Computer Costs: Another Mac Vrs Pc Thread

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm glad that Macs now have "Intel inside." It signifies to me that if the Mac vs. PC war isn't over then it's at least fading away. Now for a nominal fee, Mac users can try Windows, and vice versa, on the same computer. Both platforms offer features and applications that the other doesn't have. Now maybe some of us can get a taste of what the other side has been enjoying without having to buy a second computer.

 

I agree Geoff - now that we have PC's and Macs using similar hardware, I think we'll see a lot more parity, and fewer "warfare issues". IMHO, a lot of the previous debates were due to the apples / lemons ( ) comparisons of Apple hardware (G series based) vs PC hardware (Intel). There were advantages to each, but you couldn't always fairly and directly compare the two. And of course, you had people on both sides who would over-react, or who had misinformed / incorrect information they were passing along, and who were not willing to concede anything to the opposite camp... and the waters got really cloudy and ugly quite quickly.

 

Now that the Macs have gone to Intel CPU's and can run Boot Camp they ARE PC's... and if you want to run Windows on Mac hardware, my understanding is that it's now a PC in form and function, without the performace hit that used to go along with using an emulator.

 

Do you pay a bit more for an Apple these days? That used to be one of the big arguments against them... and to be honest, I could have purchased Sandy a Dell or built her a PC for less than the Mac Mini (shhh! - Christmas present ) I just bought her... but OTOH, I wouldn't be able to run OS X on it, and it wouldn't have been a dual CPU model. And since she's fairly new to computers, I want her to try OS X and see if she finds that easier for her - some people like one OS better than the other, and IMO, that's still completely subjective and all POV's are therefore valid. But if she likes it better the "old way", I can put XP on there and not have to worry about having spent $600 on something she might not prefer. That flexibility was important to me, for her sake, but it might not matter to many people. But for those to whom it does matter, or for those who need the dual-boot Mac / Win flexibility, I'd say that relatively small cost difference is justified.

 

OTOH, I'm still using PC's in the studio. I guess that makes me a "maverick non-conformist" in some circles, but I do like the fact that I KNOW what goes into my machines, and can get repair parts and be back in service in a few hours or a day at most under almost any circumstances. I appreciate that flexibility in computer customization, and self-servicing, but there's a price that comes with that insofar as research, testing and the knowledge required from the builder / user. But if you put heavy demands on a system, and want "as fast and as bulletproof as you can get", that's still a viable option too IMO.

 

Anyway, I'm glad a lot of the points of disagreement and contention are fading away, because I never saw much sense in the warz... if something works for you, then use that and be happy. It's not hurting me if someone else prefers something else... you like Telecasters and not Les Pauls? Heck, that's cool - but I like both - let's forget about the silly arguments and play!

 

Happy holidays to you and yours Geoff.

[offramp]

Well, to be fair, the OP was working on the cost issue, and sort of tried to head off a Mac/PC war by preempting it in the title. I'd say that was successful.

 

My experience with the cost issue is this. When I bought my Pismo Powerbook in '01, I also bought a Dell Latitude laptop, with the goal of becoming a 'cross-platform enthusiast'. Never happened, and that's basically because the Apple OS works for my brain; despite all my studies of the PC, anytime something would go wrong, I was, largely, at a loss to figure it out. I have rarely ever had that happen with the Apple stuff, to the point of being within the ballpark of the problem when I did have to consult a pro.

Almost six years later, my Pismo is just now getting to the point where I don't trust it completely and am looking to replace it. The Dell? I haven't been able to pay someone to take it away, for a few years, now. It runs fine, I'm sure, but it generates zero interest. All told, I've spent very little to upgrade anything on the Apples I have. There have been some repair issues, like getting a used processor to replace the mysteriously burned out one in my MDD G4 (I'm guessing static electricity), or to replace a RAM stick that went faulty. All that said, I've trusted Apple hardware for years, and have rarely been let down. I definitely like the 'turnkey' approach to hardware and software, as I've had way too many issues with trying to add a piece of hardware or software to a PC without running into compatibility issues of some kind.

Apple went to Intel because previous chipmakers couldn't meet the demand for performance specs, can't really see how it could be much of anything else; I hated that, at first, and sold some of my shares in Apple in protest...and that was a stupid thing to do, because they nearly tripled shortly after.

