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Please convince me to leave windows pc world

michial

michial

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 15, 2009
781
427
We are ready to buy the 27 inch i7 and I jumped on this forum and by all the negative posts about yellow tinting, loud HDDs, sparking and humming usbs and plugs scares the crap out of me and makes me wonder if its even worth it. We are wanting to replace our windows desktop but all the negativity is making me wonder Im better off with my pc..I mean some of these guys have had to exchange 5 or 6 iMacs..Ive never had to do that with a pc. The reason Im switching to Apple is due to the supposed superlative engineering,design,etc but these forums make it sound like apple is just as sucky as windows world.

Please convice me to continue to pursue apple. We love our iphone and ipad and assume the rest of apple is the same or better.
 
You've been a member for over a year and from the sounds of it read about a number of issues.
When buying something, the potential buyer can no longer consider what item/product is problem free but what problems in a product is supported by the manufacturer if the particular unit demonstrates to be a problem.

If you want it, get it. from the sounds of it Apple will fix it if there is an issue
 
Most people will post about a problem rather than post about the positives they experience about a product. Go to Dell forums or other PC forums and you'll see a trend of problems as well. Very few people go to a forum and say, "OMG I absolutely love my iMac/PC/whatever!" It's usually, "Hey I have a problem." Don't worry about it and just buy it if you want a Mac. Apple has good customer service and will fix any problems you may have with the machine. You are just as likely to encounter a problem with a new PC as you are with a new iMac.
 
I'm one of the quiet ones. Early adaptor of the 27" i5 iMac last year then I noticed a very slight yellow tint and light bleeding from one of the corners and my DVD drive wouldn't read disks. Brought it to the store; they were going to replace the drive and check into the screen so I left it there. When I got home, I called AppleCare and told them that my iMac is at one of their stores for repair and that I hope I get it back soon since I rely on my iMac for work and personal business. An hour later, the store where I left my iMac called and offered to swap my iMac with a brand new one. I accepted and have been using a near-flawless iMac.

I say near-flawless because the hard drive is a Seagate that grumbles a little bit unlike my previous iMacs that were tomb-silent. I can live with this, though, as it's really an attribute of the drive...

As for transitioning from Winx to iMacs and Mac OS X, I think most people's reactions are "why didn't I switch earlier?!" :)
 
Both Macs and PCs are going to break. It just happens. Everything fails at some point. Nothing's 100% reliable. Since one of the main purposes of this forum is to help people with problems, that'll explain all the 'My Mac won't boot' or 'My Mac's broken' posts. It happens everywhere.
 
I wouldn't worry too much honestly about the iMac problems. Two years ago in August 2008, I was here in the forums asking very similar questions as you.

I was switching for the first time ever from my 3rd PC (Dell Dimension) to a 24 inch iMac.

Here's what I have to say about all of this.

The people that are 100% happy and satisfied with their iMac's from two or one years ago or more, will most of the time ignore these kinds of posts or ignore all the negative posts about iMac's breaking, screen issues, Hard drive loud noises, etc..

I personally bought my 24 inch iMac as a refurbished model as my first iMac ever.

I had no problems with it till now. My machine arrived in a brown box but otherwise looked brand spanking new out of the box. Everything was finger print-less and shiny.

Lots of plastic wrap to peel off. Back then on these very same forums I heard about all kinds of issues regarding the iMac and the way I handled it was by keeping those issues in mind but jumping in and never once regretted doing so.

The people with problems are far more vocal on these forums than the others that are very happy with their Mac's with no problems.

I wouldn't worry about it. Get the Mac you've been looking at and get ready to have fun once it arrives.

Take these iMac horror stories with a grain of salt and don't look back. If you take this too seriously you may never end up buying an iMac. Instead you will be miserable using a PC and paranoid about the big unknown.

Go for it. Buy that new machine but keep a keen eye on everything. :)
 
Alx9876 said:
The people with problems are far more vocal on these forums than the others that are very happy with their Mac's with no problems.
Click to expand...

And people tend not to make threads stating "My new iMac/MBP/Mini works fine!".

I have bought 5 Macs since 2004, starting with an iBook G4, latest a new Mini for my wife, and none have any dead/stuck pixels, none have had any HW problems, all the ports work, keyboards are fine, and none have bad screens. I've only had to re-install OSx once, and that was after a bad update. With all 5 machines combined, I've had to do force reboot less than 5 times.

No antivirus is needed, I don't download/install shady software, I practice safe computing, and don't abuse the machines.

But I'm not going to go open a thread about it.
 
Thanks. What are generally speaking more reliable, iMacs or MacBooks? I've found with windows and pcs the average lifespan is 2-3 years. What is the lifespan on iMacs and mbp? Thanks
 
michial said:
Thanks. What are generally speaking more reliable, iMacs or MacBooks? I've found with windows and pcs the average lifespan is 2-3 years. What is the lifespan on iMacs and mbp? Thanks
Click to expand...
We've 13 iMacs in the office that are working fine after 4 plus years.

I personally have a desktop Mac that I purchased in 2002 that works fine, albeit a little old. I have a PowerBook 15 (looks similar to an aluminum MBP 15) that I purchased in 2003. Plus I have some older Macs that I keep around for various reasons that sill work okay.

Based upon my experience and of course depending on your needs, I don't see why an iMac or MBP wouldn't last you 3 plus years.
 
michial said:
Thanks. What are generally speaking more reliable, iMacs or MacBooks? I've found with windows and pcs the average lifespan is 2-3 years. What is the lifespan on iMacs and mbp? Thanks
Click to expand...

At home I have a 3yr old (white) MacBook, a 2yr old iMac and a 1 yr old MacBook pro. The old white MacBook had some cosmetic case cracks that were fixed under AppleCare. That is all.

