Mac advantages over Windows PC

[Milks]

Are there any? The Macbooks are really sexy looking, and I'd like to give it a shot if I can ever find any moneys.

Fast edit: Forgot to mention I'm not interested in playing games on the machine.

[Cheerios]

Never used a Mac personally, but if you don't plan on gaming on the Mac, then Google will give you a lot of good results. If you do plan on gaming, then it's just gonna be a shitfest of biased reviews.

[Viena]

Most of people that try OSX end up not installing Windows on their machine unless it's for gaming.

Basically, you get a more stable, secure, nice looking and smoothly running operating system that is not a resource hog.

And while there are still security updates, those use to be about every 2 months and don't require you to reboot the system. Besides, the OS doesn't rot and reduce the performance for not rebooting it periodically (short term) or not re-installing it periodically (longer term).

[Milks]

I've played around with a Mac at school before, but I didn't get to spend a huge amount of time on it. The above post sounds very good, so maybe when I scrounge up enough cash I'll buy one. If I don't like it, hey, I can always sell it.

[Viena]

Or just install Windows on it. ;x

[Isiolia]

There are pros and cons.

Perhaps a big plus for most computer users is that while Macs are far from immune to viruses and spyware, they are 99.9% of the time not the target of those kinds of programs. It makes them -great- for general computing for the average user. I've seen a LOT of PC laptops come in my door with a "it's got a virus". Never a Mac. Not to say it -can't- happen, just that it's incredibly rare when it does.
While they are a minority platform, they're still more mainstream/consumer oriented than most anything else but Windows. So you have a fair amount of commercial software, or at the very least, things that install easily. In fact, a good number of OS X programs have the incredibly difficult install process of dragging the program icon from a disk image into Applications.

If you're more into computers, you'll find that OSX's UNIX base is accessible, and means that you have a lot of ported applications to work with. Most people who actually take some time to get used to OS X find things they like better about it than Windows and vice versa.

The major downside I've seen with Macs over the years, besides the lack of games and all, is that you tend to lack other odds and ends. There are great freeware apps on either side, but if you're looking at playing odd video codecs or something, Windows is probably going to be your prime choice still. VLC has improved that greatly, but it's just the trend you tend to see. If you like having 50 options for a TV tuner or media player or something, probably won't enjoy that. They're also not great enterprise type machines.

With the options to run Windows software, or Windows itself on Intel Mac hardware though, really, that's something you can work around. Macbooks are pretty solid all-around machines regardless of the OS you run on 'em...main sticky point is the one-button trackpad for alternate OSes.

[Milks]

My primary use of it would probably be for web browsing and school. I don't really have a desire to play games or anything...I have a Windows desktop if a game is needed. Don't really need it for videos either, I use my PS3 or my modded Xbox. :\ Honestly, I could probably do fine with a cheap crappy laptop, but the Macbooks are so sexy looking.

[ShinseiRyu]

The lack of a right mouse button on my macbook still bothers me from time to time but the two finger scrolling is awesome. I also have XP installed in another partition and boot to it when I want to play FFXI or I can run vmware/parallels and run it from within osx if I need it. For a laptop its got a lot of nice features here and there. If you dont plan on gaming then the integrated graphics the Macbook has should be fine.

Features I like on my laptop (this is after owning 3-4 dif windows based laptops toshibas, gateway, dell, sager):
slot-loading dvd drive
optical inputs/outputs on the line-in and headphone ports
magsafe connector for the adapter seems to handle abuse more than the connectors on my old laptops
adapter for charging is fairly small and has clips to wrap the cable around
comes with IR remote that also works in xp
two finger scrolling on the touchpad
able to boot XP

things that bothered me:
white macbook easily shows how dirty it gets
backlighting on the 13.3" screens is a little uneven (mostly notice this in XP on solid single color screens)
mplayer for osx and vlc media player are not as good as Media Player Classic for XP
initially accessing smb shares in osx takes longer

[Iremire]

i play on a imac and i never have any problems. it gets annoying not having music and stuff on your windows side since all of it is on my mac side. and the windows side becomes primarily used to play games. but the actual running of the game never have a problem

[Rafbacca]

Thanks, I've been on the fence about buying a 17" Macbook pro. The only game I play on my Laptop is FFXI as it is. Now with Bootcamp and the abilitity to install XP on it I have real urge to just go out and try one.

