I want YOUR experience..

Hey, i just wanted to know whether YOUR experience with windows xp was better than that with mac os x(with respect to evrything including the virus factor,the applications factor,games factor,design factor..evrything)
And would u recomend a mac to anyone??(im considering switching).
thanks,
sathya

 

Macs are not for everyone,macs are very bad at playing games since they don't run many.Virus factor is good on macs,but its not impossible to get a virus.Macs do not run many applications as windows.Design mac rules,unless you want to buy an LG which are kickass.The price factor is really important though.Macs are expensive.

 

Well, I would recommend a Mac to anyone who does not want to do one of two things: use it for a business, or serious gaming. Now there are solutions such as Boot Camp and Parallels, but they still need a little refining.

Everyone else would be better off with Mac, even if there is one or two Windows apps you need. For that Parrallels and Boot Camp work great.

There are no viruses in the wild for OS X. That may change, but it is unlikely to in the near future. The applications kind of depend on what specific apps you are referring to. For creative, home user type of apps, Apple cannot be beat. Other things kind of depend on what you are looking for. As for design and ease of use, well it's a Mac! Mac has this ability to work without much effort. For instance, to plug it in to an external monitor I don't have to change any settings. It will auto recognize the display resolution and automatically work.

Hope that helps, if there are any other fears or questions feel free to ask! We love to help!

 

I'd recommend it.

Viruses are highly unlikely, and it will probably never happen. No this isn't me being 'fanboyish', but its me acknowledging how secure the unix system is, there has been many contests where a grand prize was offered to anyone who could make a virus for OS X (OS X is based on unix) and still the prize is yet to be claimed I don't even know if its offered anymore and they just found a different purpose for the prize. the Computer Science community and IT community agreed that whoever becomes the first to have a successful virus will be incredibly famous because its been years that unix has been out.

Now trojans are NOT viruses, and there has been a couple out for the Mac OS, last one I think was Jan 2005, its not exactly commonplace to see it, not to mention once Apple hears of such a thing they quickly take action and fix the issue, and not wait weeks. Please note that before OS X I think there were actual viruses, but because OS X was rebuilt from the ground up with security in mind and also more tightly wrapped with unix its very hard to do (viruses) now.

Gaming is a no so far, but that might change. I wouldn't exactly say Macs are bad for businesses, because iWorks is extremely powerful suite of applications that is expected to gain an additional program early next year. iWorks includes the abilities to export to various formats such as any microsoft office formats, however considering how advanced it is, exporting to Office some things won't work because office doesn't have it yet. Things can include the sophisicated 3D rendering iWorks has, and the fact that iWorks can read alpha channels which Office still cannot , among many other things. Anyways I wouldn't exactly say Macs cant be used for businesses purposes.

 

I stopped reading there. I do hope this is some sort of joke?

Advertising, printing . . . entire universities . . . etc.

 

Can't forget the multibillion dollar hollywood industry, as well as record companies and graphic design firms.

But its true, but industries its not very big in.

 

Ok I will clarify, I meant more coporate-oriented businesses that have proprietary software that is written Windows, or that require things like accounting software, etc. I did not mean all businesses, I meant places where they look like the PC Guy in the commercials LOL!

**EDIT** Look at it this way, Hollywood may make the movie on an Apple, but their accountants are using Windows. See my point?

 

Ok, had my alarm clock going off there

Today, however, you can get most of that software for Mac OSX but it may be too easy to use and simplistic for the general Windows user

Just joking of course. My desktop is still Windows based.

 

It reminds me that in my "Cult of Mac" book I read that a Mac user out there noticed in the tv show "24" (something called that) that he knew who the bad people were from the beginning because he noticed something.

All the bad guys used windows and all the good guys used macs, so when he looked at who was working with the good guys, he saw a few that used pcs and thoguht they were the bad guys, so at the end his suspicions were proved to be true.

Just a little interesting fact I thought I included.

Anyways, I knew what cash was talking about all along.

sathyaterry, you will enjoy it.

 

I would recommend a Mac to anyone who doesn't serious game. I only log onto my XP desktop when I need to game, otherwise I am on OS X all day, cus the Mac OS is by far 10 x better then XP!