I've owned maybe a dozen windows PCs in my time, and while they've mostly been reliable hardware-wise, they all seem to slow down at the 1-2 year mark and become annoyingly slow past 3 years - so much so that I feel I have to replace them. It must be a windows thing because I haven't noticed any of my macs slowing down at all.
 
you would be happy with Mac, it took me one year to replace all windows machines with Macs now, i have one Macbook with Windows with Bootcamp on it but other than that i have all Mac, I would recommend to get apple care with Mac though just in case you need reapairs, average life of computers is around 3 years, so after three you might need a replacement or pass it to other members, i got apple care on two of my macs and going to get for the third one too. I am overall happy with transition, Time capsule is the best backup and restore i have experienced.
 
I owned an iBook a decade ago but it got old and slow. I went back back to the PC world while keeping track of the mac developments. Early this year in March i got me the iMac i7. I discovered what a decade the mac made. Instead of fighting the PC world and forcing people to "pick a side" (either you are with us or against us), it has decided to assimilate. Even the website tells you the mac equivalents of the PC world.

I haven't missed anything from what i left back (other then the ability to play old school Win-95 games like Grim Fandango and Neverhood but i'm pretty sure there will be solutions coming).


Besides, you KNOW you WANT IT.... Come over to the Dark side... :cool:
 
Go for it!

I used Windows from the very beginning, 1.0 in 1985.
Had a dozen of windows PCs and laptops. Always virus-warnings, almost daily updates, etc. Suddenly I had enough of it.....

..... and bought a few months ago my first iMac. A i7 27" quadcore.
In the Mac store, just a few miles from home.

And I'm impressed in every way. A fantastic machine, no troubles at all.
You only need to learn computing again. The first steps were not easy. The first days using OSX is like talking a foreign language. You get used to it.

The one minor thingy: had to buy a new pair of glasses :cool:
 
I live just a few minutes from Redmond WA and know many Microsoft employees. They say "who cares if macs last 10 years. Tech changes so fast now. Why not buy a $1000 rig. Don't you want to replace it every 2-3 years any how so you can have the latest and greAtest? Why brag about an overpriced piece of tech that is behind the times in 2 yeArs who cares if it breaks in two years. The money you saved by not buying a Mac you can now buy a new machine with all the latest specs for the same price as the one Mac.
That's what they tell me
 
michial said:
I live just a few minutes from Redmond WA and know many Microsoft employees. They say "who cares if macs last 10 years. Tech changes so fast now. Why not buy a $1000 rig. Don't you want to replace it every 2-3 years any how so you can have the latest and greAtest? Why brag about an overpriced piece of tech that is behind the times in 2 yeArs who cares if it breaks in two years. The money you saved by not buying a Mac you can now buy a new machine with all the latest specs for the same price as the one Mac.
That's what they tell me
Click to expand...

And it's a very common, valid argument, and something you'd have to decide on your own. Apple's marketing strategy is through user experience. From the very minute you order one from a store or online, to your unboxing, to your first boot up, to your everyday use of the computer, to your experience with dealing with applecare if a problem ever arises, Apple stands behind for what they think is a more pleasing experience.

The tradeoff is that you're more committed to that computer and can't constantly upgrade to the latest tech, so you have to ask yourself if there's anything you would do that absolutely mandates that you use the latest tech, or if you're just slipping into the false gratitude of always having the latest in a name for tech, as it usually comes down to just bragging rights. It peeved me so much when users on this forum complained so much about some apple computers still using good, solid core2duos in place of arrandales or clarkdales, when there's little difference in everyday use or even some advanced uses.

I had a PowerPC G5 iMac for quite some time (6 years) and it lasted me great, and was a real workhorse for whatever I wanted it to do. It was slow for what I wanted it to do for the last couple of years (not even able to play hd youtube videos) but my experience with it was great. Now I moved on to a newer iMac with lynnfield cpu, and I have good feelings that it'll last me for another 6 years as well.
 
michial said:
I live just a few minutes from Redmond WA and know many Microsoft employees. They say "who cares if macs last 10 years. Tech changes so fast now. Why not buy a $1000 rig. Don't you want to replace it every 2-3 years any how so you can have the latest and greAtest? Why brag about an overpriced piece of tech that is behind the times in 2 yeArs who cares if it breaks in two years. The money you saved by not buying a Mac you can now buy a new machine with all the latest specs for the same price as the one Mac.
That's what they tell me
Click to expand...

Yep, but the whole thing about needing to have the latest and greatest pc every two years seems to be nothing more than a gearhead-manufactured rat-race. You know, like you're not a real man if you don't have the latest. Seriously, who has time for all that macho crap?

The only thing I really need is to get my stuff done. Macs seem to let me achieve that with minimal distraction or "performance anxiety" :)
 
michial said:
I live just a few minutes from Redmond WA and know many Microsoft employees. They say "who cares if macs last 10 years. Tech changes so fast now. Why not buy a $1000 rig. Don't you want to replace it every 2-3 years any how so you can have the latest and greAtest? Why brag about an overpriced piece of tech that is behind the times in 2 yeArs who cares if it breaks in two years. The money you saved by not buying a Mac you can now buy a new machine with all the latest specs for the same price as the one Mac.
That's what they tell me
Click to expand...

Valid point, but it's also about the operating system.
Just got my First iMac i7 a few weeks ago and it's totally problem free.
I've personally had enough of windows.
Once you go Mac you won't go back, once you've had a Mac you'll know why.

Go for it mate, you'll be more than happy, get the i3 machine if the i7 is too much.

End of the day it's up to you but I think more people are satisfied with their Macs overall than those with PC's

Rav :)
 
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