[Linliel]

The MacBook Pro is a pretty decently spec'd machine for most games too. I mean, it beats the pants off my desktop which plays FFXI quite cromulently. Anyone played it on the Macbooks? I've got a black one ordered (with 2G RAM) and I'm curious as to whether the video card can handle it, but I'm also very wary cos I kinda have a PhD to write. lol. (One of the good things about the G4s is lack of windows-ness for me, haha, but it's really time for me to upgrade...)

On the yay mac bandwagon though I've had macs since Mac OS X 10.2 and coming from a Linux geek background it was just awesome to finally have a Unix backend with an actual usable frontend. Not to mention the fact that everything just works so nicely together... getting the thing up and running on a wireless network or installing a printer is just so much easier than it ever was on windows or linux... Not to mention there's always a million and one fanboys (and girls!) around to answer any questions. Hah.

Also the lack of viruses is ^^b not to mention that Apple is usually really quick off the mark to patch security holes unlike some other companies... But yeah there's also an awesome little developer community that puts out some excellent apps for not very much money, whereas looking for windows apps always feels like wading through a quagmire of terrible VB applications cobbled together purely to act as vessels for unwanted advertising trojans.

Whoever was annoyed about video codecs, MPlayer is also pretty good for obscure codecs. With my MPlayer/VLC combo I am unstoppable! (Not to mention ew WMP for ew WMVs.)

[Edrick]

I would probably wait until the new OS X Leopard comes out. Looks like it'll be a sexier OS than the current OS X, new features and all that, too. Of course, Leopard is coming out on the 26th of this month, so there's really not that long of a time to wait.

That aside, I've really enjoyed OS X since I got my iMac. Boot camped windows XP onto it, and it runs like a champ. There's a lot of nice things included with OS X that I enjoy, too (like burning avi's to a playable DVD, and other cool things). It really has a lot better organization than Windows, too, imo. Though, it takes some getting used to if you're a normal Windows user, but less getting used to than going the other way around, I'm sure.

[Elesirdur]

On a purely cost-benefit level it's hard to justify purchasing a Mac (in my mind at least).

You can get an ACER laptop that is more powerful, easier to expand and upgrade, and easier to repair for about 1/3 of the cost.

If you straight-up just want a really quality and durable laptop, get a Lenovo. (What used to be IBM) They are by far the most durable and stable in the world and you have to pay extra to get one with Vista, they almost all come with Windows 2000 instead.

[evilbau]

imo the most compelling reason to get a mac is final cut pro

[Saphirea]

Other than obviously going 2gb is bigger than 1gb is there any big advantages of getting a Macbook Pro over a macbook?

Noticable especially in the graphics card? Just wanting to hear pro's before I go and buy one.

[Saphirea]

Also are thing availble for download from the usual sources w/ cracked key

PS being the biggest worry.

[Isiolia]

Macbook Pros have discrete graphics that aren't total crap for 3D (8600M GT)

Macbooks don't (Intel GMA 950)

RAM-wise the Macbook supports 2GB, the Pro 4GB, but realistically 2GB is easily enough for both of them.

Far as pirated stuff, I'm quite sure it's out there, but as I pay for software, including PS, I have no details to offer.

[Kaisha]

How is the 8600M GT anyhow?

Been looking into getting the mid-range MacBook Pro for the last couple months, but been on hold since I knew Leopard was coming out, bit curious how the vid card holds up for modern-day games, as I knew laptop models of vid cards are usually crap compared to the full-blown PC edition...

Basically, think I'll notice a massive speed boost playing games on a MacBook Pro with that vid card vs. the badly-aging 256mb GeForce6800 GT in my current PC gaming rig?


I get the feeling I may end up purchasing a KVM switch and use the laptop for gaming....
(<3 the built-in video output, going to make good use of that)

[Saphirea]

Has anyone dealt with Mac's refurbished stuff? I'm noticing on their site that things are significantly cheaper by ordering the refurb line. It still comes with a one year warranty. Any ideas?

[levish]

you told us you don't plan on gaming on it but what do you plan on doing with it and in what type of environment will you be using one?

for example one of our salespeople brought it upon themselves to buy a macbook and asked if it could be connected to our network, which while it may be capable of file sharing I'll be damned if I let him do whatever he wants (no AD integration) on my network