I Need A New Laptop, PC or Mac?

[Adam B]

I, like Mark K, am a network admin, I manage over 1500 desktops and 50 servers and I use a mac for all of my personal computing as well as my office computer and for all of my servers that are on the web 24/7. I will admit that with macs there is a bit of a transition period if you are life long windows user, but it is well worth the learning curve. I will also boast that the durability of mac computers is bar none the best in the industry. We have mac computers that have been used 8 hours a day for the last 10 years and they still run, they arent used much anymore but they still start up and do what they are supposed to do. I also have several mac laptops at home and my children, 5, 3 and 1, have all had a hand in proving the durability of macbooks. I have a mac book air that is 8 months old and they have dropped it, bent the screen back and dented in the corner and the damn thing keeps on going. If you fell like you want to take the plunge to a mac go for it you wont regret it, and if you dont want to go all of the way, you can always install Windows using bootcamp on the mac.

[eric nielsen]

Another thumbs up for the Dell XPS like Nik mentioned. Buy enough memory which for Vista is 2 to 4 GB, guessing MS-Se7en will need at least 4GB just because as is well known, Microsoft code gets more bloated with each new generation. With iffy memory you will get angry, often.

I've been lucky to have the MacAfee full suite of antivirus/antispyware that is free for me as a UF student. I put it on all 4 pc laptops in the family and have not had any virus issues at all, in two years. Also i'm a big fan of Firefox, 1000x better than IE. For some of our school stuff I added IE-Tabs which is a free Firefox add-on. Also got some thing called Stylish which lets you kill the unforgivable Fade feature of Google's main page. Also a fan of CCleaner which is freeware. I run the cleaner prior to every shut down and always shut down before going to sleep.

PCs tend to knock themselves out trying to memorize every last unimportant detail of whatever is open on your screen if you let it take a nap via power management. I don't let mine do that, I shut them down cold. Also I run every core Vista update that is put out - annoying at first but you get used to it. Set to download automatically and to ask me if I want to run the update upon shutdown. Works every time.

Small survey size but with the thousands of documents we've had to download/submit and 100s or 1000s of hours of streaming video we've had to watch in our first 2 years of UF-COP, my 3 friends and I that have the XPS have had no problems. None. My Mac friends have also adapted pretty well - with their own chat board to handle our non-Mac software - but at least 3 instances of the permanent, soldered-in variety of Mac batteries either failing 100% [no computing possible] or actually catching on fire.

If you like intelligent design, elegant code, and sincere attempts to not rip you off with a Standard Oil/Rockefeller type of monopoly, by all means give B. Gates the international hand salute and buy a Mac. It's one way but not the only way to have a trouble-free laptop.

[outerlimits]

Funny listening to the weak windoz arguments. Been an appleguy since the apple IIe. Have 3 macs at home and my daughter has amacbook pro at college. Had to use pcs at work for years. No comparison. Haven't found a thing a pc can do that a mac can't do better, easier and more efficiently. It is the absolute no brained. And don't tell me about unix. Used it for years as well. Gimme OSX anyday.

[Vlad]

And don't tell me about unix. Used it for years as well. Gimme OSX anyday.

You do know that .. oh jeez. I'll just leave it alone.

[wgnoyes]

Another thumbs up for the Dell XPS like Nik mentioned. Buy enough memory which for Vista is 2 to 4 GB, guessing MS-Se7en will need at least 4GB just because as is well known, Microsoft code gets more bloated with each new generation. With iffy memory you will get angry, often.

I usually agree with the bloatware concept, but I did a full install of Win7 Ultimate and it was hands down the fast operating system install I ever did and also went into the smallest amount of disk space (just under 10g) that I'd ever seen.

[Suprdave]

I was a PC User since 1995, just picked up my first 13" Macbook Pro a couple months ago...

Hands Down, best laptop I've ever had...

The touchpad is sooooooo nice, the apps...the way it seamlessly integrates with all Apple products. Get one, you'll love it.

[Graham Smith]

Based on way too many years in this business, there is only one correct answer to this question: Decide what software (not operating system or hardware) you want to use and then get the computer to go with it.

Would you try and decide if you want a truck or a sedan without first deciding how you were going to use it? People always seem to start at the wrong end of the decision tree when it comes to computers.

[wgnoyes]

After the amount of fun I had here last December...

And the amount of fun I had here last March...

And then having a friend's computer suddenly decide it couldn't load a user's profile for no good reason a few weeks ago, losing all the setting that userid had set...

And then having a work computer threaten to do the same thing with bad user profiles (rebooting and trying again fixed this one) earlier this week...

I'm an IBM MVS systems programmer and it takes a lot to wear me down, but windows may have finally done it, and it'll be a coin toss whether to get Apple or windows next time. Only downside is I would have to buy the apple versions of the applications I run on windows, and in the case of Adobe Creative Suite, THAT would be as much as the computer itself. But it just might be worth it!

[Sarge]

Funny this thread emerged again. I posted in here a long time ago that my son got a MAC for his first year of college and he loved it. He came home from that first year about two weeks ago without a computer. I said oh man did somebody steal your $3000 laptop? He admitted he did not like it at all and could not get used to the darn thing. His new Sony should be here today as a matter of fact.

[Tom27]

Thanks for the comments guys, even you Ant Boy..... that was a piece of info I didn't think about. Mark, I'm not concerned about "learnability", I'm more concerned about how tough it is and how virus and crash-proof it it. Just an example, I've spent a lot of time and money on the latest greatest anti virus stuff and then the hd goes bad or you wind up with a virus anyway because they don't have a definition for it yet, I understand anything mechanical is going to break but are the Macs any more durable than the PC's?

I changed to a mac book pro last year and haven't looked back since. I am bummed when I have to use my work PC. The only drawback I can see s\is that you have to change software. The main one for me was changing our banking software from quicken to ibank. Just takes a little time to get everything up and running on the new mac. We had crashed two PC's in the year before we changed over, and as of yet we have no problems with the mac, no virus software needed.

Also if you have an apple store nearby, it is a great resource for educating yourself on the mac and also for troubleshooting and repairs.

Good luck with your decision.