 

About gaming, if you only do moderate to light gaming, there are many titles available for mac (call of duty 2, civ IV, etc) that work just fine. You can also use the bootcamp option if you would like for games not made for mac. The only gamers who would really need a windows would be people who like count their FPS and stats and all. Otherwise mac is fine.

Second, about the statement that there aren't as many programs for mac, number 1, yes, on the shelves there may not be many. But the mac world has a HUGE plethora of freeware and in my personal opinion the freeware always seems to beat the windows freeware counterparts. Mac freeware also tends to be integrated with all your other applications so it just makes for an overall feel. Your computer is really YOUR computer, you don't run the OS just for the individual programs anymore. Some of the freeware programs are truly awesome (cough, quicksilver, cough).

I also personally believe that OS X is simply more user friendly. Things just make sense. You don't have to go to services.msc to find some service that randomly stopped or go to the registry which is written in dumb to find and fix a problem. The device manager in OS X actually makes sense, your preferences are not scattered all over the place in totally random panels, and making the computer work for you is just...easier. That's my opinion.

Finally, not having to deal with spyware and virus and adware just makes life a little easier. We can argue all day about why it is so but the fact is that it's like that and it's convenient.

 

I concur with all of his points, however its recommended by many here if you are planning on games, please get the MBP then if you are looking at notebooks.

I read quicksilver a few times here, yet I haven't checked it out yet or even know what it does for that matter.

 

thanks for the reply guys..
I'd better clear some points..
1.Im in high school..no business laptop for me..
2.I dont use applications which require great graphics..
3.I have a desktop for gaming(which is infested with viruses..thats why i was keen on the virus factor)
4.Money is not a problem(1800$..i could buy a macbook and tweak up the specs) ..i dont want my laptop making me run up and down between the apple shop and my house.(build quality)
5.Design is always important..Macbook's design is infalliable
6.I need a laptop with a Superdrive..I need to write quite a number of movies and songs every week..
7.There is a problem with the white color.. yellow staining..it happened to my ipod(the earphones are yellow!!!)..So the only option is black which is costlier.
8.I need wifi and bluetooth..Macbook takes care of it.

Well thats most of the things i need in a laptop.. maybe this would make it clear for u guys..

Anyway thanks a ton for u replies,
sathya

 

If you get a white one and it turns yellow, apple will fix it. But if you can afford the black one get it instead if you like black better. I personally like white better, but its just a preference. I think the MacBook would be fine for you.

 

I use invisibleshield on my white one anyways personally. According to Apple all new MBs have the new outer casing and the yellowing shouldn't be an issue anymore anyways.

 

With 1800 you can probably get a macbook pro with a student discount. Not sure if it works for high school students though.

 

I have been a PC user for 20 years and I used every version of Windows extensively for work and play.

Last month, I switched to a Mac - now I will admit here that it was not primarily because of Windows, as XP has been a fairly stable OS - but it was because I ended up with a lemon latop and I had decided before I bought it that if I had any more problems on my next windows machine I was going to switch.

Well, I switched.

Mac has changed my life. It's so much easier to not be constantly fighting with my computer over hardware/software incompatibility, tweaking settings, updating and scanning for viruses, and constantly dealing with "issues".

It truly and honestly did work right out of the box. I turned it on, filled in a few blanks, logged on to my wireless network, and was online and playing within about 5-7 minutes.

I have found the OS so pleasant to use once I got used to the layout and functionality that I have decided to try to COMPLETELY switch and not use Windows for ANYTHING.

So far I have had no regrets.

 

GeorgineVJ has been evangelized to the Mac way.

Quite honestly, I have more time on my hands these days as well, there has even been periods when I have nothing to do.

 

Mac is a great platform. If it weren't for compatibility and graphics, I'd switch. I'm an engineering student and do 3D modeling, and I like to game. Therefore, no Mac for me. The MBP would have been strong enough, but not as strong as my M90, and I payed less for the M90. And since I'm a student, I travel back and forth between home and school every week as well as take my laptop to some of my engineering classes, so no strong desktop for me with a Mac notebook. Plus, I couldn't afford that anyway.

