



Toshiba said:


> Apple is like the MKI TT form over function - as long as it looks good who cares.


I bought mine not for how it looks but for what it does... which incidentally is everything a PC can do yet better, faster, and more reliably.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

:lol:

Based on what - the chip set has been changed to that of a PC, so how its faster my mind boggles - it's simply not.
http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.html
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002 ... spciii.htm

Could go on for ever!!

The only reason it does anything is due to the software supplied to apple by MS and the cash they pumped into it to keep apple afloat.


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> Based on what


Me using Quark, Photoshop and other processor/ram hungry applications in work. For the price my Mac Pro cost, it cannot be beaten by anything else PC/Windoze based. Simple as that.


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## tod (Jun 9, 2007)

Buy a mac or a PC, you can run either OS on the other anyhoo 

Got a Desktop PC up the stairs, macbook down the stairs which runs mac when I use it but XP when the missus uses it.

Prefer the PC myself but that's just from a tinkering point of view but the MAC is sooooooo pretty 8)


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

kmpowell said:


> Toshiba said:
> 
> 
> > Based on what
> ...


Guess you CHOSE not to bother reading the INDIPENTANT article on DTP from the experts then.

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002 ... spciii.htm

:roll:

....apparently this wasnâ€™t enough to keep up with the newest and fastest from Dell and Intel. The most amazing part of this is that this Dell PC cost $629 less than the Mac we tested. 
....Take a look at the test results, and youâ€™ll have to agree that, using these benchmarks, the Mac was slaughtered again
....Of course, Mac stalwarts will cling to the notion that Mac OS X is so much better and easier to use than Windows XP, but if youâ€™re spending all day inside After Effects, which operating system youâ€™re using makes little difference :lol: :lol:


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## kmpowell (May 6, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> kmpowell said:
> 
> 
> > Toshiba said:
> ...


G4 Processors... lol that article is circa 5 years old! Things have moved on a long way since then!

:-*


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## Rob_vienna (Sep 21, 2006)

kmpowell said:


> Toshiba said:
> 
> 
> > Based on what
> ...


Nail on head. I use a Mac Pro at work and Macbook Pro at home with both Mac OSX on it for when I take work home and Vista for when I want to play games 

For applications like the above they are ideal, especially combined with the 30" cinema display 

Only thing I dont like Mac wise is the crap mighty mouse.

If you are thinking about a Mac laptop look on the apple store uk home page on the right hand side near the bottom for the refurb deals. Come with a year warranty and save a load of cash. I saved 900 quide on my Macbook Pro and its like new.


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## monkey_boy (Feb 3, 2007)

I use XP laptop for work, XP desktop (quad core) for home and more recently MACbook pro laptop at home too.

Some comparisons -

PC - -

Windows - take you own view on that one :wink:

To use effectively you need a good degree of PC knowledge, maintaining firewalls, virus tools, (some of the seriously screw up your system and waste your precious personal time) dealing with driver issues etc.
If you can deal with that or are lucky with a stable machine, then PC is fine.
Greater availability of app's and hardware options, some good looking laptops these days.
Lower cost hardware options out there.
Moving to MAC you may have to buy software all over again.

MAC --

Thing of beauty.
Best laptop keyboard I have ever used and back lighting of keyboard is superb (why not standard on all machines?).
Integrated web-cam is useful if like me you have friends/family all over the world and like to keep in touch (great if you travel and have kids at home too).
Close the lid, leave it, open the lid, running again. Superb! Hibernation on laptop is practically useless. It makes a Mac laptop the perfect surfing tool.
Apps are simple too use, Mac does some things very well - if you want to surf, use itunes, maintain your photo library, make family photo albums/ create dvds or maintain a personal web page, it has all of that in a well integrated easy to use OS.

For office or image editing, unless you go high-end mac then its no different in my view on PC or MAC. Though high-end video or image editing has a major fan base in MAC.
Service/repair costs can be high

Summary is, figure out what you want it for, that will make the decision a lot easier.


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## Godzilla (Feb 20, 2007)

Hmm certainly given me some food for thought,

thanks


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## cuTTsy (Jan 31, 2003)

We have been having the same debate at work, the funny thing is one of our IT guys and one of our interactive designers have just brought macbooks even though their work machines are PC's. Another guy is running windows on his Macbook pro because he thinks its more stable.

I have also just seen a 20 min video on the iphone and if that does what it claims and as easily as the interface suggests, I am sure it will be another huge success for apple.


