MS-Windows
vs.
MAC

Using the sliders, set the importance of each aspect.
Choozza will then find the best product for you.

MS-Windows

2
Peripherals Support
2
Other OS and MS-Office
2
Internet Browsing
2
Good Filesystem
2
Community and Market Share
2
Total Cost of Ownership
2
Security
2
Reliability

MAC

MS-Windows

The most popular operating system in the world, MS-Windows, is very easy to use and learn. MS-Windows based computers are also very flexible in setup options and modularity. Additionally, almost all software is available for MS-Windows, which isn't the case with other operating systems.

MAC

Apple's flagship, the Mac computer, used to be a niche market product, based on proprietary hardware. This is no longer true, and Macs, with their OS are now a very viable option for anyone considering a new computer system and not locked on MS-Windows.

Peripherals Support

Almost all third party peripherals and accessories are shipped with MS-Windows support. Additionally, MS-Windows comes with hundreds of preinstalled drivers for many peripherals. Some of the peripherals drivers for MS-Windows Vista have not been updated yet. This, however, is being dealt with constantly by both Microsoft and the device manufacturers.
When you buy a Mac, you get hundreds of drivers preinstalled with the operating system. For most devices you'll have this is truly a plug and play computer. Mac has some other neat features (e.g. opening iPhoto automatically when you connect your camera to a USB port). However, some accessories require you to perform extra installations, usually from a CD that comes with the device. While many such CDs have a Mac version of the software - this is not always the case, especially with lower-end, mass-produced accessories which usually target the MS-Windows platform only. This means that while Macs can support all devices, it is sometimes more difficult to find a device that has the right support for Mac. This is especially true for older devices. If you have one of these and consider buying a Mac, you should check whether you have the Mac installation programs (or drivers) for them, and if not - check whether they are included with Mac OS/X as a preinstalled driver. You may also be able to download them from the Internet. Note also that Macs are sold with built-in wireless network card, webcam and speakers. This reduces the peripheral support problem somewhat by not having to deal with them, and of course - saves you money as you don't have to buy these accessories yourself.

Other OS and MS-Office

Macs no longer require the use of specialty hardware to run. In theory, then, any Intel based computer may run both MS-Windows and Mac OS/X. Note, however, that there are some issues to consider. For MS-Windows, you need to ensure that the hardware supports the OS version you want. For example, Older hardware may have some compatibility and performance problems when running MS-Windows Vista. There are some options for running OS/X on a computer that isn't a Mac. However, It is not a very straightforward process. Ms-Office is written for the MS-Windows operating system, so it goes without saying that you can run it on a PC that has MS-Windows installed on it.
A Mac computer comes pre-installed and tested to run the Mac OS/X version you buy it with. You never need to worry about possible complications there This is the same as buying a PC pre-installed with MS-Windows. Every new Mac computer has a piece of software called Boot Camp installed on it. Boot Camp lets you run MS-Windows natively on the computer, as if your Mac was actually a regular PC. Note that using Boot Camp, you may run either Mac OS/X or MS-Windows, but not both at the same time. Your Mac will have both operating systems installed, and whenever you switch it on, you will have to select which OS to boot it with. You may also choose to run Mac OS/X and MS-Windows side-by-side on your Mac computer. In order to do that you will need to buy one of two software products: either Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMware Fusion. If you install one of these applications on your Mac and deploy MS-Windows (from MS-Windows installtion CDs) on it, you will be able to run MS-Windows applications and Mac applications at the same time. In essence, this means that MS-Windows will appear as an application inside OS/X.

Also, Mac hardware was selected as the best hardware to run MS-Windows Vista on.
You can buy a version of MS-Office for Mac. It can read, write and manipulate all versions of MS-Office files. However, the user interface is different if you are used to MS-Windows version, and it takes time to change habits.

Internet Browsing

All sites work on Windows Internet Explorer, so you will never see a site that won't work on your MS-Windows computer. On the other hand, Internet Explorer (and the ActiveX technology especially) is more targetted by viruses and Internet attacks, and has more security holes which leave you vulnerable.
When you buy a Mac, you get Apple's Safari browser installed on it. Safari is a very robust Internet browser, and works well. You can also have Firefox (or other non-Apple browsers) installed on your Mac, but there's no support for MS's Internet Explorer browser at all (and you can't open a Firefox's IE tab on a Mac). Many sites on the web work fully only on Internet Explorer, and this means that your Internet Surfing experience may suffer - as some web controls will simply not work. On the bright side - less security exploits are available on Firefox and Safari, and hence you will be less exposed to Internet-based attacks. Also, there are ways to run MS-Windows on a Mac, so if you must browse a site that only supports MS-Internet Explorer you will still be able to do it, albeit awkwardly.

