windows to apple any advice?

beachBOYken · 10 Jan 2014 at 13:36

hi

Considering getting apple imac or maybe a macbook pro.

I would be switching from a windows 7 desktop pc.

There are few hardware faults occurring and its fairly old now in the world of pc tech anyway.

I dont use the cd drive like I used to and when I look at the apple mac it looks so simple without a tower next to the screen.

I'm just undecided on the desktop or laptop, personally I think I prefer the 21.5" desktop.

I went on the store and changed a few options changing to 1tb fusion drive, i7 processor ,16gb ram and apple care and it came to £1,917

I can get this down to about £1700 with university discount I think.

still a lot of money but boy do they look sweet.

any advice on switching from windows to apple OS?

cheers

sbi5ar · 10 Jan 2014 at 14:06

For that price you could possibly get a retina MBP (15") and an external display. That'll give you everything bar a large internal HDD, however you can solve that by getting a an external drive.

I use this set up which is amazing as I don't like being stuck behind a desk all the time and like to chill out on the sofa with the Mac (as opposed to my iPad) sometimes.

Well worth considering!

theheyes · 10 Jan 2014 at 14:29

You can get a higher res 29" Lenovo All-in-One with similar guts (i7, 1TB hybrid drive, 16GB RAM) for £1299 if you just want to save on footprint.

OhEsEcks · 10 Jan 2014 at 14:40

beachBOYken said:
any advice on switching from windows to apple OS?

Give yourself time to learn it.

But as theheyes says, if you like and are used to Windows, there are other Windows based all-in-one PCs out there for considerably less.

Cuchulain · 10 Jan 2014 at 14:46

sbi5ar said:
For that price you could possibly get a retina MBP (15") and an external display. That'll give you everything bar a large internal HDD, however you can solve that by getting a an external drive.

I use this set up which is amazing as I don't like being stuck behind a desk all the time and like to chill out on the sofa with the Mac (as opposed to my iPad) sometimes.

Well worth considering!

This, I wouldn't even bother getting a Retina MBP, just get a bog standard one and a decent external display.

lamboman · 10 Jan 2014 at 14:50

I'd make sure you have a very good look at OS X before you make any decisions. The hardware really only plays a tiny part of the move (at the end of the day it is just like a Windows machine). You absolutely do pay a premium.

The Lenovo machine that theheyes mentioned would be a good alternative if you want to stick with the Windows route.

Otherwise, it depends entirely on your requirements. If you don't need the portability, go for the iMac and save your money.

kissenger · 10 Jan 2014 at 14:58

Cuchulain said:
This, I wouldn't even bother getting a Retina MBP, just get a bog standard one and a decent external display.

I don't think that's a good move given the current non-retina offerings. They only do one non-retina MBP and it's barely any cheaper, plus it has older (Ivybridge era) tech in it. Not a good buy.

I do think Macbook + external display is a good move though, because you get the portability of a Macbook plus a virtually identical setup as a desktop, except with a much smaller footprint.

I would be looking at either the 13" rMBP or the 13" Air, and an Asus or Dell 24", or if you really want to push the boat out, an Apple Thunderbolt display.

E.g. you could get the 13" MBA + Thunderbolt for £1750 (minus education discount) or the 13" rMBP (8GB/256GB) + Dell U2412 for £1300.

lamboman · 10 Jan 2014 at 15:05

To be honest whether you go for the Air or the Pro is a matter of preference, both are good machines with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Thunderbolt display I wouldn't go for however. They've still not updated it to equal the iMac (still a gap between the glass and the panel itself, so it is hugely reflective), and it is very expensive. A Dell or whatever else would be a better option, even with some sort of Thunderbolt dock/bay.

Beerbaron · 10 Jan 2014 at 15:32

Definitely have a play with the OS first. I personally find it horrid. My work MBP is dual boot with Windows 7.

beachBOYken · 11 Jan 2014 at 09:39

Cheers guys , will try the o/s first in a store.

