Mac vs PC, is there any difference apart from the OS?

[imb4tman]

To the original question, the hardware can be identical to a PC now because of the use of Intel CPU's. As for the price, there is definitely a premium for a Mac but I don't think it's as much as some people make out. The iMac for example - nice case, nice screen. Of course you could buy a cheaper PC with a poor case and screen but that wouldn't be a fair comparison. The depreciation is also much less, I bought an iMac 3 years ago for £900 after student discount and sold it this year for £600.

As for their customer service, it is truly shocking, the worst I've ever had to deal with. I've dealt with them twice this year, once for a faulty Macbook Air and once for iTunes and it's like banging your head against a brick wall. I'm finally getting a refund from Apple for the Air after battling with them for 6 + months after getting Trading Standards involved.

 

[uvarvu]

But at least I could run the latest iTunes on my old XP laptop unlike my old Mac Mini which requires me having to fork out £80 or so for an OS upgrade

Are you sure about that?

 

[picnic]

Are you sure about that?

I'm sure thank you. I can't run that because it's Intel only unlike my Mini. I can't see the OS upgrade applicable to my machine on the Apple Store. Maybe I can't even upgrade any more.

 

[deusexlumina]

To install other than on Apple Hardware. Also you gain the benefit of customer service that is unbeatable.

frankly ive found their customer service is appalling. Took 2 months to get my macbook pro fixed, even then i had to send it back again because they hadn't fixed it all correctly.

 

[deusexlumina]

Yes, you do not get a fully functional Hackintosh system most of the time however I can say the same about my MBP. If I try to use it for anything intensive, it gets too hot to touch and generally way to uncomfortable to use. And this is a "Pro" machine, mind you.

This, as well.

 

[AtticusFinch]

I am amazed that the posters here have received poor customer service from Apple on Hardware items. Whenever I have had an issues, locally or when travelling, I've always received helpful assistance over the phone and in person.

I guess there'll always be some failures in the system, but I standf by my view that in the context of competitors, Apple's customer service, overall is the best I've ever experienced.

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

I'm sure thank you. I can't run that because it's Intel only unlike my Mini. I can't see the OS upgrade applicable to my machine on the Apple Store. Maybe I can't even upgrade any more.

If you've got a Mac with a PowerPC CPU then you won't be able to use Snow Leopard. They're being left behind and rightly so, Apple don't even make machines with PowerPC CPU's anymore so to complain about something like that is a bit silly, they've been left behind for years. It's a bit silly of you to make up a figure such as "£80 to upgrade" when you can't upgrade the OS any more than Leopard on your PowerPC Mac. Also, as Uvarvu pointed out, people who own Leopard can upgrade for £25 so stop complaining for absolutely no reason.

Just reading some of the other posts and it's fairly obvious that there is absolutely no point even trying to point out the pro's of Apple products because of where this thread is situated in the forum. If this was in the Apple sub section there'd be more of the people who use the machines on a day to day basis replying to these threads and offering a different insight but the bottom line is that the hardcore PC users discount Mac's as shiny overpriced rubbish without ever living with one or using one for an extended period of time. I find it quite strange that of all the Mac or iPhone owners I know, none of them have had a bad experience with Apple's customer service yet low and behold several posters here have had terrible service from them, how strange. The bottom line is if you want one then buy one, but you can't compare the hardware like for like because the Operating System has a completely different way of using that hardware. I don't see why one simply HAS to be better than the other, surely people have better things to really care and argue about? Head over to the Apple subsection of this forum and you'll see that the posters there don't sit around creating threads about how much they hate PC's, yet in the last couple of days I've seen two or three threads which are basically "I hate Apple" threads.

 

[the_r_sole]

dont get upset K1LLSW1TCH it's only opinions and experiences

i've had experience of both platforms and i really think it's what you've got used to, i've always had pcs at home, but worked in an office for a few years on macs, i would never have a mac at home - wouldn't pay for it and like to have the options to change hardware if i want.
tbh for most users i would imagine there's not a lot in the operating systems performance-wise, but if you want a mac it's either because of it's looks or mac specific software.

the office i worked in that had macs is now completely pc based, whilst every mac fan will tell you a mac never crashes, let me put that myth to bed, when you're using 3d rendering software and some mac specific cad software, it will crash!! the office of around 25 top end(ish) machines experienced a few in it's time... the reason that the office switched was for a couple of reasons; they wanted to be able to buy machines that the it guy in the office could easily upgrade/fix - you just don't have that option with macs (there were at least three dead ones in the office awaiting the legendary mac customer service!) the other reason was software.

at a consumer level, if you've got the money, don't want to uprgade/change hardware then there's no real reason to not chose a mac - but if you want something that can be upgraded/changed to get the best performance possible, don't want to pay a premium for a pretty looking box then go for a pc.
It's a fairly straight forward decision. you have to look seriously at what software you actually use too, my sister and mother and two guys i work with have the most expensive mac laptops, and they are almost entirely for show, you don't need a beast for looking at facebook, writing emails and listening to itunes!!

