transition to Mac or not ?

i am a pc user and my pc who has served me well is getting tired. i sit here with a brand new emac 1 gig unit i bought last night un-opened !
I am having second thoughts on the transition and thinking of bringing it back as it does seem quite proprietory and although very aesthetic quite pricey like buying a BMW as opposed to a Honda both extremly good machines/vehicles.
I just bought an ibook for a friend and set it up and having not used a Mac before i had some issues with no right mouse click for example and no pc card slot as i run verizon wireless cell service on the road. It's a known fact you can get lots of bang for your buck these days with a good PC and the gap is closing on media with a pc so i would like an un-bias viewpoint on this "transition" before i go further. thanks !

 

Well, IMHO unless you were raised using an Apple then there are sort of some odd things you'll have to get used to. I can't deal with the mouse that comes with most Apple computers and you are limited on software availability. Being a programmer I really can't do any work on a Mac because all of the development software tools I used are for PCs. Anyway, if you spent a bunch of dough and feel like you may have gone off the deep end you might want to consider taking it back.

 

thanks and i did in fact take the Mac back for the reasons you mention. Presently i have decided on a notebook with a fairly large screen mostly for desk top use but with the ability to take with me if i need to. I don't want to spend a lot of money i.e. over $2000 or even $1700 but also i would like some up to date technology i.e. AMD processor rather than Celeron which i have now on my desktop and i would like some connections and wireless. I have had 2 emachine desktops and they have served me well and i know this company has really come upscale lately and with service. I spoke to emachine tech support today and he was great and basically said that the company saves $500 per computer by not including a lot of software like microsoft office which i don't use. He ran through all the internal parts regarding harware with me and for about $1000 this new notebook looks pretty attractive with a great widescreen 15.4 ,60 gig hardrive, built in wireless, firewire and over 500 ram. I think with an extended warrenty how can i go wrong and the user reviews look good. What do you think ?

 

p.s. can someone tell me if Tigers Direct is a top notch source for online computer purchases. They have some good prices and good extended warranties. thanks

 

I had problems with TigerDirect when I purchased from them in the past, I bought memory that never showed up and then had to hassle with getting them to take it off my credit card. Terrible service. I would actually recommend avoiding them if you can find prices relatively close to what they have anyway. People have had good experiences with them but I know many that haven't.

 

thanks for the info on tigers direct and is there someone else more recommended ?

 

The Mac is currently a superior platform for graphics, video and multimedia. I personally use both Windows and Mac machines daily and can attest to the overall improvement in performance for rendering both video and graphics on the Mac. The latest flavor of OSX (Panther) is extremely reliable and powerful. The bottom line is that users need to decide what it is they wish to do on their computers. If you don't need it for the previously mentioned reasons, it is easiest to get by with a Windows machine in a Windows world.

Barry J. Doyle

 

I came very close to buying a Power Book to replace my laptop. I love the design and feature set but I couldn't pull the trigger for a few reasons:

1) Poor support for my PDA applications.
2) No support for my T-Mobile GPRS card.
3) General angst when switching platofrms.

Hope that helps.

Brian

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by abaxter

Well, IMHO unless you were raised using an Apple then there are sort of some odd things you'll have to get used to. I can't deal with the mouse that comes with most Apple computers and you are limited on software availability. ...Anyway, if you spent a bunch of dough and feel like you may have gone off the deep end you might want to consider taking it back.
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

It is sad to see someone SO close to discovering how nice it is to own an Apple computer, only to have someone discourage them by knocking it for silly reasons. I am amazed at the ignorance of people saying that they can't use Apple because of their 1 button mouse. Apple needs to advertise that you can use any mouse you want because people still have not grasped this concept. I use a wireless Intellimouse on both my PC and my Mac and they work flawlessy. As far as software compatibility goes, there isn't much worth owning that isn't available for both platforms. I wish people would get past their biases and just give Apple a try, especially now with Panther. After 10 years of working on PC's, my Powermac is something I really love to use and am glad I didn't let anyone talk me out of getting it. Hope you get another chance to get that eMac. *S* []

 

I hope you're not implying that my reasons are silly. FOr the way I work, they're critical.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

BTW, If you are ordering online and you can get stuff at newegg.com by all means go for it. I am never ceased to be amazed at how they get everything right every time, and how fast I get things at my door. I have built 3 computers from parts I ordered from there and purchased various other things from there and never had a single issue. They come very highly recommended from others as well. Check em out! *S*