Good Filesystem

The MS-Windows file system is pretty good. While it can not move or rename an open file, it makes up for it by having good zip archives support, excellent file meta-data management and very sophisticated file access permissions.
The file system is not one of the Mac's strong points, but it is not extremely bad either. The Mac's OS/X file system has Incomplete support for zip files, as it can not add to a zip archive. Note that in reality, no other file system can add files to a zip archive, and that others (such as MS-Windows file systems) re-create the zip archive when you add a file to it. This is because of the way a zip archive is constructed. Additionally, Mac's OS/X has poor file meta-data information support, and basic ACL-based permissions.
On the up side, Mac's OS/X supports folder encryption natively, and file operations such as rename or move can be performed while a file is open.

Community and Market Share

Microsoft Windows operating system controls the home market. While tracking actual usage of an operating system is tricky. There are some adopted processes but none is 100% accurate - and some margin should be allowed. In December 2008, according to a process taken by Net Applications, which monitors web usage and operating systems used, MS-Windows market share was 88.7% while Mac's was 9.6%.
The percentages that this data reports, even with margins, are very in favor of MS-Windows.
Add to that the huge, thriving online community, with deep technical knowledge that can have almost any question answered within minutes if you know where to ask (e.g. Daniel Petri's website) The only down point is that the percentages above are after a steady two-months decline in MS-Windows and rise in Mac's market share. While it is early to consider this 'a trend' - it may eventually be just that, as Feb 2009 statistics show.
Apple's Mac computers hold only a very small market share. While tracking actual usage of an operating system is tricky. There are some adopted processes but none is 100% accurate - and some margin should be allowed. In December 2008, according to a process taken by Net Applications, which monitors web usage and operating systems used, MS-Windows market share was 88.7% while Mac's was 9.6%.
The percentages that this data reports, even with margins, are very in favor of MS-Windows. There are two mitigations for Macs:
  1. The online community is quite large and responsive, considering the market share.
  2. The percentages above are after a steady two-months decline in MS-Windows and rise in Mac's market share. While it is early to consider this 'a trend' - it may eventually be just that, as Feb 2009 statistics show.

Total Cost of Ownership

MS-Windows computers have a higher total cost of ownership than Mavs. When purchasing a computer the price range is very large. First, you have many possible configuration options to choose from, and second - with an MS-Windows PC you can buy the parts and assemble the computer yourself, in essence building your own computer to the exact specification that you want, cutting the assembly costs and saving money. This is not an option with the Mac computers. Note that the wide range of hardware parts or assembling option is mainly relevant for desktops, as the options for notebooks' hardware are more limited, and assembling a computer from scratch is not an easy option with notebooks. MS-Windows PCs are therefore always cheaper when you compare them to Macs with the same hardware configuration, as Microsoft does not sell computer hardware. You can get a decent MS-Windows computer up and running for usually around 60-70% of the cost of comparable Mac configuration. However there are other considerations around software that comes with the Mac OS/X as opposed to the software you get with MS-Windows, and the initial purchase price while cheaper for a PC can be offset by lower productivity and security on one hand, and higher maintenance and TCO on the other. It is hard to find recent TCO data for MS-Windows pitched against other platforms. The score for MS-Windows TCO here is therefore based on the perceived ratio of time spent doing unproductive tasks - e.g. disk defragmentation, security and virus protection, application configuration changes, file system management etc. While an ordinary home user will not feel the difference so much, the number of total hours spent maintaining the system rather than doing productive work with it is relatively large for the MS-Windows OS.
While more expensive upfront, Macs are considered cheaper in the long run. Mac computers are always perceived as a bit more expensive up front than 'regular' MS-Windows computers when the same set of hardware parts is concerned. Macs also have a limited selection of hardware configuration options, because, unlike a PC, you can't change the case of the computer - everything has to fit inside the screen itself. Note, however, that when you compare the cost of an MS-Windows computer and factor in the additional software, memory, and other extras you have to buy to go along with it, the difference in price between a Mac and MS-Windows isn't as great as most people believe. Macs come with many built-in applications for either work or leisure. Be it productivity suites, multimedia programs, or others. Factor these costs into the initial purchase price, and the price of a Mac makes more sense and might even be cheaper for some class of users. Also notice that with Macs you can't easily change the internal hardware pieces (like the hard drive, network card or DVD drive). While this is definitely a drawback for some users, it also means that Macs are built with excellent technology up front, and excellent technology costs money. When you compare a Mac or a regular MS-Windows PC from the price point of view, you need to consider the level of hardware you are getting, its integration and the fact that your machine is in less danger of becoming obsolete in a year or two. The initial purchase price then is not a straight-forward comparison of hard cash - it also must take in the complete set of uses you expect from your new computer, its life span, and other aspects. It is generally accepted that while Macs cost more up front (i.e. have a higher initial purchase cost), their total cost of ownership is very low compared to other systems. Macs excel at preventing 'silent costs' which have usually a lot to do with productivity and availability of the system. Macs achieve that of by making many tasks extremely efficient time-wise. However, this is not likely to be extremely important to an ordinary home user. The following is a list of efficient mechanisms you get with a Mac:
  1. The actions of adding or removing applications are very quick.
  2. Hard disk space management is excellent, and prevents the need for defrags (which are time consuming). The efficient management can also save the costs of buying an extra hard drive for needs of space.
  3. Backing up files
  4. Troubleshooting system conflicts and other problems.
  5. Recovery from system failures

