Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Goodbye Mac
- Thread starter wawanarchist
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Jesus people, I go out for dinner, and when I get back this thread has turned into something huge... not really, but it's still more than I expected...
I read through most of it, and I have a few things to say.
1. Yes, it is fair to compare the XPS to the iMac. They are both pc's, I'm looking at both of them for the same purpose, the iMac gets the hands up of the design, the Dell gets the hands up of the power... thats like saying you can only compare suv's to suv's, they're both cars, and if you only compare them to each other, you may miss out on the hatchback that would be perfect.
2. Windows is NOT hell.... OS X is the superior operating system ... Period ... Its faster, more fine tuned, and damn well polished. But vista is a solid system that served me well for a long time. I prefer the workflow of osx, i prefer the features of osx, but acting like vista is the equivalent of hepatitis b is inane.
3. I'm not knocking apple here. the iMac is the best all in one system ever created. Theres no way around that. However, all in one is not a necessity, its a luxury, and I'm weighing the pro's and cons, theres nothing wrong with that.
4. I know the name makes me look like a 14 year old, or a psycho, but I'm neither, nor am i an anarchist... It's a name I took on for AIM back in 7th grade (8 years ago at this point) and I can't come up with a better one...
5. Finally, I am looking into buying an used mac pro. There might be hope for me yet, but until then....
Wait a minute! Hold on there!
You say Windows VISTA is a solid operating system?!
Uhh, maybe if you have 6GB ram and an amazing processor.
I'm sick of all the bull crap I was put through with Vista.
If you're even going to consider getting a PC, use Windows 7.
And don't forget on Mac's you can run both at the same time.
A quad core and 6 GB of RAM is something only for pro right?
Why so much hurt over Vista? It just works.
A quad core and 6 GB of RAM is something only for pro right?
Why so much hurt over Vista? It just works.
Dang it! Eidorian, I can never tell when you're being sarcastic.
And I hope you are.
Seriously a desktop quad runs under US$150-200 and 8 GB of DDR2 RAM for under $100.
The only problem that I ever had with Vista was a hibernation state problem that I tracked down to using Internet Sharing from my Mac and some weird non-Windows DHCP server issue.
It was fun to hate on Windows Vista in the Beta state back in 2006 but we're in 2009 now. When folding@home doesn't close properly I'm not crying.
Thats exactly what I'm talking about, people hate on vista way to much. Is it as good as osx? No. Is it horrible and worthy of flaming? No.
Vista has been more or less fixed for a long time now, all that remains is the little annoying things. Other than daily explorer crashes, its been decent, but not fun to use at all.
Daily explorer crashes is a bit of a stretch, my pos toshiba laptop has been up for about 3 weeks straight now, used for 3-6 hours a day for everything from note taking in classes, to heave photoshop work, and it has not produced one error yet. But no, it's not fun or enjoyable to use at all.
*Face Palm*
Vista, on new hardware is not bad. I repeat, my wifes' homebrew pc from 2007 has a low end 2ghz c2d and 2GB of ram and she can run firefox, excel, word, powerpoint, photoshop and solitaire (had to get one jab in there) just fine with no slow down. Doesn't crash, never has been reinstalled and for the love of whomever no blue screens of death.
Yes OSX is superior in just about every way but this misinformation needs to end. Hate Vista because you have used and hated it not because some Rush L. of the Apple world told you these lies and you know nothing but to regurgitate them.
End Face Palm.
Hmmm, I'm a bit of a photographer now retired from my roll as a university professor. I shoot about 400 images in a session which occurs once or twice a week. IMHO the new iMac with 6 gigs will be an awesome photo editing machine using CS4, Capture One, Aperture, DxxO, LightRoom, or even virtually running Ubuntu with Kitra, Gimp or CinePaint.
Seriously, while I agree the blew chunks on the price-point, the new iMac should ROCK for photo editing.
Seriously, while I agree the blew chunks on the price-point, the new iMac should ROCK for photo editing.
I ran both OSX and Vista on the same PC and they were pretty much equally fast, OSX just booted a lot faster. Now I'm running Win7 exclusively and it boosts as fast as OSX and runs very very smoothly. The UI improvements are also great. In fact it has made me reconsider buying a Mac. I'll check them out again probably later this year when the Macbooks are updated.
To the OP I recommend you wait until the folks who make the Hackintosh distros figure out how to make the Core i7s run OSX (probably won't be long since the Mac Pros got Nehalem Xeons) and buy a Core i7 system with the right parts plus a copy of OSX. This way you can get the performance and cheaper price of a nice PC but also use OSX. Of course you'll have a big box under the table but that doesn't bother me much.