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## dooka (Apr 28, 2006)

Both have their pros and cons, I use both platforms, must say I do prefere mac, in my line of business, lick Mr Powell, the mac does run faster especially when rendering filters..

Get a Mac and if you still want windoze (like it mr Powell) get either boot camp or Parallels..

24" Imac for me next.. Macs don';t crash every 5 mins.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following
characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........ Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to
pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and
reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply
accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut
down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times
as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by
a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to
let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed
hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all
over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine OFF


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## scavenger (Jun 25, 2002)

qstix said:


> Both have their pros and cons


Agreed, and I prefer a Mac these days. Windows is becoming far to intrusive for everyday use.



qstix said:


> Macs don';t crash every 5 mins.


Neither do PC's

I run countless PC's and 4 MacBook Pros. No recent PC hardware issues but 3 of the 4 MacBooks have failed; all < 1 year old.

The unmolested Mac is a Core 2 Duo box so hopefully it is a sign Apple have sorted reliability issues.


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

qstix said:


> At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'


Utter rubbish - go look up the date when this was said :lol: 
If it wasn't for MS the computer industry would not exist, apple would have gone bankrupt and software would cost 1000s.

Macs crash as much as PC's. The only PC that crash a lot are crappy cobbled together cockney barra boy 'i know whot im doing gov' ones.

Mac has an advantage in that they control the hardware and the software drivers - MS doesn't have the same good fortune. Anyone can write a driver and given the billions of combination over hardware is it a wonder the cheaper ones cause problems? Buy crap, you get crap out of it.

Any of the main stream manufactures PCs will not give you a problem.
You can run osx in a VM on a PC too


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## Rob_vienna (Sep 21, 2006)

Toshiba said:


> Macs crash as much as PC's. The only PC that crash a lot are crappy cobbled together cockney barra boy 'i know whot im doing gov' ones.


Not sure what you are basing your statement on but in my personal experience of using many big name PC's and "cobbled together" ones the Mac's I now use have proved themselves a lot more reliable, as well as faster and just downright easier to use.

I also have Vista on my Macbook Pro btw and it runs so much better than the PC that one of the lads at work just paid a fortune for!


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Macs dont crash :lol: 
Load of rubbish.
Based on what? based on fact. o illegal operation, I've been mac'd again. :roll:


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## Rob_vienna (Sep 21, 2006)

Toshiba said:


> Macs dont crash :lol:
> Load of rubbish.
> Based on what? based on fact. o illegal operation, I've been mac'd again. :roll:


I never said they dont crash, have a re-read of my post first old bean, I said they've proved themselves a lot more reliable in "my personal experience" than PCs, and they have.

Any references to base your "fact" on by the way?  "Macs crash as much as PC's" could be based on anything. Of course they will crash, but when doing what? Using what software? Performing which processes? Your comment is im afraid is just conjecture so far

Which leads us back to the reason for the thread and the question - what will you be using the laptop for?


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## fastasflip (May 13, 2003)

maybe this will clear things up


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Im sure i remember the gadget show doing a comparison at some point.


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## Sim (Mar 7, 2003)

Toshiba said:


> Im sure i remember the gadget show doing a comparison at some point.


And...

Remember that they are often swayed by advertising/ merchandise deals anyway, so back to your point about independent reviews. :roll:


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

They came down on the side of that mac did they not, but only due to the looks? :lol:

No such thing as an independent view, always an angle.


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## RenZo (Feb 14, 2006)

once u go mac... u dont go back 

ive got a G5 at work and a mac book pro at home..

in the line of business im involved in apple is far better.

Renzo


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

RenZo said:


> once u go mac... u dont go back
> 
> ive got a G5 at work and a mac book pro at home..
> 
> ...


Are you a doorman and you use it for a wedge? :lol:


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## RenZo (Feb 14, 2006)

LOL!

this thred is just like my office... the mac pc battle continues... :twisted:


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## Godzilla (Feb 20, 2007)

Im more undecided than ever now 

Lol


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Redhat Linux then :lol:


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## RenZo (Feb 14, 2006)

8)


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## Love_iTT (Aug 18, 2002)

As a few people know, I'm a huge Mac fan with a G5 and Powerbook at home and several Macs at work but for a while now I've been looking at getting a PC laptop as I've several things that are only PC compatible (VAGCOM fro example). I have got a PC emulator on both home Macs but it's not quite the same as a dedicated PC, they get me by in a fashion but that's it, so on the weekend I went over to the dark side and bought an HP PC notebbok.