So, yeah, in an admittedly somewhat embarrassing way, I do trust Jobs' direction, to about 95%, especially when I see that I've gotten 6 years out of a $1200 Powerbook investment (and I'll continue to get a couple more, given much lighter duty) and 4 years out of my $1,000 MDD G4 investment (both situations excluding minor repairs), with both machines carrying me through several OS variants, both in pre and post X.

Like anything else, do your research, both with tech specs and within yourself and your true needs.

[amplayer]

I own both. Here's my view:

 

1) Macs suck. Apple sucks.

2) PCs suck. Microsoft sucks.

3) Macs rock. Apple rocks.

4) PCs rock. Microsoft rocks.

 

In my mind, the two platfoms now have more in common than they have differences. Still, it mostly depends on exactly which software you want to run, because there is still a lot of software that runs on only one or the other.

For instance, do you want to run Acid or Gigastudio? You need a PC.

Do you want to run Logic or Digital Performer? You need a Mac.

 

Fortunately for musicians, there's a lot of great software that runs on either/both. For instance:

Pro Tools

Native Instruments (all)

Garritan

Reason

IK Multimedia (all)

Finale

iTunes

 

If you are a musician, then having one of each is a GREAT setup.

[blue2blue]

I've always thought the Mini was uniquely poised to conquer the living room.

[the stranger]

Originally posted by blue2blue PS to stranger... I really liked Win98 and I suspect most of the problems were related to your h'ware and drivers. HP was going through some bad times a few years back. I loved that company once but...

 

The reason I bought an HP is because the big corp I worked for used nothing but. Figured they knew better than me. Wasn't long after that, they switched to Dell for their corporate computing needs.

I think Hp might have made some bad business decisions along the way, in terms of quality.

 

Originally posted by blue2blue FWIW, I had ENORMOUS, just HIDEOUS problems with Windows 3.0 and 3.1 -- until I got rid of the very expensive boutique '386 I'd bought in '89 and nursed along because I had so much money in it... I replaced it with a cobbled together '486.. even before I took the RAM up on the '486 from 4 to 16 MB (those were the days) Windows "suddenly" became amazingly (to me at the time) stable... and I had to realize that for years I'd pored every ounce of hatred in my heart into hating Win 3/3.1 when, in reality, it was my hardware that was creating 95% of my sudden lockups and crashes.

 

Sounds reasonable to me. And for what it's worth, that HP is still running down at the studio. 400mhz/256ram/98SE.

Like I said, the sound card only has one channel working, and that PC sounds like industrial machines running, but it's still running.

 

Originally posted by blue2blue PPS... I just looked above and there are ALL THESE POSTS from this blue2blue jerk... I'm outta here.

 

What?! -~

 

 

Ya'll stop back now.

[Geoff Grace]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe: Happy holidays to you and yours Geoff .

 

Thanks, Phil.

 

And to you and yours as well!

 

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[the stranger]

Originally posted by offramp The Dell? I haven't been able to pay someone to take it away, for a few years, now. It runs fine, I'm sure, but it generates zero interest.

 

You can pay me to take it. -~

[deanmass]

"I work on Windows but I use Mac for my work."

 

This is me exactly....I loathe Windows, but, it is bread and butter. Given any choice, I'd take a mac over a PC for all but a minute quantity of very specific apps, none of which are music related. I need to run Console One for Novell. I can probably re-compile it to run on the mac anyway, but have never bothered..Other than that, no good reason. Macs generally just work. Upgrades? Who cares. You will probably be so happy with the mac that you won't want to upgrade. Load it with Ram and WORK.

 

Are there good PC's? Hell yeah. Are they all crap? Nope...

 

Pick your software, then pick your computer.

[Henchman]

 

Originally posted by mobobog [b I really good laptop pc costs the same as the macbooks

 

 

Yeah.

A Macbook pro with a 15.4" widescreen monitor is going to run you a hell of a lot more than a similar outfit PC laptop.

[Anderton]

2) PCs suck. Microsoft sucks.

3) Macs rock. Apple rocks.

