Going from PC to Mac - What should I expect?

I am selling my Dell XPS 1530 (sold it for 900) and buying a MacBook. What surprises should I expect? It has been quite some time since I medled with OSX...(2001).

 

Umm yeah, whatever. I can copy and paste just fine. Troll another forum.

Anyway, RiCEADDiCTBOY, I would suggest that you read the "switchers guide" http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=161784. Set aside a day or two to familiarize yourself with the OS X UI. If you are looking for Mac software alternatives, there are several threads filled with great free software suggestions (use the forum search function).

 

you can copy and paste. the one button button has multitouch so to right click all you to is press 2 fingers down instead of one.
the touchpad is the best touchpad ever by far. its big and easy to use, plus you dont need to use the right hand side to scroll, just use to fingers and scroll down anywhere on the touchpad(windows too).
copy and paste is just control+c to copy and control+V to paste or you can use click click like in windows.


windowss 7>OSX for me. i cant stand osx, its confusing the msn, firefox, utorrent, vlc and other good programs i use are all better on windows. plus i just find it easier to use by far.
bad point is you get around 1h 45- 2h battery life, and it makes no difference i you switch battery profiles. plus you lose a little of your touchpad multitouch things.

me hateing osx might just be as iv never used it before but the programs i use (listed above) are terrible on mac so i dont use osx.

 

You can expect lots of comments from people like optimustarzan who have no idea what they are talking about. Give OSX a real chance and you should love it. If you could survive the layout change from XP to Vista you'll be fine. Use the touchpad for a couple of days and you will be addicted to it. I was a Windows user for decades before making the switch this year and now I wouldn't go back even if Windows 7 was free.

 

the main thing to expect is Windows fanboys everywhere always spreading lies about Macs, and treating you like you are an idiot.

you can also expect to have a really awesome computer, even though you'll have to learn a lot to use it well.

 

Absolutely nothing. The OS may be different. But the applications and your uses of it would fundamentally be the same.

Edit: And if your a gamer. You'll find yourself dual booting Windows because until OpenCL kicks off, Macs support for games isn't the best.

 

the biggest grip i had with switching to mac was the inability to read ntfs out of the box. There is the new stable ntfs-3g software, but the speed is terrible. While the speedy version comes with all "user beware" warnings.

Oh, for the fans of p2p streaming, the option becomes really limited.

 

That makes sense. I've always wondered why my ntfs transfers took 20 minutes on the Mac when on my PC is would be done in a matter of minutes.

 

Expect not to be able to cut and paste. That is the only real quirk that I've found to be sort of annoying but nothing troublesome. Like when I want to cut and paste a file i would have to copy and paste then go back and delete the original file.

 

You can also just drag and drop. Unlike Windows that doesn't create a copy in the destination location, but rather physically moves the file to the destination.

 

Here's a completely different sort of answer to your question....

Honestly, expect to be bewildered at least once.

I've used Windows long enough to have to have upgraded to 3.1. While I'm not an expert on hardware or programming, when you use a product for nearly 20 years, you get used to most of its problems, and most of their fixes.

The first time something went wrong using OS X, I immediately learned how my parents must feel calling me for basic advice.

For an experienced PC user making the switch, I'd say there's a real tradeoff in the short term. In all likelihood, your Mac will be relatively trouble-free compared to your previous Windows machines. But when unexpected problems arise, they'll probably take you longer to troubleshoot & fix. Possibly substantially longer.

But as you get the hang of it, I think you'll find the cost-benefit starts to tilt more and more in Apple's direction. Just be patient. If you spent years getting to know the ins and outs of Windows, you're not going to achieve that same familiarity overnight.

 

anything that they truly appreciate about their mac?

 

No more defraging, easier networking, iLife and the touchpad come to mind. The Mac just gives a better user experience in my book. Looking back at my Windows experience, I just think about all the time I'm saving on the Mac. It seemed like I was working to fix Windows more than I used it sometimes.

 

btw - thanks for the replies guys.

i have the cash in hand and was debating whether to get a mbp or macbook but from the test results i've seen the price just doesn't justify (the already expensive apple pricing) for a mbp as macbook has come closer than ever in closing that gap.

i last used osx when i was doing graphic designing and journalism work back in 2001. i have used windows extensively, however i am willing to make the switch simply because of my annoyance with windows in general. the os is fine. i've never had any issues with viruses and etc. i am tired of the crashes and the os being a complete hog. if i have adobe illustrator and photoshop up while having google chrome with multiple windows - my laptop lags...and it shouldn't theoritically when compared to a macbook with lesser hardware. am i right? so, my only conclusion can be is that it's the os that makes or breaks the experience - not the hardware itself. osx makes more with less? i don't know...i just know that i had a few hiccups with my experience with osx in the past - but, never the headaches with windows.

