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Mac vs PC, a ten year retrospectiveJun 16 '11 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in PC Desktops
The Bottom Line For a new computer user out there, skip Apple/Mac/OS X and get a PC running Microsoft Windows 7.
When I first started here on Epinions, the review which first brought me from obscurity to becoming a top 1000 author was writing about the Mac vs. the PC. Little did I know, this would be a very popular topic and I would write about computers/software and read many a review on this wonderful website and other websites. Here are my current thoughts on advising a first time buyer of a computer on the two major choices for a home computer. Back then I was a consumer and user of both a Mac and a PC at home and sometimes at work, but since then I have taken classes toward my PhD in computer engineering with noted academia and intelligence community experts in the field, become certified in the computer industry, taught computer networking, and made some decent money on the way and really learned a lot since then. Much of what I learned and suffered over were the vulnerabilities of a PC running Microsoft Windows and at times, dealing with Windows was a quick way to get an ulcer. As for Macs, I love them and have had few problems for most of my experience in the last ten years. Because of that, one would assume I would be on the side of Apple today. But not so, at least when we are talking about computers. Hardware, should I get a Mac or a PC? The build quality: Ten years ago, Apple built their computers to last whether they were desktops or laptops. While they were not technically meant to be a ruggedized computer like the ridiculously expensive PC side's Panasonic Toughbook, Apple's computers were built either with very thick and hard polymer plastics or Titanium (yes, Titanium and aircraft quality Titanium). Many PCs may have used varying materials for their desktops from plastic to steel, and those were suitable, but most PC laptops designed to compete with Apple were woefully designed and were easy to break. Mostly equipped with thin plastic cases and low quality keyboards, PC laptops were usually a guarantee to have somebody like me have to come and repair it at a high cost. I didn't charge as much as most technicians and/or network engineers, but with some of the money I made, I used that to buy Macs! Today, many PC companies from Dell to HP to Toshiba to Sony have stepped up their game and made their laptops tougher and most have toughened up their formerly vulnerable keyboards so that the keys won't pop off as easily or have the letters rub off with heavy use. During this same time period, Apple has gone for the cheaper aluminum bodies laptops and dumped the stunning titanium they once used for their professional level portables. Apple started to run into major issues with their laptops and their popular iMac desktop line when they started using the glare inducing shiny screens which make it hard to use in a room with bright windows or anywhere outdoors. Where the PC side offered a lot of ports on their desktops and laptops and have continued to expand on that front, Apple became stingy in what ports or how many they would offer on their lines. That being said, I still give Apple the recommendation to a new user for a better built case, but I am disappointed in how Apple has cut corners and fallen quite far on hardware quality. If this trend continues, it may one day be the PCs which are more rugged, dollar for dollar. The processor: Ten years ago, this was a no-brainer. Macs ran on a computer that used the faster Motorola/IBM G3 and G4 processors. The strong points of this chip was that it utilized the then faster and more stable RISC (reduced instruction set computing), and a strong family in the awesome PowerPC 7400 series line. The PC side was utilizing the CISC (complex instruction set computing) Intel and AMD chips and though they had more megahertz for the dollar, they tended to run slower than the PowerPC chips found on the Mac. Benchmark tests pretty much gave Apple CEO Steve Jobs something to brag about at conferences when running a fast G4 equipped Mac vs. a PC with a slower Intel Pentium-family chip. Today, Macs run on the same Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i series, and Xeon chips that the PCs run on. Additionally, the PC side have offerings with the family of chips that AMD offers at better price points than anything Intel. These days, as for computer processors, the slight edge goes to the PC side because they offer both Intel and AMD options and more offerings within Intel alone versus what Apple offers on their Macs. Software, Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows? The operating system: Ten years ago, most of my customers and students who used the PC had Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 2000. While the first was marginal and the second just awful, Microsoft Windows 2000, built around the then stable NT platform, was a promising operating system for Microsoft, a company once distrusted for their crash prone operating systems many felt forced to use. In the Mac world, most people were happy with the easy to use OS 9 and emerging and gorgeous graphics of OS X. One thing that made OS X great was it's large and easy to use "dock" on the bottom of the screen showing the apps that were available and if they were currently opened or closed. When opening up an app, a small icon on the dock would magically expand like a genie out of a bottle and open up thus the "genie effect" which wowed many a reviewer of OS X. Today, Microsoft pushes their Windows 7 operating system while Apple has their latest rendition of OS X called Snow Leopard (which