Amp34 · 11 Jan 2014 at 10:13

Don't expect a light and day experience. Apple computers can have just as many problems as your standard good Windows computer (post XP). They crash, they have hardware problems and they can be tempremental like the best Windows machines. However like most Windows machines you're unlikely to have many problems with an Apple computer.

Understand that OSX is very different from Windows. There are plenty of similarities but also frustrating differences. Windows is far ahead in some areas, OSX in others. Examples include finder (one of the most complained about features) compared to file manager in Windows and the fact that you'll have to get used to terminal on OSX . Terminal being similar to command prompt on Windows, however rat her than having a comprehensive set of UI tools like Windows a lot of the more geeky features will involve you having to use terminal rather than control centre.

Oh and get used to flakey WiFi... It's got better but Apple really have problems with WiFi on all their devices, at least in as much as it will drop or not connect far more than other Windows/Android devices. This is from someone who has owned an Air for two years, an iPad mini for a year and who's GF has an iPhone 5.

It is a nice change from Windows though and for things like web browsing and viewing it's is a better bet than Windows IMO (I also use Windows at work and have a Windows desktop at home for photo editing).

As for the iMac, air or retina pro discussion... Depends entirely on what you plan to do with it. If you want power then the iMac is the best option. If you want portability then I'd go with the air. The. Retina 13" does have it's benefits over the new air (slightly more powerful and a higher res screen with better colours (not that you'll really notice the difference unless you're doing colour critical work, not really worth thinking about if you're going to be using an external screen). The air on the other hand is lighter, smaller and has a significantly longer battery life. The retina is gimped because, unlike the bigger 15" version they still insist on sticking a dual core processor in. So yeah, personal preference and what you plan to do with it.

kissenger · 11 Jan 2014 at 14:05

The drawback with the Air though is that it's more difficult to connect two external displays as it only has one displayport connection.

lamboman · 12 Jan 2014 at 18:58

Amp34 said:
Don't expect a light and day experience. Apple computers can have just as many problems as your standard good Windows computer (post XP). They crash, they have hardware problems and they can be tempremental like the best Windows machines. However like most Windows machines you're unlikely to have many problems with an Apple computer.

Understand that OSX is very different from Windows. There are plenty of similarities but also frustrating differences. Windows is far ahead in some areas, OSX in others. Examples include finder (one of the most complained about features) compared to file manager in Windows and the fact that you'll have to get used to terminal on OSX . Terminal being similar to command prompt on Windows, however rat her than having a comprehensive set of UI tools like Windows a lot of the more geeky features will involve you having to use terminal rather than control centre.

Oh and get used to flakey WiFi... It's got better but Apple really have problems with WiFi on all their devices, at least in as much as it will drop or not connect far more than other Windows/Android devices. This is from someone who has owned an Air for two years, an iPad mini for a year and who's GF has an iPhone 5.

It is a nice change from Windows though and for things like web browsing and viewing it's is a better bet than Windows IMO (I also use Windows at work and have a Windows desktop at home for photo editing).

As for the iMac, air or retina pro discussion... Depends entirely on what you plan to do with it. If you want power then the iMac is the best option. If you want portability then I'd go with the air. The. Retina 13" does have it's benefits over the new air (slightly more powerful and a higher res screen with better colours (not that you'll really notice the difference unless you're doing colour critical work, not really worth thinking about if you're going to be using an external screen). The air on the other hand is lighter, smaller and has a significantly longer battery life. The retina is gimped because, unlike the bigger 15" version they still insist on sticking a dual core processor in. So yeah, personal preference and what you plan to do with it.

Not saying you're wrong, however I think you're making quite a few generalisations here. You certainly don't have to get used to using Terminal, and you speak of Wi-Fi problems as if they are bound to crop up. All products will have their issues, but I doubt the number of machines with Wi-Fi problems will be beyond the 'normal' expected percentage, unlike say the current Vaios (which have very widely reported issues with Wi-Fi reliability and range at the moment).

If you're looking at a rMBP and are planning to use a scaled resolution, take a look in store before you buy. It is ever so slightly blurry, and may be off-putting.

However the rest of it I do mostly agree. XtraFinder and Moom are two great tools which really improve the Finder/window management experience.

