MBA is my first mac, what should I look for over Windows?

[ks-man]

This might not be the right board for this thread, but I did just buy a MBA which is my first mac in 10 years.

I've read articles on what Leopard can do, but many of the main features will take a lot of time to get used to (I've been using Windows since 1998).

What are some of your favorite things that Mac OS X does over Windows? What simple things might I be overlooking that I will really appreciate? I know all about the more secure OS and less likely to crash or get a virus, but what are some of your top tips?

Thanks in advance.

 

[AutumnSkyline]

Well Exposé is certainly a boon over having, Alt+Tab, and....dare I say it... Flip3d in Vista. It is loads more efficient.

Time Machine is the easiest way to make and manage back ups on the planet.

The whole UI is very cohesive, and is extremely well designed.

One of my favorite things --> iTunes doesn't have four processes running at once on a Mac, at least nothing you can see.

It doesn't slow down noticibly over time. OS X automatically defrags itself when left standing.

The ability to run Winblows, or nearly any distro of linux on the planet if you want.

Anything else you want to know?

 

[raremage]

One of my favorite features in a Mac laptop over a similarly-equipped Windows laptop: reliable sleeping.

I know on my MBA (or MBP, or my old PowerBook) that when I close the lid the system will sleep reliably in a few seconds.

I also know that when I open the lid, it will come back from sleep - reliably, every time - in a few seconds. The MBA seems to be even better tuned than my old MBP was!

That has never ever been the case with Windows. Vista is much better at this than XP was, and certainly better than Win2K was - but the combination of Mac hardware and OS X is just miles ahead of this exceptionally desirable laptop function.

 

[instant hit]

the ability to run so many applications at once is something that i can't normally do in windows without sacrificing system stability. specific to the mba, i utilize spaces -- another thing vista doesn't have out of the box. that used to be one of the most under-appreciated features of leopard for me.

it all boils down to this: it just works . i been a pc (dos/win) user for over 14 years; just last year i switched to mac and already feel like i've known it all my life (save for terminal).

 

[ks-man]

Well Exposé is certainly a boon over having, Alt+Tab, and....dare I say it... Flip3d in Vista. It is loads more efficient.

Time Machine is the easiest way to make and manage back ups on the planet.

The whole UI is very cohesive, and is extremely well designed.

One of my favorite things --> iTunes doesn't have four processes running at once on a Mac, at least nothing you can see.

It doesn't slow down noticibly over time. OS X automatically defrags itself when left standing.

The ability to run Winblows, or nearly any distro of linux on the planet if you want.

Anything else you want to know?

I haven't gotten into Expose yet but I do like spaces. Nothing specific I'm really looking for, just been using OS X for internet type things and after one day I'm just wondering what will be better about the Mac. I don't know if most people love it the moment they start it up (for internet it isn't much different than XP), or if it is little things over time I will appreciate and not anything specific that I can look for.