Mac versus...

[recycled sixtie]

non Mac as in IBM compatible/clone. I have had IBM compatible and Dell laptop (the latter for the past 3 years) and am very happy with them. My memories of the Mac desktop computer I had about 15 years ago I recall putting in a new battery every year costing $100. I am in the 3rd year of my Dell laptop and on the original battery. My laptop is too heavy for travel so in the next couple of years I anticipate buying a smaller Dell, HP etc. I would not consider a Mac as they are too expensive to begin with. As you stare at your computer tell me your thoughts as to 1) Why u buy what u buy2) Is initial cost a factor?3)What about reliability and battery life?Even if you are a Mac owner put your thoughts down anyway
I tell myself that I must be open minded!

[wdfifteen]

I began using a Mac because I needed the graphics capability. I had an Everex 386 for business and a Mac for work. When it came time to choose between the two, I thought about how much time I spent using a computer and asked myself, "If I'm going to drive 100,000 miles a year, do I want to do it in a Pinto or a Mercedes? If I was going to spend 40 hours a week in front of the TV, would I want a camp stool or a Barcalounger?" The difference between the elegance of a Mac and the clunkyness of a PC is fractions of a penny per hour, and the extra cost is worth it to me.

[widgeon13]

I'm on my second Mac and won't ever go back. It's easier, more reliable, excellent service and all the Apple products are designed to work together from my perspective. My wife has switched and she said she would never do it because she doesn't like change, within ten minutes she was saying, "why did I wait so long"?

[sc_rufctr]

Sure Macs are great but you can only buy one from Apple. $$$$

One day they may have clone MACs and if that happened I'd make the switch. Until then I'll keep using my Lenovo.

I've used and supported them all... Dell, HP, IBM (before Lenovo) Acer. etc...
I would recommend Lenovo. Most reliable and good support IMHO. The batteries are issue with all of them but Dell seems to be the worse. (or it was)

[quaz]

Simple Apple vs Dell example that has nothing to do with product function, just customer service. My son bought a Dell streak about a year ago. He must have dropped it or knocked it on something very hard because the glass shattered on the screen. Placed a call to Dell and for the full replacement cost $600 they will be very happy to send him another one. Couple of months ago my wife got a new iPhone 4. One week later while getting out of her car she drops it and the screen/glass shatters. Next morning we walk into the Apple store with a broken phone and out with a new phone. Cost $0. They looked at the impact and determined it should not have failed and gave her a new one. Had it been her fault they still would have swapped it out for $99 for a new one. Either way superior customer service to Dell. I have many stories like this to share, but I am sure others will chime in.

Bottom line, if you want a low price and support on your own, keep buying Dell. If you want a product backed by a company, buy Apple.

[msk1986911]

I've been a Mac user (at home) since 1995 (just before it looked as though they were going belly up). From my view, it is tough to beat the user experience presented by Apple products. I bought a Kindle fire for my wife for Christmas. I am really anxious to see how it stacks up against the iPad, not so much in terms of total capability but more so in terms of ease of use.

[StevoRocket]

Had my iMac for 3.5 years and loved it till it broke.
Apple store diagnosed video card failure and kept it for repair. 3-5 days they said.

After 5 days they asked if I would mind having a replacement machine instead because they werent happy with the repair work that had been done.

They said would you mind a 27 inch version because we dont do the 24 inch any more!

I collected the replacement - it was brand new with quad processor and 4 gig ram and a 1tb hard drive - all better than my origional, they said you had better have a wireless keyboard and mouse because your wired ones wont work with the new machine.

All free of charge.

Apple rocks.

[DavidB911]

In April my dell that I had for about 5 years, decided to not boot properly. I decided to get an iPad2. I was instantly converted then. It was so easy to use. There was so much you can do with it. My iPhone is very similar and they sync contacts, music, etc. I don't even need to plug it into my dell (the same one as before. I fixed it shortly after buying the iPad, but no going back now). I can even call my friends and see them instead of just hearing them. That may only be a perk since I talk to college age chicks.

[recycled sixtie]

a trend here towards Mac products. No wonder the alternatives are getting cheaper

[porsche4life]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Sure Macs are great but you can only buy one from Apple. $$$$

One day they may have clone MACs and if that happened I'd make the switch. Until then I'll keep using my Lenovo.