uses a cat name like the previous Leopard, Tiger, Panther, and Jaguar). Microsoft had a rough patch with the unstable Windows Vista after a very successful run with Windows XP. There was a great improvement in the overall look with Vista, but the reliability of this operating system left a lot to be desired because Microsoft tried to put too much into the software and it became bloated beyond belief causing too many programs to crash and run slowly. When many users of Windows protested, Microsoft got busy in improving the stability of their operating system mixing the reliability of Windows XP and the good looks of Windows Vista and came up with Windows 7. Built on top of the more stable NT platform that launched Windows 2000 many years ago, Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft has offered to date. On the Macintosh side, Apple has fallen off the path of having a user friendly operating system. While earlier versions of OS X, from version 1 to Jaguar to Panther to Tiger were getting better and better with each release, Apple veered from their formula of wanting to offer a user friendly experience and came out with the horrendous Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems most Mac users are using on current Macs. With awful compatibility with with Windows networks, and a terribly re-designed "dock" which is hard to see and tell if apps are open or not, Apple has gone "Vista" on us. While a good idea on paper, Leopard/Snow Leopard's time machine feature on OS X is a hit or miss nightmare and a great way to lose valuable information. I love Windows 7, and whether I use a PC or a Mac, it will be Windows 7 for me. Not only has Microsoft caught up to Apple on the operating system, they have surpassed Apple on this front. NOTE: Since Apple uses Intel hardware, a Mac user can choose to run both OS X and various versions of Microsoft Windows. Software compatibility: Ten years ago, whether it was for business software, games, or educational software, the PC side had a slightly larger run of titles available. However, whether it was Microsoft Office for Mac, a popular third party computer game, or the popular Adobe software products used a lot in graphics, the software titles for the Mac simply worked better. Apple's design of OS 9 and OS X made it easy for developers to write software which would not crash easily on top of the operating system. One could also play games and videos on a Mac and it would not easily fragment the hard drive. This was not the case with Microsoft Windows which tripped all over any software that tended to be graphics intensive. I would always have to find myself running Windows defrag on my PCs just to keep the computer working. Today, with all its bad history with graphics intensive software, Microsoft has made Windows far more friendly to work with for software developers. Even the hard to pair with Adobe software works like a charm with Windows 7. And when it comes to web design, there is a huge edge when it comes to doing it on a PC with Windows 7 over using today's OS X on a Mac. Apple's ever decreasing quality of OS X has not kept up with graphics software titles as much, and having rested on their once dominant graphic design friendly OS X, have lost a lot of users to Windows. At my college, the design departments were once all equipped with Macs but today use mostly Dell PCs. When I talk to graphic designers today, they no longer see any significant edge in using today's renditions of OS X with Adobe graphics software. As for gaming, the PC has a giant edge. Where I used to love the hours of trouble free gaming on my G3 and G4 powered Macs, it's a better experience to run computer games on Windows 7 today over trying to play a game, or even find one, for OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard. While not as perfect as it could be, Microsoft has stepped up its graphics and gaming experience while Apple has been left in the dust. Early reviews of Microsoft Windows 8 makes this the most anticipated software in industry history. My theory is that since Apple's lion share of their net profits have recently come from their wonderful devices these days (iPod, iPhone, iPad), the attention of Apple to the Mac and OS X has dwindled and it shows. What to buy? If you want to buy a brand new desktop or laptop, buy a PC with Windows 7. I have a preference towards the higher priced Sony and Alien machines for laptops and a company like Alien or better for desktops, but Toshiba makes a great laptop and Dell and HP do well with their budget level desktops. Prices these days are so reasonable for most PCs on the market and almost any budget can be accommodated. This cannot be said of most Macs other than the Mac mini. If you want to buy a Mac, get a used one with Mac OS X Tiger, or earlier. While the industrial design (coolness factor) of a Mac is usually sleeker than most PCs out there during any time period in the last 12 years, the last good and user friendly operating system in Apple's OS X family was version 10.4, or Tiger. If I had to give the Microsoft Windows 7 a star rating on most PC machines I have used it with, from high end offerings to budget computers, I would give it five stars. There are some ultra budget PC sub-notebooks with Windows 7 that should utilize more RAM to make things smoother, but overall a PC with Windows 7 is a joy to use. If I have to give the joint OS X/Macintosh experience a star rating, I give it three stars today down from the five stars I would have given Apple ten years ago. While the hardware has underwhelmed me of late from Apple, OS X has really become a little too soft around the love handles and needs to go out and lose some extra fat.  |
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