Mac vs PC

[Nixy]

So, I'm in the market for a new laptop. I'm looking to spend about $1000 before taxes and such. I am torn between a Mac or a PC though. The basic MacBooks run $1149 but I could get the student discount and pay about $1050. I've identified two PC laptops at $999 each (one is LG one is Sony Vaio). I want to stay small and portable. I am wondering if any of you have any advice for me, I'm gonna list what I see as the pros and cons below (and I'll go find links to all the computers so y'all can review the tech stuff). I'm not really interested in the "Dude, go with PC because it's PC!" or the "Go with Mac cause it's not a PC!" I'm looking for actual pros and cons to each choice. Actual experience (good or bad).

The way I see it is this:

The size of each screen is the same, the Mac is thinnest out of all of them but one of the PCs is lightest out of all of them (by like 0.5lbs or something). The Mac has 4.5 hours battery with wireless running whereas the PCs have "2-4 hours" and "Max 4 hours". The processors are all about the same but the PCs come with more RAM. HDD space isn't an issue, I have like a 30gB now and it's not even full. I like the thought of getting to know a new operating system and I could run "Boot Camp" on the mac so I could also use Windows if I needed to. I'm also scared of the new operating system and how hard it'll be to get software on the cheap for a Mac.

So, I have pros and cons for both but I can't seem to decide. I am leaning slightly towards the Mac but I'm not sold yet.

So, what do you think?

 

[Nixy]

Mac-a-licious

H-O-T LG

VAIO Sexy

 

[Nixy]

For physical size, weight and battery life the Vaio is on the bottom of my list. I think the MAC is way sexier than the LG, but the LG has some pretty comprable specs to the Mac and it's a PC...so I guess the major argument really is a basic Mac vs PC...

 

[chcr]

1. You should keep in mind that there are universal laptop batteries that will extend your use time quite remarkably.
2. Macs are okay, but keep in mind that you will almost certainly have compatibility problems with some programs and there is the learning curve to deal with.
3. You won't be able to buy anything with XP after 6/30 so if you don't want Vista, decide quick.
3a. The learning curve and incompatibility problems with Mac may also apply to Vista.
4. I can't see taking my laptop anywhere anymore. Have you considered a smart phone? I don't know what your usage will be, it may not be feasible.

 

[Nixy]

I'm not overly thrilled about the Vista idea but people tell me it's "the way things are going" and I need to suck it up. I'm thinking if I get the Mac then I'd reinstall the XP Home that came with this machine onto it and ship it off to my mom and use the XP Pro I currently have on here as the second operating system on the Mac.

I'd be taking my laptop mostly on business trips to write reports and such. So, I need an actual laptop. I'd also be taking it to libraries, coffee shops, etc. sometimes. I want an actual laptop, I like the functionality.

Any comments on performance specs between the LG and Mac? Any huge pros or cons on either?

 

[BlurOfSerenity]

i don't know much about the technical side of anything, but the number one reason i love my mac way more than i loved my pc is just how stable it is. i've had it for a year and a half and i've only had to hard-shutdown twice, compared to it being extremely freqeuent with my pc (which was a compaq, but still...). it never really freezes or loads anything so slowly you don't even know it's still working on loading whatever it was, or anything like that. i hit the power button and within seconds i'm ready to get online or do whatever it is i'm doing. it's a lot less frustrating than... every pc i've ever dealt with in life.

 

[Nixy]

Now, as a Mac user maybe you can describe to me this whole "hard shut down" versus other shutdowns. A guy I work with tells me he never turns off his Mac, even when he takes it in the case to bring it to work. This is an odd (but cool) concept to me, please explain.

 

[chcr]

Now, as a Mac user maybe you can describe to me this whole "hard shut down" versus other shutdowns. A guy I work with tells me he never turns off his Mac, even when he takes it in the case to bring it to work. This is an odd (but cool) concept to me, please explain.

It's about the same as hibernating Windows as far as I can tell.

Another thing I thought of while making burgers. I think Leopard comes with Boot Camp, so the fact is that if you buy an Intel dual core Mac you could still run XP as well.

 

[A.B.Normal]

Compatibility ,as chcr says ,would be my biggest concern.You need to know if the work docs your making will transfer seamlessly to the work system,this would be a particular concern if you use any Proprietary Software in your engineering duties.

 

[BeardofPants]

Compatibility ain't an issue any more. Word processing, etc, you can open & save winders formats. Learning curve isn't too trouble-some either. And you can run bootcamp if need be.

 

[Nixy]

It's about the same as hibernating Windows as far as I can tell.

Another thing I thought of while making burgers. I think Leopard comes with Boot Camp, so the fact is that if you buy an Intel dual core Mac you could still run XP as well.

I don't know anything about hibernating...I never do it (my lappy has never liked the "go to sleep" function)

Leopard does come with Boot Camp, the one I'm looking at is dual core Intel.

A.B.Normal: A co-worker already has a Mac, there's not compatibility problems. He can't find Corel WordPerfect for Mac so he dual boots and works with that program in windows.

 

[BeardofPants]

And yeah, to reiterate an earlier point, you don't need to shut-down your mac, or send it to sleep or whatev. Just close it.

 

[A.B.Normal]

Just close it.

My Vista Lappy does the same thing,closing it puts it into "sleep" mode.You just open it and its ready to go ,assuming it wakes up .

 

[Nixy]

And yeah, to reiterate an earlier point, you don't need to shut-down your mac, or send it to sleep or whatev. Just close it.

And by just closing it I can put it in a case and put it in the car and take it somewhere...all while it's just doing whatever it does when I close the lid?

 

[Nixy]

My Vista Lappy does the same thing,closing it puts it into "sleep" mode.You just open it and its ready to go ,assuming it wakes up .

See, the "assuming it wakes up" is why I'm thinking "No" on the PC

 

[Nixy]

That said, I know a nice bit about PCs (how to format, etc) and I'd be giving that up if I got a Mac...

 

[BeardofPants]

And by just closing it I can put it in a case and put it in the car and take it somewhere...all while it's just doing whatever it does when I close the lid?

Yeah, it goes into sleep mode automatically. And to date, I've not had problems with it waking back up when I open it again.

 

[JJR512]

The "hard shut down" is not hibernation, it's manually forcing the computer to turn off by holding the power button in until it shuts off (about 4 seconds); PCs have the same feature. The point was that sometimes things hang so bad that CTRL-ALT-DEL, or the Mac equivalent, just won't work, and you have to turn the computer off with the power button.

In the four or five months that I've had a MacBook Pro, I've had to force a shutdown several times, but all but one or two were because I didn't know how to force-close a full-screen program. So, I've really only absolutely had to do it maybe once.

Closing the lid to enter standby: This feature almost always works for Mac, only works about half the time for Windows XP installed as the BootCamp OS on the Mac. For Windows, it seems to depend on whether or not certain programs are running when I close the lid.

Compatibility: Not an issue. If the program you want/need isn't available for Mac, then install the Windows version you already have on the Windows you installed to BootCamp.

Alternative to BootCamp: Parallels or VMware. Either product runs in Mac and creates a virtual PC that you can install Windows on, then install Windows programs to the virtual PC. Run the virtual machine and you'll see Windows start up like you've turned on a Windows PC. You can run the virtual Windows PC in full screen, or windowed. Both programs have a mode that lets you bring running Windows programs out of the virtual PC's window and have them right next to Mac programs. So, on your screen, you'd see Mac programs running and looking like Mac programs in Mac windows, next to Windows programs running in windows that look like Windows windows. One of those two programs (think it's Parallels) even puts icons for Mac programs on your virtual Windows start menu. Because Macs use Intel CPUs and are basically custom PCs, these virtual Windows computers run little to no performance hit compared to if you ran them on a BootCamp Windows install.

Don't need to shut down, just put your Mac to sleep: Somewhat true. Sleep mode is NOT a power-free mode; battery power is still consumed, albeit at a much slower rate. You may get several hours from a Mac that was put in sleep mode when the battery was half drained, just don't expect to put it to sleep and come back days later and have it wake up. But shutting down normally and powering up normally seem to be a bit quicker for Mac than Windows.

The bottom line: Get the Mac. You seem to like its appearance better. Are you worried that if you don't like the Mac OS, you'll be stuck with a computer you don't like? Create a BootCamp partition, install Windows, and tell BootCamp (through a utility in the Windows Control Panel) to make Windows the default OS. Basically, you'll have turned your MacBook into a Windows PC.

 

[BeardofPants]

That said, I know a nice bit about PCs (how to format, etc) and I'd be giving that up if I got a Mac...

Honestly, the learning curve is pretty minimal & shortcut keys are pretty similar (ie apple c instead of ctrl c). It's actually easier to press the apple key since it's right next to the space bar.

 

[A.B.Normal]

That said, I know a nice bit about PCs (how to format, etc) and I'd be giving that up if I got a Mac...

Giving up "being able to" or "needing to".