I was considering perhaps getting an iBook or something entry level into the mac world. I was just wondering if anyone had any experiences they'd like to share with making the switch?
Any lifetime PC people switch to a mac?
- Thread starter RockGuitarDude
- Start date
RadiclDreamer
Diamond Member
- Aug 8, 2004
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I use both and for me it really depends on what I plan to do as to what machine I use. If I want to browse the web, email and do video editing, I use my mac, If I want to game or get work done (excel, powerpoint, SQL etc) then I use my PC. Yes I realise that there is a Mac version of office, and yes I realise its superior in many ways to the pc version of MS office, I just prefer a PC when I need to get work done
Exactly what I do. I'm an engineering student and I can't live without a PC. I have a relatively new Thinkpad and an iMac G5. When I don't wanna do any "computer intensive" stuff I use my Mac, but when I wanna do actual work I use my Thinkpad. Even with the G5, my Thinkpad just seems faster. No waiting for that stupid beach ball, or watching bouncing icons for > 15 seconds.
I'm the opposite. When I want to get any work done, I use a Mac. If I want to tinker around with crash prone Windows and worry about viruses and spyware all day, I'll use a PC. Needless to say Macs are worth the money while PeeCees are a waste of both time and money. Macs rule, PCs drool.
I'm definitely interested in the mini- I'll probably end up buying one before the end of the year. I've been a PC kiddie since the days of Dos 6.02...
I've already ordered my Mac Mini. Should ship on the 22nd although I kind of doubt it'll make it on time.
RadiclDreamer
Diamond Member
- Aug 8, 2004
- 8,622
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So you are saying you need a computer that keeps you from being stupid? You dont get viruses and spyware if you know your @$$ from a hole in the ground
I bought a Mac soley for video editing, but the more I used it the more I prefered it to my PC. Currently I run them side by side, but when I get enough money for an iBook or PowerBook to be my "daily driver" (which my PC is now). I think I'll then install Linux on my PC and play w/that a while. It's too old to be a gaming rig, but I'll keep it around to tinker/experiment with.
Instead of an iBook you might want to look at the Mac Mini (starts at $499).
Lethal
Instead of an iBook you might want to look at the Mac Mini (starts at $499).
Lethal
Deathkoba is being sarcastic, like always. I know how he his. 
Anyways, I switched to Mac in January of 2004. Couldnt be happier. My two Macs are great. I have a Powermac G4 400mhz and an eMac 1GHz. I dont use my PC's much anymore, except my AMD machine to play Doom 3. My HP Kayak XU 600mhz Pentium 3 was pretty much ditched, though the HP was the best experience I ever had with a PC. It sits there collecting dust now.
Anyways, I switched to Mac in January of 2004. Couldnt be happier. My two Macs are great. I have a Powermac G4 400mhz and an eMac 1GHz. I dont use my PC's much anymore, except my AMD machine to play Doom 3. My HP Kayak XU 600mhz Pentium 3 was pretty much ditched, though the HP was the best experience I ever had with a PC. It sits there collecting dust now.
I use my PC every day, and it's online 24/7... no spyware, no viruses, no crashes ... and it's overclocked. I'm amazed it's not crashing every five minutes.
well amazingly most of the complex large animations using high-end 3d softwares like maya and 3dmax make use of Macs because they rated higher in handling Graphical Work Load better than PC, though i have not exprienced. I would put Mac for a person who is new to computers who uses email service, word processing, music, bit of games and other basic stuff.
Kermy, NO IMAC G5 I have ever used with ANY application takes 15 seconds to load apps. How much memory you have? 128 Megs? Seriously, there is either something seriously wrong with your Mac, Or you have very little memory or you are totally exgerating.
And to the person that said they only use the mac for Email, Web and Video Editing and use the PC for real work, Video Editing is not real work? tell that to Lucas and all the movie makers that use computers to edit video. It's actually more work than typing a letter or a spreadsheet. That is so easy I can do it on an old Amiga or Atari ST or my Mac SE that I keep for collection sake. It's Video Editing and other tasks that are demanding.