It's just a basic thing with the normal stuff on it - Intel Core Duo 1.73GHz, 120gig HD, 1 gig RAM, DVD RW and Vista. Not a huge spec but ample for what I need it for (I'm typing this on it!).

All I'm saying is that with modern computers, there is not a huge amount of difference between the two platforms (Mac and PC) these days but I would still only ever produce my graphics on Macs but with website production on a PC. In other words, as in all jobs, pick up the right tool to do the best job rather than loyalty to one platform over another.

Graham


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## ezzie (Jul 2, 2004)

Agree pick the computer most suitable for the task. A mac running parallels is the best compromise of getting of covering 95% of all things you could possibly wish to use. Macs are more stable as Tosh mentions as they control hardware and software, which is a good thing for the user and its easy to use, robust and better os in terms of aesthetics and usability. Microsoft have dropped the ball with vista as seem to have made changes for change sake with bewildering choices. At work we are 80% mac, 20% PC and new PCs ordered are still being ordered with XP, as Vista has too many unresolved issues in regards to oracle-based software etc.

Tosh is also correct that the os is not inherently more secure as such, but it is more secure for the user, by virtue of the fact virus writers tend to do so for PCs as reach more people. THus to date there have virtually been no viruses for mac os x almost six years since launch of its first iteration.

If ordering a computer today, mac is the way to go (with the Parallels software to run XP too if you need to use any PC specific software).


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

You can run osx in a vm on a pc :wink:

Anything the mac can do the pc can do and its true to say pc mac can do. Two things make a computer different, the looks and the cost of the software you want to put on it.

if you want a secure pc lock it down, its simple to do. Switch on the firewall on your router and install and up to date virus engine. I've not once got a virus.

Recovery is much easier on the mac - throw it the disc, goto the pub use it when you get back.


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## ezzie (Jul 2, 2004)

PCs = 2.0 Fwd diesel TT

Macs = 3.2Q v6 TT


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

You are deluded.

The mac is not better than a pc, the difference is the preference you have to how you want to use it. left hand, right hand.
The pc has many advantages over the mac, the mac has only one over the pc - looks. However if you dont buy crap, it wont look like crap.

The mac hardware is the old PC hardware 2.16GHz and 2.4GHz intel chips, power(less)pc chips have been dumped and the os recompiled.

PC - Veyron
Mac - 150bhp MKI TTR with a faulty MAF, and curb'd wheels.


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## ezzie (Jul 2, 2004)

If looks weren't important we'll all be driving nissan 350Zs 

We spend an increasing amount of our lives staring at and using computers, what's wrong with something pretty to look at.

Mac - Maria Sharapova
PC - Amelie Mauresmo


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## Toshiba (Jul 8, 2004)

Im no fan of the 350z but the above comment is silly. The 350 does look good, and the engine is great too.

Mac - Maria Sharapova, ok if you like
PC - Williams sisters (ok, not good looking - depending on the brand but they are better and win most of the time) :lol:

Bored now.


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## jam (May 8, 2002)

ezzie said:


> PCs = 2.0 Fwd diesel TT
> 
> Macs = 3.2Q v6 TT


Both crap then? :wink:


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## Love_iTT (Aug 18, 2002)

Toshiba said:


> PC - Veyron
> Mac - 150bhp MKI TTR with a faulty MAF, and curb'd wheels.


 :lol: :lol: Don't agree Tosh but thought it funny :wink:

Graham


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## ezzie (Jul 2, 2004)

jam said:


> ezzie said:
> 
> 
> > PCs = 2.0 Fwd diesel TT
> ...


All things are relative. Compared to a 997S - fair enough.


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## DeanTT (Sep 11, 2006)

Godzilla said:


> Im more undecided than ever now


Looking at some of your recent posts (donny pics) your starting to get into photography, which to me means you have to go Mac.

I purchased a Mac mainly for that very reason and I for one would never go back to PC. The Mac does everything I need and it's just such a pleasure to use compared Windows (once you've had a couple of days with it).

Plus - You'll never have to search the internet for hours trying to find drivers, you won't have to re-install the OS after a year (or less in my case, XP would always start degrading after 6 months and start running really slow), you don't have to restart when making changes and installing software, the list goes on.

There's a lot of 'for's and against's,' but if your editing media of any type, there is only one choice, a Mac.

Well thats my 2 pennies worth anyway.


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