4) PCs rock. Microsoft rocks.>>

 

I've had exactly the same experience! We must be running the same machines

[mobobog]

 

Originally posted by offramp Well, to be fair, the OP was working on the cost issue, and sort of tried to head off a Mac/PC war by preempting it in the title. I'd say that was successful.

 

 

Yeah, I wanted to talk about costs, because "wich is better" wars make no sense to me. The best is what you like AND gets the work done.

 

How much did the OSX upgrade cost?

[jjbraunius]

Originally posted by mobobog Yeah, I wanted to talk about costs, because "wich is better" wars make no sense to me. The best is what you like AND gets the work done. How much did the OSX upgrade cost?

 

I believe the os X 10.3x to OS X 10.4.x upgrade was $100. No real reason to upgrade though

[deanmass]

I have to say I am NOT a fan of the .x version re-buy thing apple has going on...They charge too much for these incremental, though some have been arguably fantastic, upgrades...

 

Today, there was a link off DIGG that was talking about uber-geeks switching from OSX to Linux on the Core 2 Duo series processors.

 

I still firmly believe you can have a better out of the box experience on a mac, but also know that a PC will do it pretty damn well too. It still all boils down to what software you want, have, what plug ins you have/use/need, what interface you wanna use, who you work with and what THEY need or require,etc.

[John Sayers]

 

I believe the os X 10.3x to OS X 10.4.x upgrade was $100. No real reason to upgrade though

 

 

sheesh - in the same period I've been on XP with no XP_X or XP _ version 10 etc.

 

I feel for you macites - the cost of being trendy sucks IMO.

[jjbraunius]

 

Originally posted by John Sayers sheesh - in the same period I've been on XP with no XP_X or XP _ version 10 etc. I feel for you macites - the cost of being trendy sucks IMO.

 

 

don't worry - it'll be there on the new Vista

[John Sayers]

well they are gonna have to prove to me that the new Vista is worth it. I tried the new media player and had all sorts of grief so I uninstalled it and went back to what I had.

 

I suppose I'll have to go along with what they dictate eventually, just as I have only certain options as to what a car design or a refrigerator should be. That's the market, and you Macists are only 3 -4% of that market. It's not really competition, more like a scratch you can't reach.

 

We need a universal computer system not a divided one. It's a worldwide phenomena and computers are everywhere. If there was ever a case for unity - this is it.

 

Microsoft made it through because it shared it's system and allowed manufacturers to compete in providing the hardware. It's consistant software has provided an open slather for software writers to thrive and expand - some have opted to write for Mac and some have not.

 

The proponents of Linux are really only proposing the domination of one system, in their case Linux. Were Microsoft to become the supreme operating system, as it is, then surely the next move would be to Nationalise it - make it public domain - I'm sure Bill Gates would actually approve of it.

 

Then we can all benefit from a universal, open ended system that has no copyrights and is fact Public Domain and can be improved upon by public and market forces.

[thankyou]

 

Originally posted by blue2blue Well, stranger... it's what happens sometimes when I have a little free time and a little too much coffee...

 

 

Sounds like good Joe to me. Send me some beans, bro, I need a jump start. I'm a little amazed that you have time to encompass all this 'puter stuff in your head then put together songs like "Baby, I Just Got the Blues". I'm just a bit below the horizon when it comes to computer skills, and I don't know how it got loaded on my iPod, but I sure enjoyed hearing it come thru the earbuds one day at the gym. It passes my test of time, because I can often hear it sliding up and down the neck in my memory. "Ain't nothin' wrong with me, baby, I just got the blues."

 

I bought one of the original iMacs partly to defend myself from my gamer son, who had modded our other computer into paralysis. He had his own self built box by then and I knew (hoped) his games didn't run on the Mac. I was also hoping to get into some recording with a Tascam US428, which was supposed to come with compatible software. Instead, it came with a lot of promise-ware, then a discount coupon for Cubase. I think the blame lay with Cubase and Tascam, not Apple.

 

The machine was both impressive and nearly flawless in operation. I think Apple has the industrial design thing down to near perfection. Look at the copies of nearly every new device they produce - from the original graphic interface to the iMac to the iPod.