And to the person that said they only use the mac for Email, Web and Video Editing and use the PC for real work, Video Editing is not real work? tell that to Lucas and all the movie makers that use computers to edit video. It's actually more work than typing a letter or a spreadsheet. That is so easy I can do it on an old Amiga or Atari ST or my Mac SE that I keep for collection sake. It's Video Editing and other tasks that are demanding.
15 seconds to load an app? My 400mhz Powermac G4 loads the apps in like 3 seconds. It only bounces the icon twice. My 1GHz eMac will sometimes open the app in just one bounce.
Agreed totally. My G4 500 with 1.12 Gigs RAM after the OS is totally loaded with most apps takes 1-3 bounces of the icon. Only a very few take longer like NeoOfficeJ as it's loading in a lot of stuff. With all that ram I can open Photoshop quite fast, the only thing that slows down the system a bit is a file sharing app that I sometimes use to get old songs but the same app on my 2.53Ghz P4 bogs it down a bit too. The newer Faster macs fly loading apps. Something has to be going on this his G5 Imac.
I'm a dual user as well. I do mac and PC at work and at home. Though all I have for now is a G4 iBook. I like it; its great I think. What really sells me is the *Nixness of the OS. If you are into Nix, I think you would love it with a "program" called Fink, which is basically a *nix program package manager for Mac OS X.
-neural
-neural
I used PC's and nothing else since the mid-90's and started with DOS, later moving onto Windows 3.1 then '95 and up to 2k3. I've used every single released version of Windows (although I got bored of 1.03 pretty quickly). I never thought of switching to a Mac really seriously until Panther came out (I toyed with the idea in 2003 when I needed to get a laptop, but ended up getting a PC laptop instead).
I did some troubleshooting work for a friend of mine who had a slot-loading iMac DV because I'd had a little bit of experience with Macs at school (although I really hated them because it just seemed to limited to me). I liked being in control of my computer, and DOS gave me that control - so I really couldn't stand macs. But after doing that troubleshooting for that friend (who had Panther installed on it, and the troubleshooting was more showing them the basics of how to use it, which when teaching them, I was learning too because I hadn't really tried OS X before), I decided to sell my laptop and get an iBook G4. Because my old laptop was so expensive, I ended up making money out of selling it and buying an iBook. I use my iBook for everything now. I love it! It's the best thing I ever bought IMHO. I never have to worry about fixing it when something goes wrong, because nothing really does go wrong on it. I can't say the same for any of the PC's that I had that ran Windows '95 or higher. My desktop PC is only used for Windows only things, or to test web sites I write on IE6. I also like th interface and how I can do 99% of what I need to do with the keyboard. My most used shortcuts would be cmd+q for quit, cmd+w for close window, cmd+h for hide focussed app, and cmd+option+h for hide other apps. Whenever I go back to using Windows, I feel tied up and that the interface is extremely limited in usability (although I didn't feel that way before I used a Mac). I like the speed and stability of OS X. My laptop isn't lightening fast, but I think all the pro's about it outweigh any of it's con's, and even outweigh all the pro's on the PC. I consider myself fully switched, and when I upgrade my PC (which will be soon), I'll replace it with a new Mac.
BTW, on my 1GHz iBook G4 with only 256MB RAM, it doesn't take anywhere near 15 seconds to load a program. The closest to that it gets is about 7 seconds, but that's when I'm already running 8 other programs and the OS is swapping virtual memory. If I put more RAM in, the thing will fly.
I did some troubleshooting work for a friend of mine who had a slot-loading iMac DV because I'd had a little bit of experience with Macs at school (although I really hated them because it just seemed to limited to me). I liked being in control of my computer, and DOS gave me that control - so I really couldn't stand macs. But after doing that troubleshooting for that friend (who had Panther installed on it, and the troubleshooting was more showing them the basics of how to use it, which when teaching them, I was learning too because I hadn't really tried OS X before), I decided to sell my laptop and get an iBook G4. Because my old laptop was so expensive, I ended up making money out of selling it and buying an iBook. I use my iBook for everything now. I love it! It's the best thing I ever bought IMHO. I never have to worry about fixing it when something goes wrong, because nothing really does go wrong on it. I can't say the same for any of the PC's that I had that ran Windows '95 or higher. My desktop PC is only used for Windows only things, or to test web sites I write on IE6. I also like th interface and how I can do 99% of what I need to do with the keyboard. My most used shortcuts would be cmd+q for quit, cmd+w for close window, cmd+h for hide focussed app, and cmd+option+h for hide other apps. Whenever I go back to using Windows, I feel tied up and that the interface is extremely limited in usability (although I didn't feel that way before I used a Mac). I like the speed and stability of OS X. My laptop isn't lightening fast, but I think all the pro's about it outweigh any of it's con's, and even outweigh all the pro's on the PC. I consider myself fully switched, and when I upgrade my PC (which will be soon), I'll replace it with a new Mac.