 

I am not implying that your reasons for not wanting an Apple are silly. I just didn't notice in the original post anywhere where they stated they were a developer of any sort so the one button mouse or lack of software didn't seem like a dealbreaker. They only stated that they were a PC user. I am not necessarily against Windows as I use it as well but I also wish everyone had the opportunity to try something better. On the other hand seeing as this is a notebook review site I wouldn't as wholeheartedly recommend the Powerbooks. It isn't because I have had a bad experience with them but because of the issues that seem fairly common like white spots on screen, running unusually hot, latch issues, etc. I won't lie and say I don't want one anyway, but I am only giving advice on what I know. I really love the OS X Panther operating system so an Apple desktop to me would be a great buy for anyone IMHO.
Sorry if my other post came off harsher than necessary. It was more directed at people in general. I always hear salesman who have never used an Apple product at retail stores and such swaying customers away from anything Apple (even iPods, which they sell) and it gets on my nerves a little.

 

Anchordog, I didn't mean to sound like I was knocking Apple as being useless in my original post, I'll amend that by agreeing to everything Barry said about Apple (better at video, graphics etc.). I use a lot of Microsoft applications for development, such as Visual Studio .NET and SQL Server so I just can't use those applications on an Apple and therefore it has limited use for my needs. I need to step back and realize that different people need computers for different things of course and in doing so I agree with all you say.

Apple is a great company and much needed in the market place as they're renknowned for their innovation and cutting edge design. Long live Apple I say, but at the same time people need to buy the computer that they can most utilize and sometimes that means you'll just have to go the PC route.

 

Abchor, thanks for taking the time to clarify your post. I agree 100% with everything you said.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

Andrew,

I am contemplating getting a Macbook or even a MacBook Pro. (waiting for the release of Leopard) but after reading this thread, it appears (am I understanding you correctly?) that none of the program apps, like Visual Basic. VB.Net, etc. would work on a Mac. I've looked at the Mac, and it is true the folks @ Apple are innovative and appear to be way ahead of the game in comparison to Windows in graphics, design, layout, etc. But for a poweruser, such as MS Access and Excel, it's a tough choice to switch when the world runs these apps. Your thoughts.

Soulsurfer

 

holy necro post

 

I know... NBR should auto-close threads that are more than a few months old.
Anyways, you can get MS Office for Mac (although it's slightly different from the Windows version) but if you want to run MS programming tools like Visual Basic, you'd need to run Windows. There's a sticky thread in this forum about running Windows on a Mac... you can look at what the options are.

 

I wouldn't exactly base an opinion on posts made FOUR years ago. LOL

While it is true that M$ development software only works on Windows (not sure why that would be a surprise) it is very simple to run Windows apps these days. I would suggest doing more research in the area of virtualization on the Mac. It isn't like the old days of painfully slow emulation. With Parallels or Fusion you can run Windows apps like they are Mac apps at essentially full speed. Everything is seamless and just works. So you get the benefits of both worlds. The stability and ease of use of the Mac and seamless access to all your Windows apps.

 

Here's kudos for newegg AND Tiger Direct. Never a problem with either one. I do prefer newegg over Tiger, just because they seem more professional. (Tiger is cheesy). As for the beginning of this thread, I have used MS OS since DOS, and have had very little problem adjusting to the Mac. It's gotten so bad that I now go to the left to minimize windows when on my PC at work. If only I could migrate all the machines here to Macs!

 

First, I would like to state that there really is no comparison between BMW and Honda's. BMW handles, drives, and feels better to the driver, much like how a Mac is designed to work with the user, and how a PC is harder to handle, because it's got bad suspension and cruddy handling

 

Whoa...revival of an old thread...

Anyways, yeah, there still are applications that don't have a Mac version. That is why Apple put out Boot Camp and third party developers released Parallels/VMware Fusion. They know that most people still cannot get fully away from Windows yet, whether that's gaming or business applications.

So for someone like you, your best bet is to either stick to a PC, or get a Mac and run Windows on it whenever you need it.

 

SO SO TRUE the newest mac's have so much extra horsepower under the hood running emulations is no sweat. The only draw back I have heard ( but not experianced ) is trying to run certian Windows apllications that are extremely DirectX reliant

 

You realize that it is not longer a hardware issue but rather a Operating difference ? Video rendering is extremely reliant on hardware and with some of the newest GPU's and not to memtion DDR4 WOW I can't wait