Poll: Mac versus PC: Let's be nice about it

[Faladorian]

This is not a debate this is pure flame and troll bait what we can all determine though is that the OPs conclusions are markedly incorrect in quite a number of areas. I could write a whole essay on each assumption that is incorrect but for now we can easily say that;

Exceptional hardware
Innovative design
One foot ahead
Aesthetics
Master of nanotechnology
Low virus charter

Viruses, viruses, viruses!
Frequent errors and crashes
Obnoxious security system (Windows 7)
Comparatively fragile hardware
Tendency to overheat

are all incorrect assumptions.

Those are my personal experiences.

Also, I'm not the one flaming here. I gave pros and cons for each one, and you took all of the pros for mac and all of the cons for PC and said they're all wrong, suggesting that mac is only bad and PC is only good.

Your opinion is unfairly biased, and you should be able to tell from the name of the thread that these kinds of posts aren't welcome here.

Besides, I said I use a Mac (hardware) that runs on Windows (software). I like the Mac hardware but not the software. If I was trying to create an anti-PC flame war I wouldn't have posted Pros and Cons for both.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Self-built computer with Windows. For ten years.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[superstringz]

I've got Fedora 14, and I like it. I mean, sure, there are bugs, but fixing them is half the fun of Linux. Makes me feel smarter than I probably am.

 

[Hatchet90]

Gawd, another dick waving competition?

I use Mac, I like Mac, I really don't care what anyone else thinks.

 

[Levi93]

I'd personally say the hardware on a Mac is pretty average, not exactly exceptional, and I dont really care for the aesthetics of my computer I mean I speand most of my time looking at my computers monitor not at the actual tower.

Oh and for the record my computer is a little less powerful than a quad core 27 inch 2.8Ghz(£1684) Mac and almost £1000 cheaper, so yeah, not very good for value for money (my computer was about £700 in parts to build)

Also my computer has never overheated whilst playing games in about the 4 years that I've had it.

 

[Faladorian]

Gawd, another dick waving competition?

I use Mac, I like Mac, I really don't care what anyone else thinks.

That's all I want here. I want to know what people prefer; we're not here to see which one is better, because saying one is better than the other is a fallacy.

 

[Weslebear]

Depends what you want from a computer really, I use mine for gaming and that's pretty much it so Windows is of course my preferred option.

Soon to own a self built with Windows .

 

[Jamous]

I usually find Macs are great for creative things, like flash and photoshop sort of stuff and almost everything else. BUT. Most importantly, you cannot game for shit on Macs. Unfortunate as it is. I've been stuck on mine for quite some time, so I've been trying my utmost (and failing) to get my PC back. I have PC games I pre-ordered and haven't played ffs! D;

 

[Faladorian]

I usually find Macs are great for creative things, like flash and photoshop sort of stuff and almost everything else. BUT. Most importantly, you cannot game for shit on Macs. Unfortunate as it is. I've been stuck on mine for quite some time, so I've been trying my utmost (and failing) to get my PC back. I have PC games I pre-ordered and haven't played ffs! D;

You can emulate Windows on a section of your hard drive. If you find Bootcamp in your system tools, that will help you partition your hard drive, then you can install windows on a part of it to use for gaming. I'd suggest 100-150GB. After your computer does the trademark "Berrr!" just hold Alt and it will give you the option to boot up in Windows.

That's what my computer does, and it works like a charm ^^

Also, about the gaming thing, I had the same problem. I played the first Assassin's Creed on my Mac partition, and I liked it. I then tried to look for the second one on Mac, and found out it's windows-exclusive. So, I installed windows 7 on a 100GB partition and got it. Haven't turned back

 

[Joshimodo]

Mac:
---Pros---
*Exceptional hardware
*Innovative design
*Aesthetics
*Master of nanotechnology
*Low virus charter
*Strong, outlasting shells

Exceptional hardware? Since when? The only impressive specifications come from the Mac Pros, and even then you're paying over the odds. Otherwise, you're getting the SAME specifications and components, but paying more.

Innovative design is true, however there are also ridiculously poor designs like the Mighty Mouse, and the super-slim keyboards. Awful.

Nanotechnology? You've lost me.

Low virus charter is true (but that gap is shrinking every day, unfortunately). However, viruses, worms and trojans are also more difficult to manage when they DO occur.

Can't fault the metal shells for durability and aesthetics. However, they're piss-poor for heat management.

