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Mac or PC?

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#21
Turock said:
I have a year old Macbook pro, a Powerbook (I believe that's what it's called), a Dell D620 Latitude, an Inspiron, an older Dell desktop, and a PC that I built.
Ever tried to replace a hard drive in a Powerbook? Ever tried to put a new power supply in a G5 desktop? Ridiculous. I can fix anything that goes wrong on a PC; with a Mac, even something that should be simple, it's almost not worth the time.
Also, software is much easier to find for a PC.
I'll take a PC any day.
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That's the reason I switched to a PC. I owned two mac's for programming music. I would juice them til I just had to buy another one. But when I would upgrade the processors, they would start locking up or crashing. So, I just lately upgraded to a built PC. So far, good. Also, I got way more software for it.
 
#22
No reason to buy overpriced hardware and a case that doesnt dissipate heat just because of the looks. Currently, all macs run outdated hardware (for example, their standard graphics card in desktops is still the ATI Radeon 5770, which came out in 2009 and no serious computer builder would use for a computer costing even a quarter as much as a mac).

Also, price comparison.

The most expensive Mac on newegg, 1749.99USD.
Newegg.com - Recertified: Apple MacBook Pro MC227LL/A-R Notebook Intel Core 2 Duo 2.80GHz 17.0" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

Laptop running windows with pretty much the same specs new, 430.99
Newegg.com - Recertified: TOSHIBA Satellite L675D/S7052B Notebook AMD Phenom II Dual-Core N640(2.9GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Radeon HD 4250

And if you simply want to stay with OSX (which I see no reason for you to do if you already got windows) you can simply run OSX on it, and have a Hackintosh!
 
#28
This thread has convinced me to stay away from Macs. Nobody has brought anything earth shattering to the table except the price of macs being astronomically high..

PS: I never get a virus on a windows PC, and this is without virus protection. It's called a hosts file. google that stuff..
 
#29
gaudenti said:
Yes, I know the question has been asked here before. But it's been a while and Macs and PCs have changed.

Daughter is going off to college (!) and she needs a new laptop. She currently has an old HP which she has been happy with, and doesn't know if she should get a Mac or a PC. She's going in as a Bio major. Any suggestions or comments?

Thanks . . .
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I'm a neutral party, because both of my kids prefer Linux, but they've got quite a few years before they have to choose a computer for college. :D

Does the existing computer work? The computing needs for most college students is surprisingly modest: Word processing and Web browsing. Chances are good that she will be turning in assignments electronically, probably in Microsoft Word format, and interacting with a lot of Web based stuff. So she might need something like the student edition of Microsoft Word. She should also make sure that her computer is capable of reliably maintaining a wireless Internet connection and using a modern browser.

If her computer works to that extent, let her decide after she gets to college. Beware that computer theft is rampant on most campuses.
 
#30
I'm a biomedical engineering professor by day and have deep contacts and experience with biology and biosciences generally. The answer is unequivocally a Mac. The days when PCs dominated science and engineering is long gone. The Mac OS is industrial grade UNIX with an elegant face. It runs all software of significance to scientific work natively these days and even oddball stuff in XWindows (UNIX) or Windows in emulation. Modern biosciences are strongly imaging based and increasingly computational, and Macs are ideal foe this work. Word processing, creating AV presentations, electronic texts, molecular modelling, image analysis, etc. Are all easiest on this platform and I can tell you first-hand that at bioscience conferences these days it's all MacBook Pros and increasingly iPads, with strong inroads by both into health sciences. My entire lab instrumentation operation, all my grad students and postdocs, and our undergrad summer students are all using Macs and packing iPhones. If you want your kid to be best-enabled, there's just one choice.
 
#31
My daughter had her PC hard drive trashed twice in college. Viruses spread like wildfire in the sealed college system. I have NEVER had a virus on any of my Macs, thank God.
Laptop PC's are cheaper and disposable and if you keep everything backed up or on a cloud somewhere, you can get away with a PC.
 
#33
Another thing to consider, the new Mac OS X Lion discontinues backward compatibility for apps written for pre-Intel Macs.
Also, everything at the college will most probably work with Windows, not so with Mac. The students of the medical research university in my area with Macs, are required to have Windows installed on them (at their expense).
 
#34
Epidrake said:
My daughter had her PC hard drive trashed twice in college. Viruses spread like wildfire in the sealed college system. I have NEVER had a virus on any of my Macs, thank God.
Laptop PC's are cheaper and disposable and if you keep everything backed up or on a cloud somewhere, you can get away with a PC.
Click to expand...

You wont get a virus if you read up on what the hell you're doing, and running a proper firewall and antivirus. People who catch viruses from the local network are just... well, dumb.
 
#35
It really just comes down to what software you need to use. Most music production software is designed primarily for mac and runs smoothly in that environment. There is a lot of professional software that is windows-only...Autodesk, Solidworks, every piece of PCB software. My only option is to run both. One benefit of Windows is that the same software will work on every version of the OS down the road. Mac OS updates routinely break compatibility. If I updated to 10.7 today, about half of my software would stop running.
 
#36
I use both Windows and OSX about 50/50, and spend quite a bit of time reading up on both. I use a Windows 7 laptop at my job and a 2008 MacBook Pro (just loaded with Lion). I much prefer working on Windows 7...spreadsheets and word processing (Excel and Word) are much better and universal. The Mac Excel is a bit hampered, and a hassle to use, and I'm not a fan of Numbers and Pages. Word is OK on a Mac, though. I much, much prefer internet browsing, listening to music and organizing pictures on the Mac, especially with Lion.

My vote: if she's just doing basic homework and normal college kid stuff (music, pics) Mac is a better long-term investment. But if there's any chance she'll need special programs or web forms (because a lot of university websites aren't properly rendered to run in Safari) or use a lot of Excel, go PC.

Re: the virus conversation...Macs are much less prone to viruses because there are very few viruses written for OSX, and Apple updates their virus definition tables very regularly. Anyone I know that has a 5-6 year old Mac, Safari and the rest of their computer runs just a fast after several years as it did when they got it. Mine's coming up on 3 and it runs like a charm.

On Windows, I've always been super careful where and what I download and where I go, and have up to date anti-virus software...after 6 months, I ALWAYS noticed a significant drop-off in performance, both in web browsing and processing power.
 
#40
Macs are really good if you are artistically involved (pictures, music, film, etc.). They are not as great as PCs when it comes to "office work".
I personally prefer a PC over a Mac when typing an essay eventhough they both have Microsoft office.
Since she is going to study Biology she will have to do alot of organising and type essays. I would chose a PC.
 
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