 

You're in for an improvement there. Idling after boot, OS X uses about 350MB RAM on my current MBP.

In my opinion, the biggest differences between the MB and MBP don't show up on stat sheets. Typing on the two machines feels different, and there's that disparity between the displays...

 

Everything will be very similar, just different buttons here and there. You're gonna have to get used to it.
But if you're a hardcore windows user, switching to apple may be a little more difficult.
Ie; programers usually use windows. sometimes its difficult to learn something different.

 

well supposedly, there has been a recent upsurge of photos and comments on new displays that have found their way to the macbook line - blacks actually look black, better viewing angle and etc...

 

well, the only programs that i would heavily use on it would be: microsoft office, adobe photoshop and illustrator. i would be utilizing boot camp - and installing either windows xp or windows 7 rc1 for strictly gaming.

 

drag and drop to somewhere on the same volume will move... to a different volume will copy...

drag and ALT+Drop to the same volume will copy
drag and CMD+drop to a different volume will move...

whichever your doing, it always tells you if its going to move or copy... if it doesn't show a symbol, its going to move, if it shows a little green + sign its going to copy

 

I'd also always recommend going to Apples help site and looking through a lot of their help info and videos that explains how to do many things... lotsa little features that make life easier that you might not figure out on your own.

 

Depends on what you're doing. If you're just using it for internet, adobe suite, office..etc, there's no difference. There should be no surprises on the software side. The main difference between OSX and Windows for most people is the GUI. Whatever you're used to or you like should be your best choice.

On the hardware side, you enjoy several little features that are not available or not well equiped on Dell XPS 1530.

E.g. bigger multi-touch touchpad, light sensor

Things like CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD are almost the same so there shouldn't be too much surprise on hardware as well.

 

Xirurg: What? Do you even bother to read threads before you post in them? You're not impressing anyone with your spam.

Back to the OP... I totally agree that more than once you'll be totally lost. All the PC savvy in the world wouldn't save you from having occasional moments of "I have no frickin' clue how to fix this." Again, this is no fault of OS X, but rather one of the obvious costs of learning new systems. I'm going through a similar process in learning Linux, and it's quite a ride.

Besides that initial shock, I feel that your user experience will be VERY good, especially if you dual boot with Windows. You'll discover that not having to deal with defragmentation or virus scans is quite nice, and really does make computer usage more streamlined.

 

Defragmentation in Vista and Windows 7 are default to automatically defrag. So average user don't really have to worry about defragmentation on their hdd anymore.

Though, some types of users on Windows are prone to virus whether or not they use antivirus and some type of users never get virus. Depending on who is using the computer, antivirus will not be even needed.

 

If you can, go to a store (Apple Store, Bestbuy, Fry's...) and physically play around with the MacBook, get a feel for OS X.

This is good advice for any laptop purchase, Windows or Mac, as they are a much more "up close and personal" tech product IMO than desktops, etc.

As for the OS, each has it's strengths and weaknesses (I think OS X still is a tad bit more elegant looking than Windows, for example) but that's the good thing about having an abundance of Operating System choices. People can install whichever OS they choose and be happy with their decision.

/lover of both OS X and Windows

 

The defrag may be automatic but if you happen to want to use the system at the same time it is a pain. Auto defrag doesn't change the fact that Microsoft hasn't found a way to properly save files without fragmenting them.

 

For Vista and Windows 7, defrag is not only automatic, but it'll only defrag when your computer is idle. That means it's highly unlikely that the computer will auto defrag when you're heavily using your computer. Thus performance degration isn't an issue.

It's not that Microsoft don't know how to properly prevent defrag, they need to maintain compatilibity of many older file systems such as NTFS and FAT32.

There's optional file system called exFat (which is not compatible with Windows xp or earlier machine without downloading drivers from Microsoft) which do not suffer from defragmentation and it does not have have the limitation of Fat32 filesystem.

The problem with Microsoft Windows is that new features sometimes will not be implemented very quickly compared to linux or other OS with small user base because it needs to maintain compatibility with a wide range of hardware. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes its not.

Also, defragmentation isn't always simply "defragment" your hdd. Good programs such as diskeeper will optimize your hdd by moving (defraging and combining) regularily used file to the edge of the disk for optimal performance. I don't know any way to do that in MacOS (maybe someone could suggest a tool), thus that puts MacOS at a little bit disadvantage.