PC:
---Pros---
*(usually)Easier to customize)

Always easier to customize, both hardware and software-wise.

---Cons---
*Viruses, viruses, viruses!
*Frequent errors and crashes
*Obnoxious security system (Windows 7)
*Vulnerable (non-isolated) core
files
*Comparatively fragile hardware
*Tendency to overheat

Viruses are a moot point - Only idiots get trojans, or regular viruses. Worms and malware are more common, but again, easy to deal with.

I haven't had a crash in years, apart from recently, but that was due to a faulty SSD, not Windows or the PC as a whole.

Obnoxious security that takes 30 seconds to turn off.

Vulnerable files are a *****. Very true.

Fragile hardware? They use the SAME hardware, aside from casing. I doubt you'd want to juggle your HD 5870s from either machine.

Overheating, again, is down to specific builds. I only use air cooling on my high-end rig, and I idle on 28 degrees C, and on max load, I hit 40 degrees C. The cooling in PCs is better.

I usually find Macs are great for creative things, like flash and photoshop sort of stuff and almost everything else. BUT. Most importantly, you cannot game for shit on Macs. Unfortunate as it is. I've been stuck on mine for quite some time, so I've been trying my utmost (and failing) to get my PC back. I have PC games I pre-ordered and haven't played ffs! D;

Both platforms can use the Adobe suites equally these days. Way back when, Macs had the first WYSIWYG interface, and Adobe developed their stuff for that. Additionally, when Windows gained prevalence, it was unstable. Working for hours on a piece in Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop or any of the others only to end up with a BSOD and losing it all wasn't suitable.

These days, it doesn't matter. Unless you plan to use a machine for both gaming and work/creating, it's ENTIRELY down to personal preference in regards to operating systems.




This is coming from someone who uses both, every day, for several years. My self-build dual-boot gaming/design rig, regular Windows PCs and Mac Pros/iMacs.


Want a great machine? Build a PC and have a dual-boot system.

 

[tinkyyy]

I'm running a Macbook with MacOSX. I used to have it running bootcamp with Windows 7 but removed it for some reason I can't quite remember. But I had the Windows partition for gaming, which on this ran quite well, I was getting better fps and a generally better experience gaming than my housemates mid-range gaming pc.

But the gaming on OSX is nowhere near as good as that, I've had more issues trying to get games to run smoothly than I did on windows. But then I prefer the usability of OSX and I use it primarily for video editing (Final Cut) and image editing (Photoshop). There is also the fact I'm now just more used to OSX as opposed to Windows, but really I can happily use either these days. Although saying that, my last Windows laptop just got so bad it crashed on a daily basis and then just ceased to function after a while. Not really sure what happened there, but I've had my macbook a year and a half and haven't had any major crashes or anything.

 

[Neyon]

Mac:
---Pros---
*Exceptional hardware
*One foot ahead
(technologically)

PC:
---Cons---
*Comparatively fragile hardware
*Tendency to overheat

I really must punch a few holes in that initial post. Firstly, macs do NOT run exceptional hardware and are in NO WAY one foot ahead technologically. The main reason for this is that apple is very restrictive in what hardware is allowed in the models they produce. The processors are older and slower, the ram has a lower frequency, they do not come with anywhere near top of the range GPUs etc. Macs are marketed to people who don't know their hardware, as are MOST PCs you will find in retail stores; they don't give specifics about what is actually inside.


From the apple configurator:
Specifications
# 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
# 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
# 256GB Solid State Drive
# 8x double-layer SuperDrive
# ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB GDDR5 SDRAM
# Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User's Guide (English)
# Magic Mouse

The ONLY named piece of hardware there is the GPU, and even for that the vendor & frequencies are not given. All the other listings really do not provide any important information. SSD Read/write times vary from anywhere between 70MB/s and 740MB/s for example, which is a huge variation. You probably could find out the specifics, but they are not shown in plain view and the average person is not going to go looking for it.



To do with the cons, stating that PCs use fragile hardware is just silly and I honestly have no idea where you got that from. A processor in a properly built PC will be just as durable as the same processor in a MAC. I also don't see where the tendency to overheat con came from; so long as a PC is properly put together (which it will be if you buy it from virtually any known retailer) it will be fine. The only reasons a PC would overheat would be if the syetem was user built and did not have adequate cooling (entirely the user's fault), if the
user was overclocking parts and did not have adequate cooling (unlikely, presuming an oc'er knows what he is doing), or that the PC has been thrown into a fire.