Security

An MS-Windows system is not very secure by default. It is possible to harden it, but it takes time, expertise and sometimes money - whereas this is almost all taken care of out-of-the-box in other systems. It is also worth noticing that the market share of MS-Windows and MS-Internet Explorer makes the OS and browser a more likely target for attackers. This motivation is not going to change unless MS-Windows market share drops dramatically. The newest MS-Windows versions (Vista and Windows 7) have undergone a lot of work aimed at making them a more secure platform than the previous versions of MS-Windows (such as Windows NT/2000/XP).

The most important security features in MS-Windows Vista / 7 are:

  • User Account Control - require active user consent for any action that needs administrative privileges. The design here is that all users run in 'standard user mode' by default. This is acceptable, as most applications do not require higher privileges. When a user or an application needs to perform some task that requires administrative privileges, (e.g. change system settings or install new software), MS-Windows ensures that the current user account has adminstrative privileges. (That means that regular users need to supply a username and password of an administrative account). Note that this change of security mechanism presented a new class of compatibility problems with older applications that rely on the user account they run under to have administrative privileges.
  • Bitlocker Drive Encryption - Using a USB key, this feature allows the user to encrypt entire drives. This mainly targets the system drive but can be used for all others as well.
  • Windows Firewall - Much improved over the firewall in former MS-Windows versions.
  • Windows Defender - Microsoft's own anti spyware solution.
  • Windows Parental Control - MS-Windows now includes a set of parental control tools, which let parents block their children access to unwanted content.
  • Encrypting File System (EFS) - allows file system encryption using PKI. This feature also allows encryption of the system's page file and the users' cache (offline files) - for added security.
  • Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR) - Is the process of loading system components into random addresses in memory. This makes attacks that try to exploit a known memory address for a system function very difficult. The system has 256 possibile locations to ransomize upon.
  • Data Execution Preverntion (DEP) - Flagging of memory blocks as containing data rather than executable code. This helps prevent several kinds of attacks, where an attacker tries to execute code from random places in memory.
  • Mandatory Integrity Control - A mechanism to create levels of trust between applications.

Additionally, new versions of MS-Windows (Vista, Windows 7) have other security mechanisms that were not present in earlier versions. A PC that has all those security mechanisms enabled is likely to be quite secure.
See Wikipedia's MS-Windows Security Page for an in-depth discussion of MS-Windows Vista security features. As far as remote management is concerned, all MS-Windows machines can have secure remote management enabled on them. However, this requires additional software and configuration. Out of the box support uses weak encryption and is considered a security risk.

