PC Vs iMac (Which to go for?)

If you buy the right hardware you can have both in one

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

The thing I've found when looking at soundcards is there ar eplenty of professional ones in PCI form that are pretty decent and don't cost the earth.
External ones seem to eaither be cheap creative audio products or then expensive MOTU products.
Do you know anything half decent but that doesnt drain your wallet completly ?

Thanks.

There are loads of decent USB audio interfaces available for a reasonable outlay. Couple of picks below. It's when you start wandering into Firewire territory that things start becoming a bit more expensive.

E-MU 0202

http://www.dv247.com/invt/35905/

Alesis IO|2

http://www.dv247.com/invt/30382/

The only question to be answered here is, what do you want your home computer to do for you?

I switched from PC to Mac about 10 years ago and now I wouldn't get a PC again. I have no interest in setting up, maintaining or upgrading a computer (I have upgraded the Mac's memory, but then that's simply a matter of opening a door, not unscrewing the casing). Some folks get pleasure out of tinkering with their computers and that's great, but I'm no more interested in self-building a computer than I am in self-building a TV, and to me, my iMac is every bit as much a piece of consumer electronics as my TV is.

The OS just works and there's more than enough software available for it (iLife, which is bundled with an iMac, is superb: Garageband for music making, iTunes for your record library, iPhoto for your photo albums and iMovie for your home videos, then there's tonnes of other stuff as well, chief among it probably is NeoOffice, a fully Mac ported version of OpenOffice). The open source community is more active in Mac OSX development than you might think. I'm spending hours and hours at the moment playing a superb re-invention of Elite for the Mac called Oolite, which was developed for Mac and then ported to PC and Linux. It is every bit as functional on the Mac as it is on the other OSes.

The PC is a bigger target for developers to aim at so naturally there's more software for it, but as I often say on this forum, quantity is not quality. Much of what you could buy, you never actually would buy. Mind you the PC is a bigger target for malware developers as well. Similar goes for hardware spec; yes, you can find more and bigger and put it into a PC casing, but as long as the machine you own comfortably does what you ask of it, do you ever pay much attention to how much of this it has, how big that is and how fast the wotsit goes? Obviously some people do mind about that, and if that's interesting to you, great, but it's of no interest to me, again, I don't care what capacity my iMac's power supply unit has, any more than I care what's inside the casing of my TV set. The iMac is intended to be a simple, all-in-one, set-up-and-use piece of consumer electronics.

I have a small desk with no room for a separate box either on it or under it, but I don't want the compromise on ergonomics that a laptop would be, so the flat-panel, all in one iMac fits the bill for me perfectly.

Final point others have already made, if you do find you have to have access to Windows for any reason, the Mac is now fully able to be set up to dual-boot. I thought this might have been useful but to be honest I have never even come close to deciding to do it. There has always been a Mac-native solution waiting for me.

If you have any Mac-specific questions feel free to fire them at me.

[Halcyon]

Chris, do you use antivirus and firewall on your Mac ? I was looking for a version of Nod32 and couldnt find one....but at the end of the day maybe they arent even needed?

Also, I was just wondering, since you have been into Mac's for a long time, how long did each machine last you before upgrading to the next ?

Thanks.

[Hom3r]

My understanding with Macs is that thay are less likely to be hit by viruses.

But the numbers are very slowly going up.

I was also told that a Mac is a poor mans PC by a PC user

I was also told that a PC is a poor mans Mac by a Mac user

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Chris, do you use antivirus and firewall on your Mac ? I was looking for a version of Nod32 and couldnt find one....but at the end of the day maybe they arent even needed?

Also, I was just wondering, since you have been into Mac's for a long time, how long did each machine last you before upgrading to the next ?

Thanks.

You probably do not need an Anti-Virus on your Mac. The trust is there has only ever been one, maybe two, viruses in the wild on the mac and they did not spread that easily. One of them didn't even work and was treated more as a proof of concept than a virus. If an outbreak does occur you should have time to get an Anti-Virus as it would be big news, anything faster than that would reach your machine before the anti-virus company can deal with it anyway!

I don't know about Chris but I waited four years to upgrade my macbook pro, towards the end it was getting slow for my needs but that was with the old generation of processors. This one is a year and a half old and the technology has not really advanced that much (mine is a 2.4Ghz Dual Core Intel Processor).

Originally Posted by Damien

You probably do not need an Anti-Virus on your Mac. The trust is there has only ever been one, maybe two, viruses in the wild on the mac and they did not spread that easily. One of them didn't even work and was treated more as a proof of concept than a virus. If an outbreak does occur you should have time to get an Anti-Virus as it would be big news, anything faster than that would reach your machine before the anti-virus company can deal with it anyway!