 

I'd say the combination of the dock and menu bar may feel a bit strange at first, but you'll get used to it quickly. I have always found the dock to be a bit of a nuisance to be honest. When viewing the desktop, it looks great, but when a window is maximized, with the dock below - it just looks out of place (yes, I know you can hide the dock). When viewing a long text document, a nice colorful wallpaper bleeding though the dock is slightly irritating. Equally annoying is when you only have a few icons in the dock... just looks... strange.

/rant

 

Um, I move between Windows and OS X, and the thing that always makes me stumble a bit is the delete key; the biggest adjustment has been keyboard layout: no dedicated page up, page down, and backspace keys -- with the muscle memory confusion of the dedicated delete key.

As a relatively recent MacBook owner, sure, there'll be a period of unfamiliarity, but fan-boys and critics aside, both platforms are pretty similar.

 

well that can be a bit confusing on the laptops... its for space reasons though. full size Apple keyboards have keys that are like Windows

 

Woot. I just got a Macbook yesterday after being a PC for so long. It's a the white 2gb Macbook. I love it so much already.

Honestly, I was at a lost for a while when I came home with it and got everything set up. Set up was really a breeze though, really, a breeze.

But the tutorial videos HELPED A TON. Just with the basics, I'm already familiar.

But yeah, a day after, I'm still tinkering around this baby, and seeing what I need to brush up on.

Time to change my sig x]

 

Congrats on the new system. So, did you like the welcome video? Its not anything special but I think it was a nice change after so many years of the usual Windows initial set up.

 

apple, high quality but hot product.

 

Mine runs cooler than my Dell did and the fans a much quieter too.

 

I was surprised by the welcome video and thought it was really cool. Windows never did anything like that. Really started off the whole experience right.

 

Windows 7 was Microsofts answer to OSX,

 

I didn't consider it much of a response. More of the same with some new wrapping paper if you ask me. I tried the beta before switching to Mac and wasn't impressed. Microsoft lost me with Vista.

 

I felt exactly the same way, funny how the little things make so much of a difference.

 

That was a big annoyance with me, but I learned ( by accident ) that you can just drag 'n drop files/folders.

 

Na.. it's more like giving comsumer a better image of Windows. Vista was ruined by constant bashing from Apple's commercials. This time, MS didn't rush the development process. They tweaked Vista and added couple new features and called it a new name. So far, the tricked worked for many people, even those who hates Vista and just following whatever's popular.

 

Man I was wondering if I was the only one who saw and knew that. I think if people would try the newest versions of Vista Ultimate 64-Bit then they would actually enjoy it. My desktop is crazy fast with it. Never had a problem. Though OSX is still crazy good too.

 

Vista's code is completely rewritten thus it had some bug at first. Back when it was first introduced, computers were too slow and ram are expensive. After SP1, the OS is awesome. But SP1 came too late and left many user with bad impression of Vista.

Now, everything has changed. Technology has involved and price is lowered. I have a $400 quadcore desktop comptuer with 4GB of ram, 750GB hdd...etc, and Vista 64bit flys on here. No BSOD, no viruses or anything which all those Vista hater and Mac fanboyz talk about.

Once people get over the fact that Vista had a bad start, they'll enjoy Vista. Windows 7 had a great start since preBeta thus MS profit off all of those people who follow popular trend.

 

I have to disagree. I had Vista after SP1 and tried the Beta of Windows 7 before I decided to switch to a Mac. Sure some people will act like sheep and buy Windows 7 hoping to get improvement but some won't. Many people feel that Microsoft can't justify charging them for W7 when Vista never worked as advertised.

 

Well... most people will buy computers with Windows 7 preinstalled so price shouldn't be an issue for those people. The "many people" who doesn't want to buy Windows 7 is those who are already using Vista but doesn't want to spend couple hundred bucks upgrading.

 

See I'm going to have to agree with you on this one. Once Vista was fixed, which it was, it was a great OS. It was what Microsoft wanted from the start. I'm all for Vista, and now Win7.

 

Don't forget the driver debacles... NVidia screwed up big time.

 

still bad here...though 7 does the job,so I forgave MS now they just need to give us decent browser and media player!

 

But Internet Explorer 8 is pretty well done from what I heard.

 

And get rid of the Registry. I just love how the PC fans (not you Xirurg) try to make Windows 7/Vista out to be some newly rewritten wonder when it STILL has the Registry and the usuals of the standard old Windows 95. When the Registry disappears and they simplify the system by removing the useless Device Manager that nobody needs Windows will be worth something.

 

What exactly is wrong with the Registry and Device Manager that needs removing?

Windows does allow a bit more openness and expandability to a system. Are these things not detrimental to that?

 

Nothing.
There's a saying called
"If it aint broken, don't fix it"

HLdan is a Mac fan thus his biased opinion is expected.