The Mac OS/X operating system is built on the relatively secure UNIX foundation, and is designed to be secure from the ground up. It is true that any computer connected to a network or the Internet is never completely protected against viruses, spyware, malware etc. but it seems that Apple has put a lot of consideration to make the Macs as secure as posible. This design principle is apparent in many aspects of the system. For example, Safari, the Mac web browser, notifies the user when an application is downloaded from the Internet. Some malware applications disguise themselves inside multimedia files, but Safari is not fooled by these and still alerts the user that what he may think is a harmless video clip in fact contains an executable program. Applications downloaded to a Mac from the Internet are tagged by the system as untrusted (that is - downloaded from a potentially harmful source). When such an application is run for the first time, the system warns the user that the application was downloaded from the Internet - and displays information about the time it was downloaded, which application downloaded it etc. It then asks for consent to run it.
Apple continually releases security updates for Mac OS/X. A Mac user can configure the system to download and install these updates automatically or request permisson to do so. Additionaly, on OS/X, applications do not automatically get to run with the same privileges of the user account that started them. Whenever an application needs administrative access permission - such as downloading and installing software updates or modifying system files - the system requests the user for an administrator's password, thereby actively allowing the operation. Mac OS/X's system preferences are editable, but require an active consent to change. This means that whenever someone tries to change a system preference, an administrator's password is required. This prevents unauthorised persons from changing system configuration when a computer has been left unattended and unlocked by mistake. Note that an administrator will need to configure the system to lock the preferences for the administrator's account to achieve this behaviour. Macs also allow security-aware users to secure their virtual memory. OS/X allows a user to encrypt their system's virtual memory using the system preferences configuration. The new versions of Mac OS/X (Leopard) can process digital signatures attached to applications. All Apple applications shipped with Leopard are signed by Apple, and third-party software developers can also sign their applications. This signature proves that the application providers are who they claim to be and makes it harder for malicious parties to hack into a Mac computer. Mac OS/X introduces another anti-hacking security mechanism called Sandboxing. When an application is sandboxed, its file access, networking, and the ability to launch other applications are restricted. This makes it harder on hackers to hijack an application and make it run amock in the system. Note that sandboxing is optional and is not on by default for all applications. Mac OS/X Leopard supports the PIV smart card standard for Federal employees and contractors. While this may not be extremely important for a home user, it is still a very advanced security feature.
Mac OS/X Leopard employs a method whereby system libraries are not always loaded to the same addresses in memory. This helps protect against a common type of security breach where a hacker's code tries to execute code from a specific, well known memory address, that is used for a specific system function. This way the hacker wishes to execute code outside the control of the os. Mac OS/X loads each of these libraries to a random place, with thousands of possible memory addresses to choose from, thus making it very difficult for a hacker to guess where te piece of code they wish to run resides. Mac OS/X comes with an application called Keychain, which supplies a central place to store encrypted passwords. Keychain is not dependant on specific applications implementation (such as Safari or Firefox password storage mechanisms) and is very secure. Mac OS/X is equipped with parental control options. These are user restrictions built into the system that let parents control web sites or software that their children can access. As far as remote management is concerned, Mac OS/X provides excellent remote management capabilities out of the box. Strong encrypted channel is available via VNC preinstalled with the operating system

Reliability

Microsoft has come a long way forward with the newer version of MS-Windows (Vista) - but the system is still not as reliable as a user would like it to be. The first hurdle is the 'open-ness' of the PC. A computer reseller may assemble the computer he sells the customer by himself, with any hardware components he has handy. This, together with the hundreds of thousands of possible such combinations, together with MS-Windows Vista s the OS, means that the system you buy may have never been completely tested by anyone. Microsoft can not possibly test all possible configurations, and the same goes for the hardware manufacturers.
While this is not Microsoft's fault, it still pertains mainly to MS-Windows, and the user may experience a 'Blue Screen' or other device incompatibility problems (which are sometimes very difficult to pin down) etc. Add to that the fact that most viruses and malicious software on the Internet target MS-Windows specifically, and the low score for reliability is better understood.
With a Mac, your software and hardware always come from the same company, and are always tested together rigorously before they are shipped to you. The hardware and software are in essence 'made for each other' and because of that a Mac rarely freezes or crashes. Add to that several Operating System features like sandboxing and application isolation (that is - even if an application crashes, it will not take the rest of the computer down with it) - and you have a very reliable computer. Add to that the high virus-resistance and overall security of the Mac OS/X, and it becomes obvious why it gets a nearly perfect score in this category.

MS-Windows

MAC

MS-Windows

Average rating: 4.0 / 5
based on 35 customer reviews
Feel factor: 3


$180 aT Microcenter , New Power Supply at 6 M

(Score 4/5)

I paid $180 for the computer at Micro Center while it was on sale and Paired it with a 20" Acer Wide screen Monitor, that I purchased for $139. I walked out with Both for under $350.00 including Tax!

