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| Mac | 49% | 43 votes | Total: 87 votes | |
| PC | 51% | 44 votes |
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Add to FavoritesTo properly make this decision one needs to take into account a few things before their computer purchase. What is the primary purpose for the machine? What will it be used for? The biggest decision though is how much are you willing to spend on your next computer?
There are a couple reasons we will discuss that make the Apple machine a better buy in the long run and justify the higher cost. First and foremost lets discuss the build quality. The latest iteration of the Mac book is computer controlled unibody fabricated. Big terms. What they mean is that the body of the laptop is actually one solid piece of aluminum cut down to spec using water jets. This same technology is used in aerospace construction of mission critical parts. By using this approach you get many benefits. Instead of having several plastic molded parts screwed together, you have one solid aluminum piece for the body. Its much more rigid, and much more durable. Not to mention it allows better cooling for your internal parts and more space for added bits and pieces.
The next benefit is the operating system itself. One downfall of Windows is that it needs to be everything to everyone. It must work on any hardware period. Such is not the case with the Apple operating system. The software was designed specifically for the hardware in your machine. Its fine tuned to run on your hardware and yours alone. By doing this, Apple is able to get amazing performance out of its machines. Hands down, if you compare an Apple to a Windows machine of the same specs, the Apple will run circles around the Windows machine performing any task you choose. There was a popular ad shown on television not to long ago. Last year, the fastest machine tested running Vista was actually an Apple running Windows Vista on a separate partition using the boot camp software. Very impressive.
The last thing to make Apple a better long term choice is the service that comes with the machine. With a Windows machine you do not have only one company to deal with. If your operating system is acting funny, you call Microsoft. However, that might not be the culprit. Then you might need to call the company you bought the computer from. Heaven forbid you put an expansion card into your system, you would then be dealing with yet a third company. Not so with Apple. One phone call and you can have an appointment set up at what is called their "genius bar". You take your machine to them and they run diagnostics on it for you. Then recommend the best way to fix the issue. Even better, the appointment and diagnostics are free. Recently my Mac book pro was having a weird buzzing noise. Having purchased the laptop used on-line I was fairly certain I was on my own. With a hope and a prayer the Apple hot line was called. In no more than five minutes I had an appointment made for the nearest "genius bar" to me. Diagnostics completed and problem solved without costing me a penny. All this for a used machine bought from the website craigslist.com.
The purchase of an Apple would be worth it if only for the service involved. However, when you factor in the other things we discussed, it takes little to no thought to come to the same conclusion. Routinely people use their Apple computers for five years and longer. How long have you used your Windows machine and how does it perform? Is it time to convert?
Learn more about this author, Lon Elliott.
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PC
A Mac rarely gets the better of PCs in any criteria imaginable. Even when talking of long-term investments, a PC is a much more value-for-money choice than a Mac. The performance to cost ratio for a PC is much greater than that for a Mac. Moreover there is much more flexibility in the configuration of a PC than a Mac. To better understand the advantage of buying a PC over a Mac, let me illustrate with a story.
Two friends, Sidd and Sam, decided to buy their first computer from their own hard earned money from working at Electronic Arts. Both of these guys were young, so naturally played games, did designing and other developer stuff on their office computer. They had only worked for a month and so did not have a lot of money to spend. Their monthly wage was something like 8000-9000$. So both of these guys decided not to spend more than 1500$ on the computer. So the budget was now fixed.
But there was one more problem. Both of these guys were in a dilemma regarding what to buy. A PC or a Mac.
Sam said," Hey Sidd! Why don't you buy a PC and I'll buy a Mac. It doesn't make a lot of difference does it, because if any of our computer isn't very good, we can upgrade it with next month's pay." Sidd agreed to this suggestion. Both of them went to a cyber cafe after that to place their orders. Sidd logged on to newegg, while Sam went to The Apple Store. After quite some time both came out with a satisfied smile in their face.
Sam sighed aloud and said," Whoa! That was exhausting. But I'm happy with my selection." Sidd asked him," What did you buy?" Sam grinned and said," I got a 24" iMac. What did you order?" Sidd sadly said," I only got a stupid 21" PC." Sam tried to console him by saying that he could buy a new bigger display next month. The noticeable factor here is that both of these guys aren't very hardware-savvy on the surface, but let me tell you, when Sidd got home, he smiled an utterly wicked smile. Why? because he had placed the order and had checked the Apple Store. Still don't understand why he's smiling as if he'd just got the better of Sam? OK I'll elaborate.
When Sidd checked out the Apple store for a Mac that lied within their budget, he could only find one. The configuration was:
CPU: 2.66 GHz Intel Core2Duo
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1066MHz
HDD: 640 GB
Video Card: GeForce 9400M 512 MB GDDR3
The configuration was just good enough for some gaming. And the price: 1499.00$
Now check out Sidd's choice:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (2.8 GHz Triple-Core)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe ( 4x PCIe x16, 16 GB support,790fx chipset)
RAM: Patirot 4GB DDR3 1333 MHz
HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda
Video Card: Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic 1GB GDDR5 overclocked to 960MHz Core Clock with Vapor-X cooling.(In other words, its super fast and super-cool)
Cabinet: NZXT Tempest
DVD Drive: Samsung 22x DVD writer
Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech
The total comes up to 1100$. Sidd saved 400$ more than Sam. The day their orders arrived, Sam came to Sidd's house with a down-turned face. Sidd asked him,"What's the matter Sam?" Sam said," I can't play Crysis Warhead at normal detail, neither can I do some avid Photoshopping." Sidd said," But Crysis runs great on mine at full detail. And I can run Photoshop and 3DS Max at the same time. Don't worry, we'll upgrade our computers next month and you'll be able to improve your Macs performance."
Next month, Sidd bought another HD 4890 video card and Crossfired it with his existing card thus doubling the video performance. He also bought the Phenom II X4 955 Black edition and with the help of his motherboard's overclocking abilities, he's running a 3.2GHz processor at 4.8 GHz. The whole transaction cost him 450$. Sam on the other hand could only upgrade his video card to a GTX 285 1GB GDDR3, which is half as good as Sidd's video setup, while his processing remains much slower at 2.66Ghz.
So, basically, in the end you can clearly see that Sidd had the upper hand by a long way. PCs are a lot more future-proofed than Macs and I have proved it.
Learn more about this author, Siddharth Kumar.
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