Mac vs PC help!

I currently have a dell XPS 1330, supposed to be top of the line....man, I've had so many problems w/this computer! I've had it for a year and have had to call dell to help fix problems once every few months. It is now currupt and I have to clear out my drive and start w/the factory setting again! Im so sick of this thing! I want to know if I should get it fixed and stick w/it or if I should switch to a macbook...? I use it mostly for internet, school papers and I do a lot of photo editing! Have currently about 1000 pics on my computer that are now going to be gone! So...would the macbook be good for me or should I just stick with the dell XPS? Thanks!

 

And macbooks will...fix average computer problems...how?

 

macbooks generally do everything that you said you need it for.

Apple has really good technical support, for when stuff goes wrong.

And lastly, if you use time machine, you should never be left without a copy of your stuff, and an external hdd is pretty cheap nowadays for the backup.

And iphoto really helps when organizing lots of pictures, atleast it has for me. (compared to explorer and folders)

 

os x is more solid OS in general, if your computer happened to have problematic driver or software, chances are your other fellow mac owner has the same problem too. and apple support is really top notch!

for photo editing, it might be a better bet to up to 15" mbp, better screen (viewing angle and colour accuracy and stability) and bigger resolution. i personally find 1280x800 is a tad too small... although it wont be different than the one on xps m1330.

 

no offense ... i just think Dell just sucks
i indeed believe you will love macbook, but i dont think notebook should have this much problems. If you really want XP, i will suggest u use thinkpad.

Anyway, I think OSX probably suite you best. We have time machine and excellent customer service. Of course, apple notebook don't break often.

 

I went from a Dell to a Mac. I used syncback to nightly back up my Dell. It is freeware and is very similar to time machine except you have to configure it all manually. This meant that switching over to mac was really a 10 minute process. I turned off and put my Dell on the floor, turned on my mac and after 1 or 2 option screens I transferred all my files over from the same network drive where I had syncback copy everything.

Mac is not perfect. I have had a situation on one of my Macs where I had to reinstall everything. I was able to do it all unattended. Nothing like sweating through installing Windows. I merely put in the cd that came with the Mac and picked "archive and install". It was a fairly quick and seamless process. My only regret in switching to Mac is that I did not do it sooner.

 

I would suggest a switch, but before you do you might want to try Spinrite to see if you can recover those pictures before you do a reinstall. It might be able to correct the drive errors and you can back up your pictures, then get the macbook.

If you stick with a windows machine, just for future reference you can use Synctoy 2.0 which works on Vista and XP 32/64 bit machines to make backups of important data. You can back them up to an external hard drive or a web server if you like, and it does incremental backups, meaning it will only back up new additions to the folders, and not the whole folders every single time you run a backup.

 

not backing up your important data will leave you in the same position with any laptop you go for. Once the hdd is done, there will be some corrupt files for sure, with any operating system you stay. Therefor, this is a problem of proper use for a computer/laptop: back it up once in a while, at least do a back up right before you loose it or drop it or so.

 

u can use sd cards to back up files, while macbook dont have a card slot.

some1 already answered ur concern.

 

Hm, what kind of problems are you always having? You may have gotten a lemon or it might be user error. I can't tell from your post.

The screen on the Macbook is horrible to say the least, for any kind of photo editing. There is no good Mac option in a 13" notebook with a good screen. Welcome to Macdom . However, the new Macbooks are rumoured to be coming out very shortly later this month, so who knows what they might be like? But I doubt they will improve the screens much as they need to have reasons for people to buy MBPs.

If you can, get your files backed up before you blow away the OS! Get an external hard drive. If you can't boot into Windows get the Ubuntu Live CD (it's free). it will boot into the Ubuntu OS from the CD drive and allow you to see all your data and move it to the external drive.

Good luck.

 

Indeed, BUT, if you were going to restore it from a partition, PLEASE learn how to partition if you intend on installing Ubuntu, or you'll wipe your restore partition> .
EMZ=]

 

Lol, complain about your Dell problems in an Apple forum and ask if you should switch.

Hmm...

 

Well the OP already has their photos on a 13" screen 1280x800 iirc. So maybe they like that form factor and so forth.

But yea, they never said they did photo editing, just that they have a lot of pictures. Typical users who just use iphoto, and not really do much photoshopping will probably be fine with a 13" screen.

But if the OP wants a bigger screen, then the only option atm are mbp's, but they didnt indicate that they did.

