Benfits of a Mac

[Iago]

What are the benfits of a mac? I am not having a go it is just that I might get one for Uni

[Nor]

Graphic design I'd say is its fortÃÃâ€*’©.

[idi banashapan]

agreed - macs are industry standard for audio and video / graphics. and they do the job extremely well - it is really what they are built for. I would want however, that macs are not catered for in the same way as IBM compatible (PC's) machines are. you may find it a little more hastle to come across the software you want, but when you do get it, it generally does it very very well.

I'm seriously thinking about getting another mac. i used to have one years ago and the thing never seemed to go wrong. Now I know more about pc's, it isn't an issue if something goes wrong on my current pc.

i would urge you to consider WHAT you would be using the machine for. you pay a lot more for a mac and unless you are doing professional quality audio or visual, it really isn't worth it.

[Iago]

there must be other reasons how come so many people have one for personal use other than its easyer?

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by Iago

there must be other reasons how come so many people have one for personal use other than its easyer?

they are fast and have a good reputation. you get what you pay for!

[Nor]

If you are buying a mac to be cool and to be different all you'll ever be is dissapointed.

As Bender said, if the main thing you need to do is high quality graphic or audio work a Mac might be your best plan. If you aren't get a PC.

[Stuart]

Macs and PCs both have their good and bad points.
Macs: Good points

• Easy to use
• Have a good range of software
• Are excellent for any kind of graphical work
• Can read/write PC format disks if necessary.
• Crash rarely
• Fewer viruses
• Under OSX, security is better than Windows (even XP).

Macs: Bad points

• Range of software is limited compared to PCs
• When they do crash, they can do so in style and require unplugging (Under OS 9 this happened surprisingly regularly, but OSX doesn't seem to suffer from this).
• Under OS9, security was, frankly, crap.

PCs: Good points

• Huge range of software.
• Later versions of Windows are almost as easy to use as the Mac
• Later versions of Windows are fairly reliable.
• While Macs do multimedia stuff (audio/video/graphics work) better, pcs do almost everything else better. Thats is not to say that the Macs cannot do other things (in fact, I know people that use Office for the Mac and swear it is far better than Office on the PC).

PCs: Bad Points

• Viruses. Whether the amount of viruses/trojans out there for Windows is a sign of bad security or just an indication that many more people use PCs, the fact that the viruses/trojans are there is bad.
• Windows can crash spectacularly.

TBH, generally, you can probably do anything you need just as well on both, so either should be OK for your needs.

PCs tend to be cheaper though..

[Lew]

[Mac-zealot mode]Biggest benefit? No viruses, no product activation, no MS

OS X is a very nice OS to use for some. For others, XP is a nice OS to use. For others, Linux. To me, most of the ways of doing things on OS X just make sense, other things (such as ExposÃÃâ€*’©) are just 'cool'. As for graphics and audio work, while those things are very good on the Mac they're far from the only things it can do well.

Software-wise the iLife suite of applications (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD) are great for day-to-day use. iMovie and iDVD are a great way of creating your own DVDs if you have a digital camcorder (so I've heard - my 3 year old PowerBook has no DVD burner so doesn't come with iDVD). Safari (based on the Linux Konqueror browser) is a very promising browser. Mail.app is a very capable program, especially now that it is compatible with Exchange servers, and has a very good junk mail filter. iChat is a nice AIM-compatible chat program with audio and video chat capabilities.

Most of the software that people would need for day-to-day use is available (MS Office, Windows Media Player 9, RealOne, MS Remote Desktop Client).

OS X also has very good multi-language support (it even has a Welsh keyboard layout) and many apps have third-party localisations to support languages that they were not written for (although most of the included apps are localised in the 'major' languages - as an example, Safari is localised for Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Chinese and Taiwanese).

It has built-in speech recognition (although your milage may vary with this one) and a large set of text-to-speech voices, a built-in spell-checker available to most applications (Safari is spell-checking this message as I type it) and comes with a good selection of development tools. It's also quite nice if you come from a UNIX background as it's based on a version of BSD UNIX.[/end Mac-zealot mode]

If you want to be able to play the latest games or if cost is at a premium (or if you're just more comfortable with Windows systems) then Windows is the way to go. The best thing would be to spend some time 'playing' with some of the Macs at your local PC World and see for yourself.

There's a (fairly) unbiased comparison between OS X and Windows XP (both the Home and Professional versions) at http://www.xvsxp.com

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by Mimizuku no Lew

[Mac-zealot mode]
If you want to be able to play the latest games or if cost is at a premium (or if you're just more comfortable with Windows systems) then Windows is the way to go. The best thing would be to spend some time 'playing' with some of the Macs at your local PC World and see for yourself.

I totally agree with the playing bit there. And as said, it really comes down to cost. As i said before, Macs tend to be more expensive than PC's. It really is a personal preference thing.

I'd still like a G5, but simply don't have £2500 in my pocket!!!!

[Lew]

Originally Posted by Bender

I'd still like a G5, but simply don't have £2500 in my pocket!!!!

Same here, but my old G3 PowerBook still runs 10.3 quite nicely (although I really need to get some more memory in it)

[Iago]

Originally Posted by Nor

If you are buying a mac to be cool and to be different all you'll ever be is dissapointed.

As Bender said, if the main thing you need to do is high quality graphic or audio work a Mac might be your best plan. If you aren't get a PC.

Thats what I thought, a lot of people who i know have macs to be cool and to be different

[Lew]

Another thing you may consider doing (this is what I did before getting a Mac) if you can afford to would be to pick up a couple of the Mac magazines from WHSmith as they often have sections dedicated to new users. MacFormat and Your iLife would be good examples.

[Iago]

Good site by the way will read when i have time

[Sybex]

If you want an OS that has been deigned by the same people that make the hardware then its a Mac. Its Stable and fast. Microsaoft software is written for a wide hardware base and as such suffers from stability problems. I own and use both Mac and PC with Win 98 uo to Win XP home and Pro. Mac OSX 10.2.3 Panther the latest Mac os. The comments made by "Mimizuku no Lew" sum up the main Mac OS points. At the end of the day you get what you pay for and I am sorry to say that even though Macs are more expensive at this time I can not see myself upgrading my PC hardware.

[Watchman]

Originally Posted by Iago

What are the benfits of a mac? I am not having a go it is just that I might get one for Uni

Being a professional user of both, in the graphics industry. The gap has closed up. It used to be the case of people used macs at work, therefore they got one for home.

However, that has changed alot. People I work with have now all bought PC's at home because of the high street support, value for money, similar performance and the professional software is nigh on identical now. Especially Photoshop as many of these were professional users of that.