Hm, I ran OS X and Vista on my 2.4 Core 2 Duo with 4Gb ram and I must say the speed was just fine on both.
Oh eh, what kassaka said.
(Still haven't gotten a Mac either, still waiting for that xMac)
Yes, until you notice it has a glossy screen and can't be used for photo editing at all...
I just thought I'd post to say that its nice to see so much vista defence here.
If i had to choose between OS X and Vista, I'd choose OS X in a heart beat, but that doesn't mean I hate vista. Some of the comments that get thrown vistas way are ludicrous. I'm running windows 7 on my gaming rig, and vista on my media PC (with a £60 processor, £12 of Ram and integrated graphics, currently running any 1080p content i throw at it without a hitch) and everything is perfect.
A healthy dose of respect for competitors is exactly what a lot of the Mac community needs, so its especially nice to see it here
An updated mini was the next computer on my wishlist (So I could have a mac desktop as well as a laptop) and because of the price hike, I'm now wondering if my love of OS X and the delicious style of their computers will keep me purchasing it. I'll say now that if I do pay the money for it, I'm gonna feel a little dirty. I'll feel that instead of embracing mac's like I've been trying to do, I'll have been sucked in instead.
If i had to choose between OS X and Vista, I'd choose OS X in a heart beat, but that doesn't mean I hate vista. Some of the comments that get thrown vistas way are ludicrous. I'm running windows 7 on my gaming rig, and vista on my media PC (with a £60 processor, £12 of Ram and integrated graphics, currently running any 1080p content i throw at it without a hitch) and everything is perfect.
A healthy dose of respect for competitors is exactly what a lot of the Mac community needs, so its especially nice to see it here
An updated mini was the next computer on my wishlist (So I could have a mac desktop as well as a laptop) and because of the price hike, I'm now wondering if my love of OS X and the delicious style of their computers will keep me purchasing it. I'll say now that if I do pay the money for it, I'm gonna feel a little dirty. I'll feel that instead of embracing mac's like I've been trying to do, I'll have been sucked in instead.
I screwed around with one the other day waiting in line at an office depot. Didn't think the touch screen was particularly usefuly, and I wasnt impressed with the build quality; I thought the on/off switch would break just from me pressing the button.
And yes, the primary reason to go mac is because of OS X. For the love of all that is holy, I don't understand why microsoft doesn't jettison their os architecture and come up with a unix base like mac, and then offer virtualization for people to run their 'legacy' programs.
The reason why people are buying macs is that they're sick of malware, adware, spyware jacking their systems up, or having to buy and pay to maintain software 'solutions' that adversely affect them as much as the problem.
Maybe I haven't drank enough kool-aid during my six years on the platform, but I'm getting a little sick of the 'sleight of hand' upgrades from Apple where they give one or two new features on a system and trumpet the hell out of them, and quietly take a feature or function out of it that's been there for years without telling anyone. Borderline dishonesty.
And yes, the primary reason to go mac is because of OS X. For the love of all that is holy, I don't understand why microsoft doesn't jettison their os architecture and come up with a unix base like mac, and then offer virtualization for people to run their 'legacy' programs.
The reason why people are buying macs is that they're sick of malware, adware, spyware jacking their systems up, or having to buy and pay to maintain software 'solutions' that adversely affect them as much as the problem.
Maybe I haven't drank enough kool-aid during my six years on the platform, but I'm getting a little sick of the 'sleight of hand' upgrades from Apple where they give one or two new features on a system and trumpet the hell out of them, and quietly take a feature or function out of it that's been there for years without telling anyone. Borderline dishonesty.
Get Monday's "old" models at firesale prices. You can get a NEW unopened 24"/2.8/2600Pro at the Apple Store for $1400. Even less if you look online at other Mac resellers. You can get a refurb 24"/2.8/2600Pro for $1200. That's 1/3 off the price of new on Monday - the deal of the year. The 20" are hoving around $1000. I just got my kids a 20"/2.66/2600 Pro for $50 LESS than a 20"/2.4 early 2007 was selling the day before.
I use a 24" with glossy for photo editing. I shoot and process about 200 images a week. Unless you are stupid and position a window or light right behind you, the glossy screen is a non-issue. The benefit of sharper images way outweigh the possibility of glare; again, don't put a light source behind you.
You should be in a dim environment anyway for serious photo editing.