 

My comment wasn't that it is a 13" screen, my comment is that the actualy LCD in the Macbook is a POS.

 

Dell generally builds good machines but any manufacturer can have a lemon get through. Dell tech support is good as offshore support goes. Not sure of the nature of your glitches but Windows is pretty vulnerable to slowing and corruption over time that requires a wipe-reinstall to effectively fix.

MAc builds great machines, but as with premium PC's you do pay for the premium experience. Apple support is knowledgeable, onshore, and extremely helpful. OS X tends to have far fewer glitches than Windows and has much less of a tendency towards slowing and corruption over time.

MS Office and several compatible products are available for the MAC. Safari and Firefox are both great browsers for the MAC. There are lots of photo editing packages for the MAC and iPhoto is actually quite good and comes with your MAC.

Sorry for your troubles. Whatever your choice, invest in an external USB hard drive and backup your machine regularly going forward.

 

I have 4 Macs in my house that belong to roommates. I would have to say that they are great machines. On the flip side I have a Asus G50V-A2 and this machine lays the smack down on on every mac in the house. I have more ports that can hook up to all sorts of cool things out there and have a way larger variety of software to choose from and use. Every time we watch a Blu-Ray in the house it is on my laptop that is hooked to the HDTV and it looks and sounds great. When playing games my laptops runs way faster and way cooler. I run Vista 64 bit and it runs solid and never ever has given me any issue.

As for as the data corruption issue and the slow down issue that is a bunch of bull that mac yuppies use all the time. There has been issues with both OSX and Vista but as of now they are both really great systems. When you compare buck for buck you will get more with a PC. If all you do is word processing then a mac will be fine.

Anyhow this is the mac forum and all post here will definitely going to be bias toward mac. Anyhow this post will get a lot a smack from the mac yuppies but that is OK, they are the minorities and as it goes, majority rules.

 

Really. Well as a user of Windows 286, Windows 386, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, and Windows Vista - ALL of which slowed down and became more unstable over time requiring a wipe-reload every 6-12 months to restore "like new" performance and stability, I must be incredibly unlucky.

But I guess where I was unlucky with Windows, I was very lucky with Mac OS's over that same period because I never had to regularly wipe-reload any Mac running any Mac OS from the original Macintosh up to the current OS X Leopard.

Even more incredible, most of my friends over the years had similar experiences with the two platforms. Not everyone has the same usage patterns or runs the same hardware or software and not everyone shares this exact experience. But the preponderance of evidence shows this is definitely not uncommon, so trying to write it off as "a bunch of bull" just because you may not have experienced it does not make it so.

While Macs are definitely not perfect, there is more than a grain of truth to the "it just works" slogan and the "I'm a MAc and I'm a PC" commercials. They are effective because they resonate with the user bases. If they did not they would just annoy all the happy Windows users who never experienced the problems and thos happy users would never consider switching to Macs.

Just food for thought.

 

Er - Why not? He clearly knows what he has experienced with his Dell. Unfortunately it has not been a good experience. It may be worse than a typical Dell experience (and he should talk to Dell users about that) but its his and he can't dismiss it. Who better to ask about a typical Apple than Apple users? Should he ask Dell user or IBM users about what a typical Apple experience is?

 

I reckon the OP got really really unlucky... then promptly completely forgot he posted in this thread...

 

LOL I would say so because the only time I needed to reformat Windows 2000, XP or Vista is because of a major hardware change or -->I<-- seriously "F'd" something up. But I am a conscientious user who takes care of his system. I understand the average computer user does not do this and in that sense, it is possible for a system to get cluttered with unwanted startups, malware, useless registry entries etc etc.

Maybe we scared him off?

 

Amen on that Thund3rball. Sounds like Jimmy has a lot of experience with computers but I still call bull. I never have issues with mine except for when I play with beta stuff like drivers that I cant resist but that is expected. Vista has a way awesome uninstaller that has been made a lot better for getting rid of excess crap that you dont use anymore. I think you have to be pretty stupid to do something that would slow it down. For one Vista is way more secure and has less holes in it. That can be proven by looking at the pwn2own hacking expo notes and it will show that the OS X was hacked in 2 minutes where Vista was hacked in 2 day after breaking the rules and installing 3rd party software that opened up an exploit. OS X still has a lot of exploits after many updates and the funny thing is that they are still there. Anyhow I can go on and on but it is a waist of time. Vista is king and 7 will dominate. OS X is great but has way to many limitations. I can do more with Vista and I can get way superior hardware going with a PC.