 

[picnic]

If you've got a Mac with a PowerPC CPU then you won't be able to use Snow Leopard. They're being left behind and rightly so, Apple don't even make machines with PowerPC CPU's anymore so to complain about something like that is a bit silly, they've been left behind for years. It's a bit silly of you to make up a figure such as "£80 to upgrade" when you can't upgrade the OS any more than Leopard on your PowerPC Mac. Also, as Uvarvu pointed out, people who own Leopard can upgrade for £25 so stop complaining for absolutely no reason.

Silly in your view but when people harp on about great support etc. the fact remains I can run iTunes on a 10 year old XP Athlon based PC where as I can't a newer Apple. I never claimed I could upgrade to Snow Leopard and I fully understand I can't but the upgrade to Leopard that I would require to run iTunes was circa £80.

I'll also repeat my original as it was started as a bit of fun.......

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

I still don't understand your point so maybe I should just join in with the omg macs are rubbish lulz.

 

[edscdk]

Besides, i find it really counter intuitive whenever i use OSX. You have to jump through so many hoops to do anything.

No real advantages to it over Linux.

what? OSX is far TOO easy, I dont like my customers getting macs as they NEVER call me again..

except to say

1) I dropped my mac book
2) I spilled coffee on my mac

....thats about it...

PC is very hard you only think its easy because you use them all the time and proably have done for years...

to a non techie mac is much easier,

having never used a mac I installed a printer in about 3 clicks, synced itunes with an air port in minutes having never done it before, set up a time capsuel in minutes.... synced an ipad/phone/mac in minutes.. its jsut soooo easy, even reinstalling the OS.... I hope they dont catch on too much... took seconds to attach a mac to a MS server...

 

[Wicksta]

I made my parents a hackingtosh because their friend was raving about her Mac and it increased support calls if anything. "Why can't I do this, why can't I load that, why is this webcam we bought in Aldi not working". They are back on Windows now.

 

[SiriusB]

Wow, never seen this debate before.

Macs, especially the MBPs, look and feel fantastic. Sexy and sturdy if you will. Premium product hence premium price tag. In every other industry there are premium products that probably don't do anything different to the "normal" products. Quite why Apple receives such a bashing I don't know. Simple fact of consumerism.

OS X vs Windows vs Linux? Stupid argument. They all have their place and if you weighed up all the pros and cons they likely come out equal. Any preference is subjective to the user. I love OS X, but prefer Windows 7. Others hate Windows but love Linux and so on and so on.

Can Macs do anything PCs can't do? Nothing important, no. How about vice versa? Again, no.

Pick your poison and enjoy it. Or better yet use both.

 

[neil_g]

Apple do better adverts than windows.

i dunno, the windows mobile 7 ad has a lady in her undercrackers..

 

[Vince]

Wow, never seen this debate before.

Macs, especially the MBPs, look and feel fantastic. Sexy and sturdy if you will. Premium product hence premium price tag. In every other industry there are premium products that probably don't do anything different to the "normal" products. Quite why Apple receives such a bashing I don't know. Simple fact of consumerism.

OS X vs Windows vs Linux? Stupid argument. They all have their place and if you weighed up all the pros and cons they likely come out equal. Any preference is subjective to the user. I love OS X, but prefer Windows 7. Others hate Windows but love Linux and so on and so on.

Can Macs do anything PCs can't do? Nothing important, no. How about vice versa? Again, no.

Pick your poison and enjoy it. Or better yet use both.

Sums up what I was trying to say a few posts back very well. Nice post

 

[MagicBoy]

Yes, they use BIOS. On top of BIOS they use EFI. Lots of people confuse the terminology and functionality of these two. EFI is a layer on top of BIOS, that acts as an interface between OS and BIOS. And yes, you can get intel motherboards out there with EFI. It is not something very hard to find and there are good reasons that it has not beed quickly adopted on PCs but I will not be discussing this right now.

I think not. You are confusing device firmware with BIOS.

BIOS job is to identify and initialise hardware devices (eg video, keyboard, mouse, storage) then boot the operating system. EFI is a firmware based replacement for the traditional BIOS. Boot Camp firmware added a sort-of BIOS emulation in order to allow legacy operating systems such as Windows XP to boot.

EFI has been around for ages - work bought a pile of HP tablets in 2004 that used it, and a lot of post 2008 x64 servers use it.

 

[drhax]

Macs are aimed at people who know nothing about computing and therefore get ripped off. OVERALL PCs are better no argument, lets be honest.

 

[MagicBoy]

Macs are aimed at people who know nothing about computing and therefore get ripped off. OVERALL PCs are better no argument, lets be honest.

My degree in Computer Science says otherwise.

Now stop trolling and run along...

 

[iNPUt]

My degree in Computer Science says otherwise.

Now stop trolling and run along...

He said something valid, and then you make yourself look like a geek then say macs are good, I predict a fail coming your way...

Windows is horrible for home users, with all those dodgy sites visited, but there is no point in OSx.

Its pretty much the only unix system used in the main stream and the whole thing costs a ton, got to admire apple doing what they do, still think if they opened it up to all hardware and got big programs to run on it, they would be in a much better position than ripping "cool people" off...

Jeeez, I can't stand people that like macs, such stupid posers.. Nearly as bad as the people getting excited about the "new" MW : xxbleh

 

[Klo]

Windows is horrible for home users, with all those dodgy sites visited,

Ever heard of anti-virus software?

I don't use a Mac because I don't want to look like a pretentious t***. Plus I like to game!