I think what some photogs complain about is the color calibration. Some say it is much harder to get a true screen to print sync (visually) on the glossy displays.
I think much of this stems from the fact that each human perceives color shades and intensities on varied surfaces differently. In a glare free or reduced environment the glossy screen can work for many people.
Besides, most customers have no idea what the original shot looked like anyway, so whatever you print will be fine.
Cheers,
The iMac is competitively priced with the other all-in-one designs in the market. The issue is that you don't want the extra expense of the all-in-one design. Others are willing to pay for the convenience, space savings, power savings, and near silence of the machine.
I was a windows XP user for 8 years. Windows NT, Me, 98, 95, 3.1, 3.0, and many versions of DOS before that. For my needs, Windows sucks. I switched 3 years ago and I'll never go back. The differences are very real to me. Here are a few examples:
1. Two weeks ago I bought my wife her first Mac. She called me at work to ask how to do something on the Mac. I had previously setup my contact info in her iChat settings. I hadn't set anything else up. I asked her to launch iChat and then requested to share her screen. She accepted and bingo ..... it just works. 2 minutes later she was a happy and very impressed Mac user.
2. Stability. There are real issues with stability of windows due to the openness of the HW & SW platform. There are a larger variety of combinations of HW/SW/device drivers/DLLs etc, etc that must be handled by the OS. This leads to problems. Again, not all MS's fault but it is a reality. MS has contributed to this with some of their blunders (the registry is an abomination).
3. Useability. IMO, OS X simply provides a more consistent, usable interface. The interface is better designed. Again, part of this is due to the multiple vendors that are involved. Here is a typical example of what I have talking about:
I have a windows laptop (IBM T42) as well as a MacBook. Here are my experiences with regard to using an external monitor with both OSes.
- when I attach an external monitor to the MacBook, the external display is automatically used. No Fn-key sequences needed to activate the display. When I connect an external monitor to the IBM, nothing happens. I need to tell the laptop to use the display.
- On the mac I setup the external display to be the primary display and setup the laptop display as an extended desktop. All on a simple, easy to understand dialog. When I unplug the external monitor, the mac automatically switches back to using the laptop display only. When I plug the external monitor back in, it automatically switches back to how I had set it up.
- On the PC, I needed to navigate between two dialog boxes, Display Properties and Advanced Display properties. The first has 5 tabs, the second has THIRTEEN TABS. What the heck? Some of the tabs look like they were designed on a different planet. You can turn on the extended desktop in the first dialog but cannot select which monitor should be the primary display. You have to wade through the THIRTEEN tabs to find one that allows you to select the external monitor as the primary display. When I unplug the external monitor, no automatic switching happens. The laptop just has no primary display. When you select display setting by right clicking on the empty desktop, the dialog box appears on the MISSING DISPLAY!!! Nice and helpful.
I shutdown the computer with the external monitor set as the primary display. When I started up again, I have to re-enable the extended desktop. It remembers to use the external as the primary (sometimes). To switch back to using the laptop screen as the primary display, you have to go back to the thirteen tab dialog box.
The windows interface is pathetic compared to the Mac interface. There are dialog boxes created by Microsoft, ATI, and IBM all trying to "help" the user. None of them look or act like each other. In addition, every windows machine is different because of the different vendors involved.
I regularly use a MBP, MB, and my wife's new iMac. All three behave the same way despite having graphics cards from different vendors.
4. Viruses, malware, etc. Whether you have had problems with these does not change the fact that many, many people have problems with this issue. A whole software industry exists for this very reason. Users who are less experienced with the proper security procedures can easily get into trouble. It's not all Microsoft's fault, but it is a reality. MS has been slow to recognize how easy it is to misuse some of their technologies (ActiveX, VBA to name just 2). I have fixed virus problems for at least 10 people. I will not recommend Windows to any novice users until the malware situation improves.
5. I HATE the fact that Windows does not have a proper command line interface. I use several flavors of Linux, Solaris, and OS X. I can share scripts between all of them. Windows is the only OS that I have to install clunky third party software on (Cygwin). Big pain in the butt.
6. There are many. many nice touches in OS X (spaces, expose, spotlight, etc.) that Microsoft just hasn't been effective at duplicating.
Here is a post that I wrote on another forum a while back. Sums up my feelings on switching to the Mac. (some redundancy with my earlier post but less rambling it is also just over a year old).
I used DOS/windows for over twenty years. I made the switch at work almost two years ago. Any computers that I buy for home will be Macs. I had no problems switching. I have also used Linux, Solaris, and several flavors of Unix. I am in the software engineering field and read about computers quite a bit so I picked up the Mac within a few days.