The Power Supply Failed at 6 Months.

1 Year strong now and no other problems besides the sleep mode being funky.

Its Super Quiet, Fast, and above and beyond what I would expect for such a affordable Computer!

The preloaded Cyberlink Dvd works well with my Epson R280, and they have shared features that make it even more rewarding. Like not needing a second print program!

All in all, well worth the money. Just watch the low end power supply. And despite what anyone says, it is Proprietary. It also works great as a media center. $5 cable on Amazon and we use the 42 " Hitachi Lcd as a monitor, and stream movies straight from Netflix or Block buster. I did add a wireless card to make that easier, but only because I didn't feel like messing with cables!!

Posted on: 2010-05-04
By Adrian B. Perez



No Stars

(Score 1/5)

I've had this computer for about six months now and thoroughly hate it. This is my 10th year for buying Compaq computers and this is by far one of the slowest processors I have ever used. They make slower ones because I bought one of those also. I tried to buy a card reader for it through Compaq and they told me that they would not sell me one even though the computer has the slot for it. I am really disappointed in everything about this unit and will replace as soon as I can. Most of my computer purchases last for 3 to 4 years. This one will not make a year. I got what I paid for and less. Another feature is that I randomly get an update and the computer shuts itself down with out the option of saving what I was working on. Sweet.

Posted on: 2009-10-22
By Walter Kirkpatrick



HP has no suport

(Score 1/5)

No support, October 9, 2009
By Stan Tomberg (Hendersonville, NC) - See all my reviews




On 1/01/09 I called customer service (that is what they call it). I told the tech my internal lightscribe drive would not burn label's. I am not a not a novice and I went through all the steps - uninstalling the drive and reinstalling the drive, etc. I told the the tech that my external lightscribe drive was working fine so it had to be the drive. He had me duplicate all the steps I Had already done and after 1:05 he said he would send me a new drive it was under warranty got my credit card info and he put me on hold. After 10 minutes (1:15 total time) I hung up.

I called back after I cooled down and got a tech who saw what was done, bur insisted to let him take over my PC. He assured me it take only 20 minutes and I agreed. An hour and 35 minutes later I told him just take of ordering the drive (it seems the first tech did not it. Hr agreed and then after being on hold for 5 minutes he told me the system was down and I would have to call back on 11/2/09.

Both techs had bad attitudes and treated me like a dummy. I wasted two hours and 40 minutes of being insulted and talked down to!

Price can not overcome lack of service

Posted on: 2009-10-10
By Stan Tomberg
Helpful index: 50%



It likes to go to sleep in the middle of thin

(Score 3/5)

It is an acceptional computer, good with streaming video and have 15 or more windows open with 5 or more programs and no issues. the only problem is that it chooses to sleep in the middle of me doing something, still using keyboard and mouse moving. it does not wake up unless I push the power button sometimes two or three times.

Posted on: 2009-09-01
By R. Guerin



Affordable, and mostly reliable, but . . .

(Score 4/5)

Okay, it's always annoying when people let other things get in the way of their review of a product, such as the morons who give a good product only one star because they had a problem with Amazon's customer service or something else.

So I'm giving this computer only four stars because, frankly, 10+ hours of dealing with Hewlett Packard's inept tech support staff warrants a slightly lowered rating.

My good ole Gateway p.c. finally died, so I needed a replacement quickly -- and I didn't have a lot of money to spend. I had done test drives of Vista on friends' computers and wasn't thrilled to have it forced on me, but XP is unfortunately a thing of the past. The good news is that I got Vista configured so it looks similar to XP. The bad news is that some of my older software took a bit of work to get Vista to accept it -- for example, I had to contact HP to get updated drivers so my printer would interface. This was very frustrating, because I'm just not tech savvy enough to know what to look/ask for -- I'm a whiz at operating computers, but I know little of how they run.

There were numerous times I had to contact HP's Compaq tech support, and although those people in India are very nice and courteous, they are not in a hurry to get anything done -- every time, what should have taken ten minutes at most took upwards of an hour. One of these times was buying the extended service plan -- good lord, how long can it take to notate my choice, run my credit card, and issue a confirmation number? And a HUGE warning -- always, ALWAYS have the model number, product number, and serial number handy if you have to call tech support, because even after you register as a customer, they will ask for all three numbers every time you call. Evidently, their database technology -- perhaps in use since, say, 1490 -- can retain your name and contact information, but God forbid they actually log your product information. Needlessly frustrating. Fortunately, everything seems to finally be "smooth sailing."