 

A couple of years ago, I bought one of the newer, flat iMacs. It worked wonderfully until last summer when it started going into progressive nose dives. I finally got the old iMac back out, got on the net and found that my series of iMac had problems with the power supply. I found an authorized repair place, though I knew I was out of warranty. Turns out Apple extended the warranty for this fault and replaced both the mother board and the power supply at no cost to me. They won my loyalty with that. I've only had occasion to call them a couple of times and got to a knowlegable human assistant faster than any other company I can think of in recent history. Consumer Reports consistantly rates them highest in customer service of all computer manufacturers and I can see why. It helps that the product is of high quality to begin with.

 

I'm still tempted by the cheap stuff on the dark side and may end up with a PC in my future, but may just try the cross-platform route.

[jjbraunius]

M$ nationalizing the Windoze system - yeah right! That'll never happen.

 

The closest I see is some kind of dumbed down design of Linux or FreeBSD which is also making its way behind the scenes on the Mac.

 

From what I saw the new Vista will have 4 different pricing schemes - two types of home and two types of "pro" user. That spells ripoff for me. I am on XP so no prob. so far - no need to upgrade anytime soon.

[mobobog]

Originally posted by jjbraunius M$ nationalizing the Windoze system - yeah right! That'll never happen. The closest I see is some kind of dumbed down design of Linux or FreeBSD which is also making its way behind the scenes on the Mac. From what I saw the new Vista will have 4 different pricing schemes - two types of home and two types of "pro" user. That spells ripoff for me. I am on XP so no prob. so far - no need to upgrade anytime soon.

 

And i laugh really loud reading the Windows Starter Specs... no networking capabilities, just 3 simultaneous apps...and other cuts...and they say "its an alternative to ilegal copies"

 

Wich vista edition will be the right one for audio?

[amplayer]

FWIW, the "idea" of a true 64-bit OS sounds great to me. I long for the days when I can reliably load 5 or 6 gigabytes of samples into RAM without the braindead OS going virtual as a result.

[Henchman]

With the prices of SDRAM really dropping. It would be cool if computers had onboard SDRAM that holds the OS.

No constant reading and writing to the harddrive for OS calls.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I don't think I'll be in a huge hurry to switch over to Vista... I have too much going on to try riding the bleeding edge. And of course, it will be a while before software companies get the new versions out and hardware drivers are available... what I have is working just fine, so until there's a really serious set of compelling reasons to make the switch, I think I'm going to hold off on it. Let someone else be the bigfinders for a change.

 

As for the Mac, I've already given my wife her new Mac Mini core duo, and everyone seems to like it so far. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it seems to perform for a relatively inexpensive machine. Over the next couple of days I'm going to get the Mackie Onyx Satellie drivers and Tracktion 2 software installed, hook up a MOTU interface and let her start working around with those.

 

Turns out I'll also be getting a Mac for myself too... my dad was over the other day and mentioned he wants to get a new Macbook, and he's going to give me his old Ti Powerbook, so I'll have a laptop again.

 

Hey, they're all just tools, and like plug-ins vs hardware, analog vs digital and all the other hotly contested debates, my answer is "all of the above please".

[mobobog]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe As for the Mac, I've already given my wife her new Mac Mini core duo, and everyone seems to like it so far. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it seems to perform for a relatively inexpensive machine. Over the next couple of days I'm going to get the Mackie Onyx Satellie drivers and Tracktion 2 software installed, hook up a MOTU interface and let her start working around with those.

 

Is your wife into audio too? or are you taking it "borrowed" ?

[Blackbelt1]

Originally posted by amplayer I own both. Here's my view: 1) Macs suck. Apple sucks. 2) PCs suck. Microsoft sucks. 3) Macs rock. Apple rocks. 4) PCs rock. Microsoft rocks.

 

 

Are you a politician?

 

 

 

 

~Blackbelt

[Philter]

The debate about which OS is better is a non-starter for me; having used many versions of Windows and Mac os since the 7.'s Apple has always been light-years ahead as far as that goes. However, I am very unhappy about their hardware, especially lately. They make about 5 different machines, with very little ability to customize, and if one of those machines is not exactly what you need, then tough luck.

 

So, I am putting along on a souped-up G4 which is basically running on fumes at this point... not at all happy about the price to step up to the new G5 towers, and unhappy about any kind of mid-range tower without the damn monitor attached like a lampshade.