Here are some of the things I like (in no particular order).
1. No registry. The registry is an abomination. It is so bad that a whole new category of software (registry cleaners) has sprung up to fix it.
2. Windows networking (yes WINDOWS networking) works better and faster on a Mac.
3. No stripped down versions of the OS. XP Home is missing some important features and Vista continues the trend.
4. Viruses, spyware, malware, etc. A big pain in the butt. Even if you have never been infected, you have to deal with them and you probably know someone who has been infected. I have fixed infected computers for seven or eight different people.
5. Sleep modes works faster and seamlessly. I almost never shutdown. I put my macbook to sleep at work and wake it at home and presto it just works. WIFI, bluetooth, printers, network connects all just switch to the correct settings. All within 10 seconds.
6. Dual mode display with an external monitor works better.
7. Expose, spaces, and Dashboard widgets work great (since copied by Vista)
8. Spotlight works great (since copied by Vista)
9. I really like Unix as an OS and OS X is based on BSD.
10. Professional quality development tools for free.
11. Installing and uninstalling applications is a breeze.
12. iLife is a blast.
13. Since it is based on Unix, it has a real command line. Microsoft should be shot for not providing a bash shell on windows.
14. I hate drive letters.
15. Fewer HW and SW incompatibilities. The big advantage that the windows community enjoys with the wide variety of HW comes at a price.
16. Much better integration between various aspects of the system. The user experience is more consistent on the Mac.
17. Front Row is really nice.
This works in exactly the same way in Windows. It's called "Remote Assistance"
I disagree. there is a lot of wasted space on OS X, most notably the area to the left and right of the dock if you have it on the bottom.
But what they do have is some half-assed drivers that don't even come close to utilising the card's true performance. Just do a simple comparison of a game running in OS X to a game running in Windows. There is no contest.
You have to be a complete idiot to get a virus on Windows. Yes, there was a time when a virus could "just install" itself on a machine, but that time has well and truly passed. Nowadays you as the user have to instigate something to cause a problem. If you're running software with embedded malware or anything else, that's not the fault of the operating system, that's your fault for being an incompetent computer user.
A lot of the UI "touches" you speak of are in place to conquer some of the problems which Apple's own interface created. The Windows task bar negates pretty much any need for spaces or expose because it is so vastly superior to the dock.
I will agree that Spotlight is incredibly useful, but again, Windows has application navigation sewn up with a decent menu which OS X doesn't come close to.
Yes, good point on the color calibration. I run a calibrated workflow and it did take a bit of time to learn how to calibrate. Also, the out-of-the-box brightness on the iMac is way beyond the recommended brightness for color calibration. Even turned all the way down it still exceeds the candlepower of the standard. But I can tell you that I get much more consistent printed images with my iMac than with a Dell monitor I had previously which was supposedly better for calibration.
Do me a favor, call a complete novice user on the phone and get remote desktop working in less than two minutes (with no prior setup). Turn on remote desktop, deal with the firewalls, figure out how you will even identify the remote machine to your remote desktop client, reboot windows two or three times, ....
I know all about remote desktop. I use it nearly every day at work (along with VNC for Linux boxes). It is does NOT work exactly the same way.
It is still more consistent from machine to machine....
Windows wins on gaming. I don't run games on my computer. That's what Xbox, PS3, and Wii are for.
WAY overstated. Microsoft releases weekly patches to fix vulnerabilities that open up ways to get attacked without the user installing an application. The vast majority of users are not idiots, they are novices and do not want to get a degree in IT to use a computer. Get your head out of the sand. Viruses are a very, very real problem. The anti-malware software industry must be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Just have to disagree here. I prefer the Mac UI.
I always get a chuckle out of this debate. The ones who rush to the defense of Windows are the self-proclaimed power users, hackers, IT folks, etc. You shouldn't have to have that degree of knowledge or proficiency to get the most out of an operating system. Seems that the average OSX user can do much more than the average Windows user.
I too have been on Windows (and DOS prior to that) since 1984. I find OSX refreshing, intuitive, and much easier to use. That is one of the biggest advantages to Macs. Even Hackintoshes can't compare as they can get messed up with new versions of OSX.
I too have been on Windows (and DOS prior to that) since 1984. I find OSX refreshing, intuitive, and much easier to use. That is one of the biggest advantages to Macs. Even Hackintoshes can't compare as they can get messed up with new versions of OSX.