I was greatly relieved when, after initially hearing some negative reports, it turned out that Vista easily reads older Microsoft products -- my Office 2003 stuff loaded effortlessly. This was a big deal to me, since a lot of my computer usage involves Word and Excel.

After two months, I'm still learning and streamlining things. The infamous Vista pop-ups are not as annoying as I thought they would be, but maybe some of the updates from Microsoft have curtailed the pop-ups. For what it's worth, I really dislike the Windows Media Player 11 -- I think I had version 8 on my old computer, and it was easy to use, but this version 11 monstrosity is unpleasant to navigate and eats up a fair amount of RAM while in use. If you know of an excellent alternative that can play stuff and do CD ripping/burning, please post a comment to this review.

One of the things I like about this computer is that it runs so quietly and doesn't put out heat -- my old Gateway was a thermal nightmare. The only real drawback to the computer itself is that I can't figure out the sleep and hibernate options at all -- I've tried them all, and the computer will jump to life on its own after a minute or two. Naturally, I'm loath to yet again call India to try to find a solution to this dilemma, but I'll have to soon -- I use the computer several times a day, and I don't like having to completely power it up and down each time. [Suggestions?]

I've rambled, but I thought it important to mention all the stuff about HP's tech support and the Vista interfaces for anyone thinking of buying this [or another] HP/Compaq that uses Vista.

Posted on: 2009-07-30
By Joseph Grienenberger
Helpful index: 100%

MAC

Average rating: 4.5 / 5
based on 71 customer reviews
Feel factor: 7


MY FIRST MAC from a longtime PC user

(Score 5/5)

DISCLAIMER: If you've already owned a Mac this isn't much of a review. If you're thinking of moving from a PC platform, read on.

For the last 15 years I've used a Mac at work but always kept my PC at home. I had felt felt there was an "elitist" attitude from Mac users. It rubbed me the wrong way and I was content knowing my PC's were less expensive and had much more software for me to choose from. Then I bought an iPhone and I started to succumb to the force. I'm starting to think that Mac users aren't elite, they're just mystified as to why people would want to deal with the problems that seem built into PC's. The primary problem of virus's and hacker-made destruction programs may have been finally dealt with in Windows 7. I wish it had come 10 years earlier.

When Windows 7 came along I thought I was saved. Finally a really good OS for PC's so I needed to buy WIN7 software, more RAM, a new video card, might as well just buy a whole new PC. This was an important time to make a big decision and I chose this iMac. I'm about four months into my first iMac and I'm sorry I didn't do it years ago. The PC always made me feel like an idiot, giving me techo-speak reminders that I did not understand and had no desire to learn. Anyway, I was so happy with my purchase that I also dumped my daughter's PC and got a used iMac for her.

One of the first neat things I experienced was installing my printer. I went to the HP site to look for the Mac driver and found the driver was already in my iMac. Plugged it in and that was it! After I bought my daughter's Mac I selected the "sharing" function on my computer but told my daughter she'd have to wait till the next day when I could set her printer function. I came home the next day and my daughter told me thanks for hooking up the printer. I had only allowed sharing of the printer but that was all there was to it. Her iMac found my iMac and then found my printer. It all worked so easily.

I also bought the stand alone Apple Airport to replace my old wireless router. It was so much easier than the old router and actually allowed me to provide my own 15 digit password code. With my old router that I had to enter a list of letters and/or numbers that are virtually impossible to memorize and even harder to enter correctly.

Things I don't like...or need to deal with:

1. Unless you run a very lean system there aren't enough USB and/or firewire ports. Yes, it's also a problem with PC's but the iMac just seems like it "deserves" to be decked out with more IO's. I bought both firewire and USB hubs.

2. When you purchase a Mac from an Apple Retail Store they offer a package called "One-To-One" for an extra $99. It allows the buyer to take a one-on-one hour long class each week at an Apple store. You can bring a kid, a wife, a friend and get a very personal technical assistant to answer your Apple questions. You make appointments for a specific application, like iPhoto or Word or Garage Band. I went to couple of these with a friend before purchasing my iMac and they were incredibly helpful in making my transition to a Mac. I did not not buy my iMac from an Apple retail store and you can't get one-to-one unless you buy from their store.