I don't know about Chris but I waited four years to upgrade my macbook pro, towards the end it was getting slow for my needs but that was with the old generation of processors. This one is a year and a half old and the technology has not really advanced that much (mine is a 2.4Ghz Dual Core Intel Processor).

as long as you intend not to interact with windows users at all or you on your lovely mac could send out infections to your friends

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

as long as you intend not to interact with windows users at all or you on your lovely mac could send out infections to your friends

Yah, But I don't think this is that common a problem. At least not for people who know what they are doing. If you only send out files you know are safe it would be ok.

Besides the Anti-Virus products for the mac are rubbish.

how would you know they were safe if you do not have a virus scan though? unless you only send out things you create yourself perhaps

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

how would you know they were safe if you do not have a virus scan though? unless you only send out things you create yourself perhaps

Well other than those bearshare or whatever crap, I imagine most Viruses are spread without the user's direct consent. This can't happen on the mac as the code cannot execute, and I can't imagine anyone sending files without knowing what they are. The only danger is files that appear ok which are hiding a malicious payload..

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Chris

Final point others have already made, if you do find you have to have access to Windows for any reason, the Mac is now fully able to be set up to dual-boot. I thought this might have been useful but to be honest I have never even come close to deciding to do it. There has always been a Mac-native solution waiting for me.

I find I have to. Ironically, it's to run Linux/Unix applications that aren't ported for Darwin, but run fine under Cygwin in Windows...

I have a small desk with no room for a separate box either on it or under it, but I don't want the compromise on ergonomics that a laptop would be, so the flat-panel, all in one iMac fits the bill for me perfectly.

And when you want to upgrade, you get to choose between a 20" and a 24" disposable screen

Don't get me wrong. I do like Macs. I've used them for work for years, but I wouldn't buy one for my home. Plus, as I've said earlier, their current offerings are pants in terms of choice. If I want any performance, Steve decides I need to either get four cores, get a laptop, or have my hardware built into a 24" disposable screen. Nice...

[Stephen]

I have always been a PC guy but when I needed a new computer in Oct 07 I went for a shiny new Aluminium iMac(2.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 20" Screen=£960) when they got released. Took a bit of getting used to first as the OS is so different, but now I wouldn't go PC again.

I just love the way it works without any hassle and out of the box it has decent software for basic photo editing, DVD creation, Music making and Movie editing.

However I do have a windows Laptop which gets used when I am out and about although am totally thinking of chucking it and getting a Macbook soon.

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Chris, do you use antivirus and firewall on your Mac ? I was looking for a version of Nod32 and couldnt find one....but at the end of the day maybe they arent even needed?

Also, I was just wondering, since you have been into Mac's for a long time, how long did each machine last you before upgrading to the next ?

Thanks.

I had my first iMac for about 6 years, and would probably have had it another couple of years but for the fact it was damaged in a thunderstorm and replaced new-for-old on the house insurance. Nice.

The one we have now must be about 3 years old IIRC ... still going strong except I recently upped its memory to the max it can cope with (2Gb) as the number of heavy apps we tend to have running concurrently these days was starting to have an impact on performance. Everything is back to a-ok now though.

I used AV on my original iMac under OS9 but didn't bother upgrading when I moved to OSX. Viruses are not a problem. The OS architecture makes it incredibly difficult for them to propogate on a Mac. There are also fewer Macs in the world so it would be harder for one to spread quickly.

Originally Posted by danielf

And when you want to upgrade, you get to choose between a 20" and a 24" disposable screen

As you would with a laptop, which as it happens is the only other option I would have in the space available.

TBH I'm not expecting to waste anything, when this machine becomes underpowered for my needs (something I don't expect to happen for a long time by the way) I will pass it on to one of the children and buy another iMac for my desk.

[Saul's Grandad]

Having just had my PC laptop turned into an expensive paperweight after trying to install the grandson's latest PC football game, I'm even more convinced that I'll never buy another Windows computer. This Mac is quite wonderful, unless I wanted to play games on it...and as I don't...no problem
If i were looking at a desktop replacement, rather than a laptop, I would look at the Mac Mini first as we have the requisite monitors and keyboards already but the iMacs do look really good...

[alferret]

Mac=Doorstop

What I don't understand, and this may be my ignorance buy why pay twice the price for good styling? Is it really worth paying all that extra just to have something that looks nice sitting in your home rather than a grands worth of PC in a vanilla box
Look at the rip off prices at the apple store for component upgrades, they want to charge £240 for a 1tb SATA II drive, that's a whopping £160 more than the street price. 8gb ram is £200 extra over the 3gb installed and the street price is, £104. £80 for a slot loading dvd writer, that's £60 more than the street price.
I could go on but fear retribution from Mac fan-boys

In all honesty can anyone really warrant spending the best part of 2 grand on a mac?