BTW, on my 1GHz iBook G4 with only 256MB RAM, it doesn't take anywhere near 15 seconds to load a program. The closest to that it gets is about 7 seconds, but that's when I'm already running 8 other programs and the OS is swapping virtual memory. If I put more RAM in, the thing will fly.
It waesn't until Apple released OS 10.3 (10.0,1,2 weren't up to snuff for me) did I buy an iBook G4. After using it for a few months, I liked using it so much I bought a 17" Powerbook through the Student Developer program (~20% off).
I use it as a desktop (clamshell mode) next to my dual athlon system at home. I take it to school and use it in the labs for Matlab (native), and use Virtual PC for pSpice and other software. A usb to serial adapter takes care of the RS-232 interface fine for me.
I've ended up doing most if not all my work on the powerbook (I'm an Electrical Engineering senior) while I still use my dual athlon for games and other random tasks.
So I guess you could say I'm a lifetime PC user who's switched to a Mac, but I enjoy using both platforms side by side. Both platforms have their ups and downs, but just compare it to somebody to has any kind of *nix machine next to their windows machine. It's really just the same idea.
I use it as a desktop (clamshell mode) next to my dual athlon system at home. I take it to school and use it in the labs for Matlab (native), and use Virtual PC for pSpice and other software. A usb to serial adapter takes care of the RS-232 interface fine for me.
I've ended up doing most if not all my work on the powerbook (I'm an Electrical Engineering senior) while I still use my dual athlon for games and other random tasks.
So I guess you could say I'm a lifetime PC user who's switched to a Mac, but I enjoy using both platforms side by side. Both platforms have their ups and downs, but just compare it to somebody to has any kind of *nix machine next to their windows machine. It's really just the same idea.
I just read Anand's review of the Mac and I'm even more confused now. I've never really seen the need for a Mac as I don't do video production or Photoshop and a PC can do anything else a Mac can do plus run about a million apps that don't exist on the Mac. That said, I've always been a bit curious about the OS but haven't wanted to dedicate lots of money or space to the proposition. Now that there's the mini, I can easily and fairly cheaply add a Mac to my KMV switch and give it a shot. So then, what would I actually DO with it? Well, I'm not going to rush out and buy Mac versions of Office, Quicken, and Quickbooks and move everything over right away. But I could easily do web browsing, email, and IM on it from day one. Then Anand says web browsing is slower on his $3000 G5 than a $300 eMachine. I currently use Firefox on XP and still have to resort to IE6 from time to time when a site doesn't work right under it. Anand said he prefers Safari over Firefox on the Mac but the speed was disappointing for such a powerful machine. I'm sure the mini isn't even as fast as that. If I do get a mini, does anyone know of a good book for OSX written for people already thoroughly familiar with Windows? ie. One that lists Mac equivalents for common Windows commands and procedures.
You have to keep in mind that Anand's review was post in Oct so he reviewed the Mac during Sept. I know there has been at least one Safari update sense then. I use Firefox on my PC and usally Safari on my Mac (an almost 3 year old Dual 1ghz G4) and neither one really feels slower than the other. Granted I haven't clocked them, but in casual use nothing jumps out at me.
When I talked my parents into getting an iMac a couple of years ago (their first Mac) they bought "OS X for dummies" and it seemed very through and easy to understand.
Lethal
EDIT: Of course their aren't as many apps for the Mac, but I've yet to run into a situation where I was completely SOL and had to use my PC for a certain kind of task. There is a very strong share/freeware community for the Mac.
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