by Herbert Lui

Created on: January 17, 2009

I think it's generally agreed that in the ideal world, everyone would run OS X on a Mac. In fact, I used to think that OS X was the neatest thing since sliced bread (not to say it isn't, but it's not as great as it's cooked up to be). I would constantly dream up ways to make money, just so I could get that Mac; even better - being the conspicuous consumer I am, I decided to borrow a friend's Macbook for a while (we traded laptops).

My dreams came to a crash, as I realized that although OS X is great, it just isn't as great as Windows. Although there are a myriad of reasons, I'll just give you a few - and debunk a few myths while I'm at it.

1. Price (Hardware and Software, waste of bang of buck)

A writer had already mentioned a student's moving around, so it's likely that a student will purchase a laptop. Like a Macbook - which comes at an "affordable" $1,399 (or $1,099 for last year's version - which has VERY outdated hardware). For less than $1,099, I was able to customize a Dell Studio 15 (online, at dell.ca) with much superior hardware - larger screen size, resolution, similar graphics (ATI vs NVidia, so it was kind of hard to call), larger hard drive, more RAM, more processing power. Take that.

You get more power for your money. As a student, I know I needed the power to do a bunch of weird course stuff - SketchUp took up a lot of power, as did AutoCAD on occasion. And as a student, I ran (and still run) on a limited budget, so I'm not really offered a choice to purchase the Macbook Pro (which would still be overpaying).

All those great programs that are Mac-only - Photoesque, Imagewell, etc - they're all cheaper than Photoshop, but they still cost money. Fortunately, there are many pieces of freeware out there - but most are available for Windows too. Shame, ain't it?

2. Incompatibility (sure you can install Windows, but then what's the point of getting a Macbook?, as welll as other hardware incompatibilities)

Alright, so you can finally install Windows on a Mac using either Boot Camp or Parallels. Windows costs a good $100 (I'm underestimating here, I know).

Boot Camp is a free addition, which allows you to dual boot Windows and OS X on your Mac. But what's the point of booting Windows, when you spent your precious $1,399 on a Macbook? I thought you did all that to avoid Vista and its nightmares. Ironically, you still have to boot into it. You'll probably never boot out either, because many programs are still Windows-only (i.e. Google Chrome, at the time of writing

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