As far os OS X vs. XP, that's kind of a matter of preference. Personally, I prefer OS X in most respects. I'm a Linux/Unix kind of guy. But unfortunately, there's no AutoCAD or SolidEdge for OS X, so I have to us Windows. But there is no doubt that OS X is less susceptible to viruses. And I also have no doubts that it is a more user-friendly. Trying to find things in Windows feels like a game in itself sometimes. For instance, trying to cut down on processes so that your computer will start faster, you type msconfig. From there, you can clearly see all the services running and what they're set to do. But you can't edit them there. Instead, you have to run services.msc. And there is nowhere to find these things graphically... you just have to know. That's ridiculous. And then, once you edit your startup services, Windows tries to get you to go back to normal mode everytime you start the machine. That's just stupid. These are things that Windows seriously screws up in.

And don't get me started about compatibility. Sure, there are a thousand different programs out there for Windows, which is great. And yeah, Windows supports thousands of different hardware peripherals and components, which is also great. Except it's not. Everything works fine out of the box, which is why most people never reformat their machines. But after a reformat, hunting down the drivers is ridiculous. And then it tries to make you restart after you install every driver. Seriously, if you do a reformat of a Windows machine, you'll spend at least an hour trying to get just in working order again. And even then, it's hard to find some things sometimes. For instance, Windows didn't recognize my Media Card Reader after my reformat. Well, I don't really use this too often, so I didn't realize it wasn't working. All I knew is that Windows said it couldn't detect some hardware component on my computer, and I couldn't figure out what it was, so I just left. I figured it out about a week later when I tried to stick a Memory Stick in my computer and nothing happened.

Are there benefits to switching to OS X? Absolutely. Should everyone use OS X? I would go so far as to say probably (though that would severly put the whole no virus thing into jeopardy at the expense of software compatibility). But is OS X for everyone? Absolutely not. While I love Mac and OS X in a lot of ways, it's the fact that it isn't as widespread as Windows that makes it both great and terrible. Personally, I can't recommend to anyone to use only a Mac with no Windows machine. But how I would love to be able to.

/END OF SEVERELY LONG POST

 

hehe..thanks a lot notebook_ftw..

 

Guys do you think macbooks are gonna come with the core 2 duo in the near future.. im thinking of buying a macbook by the end of september(not thinking..i have decided!!)
i wouldnt mind waiting till christmas either..(i do mind ) but if the perfomance of the machine is better then im willing to wait..
I wouldnt be using any great applications..just surfing and chatting..and doing some project work for school..
So do you think i should wait or should i get by the end of september??

PS- My birthday is on september 3rd so im kinda getting the macbook as a late birthday gift..

 

If you are not going to use the extra performance the Core 2 Duo gives you (the mentioned applications couldn't care less if you were on a Yonah or Merom based notebook) then I wouldn't worry.

Just buy it when you need it.

 

I'm planning to wait because I want to keep my mac for 4 years. In 3-4 years, 64 bit programs will most likely be the norm so I wanna be able to run those programs.

 

in 3 years when my warranty I'll be out in the market for a new one anyways, because by then there will be quad cores and 64bit as well as much more applications having 64bit support.

There isn't much of a difference between Core 2 Duo and Core Duo, the Core 2 Duo actually has a higher TDP which means more heat. Quite frankly I think the MB's are warm enough as it is.

 

As I understand it, the Merom should be out before the end of september (i've been hearing early to mid, but thats just rumor) and since it looks like leopard will be 64 bit... why not get the merom?

The benchmarks have shown that some programs have as much as 20% increase in performance over core duo while others have very small increase. But thats with windows... not sure how OS X will respond. The battery life should be the same and I've heard that Core 2 Duo actually produces less heat.... I'll try to find some links on that though. But hey, maybe they'll redo something with the merom MBP that will help get the heat out the back instead of on your lap.

 

The entire Merom family has an TDP of 35Watt. That does not necessarily mean that they use that. The lower clocked Core 2 Duo's have a thermal design power less than 35Watt.

 

A higher TDP does mean more battery consumption though.

 

If you were talking desktops and asking if you should wait for Conroe, I would say yes. It is the kind of chip upgrade you wait for. Merom is not. 64-bit is really not that important. Both Vista and Leopard will support 32-bit with no issues at all. Also, there is very little 64-bit software out there. Yonah is a very fast and efficient chip on its own. I do not think the MacBook will get Merom the same time as the MBP either, but you never know.