I've used and supported them all... Dell, HP, IBM (before Lenovo) Acer. etc...
I would recommend Lenovo. Most reliable and good support IMHO. The batteries are issue with all of them but Dell seems to be the worse. (or it was)

A decent lenovo is up to almost half the cost of the Mac... Might as well just buy a mac...

I love mine, like everyone else says, its simpler, its quicker, its reliable...

I'd buy another.

[stomachmonkey]

One day they may have clone MACs and if that happened I'd make the switch. Until then I'll keep using my Lenovo.

They used to have Mac clones. It was a disaster.

Was one of the first things that Jobs did away with when he returned to Apple.

[jyl]

I've been deeply disappointed with the HP laptops at my company. Many have failed due to HDD crashes. People are on their 2nd and 3rd. Switched to Dells which are as big as dinner trays, impossible for road warrioring. I've never had a bad experience with Thinkpads. Note second tier PC makers are now getting HDDs that are lower spec due to the HDD shortage, I wouldn't trust those drives at all. If you're buying a notebook now, consider a SSD instead. If a desktop, back it up religiously. You might be getting a drive made by a Thailand factory only just drained of floodwaters, on machines that were underwater until recently.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

One day they may have clone MACs and if that happened I'd make the switch. Until then I'll keep using my Lenovo.

John Sculley tried that and proved there is more to a Mac than the OS.
There is a fundamental difference between an Apple product and a generic PC. The PCs are a commodity - like a bushel of corn. They're all about the same, with the basic difference being price and service. The Mac is built to a standard of quality, not price. When Scully tried to commoditize the Mac he ended up with a bunch of assemblers fighting to build the cheapest computer that would run the Mac OS. Apple had always worked to build the best computer to run the Mac OS. What happened was predictable. Disaster for Apple and a stain on its reputation.

[ronster]

Look at buying a refurbished Mac from the Apple website they are hundreds of dollars cheaper, have been thoroughly gone over and have a full one year warranty. I bought my MacBook Pro for $900 when they were over $1200 new and got free shipping as well. The refurb looked like a new one not a scratch on it and operated flawlessly.

[foxpaws]

One thing to look at is how many people, after buying a Mac, go back... It is pretty rare. Probably like buying a very well built car - unless money constraints require it - once you have bought a BMW or Benz, you probably won't be going back to a Chevy Cruze.

[porsche4life]

Only way I will use another windows box is if it is what is supplied/required for a job....

[Scott R]

As a user of both, professionally, there is nothing that a Mac offers over a cheap PC anymore other than cosmetics. They both run the same x86 hardware, however the Windows OS is still more widely excepted currently. You can get better graphics, audio, and speed out of a PC simply due to a wider variety of components, and at a cheaper price.

Apples OS is just a linux port based on BSD, so if you want that on a PC, you can have it. Only again, on slightly cheaper hardware. In fact of you want you can install any of Apples OS's on a PC as well if you like. So if the form and factor of the Apple is what you want then buy it, if the form and factor of another brand is what you want, then buy that.

[Drisump]

I've been using Macs for over twenty years (seven of them have gone through the house) and have had virtually no problems to speak of over that time. Only recently I had to install "boot camp" on a Macbook pro (this is to run windows 7 OS) to use an investment site. Wow, what a revelation, I thought windows was a polished OS by now but no, it's still that clunky, in your face OS, that seems to get the user involved in working out it's problems all the time. Many computer nuts would say that an OS should tell you what is going on and ask you when it's unsure on how to proceed. I'm not a computer geek, I want to sit down at a computer and use it as a tool, not fool around trying to find out what bugging it today. So, in a nutshell, buy the Mac, as was said earlier additional cost per hour is negligible. Cheers

[mepstein]

I've always used Dell's, my kids have mac book pro's. There's always an issue or one brewing with the 4 dells on my network. They never have problems with their mac's. I'm switching over very soon.

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

John Sculley tried that and proved there is more to a Mac than the OS.
There is a fundamental difference between an Apple product and a generic PC. The PCs are a commodity - like a bushel of corn. They're all about the same, with the basic difference being price and service. The Mac is built to a standard of quality, not price. When Scully tried to commoditize the Mac he ended up with a bunch of assemblers fighting to build the cheapest computer that would run the Mac OS. Apple had always worked to build the best computer to run the Mac OS. What happened was predictable. Disaster for Apple and a stain on its reputation.

I didn't know that.