JonJ678 · 13 Jan 2014 at 08:23

I'm a month into using a macbook. Day to day it's rather nice to work on. Nice hardware, helpful GUI.

Installing software or changing system settings is absurdly frustrating. There's an app store which is yet to contain any program I'm trying to install, so it's back to the bad old days of searching the web for an analogue of .exe files, .dmg. I sorely miss the linux package managers. Even the bsd build everything from source is better than this. Might not bother you, coming from a windows background, as you won't know what you're missing

There are some 3rd party package managers, e.g. "homebrew", which I apparently need to do some more research into.

sbi5ar · 13 Jan 2014 at 08:35

A lot of the things I need to install are not on the app store but they have always been a breeze to install... The usual drag and drop into the apps folder.

Of course you might be trying to do some more complex things, but then again, you should expect to have to tweak such things.

Much easier to install anything on a mac than on a PC (not that installing anything on a PC was that much of an effort)

OhEsEcks · 13 Jan 2014 at 08:35

JonJ678 said:
There are some 3rd party package managers, e.g. "homebrew", which I apparently need to do some more research into.

Homebrew, macports and fink. Everything you'll ever need.

Rilot · 13 Jan 2014 at 09:27

Get Better Touch Tool and you will be sold on the MacBook Pro. Not only can you infinitely configure gestures etc, it also gets you the 'Windows 7 like' peek of running apps in the dock. Also, 'the drag to top to maximise' etc. Those were things I missed from Windows 7 but with BTT they are there and working.

Amp34 · 13 Jan 2014 at 12:59

lamboman said:
Not saying you're wrong, however I think you're making quite a few generalisations here. You certainly don't have to get used to using Terminal, and you speak of Wi-Fi problems as if they are bound to crop up. All products will have their issues, but I doubt the number of machines with Wi-Fi problems will be beyond the 'normal' expected percentage, unlike say the current Vaios (which have very widely reported issues with Wi-Fi reliability and range at the moment).

If you're looking at a rMBP and are planning to use a scaled resolution, take a look in store before you buy. It is ever so slightly blurry, and may be off-putting.

However the rest of it I do mostly agree. XtraFinder and Moom are two great tools which really improve the Finder/window management experience.

You don't have to use terminal however I've found that if you want to get past superficial changes you're going to need to use terminal far more than in Windows. Whenever I've asked a question about doing something on OSX (such as showing and hiding files and folders - an update forced all hidden folders and files to show) the answer has always ended up being terminal.

As for WiFi issues it's reasonably well known many Apple products have/had dodgy WiFi. Some have been fixed (or at least been made a little better- such as the Air - with software updates) but many others seem to be endemic to Apple products. Not that many other devices don't have the same issue.

lamboman · 13 Jan 2014 at 23:09

Amp34 said:
You don't have to use terminal however I've found that if you want to get past superficial changes you're going to need to use terminal far more than in Windows. Whenever I've asked a question about doing something on OSX (such as showing and hiding files and folders - an update forced all hidden folders and files to show) the answer has always ended up being terminal.

As for WiFi issues it's reasonably well known many Apple products have/had dodgy WiFi. Some have been fixed (or at least been made a little better- such as the Air - with software updates) but many others seem to be endemic to Apple products. Not that many other devices don't have the same issue.

What classifies as normal changes though? The majority of users won't need anything beyond what System Preferences/Finder preferences offer.

The Wi-Fi issues, people are more likely to report problems than give praise to a product. As I said, I very much doubt that Wi-Fi issues with Apple products are any worse than Wi-Fi issues with any other product. Of course there were a select few that had major issues (2011 iMac was a right PITA, recent 802.11ac issues too), but keep in mind that the per-model user base for each device is huge, and that Mac communities are typically separate to other enthusiast communities (look at the size of MacRumors compared to the activity on the Apple sub-forums here). What we see online is a small portion of the user base, and likely the more unhappy side.

My point is that Apple are going to be no better or worse than any other company in this regard. Anybody buying a Mac certainly won't need to "get used to flakey Wi-Fi" as you put it. More than likely you'll have no problems whatsoever.