What made you go over to the dark side?

koolpc

koolpc

koolpc

Soldato
Joined
2 Dec 2004
Posts
14,619
Location
Under The Desk, Wales
What made you guys buy an Apple computer? How long have you used one and would you ever go back to a 'PC'.

Just wondering wether or not to test the waters in the black lagoon!! lol
 
There is every chance that this thread will degenerate as many others have in the past. It would be great if it doesn't.

Please keep your replies civil as here's advance warning: It will be closed at any mention of fanboyism from either 'side' of the discussion.
 
Curiosity initially if I'm being honest, got myself a black macbook back in 2008 and upgraded to a MBP this May. Stayed with it due to the fact that I love OS X. I still have a windows 7 Pc for all my gaming needs but for day to day use, I use my MBP a considerable amount more.
 
Bought one for my mum, mainly because it's harder for her to mess up with adware etc.
iPhoto and the other Apple programs are pretty good and I like Timemachine, but overall I wouldn't say it's any more intuitive, stable, or speedy than an equivalently specced Windows machine.

On the negatives side Microsoft's Office is (not surprisingly) much better implemented in Windows, application support generally isn't as good, and I'm always finding irritating things about it - such as GIMP inexplicably not installing, the Locked-down EFI implementation limiting me to SATA 150, and the unexpected hassle of getting a normal non-apple British layout keyboard working reasonably.
 
The only thing I used Windows for was WoW. And I really really liked Windows 7. But I fancied a change and I'd never used OS X. So I leapt in blind and bought a MBP. So impressed with it a couple months later I got an iMac and sold all my PC equipment.

Would I go ever go back to Windows? Sure. As I said, I really liked Windows 7. But it would need to be something spectacular to get me back on Windows.

The lack of mechanical switch keyboards though is frustrating. Only two real options, the Matias Tactile Pro (which I'm using right now) which uses Alps switches or the DSI SMK-88, which uses Cherry switches, but has a hash job of a USB cable with two ports required, one to power the board and the other for the USB hub. Just stupid.
 
I made the switch due to wanting to use a new OS and loved the aesthetics of the range. I was all set to get a MBP as I was moving from a Dell laptop, but once I realised I didn't actually need portability any more, and you actually got a better spec for less outlay the iMac was a no brained for me.

Other than using the OS in the store on a few occasions it was all new to me, but I wouldn't go back to windows I don't think now.

Since purchasing the iMac back in jan I've since bought an iPhone 4 and the new apple tv, and love how well integrated everything is between the devices.
 
Pretty much liked the look and with people saying they dont get virus's etc. Thought i would give it a try and to be honest really like it.
Still not fully used to it but liking it.
 
I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

But what pushed me all the way was that screen, i saw it in person and could not get over how amazing it is.
 
Last edited:
We bought our first mac in early 08(iMac 24)and had never used a mac before.I wish i had made the move earlier.The mac experience and OSX are brilliant.I have a Envy 17 for a bit of gaming but live on the iMac for home use.We now have two iMac's and a macbook.I could not go back to windows now,i'm converted:D
 
koolpc said:
What made you guys buy an Apple computer?
Click to expand...
Partly because of many years spent suffering as tech support during the day and repeatedly coming home to a computer that would throw a wobbler for no apparent reason. Eventually you get tired of it all and want something that just works.

That'll no doubt enrage all the fanboys, but in all the time I've owned a Mac it's never, ever, skipped a beat. Not once.

I think the main selling point for me is that after 18-months of constant usage my MBP still takes roughly the same time to boot up as it did when I first got it out of the box. It's possibly a couple of seconds slower, but it does have a shedload of data on the hard-drive.

My other reason for wanting/needing a Mac was to have a high-quality laptop screen that I could carry around with me. At the time I don't think there was anything that could touch the anti-glare screen on the 17" MBP and, as far as I'm concerned, there still isn't. The fact that it runs OS X and everything I use on a daily basis works flawlessly on the Mac is a bonus, albeit a very welcome one.

koolpc said:
How long have you used one and would you ever go back to a 'PC'.
Click to expand...
About 18-months now and I'm still barely scratching the surface of what OS X can actually do. For day-to-day and business usage I'd never go back to a PC unless I was physically forced to.

And if I really needed to use Windows again; I'd Boot Camp it.

koolpc said:
Just wondering wether or not to test the waters in the black lagoon!! lol
Click to expand...
You'll never know if it's really for you unless you start to use one on a regular basis. I love my Mac and I'd recommend one to anyone who asked, but it's not for everyone and the cost is prohibitive when compared to the equivalent Windows-based system.
 
Was looking to move from a large, noisy, over clocked beige box PC to a small form factor PC like a Shuttle, at the same time Steve Jobs appeared on stage holding the Mac Mini in his hand and it seemed like a good time to try Apple fully as I had already invested in the iPod / iTunes ecosystem. Never once regretted it.
 
First Apple product I bought was a 2006 iPod Nano. Starting liking how it worked, how it sync'd, how it felt.

2007 bought the first iPhone. Thought I'd give it a bash as it was something different. Loved the phone, even though it lacked 'modern' features of phones of that year.

After using the iPhone for a while, I started to look further into Apple and their products; I'd had two off them in a year and loved how they operated. At this point, after living and breathing PC's and Windows in home and work life 13 years I thought I'd give Macs and Mac OS a shot.

I bought a black polycarbonate MacBook, started to integrate my iPhone and iPod with it - and that, as they say, is history.

Since that story, I've owned the following (order may be slightly non chronological):

- 2006 iPod Nano
- Original iPhone
- MacBook (black) 2.0GHz
- iPod Nano 4th gen
- iPod touch 1st gen
- Mac mini 2.0GHz
- MacBook Pro 15" unibody
- iPod Shuffle 2nd gen (for the kids)
- iMac 27" i5
- Mac mini 2.4GHz
- iPhone 3G
- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 4
- AirPort Express / AirPort Extreme
- MacBook Air 11"
- iPod touch 4th gen (for the kids)


Invested a lot - absolutely no way I'd go back to PC and Windows.
 
I got a job at a store and decided it might be a good idea to know how they work :D still game on my PC and use the mac mini for work/itunes.
 
Three reasons, in order of most to least important.

One, I got an iPhone after spending about 2-3 months looking for every phone BUT an iPhone because I was still in the 'if it's Apple it must be t3h l0se!' phase. It took about a minute after it booted for me to fall in love.

Two, I wanted something small, quiet and low power for general browsing and day to day computing; everything except heavy-duty work and gaming. It also had to output music bit-perfectly. OSX is natively bit-perfect, no faffing around with buying obscure sound-cards, getting WASAPI up and running. Mac Mini was a no brainer.

Three, after years and years of using Windows I fancied a change and reading up about OSX in general had piqued my interest.
 
I'd always liked the look of them, and the culture that seems to have them.

Then, when I was studying my MSc I noticed most tutors used them, on the basis of reliability, so I went for one.
 
all started in our house with me getting the wife a Macbook due to the well known woman/windows issues regarding malware/software/hardware.

now our house is over run with the bleeding apple stuff from macs to macbooks to ipad/pods and both me and her have iphones :(


hell even my lone surviviving pc dual boots with a certain apple program these days
 
Two years of looking at my best mates mbp (the 07 one he got at the start of uni) gave me so much mac envy it was hard to resist. I had to hold out for the second round of unibody's when I worked out how much id get selling my old gaming beast and cant get over how good its been :)

Cant wait to have a real gaming pc back when sandy bridge comes out but this covers most my needs most the time and will do for years to come
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom