I am hoping someone can give me the definitive answer so I can go buy my new computer!

I have been scanning the internet for weeks and have talked with numerous friends, associates, etc. and have found answers all over the place as to which is best... Or maybe, which is best for me and what I need...

Overall, Mac people seem to scoff at Windows as a subpar OS and claim clear superiority in every aspect, but primarily the following:

1. Security - This seems to be big with most Mac users. Don't have to worry about spyware, viruses, etc.. Don't even have to run a security suite they say. My response is, I don't believe the Mac is necessarily more secure but rather doesn't have the marketshare to warrant virus writers time. If and when it does, the bad guys will hack it just the same.

2. Elegance - Everything on a Mac seems to be "easier" and done more "intuitively". The big phrase it "It just works". Having played with the interface at an Apple store for a while on two different occasions, while different than what I'm used to, I think I would tend to agree with this.

3. Photo, Music, and Video - Handsdown easier on the Mac with much more functionality.

In the Windows front you get...

1. Application availability - With 90+% marketshare, I think anyone can argue Window's advantage here.

2. Apple OS advantage no longer valid - With Ultimate, which admittedly looks as if Apple has continued their role as the R & D division of the folks in Redmond, Microsoft has achieved parity with OS X on most fronts.

3. Business Apps - Pretty valid here. I think even Apple recognizes a PC is more suited for these purposes based on their commercials.

So it's important to note, I am wanting this device primarily as my central home use computer for the family for primarily home movie, photo, communicating with grandparents in other states via webcam, etc.. Given that, it would seem iMac is the clear choice. But.... If you look at Vista with Window's Movie Maker and Window's Photo Gallery(or even downloading Picasa or another app), cheaper hardware, and the additional apps capability, basically is the media functionality of iMac for a home user sufficient to limit yourself to Apple Hardware and a significant subset of software. Is the user experience just that much better?

I realize this is almost a philisophical type discussion but welcome any input as I want to buy something today!

Thanks!

I am hoping someone can give me the definitive answer so I can go buy my new computer!

I have been scanning the internet for weeks and have talked with numerous friends, associates, etc. and have found answers all over the place as to which is best... Or maybe, which is best for me and what I need...

Overall, Mac people seem to scoff at Windows as a subpar OS and claim clear superiority in every aspect, but primarily the following:

1. Security - This seems to be big with most Mac users. Don't have to worry about spyware, viruses, etc.. Don't even have to run a security suite they say. My response is, I don't believe the Mac is necessarily more secure but rather doesn't have the marketshare to warrant virus writers time. If and when it does, the bad guys will hack it just the same.

2. Elegance - Everything on a Mac seems to be "easier" and done more "intuitively". The big phrase it "It just works". Having played with the interface at an Apple store for a while on two different occasions, while different than what I'm used to, I think I would tend to agree with this.

3. Photo, Music, and Video - Handsdown easier on the Mac with much more functionality.

In the Windows front you get...

1. Application availability - With 90+% marketshare, I think anyone can argue Window's advantage here.

2. Apple OS advantage no longer valid - With Ultimate, which admittedly looks as if Apple has continued their role as the R & D division of the folks in Redmond, Microsoft has achieved parity with OS X on most fronts.

3. Business Apps - Pretty valid here. I think even Apple recognizes a PC is more suited for these purposes based on their commercials.

So it's important to note, I am wanting this device primarily as my central home use computer for the family for primarily home movie, photo, communicating with grandparents in other states via webcam, etc.. Given that, it would seem iMac is the clear choice. But.... If you look at Vista with Window's Movie Maker and Window's Photo Gallery(or even downloading Picasa or another app), cheaper hardware, and the additional apps capability, basically is the media functionality of iMac for a home user sufficient to limit yourself to Apple Hardware and a significant subset of software. Is the user experience just that much better?

I realize this is almost a philisophical type discussion but welcome any input as I want to buy something today!

Thanks!

It really just comes down to a personal decision. I have never owned a PC in my life, and have been through high school. undergrad and grad school. and now as an adult, have not found that i ever really "needed" to use PC software. At one point in the past, it was kind of hard to find lots of mac software, but now, it's a non-issue for me.

I have the entire MS suite (word, excel, powerpoint), run photoshop, etc. IMHO anything worth running, you can get on a Mac. sheer numbers of titles, yes, Windows wins, but really, how much of what's out there do you really wanna run and 2, how many of those programs do something that a top tier program can't do better?

the one thing that i like about apple is the iApps, which I admit aren't that much of a big deal to some, but if you like very tightly integrated functionality between all your "stuff" (music, photos, videos, etc) then using them is really very super easy.

There's other things that aren't "noted" such as the ability to print to a PDF (with no need to by Acrobat) that's built into the Mac OS, built in support for DVD movies (with no need to install 3rd party software), and probably lots of other stuff I'm forgetting (like better fonts). I use XP at work, and the user experience when I'm home is just much nicer. But i'm an admitted "Mac-Guy" so take that for what you will. but taking into account what you've listed in your primary uses, I'd get a mac.

Get the Mac you can run both Windows and Mac OS on it simultaneously.

Get whatever your used to but PCs can do what a Mac does at the same speed and so forth at half the price. If you really are anti Microsoft you can always try a free OS like Ubuntu or Fedora. If you love games and want to network a mixed environment and want universal support get a PC but as a regular personal computer to do Office type stuff and surf the Internet the choice is ultimately yours the pros and cons are exactly the same on both and there is no superior computer. Basically your choosing the oooooo ahhhh looks factor or do you hate the one mouse button.

Don't know about OSX, but Vista is an extreme memory hog. Even when turning a bunch of stuff off via services and add/remove, it still uses a holy crapload of memory. And I don't know if it's still true right now, but last I heard people were having hardware and driver issues with Vista, which weren't present in the last betas.

As for anti-virus suites...I haven't run any in a lot of years and I've never gotten a virus in that time. I'm intimately familiar with how my computer runs and what programs and processes should and shouldn't be running. Just don't be a moron when browsing and you'll be fine.

One thing I liked about Macs though when I worked with them a little last summer, was that you can put slashes in filenames. That was uber cool. Well, until it came time to back up those firewires drives to the Windows based file server, at which point I had to rename all those files...

Thanks you for your replies.

I think I'm going to go with the PC.

I can get an HP tower with redundant 320Gb hardrives with a SATA controller, 2 gig of ram, dual core Intel processor, Vista Ultimate, Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Video card with 256mb of ram, NTSC TV tuner, FM tuner, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, 2-Firewire ports, 6-USB 2.0 Ports, Dual DVI outputs, HD-DVD player, and a 22-inch Flat Panel for $325 LESS(after $50 dollar rebate) than a 24-inch iMac.

Given that the OS X is a lighter OS, I won't talk about the fact that that's 1Gb more of ram and 128MB of video memory than the iMac, but considering the 390GB of additional hard drive space, same number of firewire ports, 3-addtional USB 2.0 ports, TV tuner, FM tuner, additional DVI output, HD-DVD player, and card slots that will read virtually any type of mobile memory I have, I am just not convinced that OS X is good enough to make up for all the additional hardware functionality I would lose while PAYING an additional $325 dollars even though I do believe it is ultimately a slicker OS...

Thanks again for everyone's input!

Thanks you for your replies.

I think I'm going to go with the PC.

I can get an HP tower with redundant 320Gb hardrives with a SATA controller, 2 gig of ram, dual core Intel processor, Vista Ultimate, Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Video card with 256mb of ram, NTSC TV tuner, FM tuner, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, 2-Firewire ports, 6-USB 2.0 Ports, Dual DVI outputs, HD-DVD player, and a 22-inch Flat Panel for $325 LESS(after $50 dollar rebate) than a 24-inch iMac.

Given that the OS X is a lighter OS, I won't talk about the fact that that's 1Gb more of ram and 128MB of video memory than the iMac, but considering the 390GB of additional hard drive space, same number of firewire ports, 3-addtional USB 2.0 ports, TV tuner, FM tuner, additional DVI output, HD-DVD player, and card slots that will read virtually any type of mobile memory I have, I am just not convinced that OS X is good enough to make up for all the additional hardware functionality I would lose while PAYING an additional $325 dollars even though I do believe it is ultimately a slicker OS...

Thanks again for everyone's input!

One thing I failed to mention is the totally customizability of the OS, you can assign folders different colors, easily change the size of icons in a folder (without having to make a system wide change), change the icon of a single folder, etc, without having to use a bunch of 3rd party hacks. sounds like minor stuff, but it's incredibly usefull you can see a folder you want in a big mass of icons very easily, which you can't easily do in windows.

there is the "ooh and aah" factor yes, but there is plenty of usefulness within it. hot corners for the screen saver, Widgets, Exposé, etc. As for the one button mouse, that hasn't even been an issue for at least 2 years, the new mighty mouse has two button functionality with no buttons at all.

Don't know about OSX, but Vista is an extreme memory hog. Even when turning a bunch of stuff off via services and add/remove, it still uses a holy crapload of memory. And I don't know if it's still true right now, but last I heard people were having hardware and driver issues with Vista, which weren't present in the last betas.


Its due to the way it caches memory now. It actually uses all the memory rather then read/writing purging like how XP used to handle RAM. So the more merrier the more you can cache. XP and Windows 2000 both had lack of driver issues when they first came out as well what do you expect its new. Also, there are more driver/program issues with the 64bit OS then the 32 bit OS (makes sense 64 bit is still fairly new technology) and the betas had TONS of bugs and A LOT of drivers didn't work in it also, the beta versions because they are beta versions they log and run a debugging utility to see what kinda bugs people experience so the speed of a beta version is ultimately slower and less reliable.

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that Apple is better if you buy all your software and remain legal, and PC is better if you pirate.

Pirated software is garbage and usually doesn't work well anyways (can't run updates, certains parts are locked, etc). I think any computer you buy your better off with legit copies, however with linux and Windows there are unlimited amounts of freeware.

I had a run in in Vista (Home versison) last weekend. My computer is slowly dying, so I thought I was doing myself a favor by going to Best Buy and purchased a new tower. Never again will I deal with Vista! It's a buggy, POS that gave me more trouble than what it was worth. Here's a copy of a post I wrote about it on a Sims forum....

Vista crashed and burned last night! It didn't just blow up of course. It happened little by little...

First it ate my desktop picture. Under normal circumstances, I should have been able just to go into my display settings and fix it. Well, since there are two versions of Vista and the one that comes pre-installed doesn't have the file I needed to fix the problem, I ended up with a black desktop wallpaper. Everytime I changed the wallpaper, the only thing that changed color was the task bar. Everybody needs a colorful task bar I suppose.

I got past that and thought I'd play in my Hood for awhile. All was dandy, then for some reason unknown to me, the computer froze.

I always go offline and shut down Nortons when I play. Nortons has a tendency to cause problems with RAM when left running in the background, so I just disconnect from the web and shut it down. The game stayed frozen for a good 10 minutes. As I was about to shut the game down, it unfroze, only to have it freeze again about 15 minutes later.

I got sick of that, saved my game and throught I'd go back to trying to find answers for my desktop problem. By that time, there were more problems as Vista decided to change around all my desktop settings. The few icons I had on the desktop were there, but everything else was stashed in places where it didn't belong. I actually had to do a search for my control panel as I couldn't find it anywhere.

After spending over an hour removing all the pre-installed junk off of the thing, many hours of burning all my files on to cds from my old computer, then loading them on to the new one, I was starting lose my patience really fast, then it happened. The big bang if you will.

I decided I had enough of the whole Vista ordeal by 10:30 pm. As I was uninstalling UNI, ( I decided by that time that my new tower is going back to where it came from) I got this message... "There is something seriously wrong with your computer." I sat back and loudly announced to nobody "No s*** Sherlock. You think there is a problem, do ya? Thanks for telling me now!"

It was almost 2:30 am by the time I got the Vista beast back into all it's original packing and put back in the box. Then I decided to see if my Sims were spared and they weren't. Vista fomats disks weird that makes them uncompatible with other computers, so I get to restart my Hood all over again for the 100th time or so it seems.

This morning I called Gateway about getting a tower from them. Because I want XP installed instead of Vista, they told me I had to order from their custom line. The starting price for the cheapest tower is $799.00, then because I want XP, it will be $850.00 and that doesn't include shipping or sales tax.

I called the store where I bought the POS from and asked if they would install XP. They told me that they no longer carry XP so they couldn't do it. I called yet another store and asked them about what I wanted to do. They will install XP, but it would cost me $350.00. This fee is split 3 ways. One is for XP itself, the second is the installation fee and the third is a liabilty charge. Liability you ask? Yes. Since it isn't "normal" to downgrade a computers operating system, they charge a fee so if they screw the installation up, they get paid no matter what.

I ended up deciding on a custom built Gateway. Gateway will charge me $50.00 to install XP as they won't have to remove Vista in the first place, which from all that I've read, it a huge pain in the butt. If you don't remove all of Vista's files, whatever operating system is installed won't work right.

The tower I'm ordering and having customized can be found here
http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529665349.php

The people at Best Buy were trying to convince me that I just got a bad HD and insisted that I exchange the one I returned. I told them in not so many words to kiss my ass and that I'd never purchase a tower from them again.

I've had this computer ( which is also a Gateway) since 2003 and have never had problems with it. The only problem with now is age.

Vista also is not compatiable with all types of other hardware. I refuse to go out and buy a new printer and such because it was intentionally made imcompatible & companies are being extremely slow about putting out patches. I should be able to plug in my camera or my intended new external 500 gb HD and have it work instead of being told that it won't work.

Good luck!