 

[k-ossuburb]

My Mac is great for Adobe Creative Suite but I'm looking into building myself a desktop computer and maybe put either Windows or Linux on it (or both, if possible). I can handle my parent's PC (Windows XP) perfectly fine, it doesn't seem to have many problems, but I only really ever use it to watch movies online though their HDTV and basically browse around on the internet.

I'm not a PC gamer, so that's not really an issue for me; I always chose Macs because they're the industry standard for programs like Photoshop etc..

I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm simply saying that my Mac does what I need it to do and that's good enough for me.

 

[Rienimportant]

I had to use mac's since about 6th grade in school, so I just got used to them, so even now I'm using a mac for all of my school/work, but I'm running Bootcamp on my MacBook since if I want to play video games on my mac....yeah, you all know the situation.

I'm looking into getting a PC or making my own PC with windows to just make a full gaming computer, since a macbook pro is just not that great for most games, no matter what haha, but to be honest, I'll probably keep on using Mac for all of my school/work stuff.

 

[Quesa]

Both platforms can use the Adobe suites equally these days. Way back when, Macs had the first WYSIWYG interface, and Adobe developed their stuff for that. Additionally, when Windows gained prevalence, it was unstable. Working for hours on a piece in Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop or any of the others only to end up with a BSOD and losing it all wasn't suitable.

I was gonna post that, I mean, Photoshop alone was 50% of the reason for having a Mac. I still think of Flash as Macromedia's though, it wasn't that long ago that Adobe acquired them

Joshimodo's right on the money. When it comes to a lot of these points it really comes down to the user; when OSX came out, I was the only person supporting my company's Creative Department because no one in IT was willing to touch the Macs. The CD had tens of thousands of dollars of software collected for the 'classic' Mac OS, and they were determined to rebuy none of it for OSX. For months they were the most unstable computers I've ever seen, crashing constantly because of the constant OS switching. It wasn't Apple's fault, like most modern issues it was a PEBCAK problem.

 

[Hrafnsmerki]

I prefer Mac and/or Linux with a good Kernel. I like to be virus free and I don't really play games on a PC/Mac (I don't really know how to generalize that one!).

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I always find these things stupid. "Mac vs PC" is like saying "Pickup truck vs Vehicle". A Mac (being an operative system) IS a PC, but Apple's marketing department and a ton of Apple users can't seem to comprehend that or something.

Anyway, my main computer is a custom build desktop with Windows 7, I have a laptop for school with Windows 7, and another desktop collecting dust right now that I will probably make into a Linux machine, once I get room for it...

 

[[Gavo]]

I prefer PC because it's cheaper (building your own is ludicrously cheap), and I can play games on it.

Macs...I don't like them. The apple key sometimes is used instead of the control key, and sometimes the control key is used. They're also scary expensive.

 

[0p3rati0n]

I work on a Mac and I have Windows 7 installed on parallels. I pretty much don't care what people use anymore. It's not a debates on who is better. It's just a matter of time till everyone realizes that everyone is WRONG!

 

[Joshimodo]

Both platforms can use the Adobe suites equally these days. Way back when, Macs had the first WYSIWYG interface, and Adobe developed their stuff for that. Additionally, when Windows gained prevalence, it was unstable. Working for hours on a piece in Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop or any of the others only to end up with a BSOD and losing it all wasn't suitable.

I was gonna post that, I mean, Photoshop alone was 50% of the reason for having a Mac. I still think of Flash as Macromedia's though, it wasn't that long ago that Adobe acquired them

Joshimodo's right on the money. When it comes to a lot of these points it really comes down to the user; when OSX came out, I was the only person supporting my company's Creative Department because no one in IT was willing to touch the Macs. The CD had tens of thousands of dollars of software collected for the 'classic' Mac OS, and they were determined to rebuy none of it for OSX. For months they were the most unstable computers I've ever seen, crashing constantly because of the constant OS switching. It wasn't Apple's fault, like most modern issues it was a PEBCAK problem.

Very true. Frankly, I wish Adobe would've gutted Dreamweaver and Flash and made them work PROPERLY with the rest of the CS, since they're basically just re-branded. I suppose it's not an imperative, though - Flash is a quickly dying platform for web-based content, and most people who create websites code straight rather than using DW.

Frankly, aside from having to use Macs due to them being the industry standard, I do love Pixelmator and Fontbook. Some of the stuff in Pixelmator isn't present in PS, and Fontbook is just plain useful for design.