I am lucky enough to have a PC and a Mac, and I also flit between them both. I’m in the UK and we have a bespoke builder here called PC Specialist and they in my opinion are very good. As it has been mentioned I am also a little worried about how if my Mac mini develops a hardware issue, I’m at the behest of Apple to fix it, which could be very expensive and possible equivalent to just going and buying a new one. Or they might replace it if I’m lucky.
My PC can be opened and fixed easily and I have confidence I could send it back to PC Specialist and they can fix it, or I could even get a local guy here to fix it cheaply and easily.
But, the PC is a big old beast, and owing to the processor I needed to opt for AIO cooling, and all in all I should think it uses a bit more electric than the Mac mini and it’s a lot louder.
I like to keep backups of stuff I make, and here the PC is a bit better as it has all those USB ports for HD and thumb drives. And I find my emulators work better on my PC, I quite like a bit of retro gaming. My Logitech control pad often is not recognised or does not work on my emulators on Mac. Not sure why?
So including games, which is still a Windows mainstay. I have lots of reason to like my PC. But some things are a lot better with a Mac, I like to write for pleasure and also mess around making music. I find these hobbies better suited to the Mac, for a start I have Logic Pro on my Mac, and I did think of buying Cubase for the PC, but why spend £280 when I have Logic on the Mac?
Windows gives me Word and Google Docs, and I can use Scrivener. But if you wanted to publish something you wrote, on my Mac I can export to Epub direct from Pages, and also publish to Apple Books from Pages too, which is likely a better experience than doing it on a PC.
And for some reason I trust iCloud a bit more than OneDrive, where I pay about £6 for Office, which I largely don’t use or need, and my OneDrive storage, I have enough storage with iCloud for about £1
And yes, the nagging. Windows nags you too much. I had Edge open the other day and then used Chrome and it nagged me to use Edge, I wanted Chrome as it was better suited to what I wanted to do, but they nagged me. Don’t get nagged by Apple.
But then I do also have a place in my heart for the humble PC. I grew up on PC’s, I grew up playing games like Space Quest, etc. I can’t do that on a Mac easily so there is nostalgia with the PC.
And the humble nature of the PC is endearing to me. A Mac is a bit, upmarket, a little exclusive. Which is both a strength and a potential weakness as perceived by others. Some people only have basic needs and they say, why buy a Mac? Well, yeah, for them, why?
But perhaps they are not the target audience for a Mac?
It’s a headache for me, I look at the configurability and value of a PC build and find it tantalising, but then look at how simple the solution is with Apple, this quiet little Mac mini that does a sound job.
Tricky. I flit between the two, and I genuinely love my PC and I love my Mac. I ideally would like both, but that depends if I can afford both. If I had to choose, what would I do? Depends what day it is, flip flopping! I like to tell myself anything you can do on a Mac you can also do on a PC, yeah, technically you can, but for me, apart from games, the Mac just does it better. But only due to me being interested in creative things. If I wanted to be an Engineer, then PC likely would be better.
I love both, and I am very lucky to have both, I suppose it all comes down to personal priorities. Thinking of writing and music making, which is easier with Logic Pro than with Cubase, I would choose the Mac. But if games were all that important, then PC. For me, as I am a very casual gamer I probably would be better suited to a Mac.