I think a PC with Windows 7 is probably a good, solid system but I can not see myself ever going back to a PC. jmho



Posted on: 2010-05-09
By wwireless



30 Years With Computers ... iMac Is By Far Th

(Score 5/5)

I work with computers since the Commodore Vic-20 was introduced. I have built computers since PC clones were available and 30MB hard drive costs $300. I have used DOS, Windows, Mac, various flavors of UNIX and all kinds of other things in my computer career. I have to say that the form factor and ease of use of the iMac as well as the logic, simplicity of the OS makes it the best computer I have ever used, and honestly the first computer that I have ever had that is really a huge boon to my productivity.

I can do everything on my iMac that I could do on my PC more, better and faster. The OS has been rock solid. There have been no viruses or attacks from the Internet.

The wonderful 24" screen of my iMac along with the bluetooth mouse and keyboard that I bought makes my desktop the least cluttered and so easy to work with I never cease to be amazed just looking at it.

There are some drawback to the Mac, the mouse trackball "clogs" up regularly ... that is very sad, but using isopropyl alcohols cleans it up pretty well. Still the mouse when it works works better than any other mouse I have had, and it has 3 buttons.

The screen is beautiful, fantastic, fast and huge, also develops some shadows and marks on it that are irritating, but again, they can be removed, they are not permanent.

The OS is nice as well ... I love UNIX, I love the command line and shell programming, and Mac does this better than PC ... and it does it in a user friendly way that Linux cannot touch.

Some things are kind of irritating left overs from Mac tradition, like the only way to resize a window is from the lower left ... which is really crazy. There are other things as well, but al computers have problems.

I think this is finally the computer that can help anyone who is not a computer expert to make the best use of a computer, and not only that ... this machine is an absolutely wonderful media player. DVDs, MP3s, music, video, podcasts, and programs to use cameras, videocameras, etc. I ended up finally getting an iPod and much as I criticise the iPod it works the best of about any of these kinds of devices.

The danger here is that Apple will take this overwhelming lead in design and ergonomics and not continue to improve and drive forward. But now and for the near future, there is hardly any reason to buy anything else ... not even when you consider that you can buy a very powerful PC for less money .... money is not the only criteria here, the iMac is worth the money and I thank myself everyday for what was basically a whim to explore what Apple was doing with computers. I bought the iMac sort of on an impulse and I am very happy I did and will never go back to anything else.

Posted on: 2010-04-22
By B. Kline



Big P

(Score 5/5)

CONSIDERING CHANGING FROM PC TO MAC? HERE'S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE......

I won't bore you with a ton of detail, but here's the biggest advantages.

#1. Quick start up and shown down. (alot quicker)
#2. No virus software needed.....period.
#3. If you've operated Windows, you'll learn Leopard within two days. Very similar.
#4. No freezing up when you open or shut down windows (no matter how many).
#5. THE AREA WHERE MAC IS FAR SUPERIOR IS.......creating movies or slideshows, with music. Far superior than windows while being very simple.

I'll never go back to windows. I dropped by several "computer repair" stores. Here's what I heard from the
repair people "Never get Mac's in here due to software problems, if we depended on Mac's for our business, we
wouldn't be in business very long.

Posted on: 2010-02-20
By Jordan Briggs



Major Power Issues

(Score 2/5)

Ok first I do love these computers. Our entire school district replaced all of our computers with them. Frankly as their technician i was drueling over how wonderful they were/are. One little problem... the have some weird major power issue rendering them useless when suddenly they will not power on. With about 300 of them on campus about 1 in 15 have this issue. As a school we could not afford the service warranty. So we are stuck with beautiful, lovable, DEAD computers. Buyer beware... if you have this issue take care of it asap!!! Also it was said there was a firmware issue with them. if that is true make sure you get the firmware updated asap as well. Sorry folks. I do adore them. Just not the 1 in ever 15 that i cry for.

Posted on: 2010-02-20
By Jennifer St Jude
Helpful index: 50%



Nightmare

(Score 2/5)

In the first eight months I've had this thing in the shop on three different occasions for three different problems: bad superdrive, built in microphone does not work, and an awful sound from the fan that was never fixed and I still have to live with everyday. Don't think I'll ever buy an Apple again. Hope you don't get a lemon like I have.

Posted on: 2010-02-08
By N. Robinson
Helpful index: 0%

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