- Feb 14, 2004
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This is a short article about my experience switching from a PC to a Mac, Cliff's at the bottom. Please keep in mind that I am not advocating buying a Mac, selling all your stuff and switching, or anything else that could spark your normal Mac vs. PC flamewar. I'm not going to get into the fanboy stuff, discuss Apple as a company, or any of that either. This is simply a short write-up of my experience so far. Take it FWIW 
Sections:
Background
Review of the MacBook
Review of OS X
Review of running Windows
Conclusion
Cliff's
Background:
After spending about half my life heavily involved in computers, especially on the Windows side of things, I decided to jump ship and get a Mac. Originally I bought a G4 Cube off eBay, an older, cool-looking Mac made in 2000. I just got it to play with because it looked cool and was different. I really liked the OS, but wanted more speed, so when the new MacBooks came out I decided to pick one up. They also have the ability to run Windows now (more on that later), so I decided to sell off my PC stuff and sink the earnings into parts and upgrades and whatnot.
My previous primary computer was a Gateway 7405gx laptop, which sported a 2ghz Athlon 64, 2gb ram, and a 100gb 7200rpm hard drive. Performed really well, I enjoyed it aside from the heavy weight. My new setup consists of a MacBook with a couple large hard drives at home, one for Mac and one for Windows.
Review of the MacBook:
13.3" glossy widescreen, 5.2 pounds. I love the screen size; the resolution is 1280x800. Perfect for my eyes. Physically it feels a bit heavy. I like how thin it is, but the weight really betrays the look. If it was a pound or two lighter it would be really awesome. With that said, it's still pretty dang lightweight. My last laptop weighed nearly 8 pounds (15.4" Gateway), so this was a relief for my back.
Performance is pretty good. I got the white model with the 2ghz processor and DVD burner. It has all the usual accessories built-in; USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi a/b/g (a is undocumented), Bluetooth, yada yada yada. My one gripe with the ports is that there are only 2 USB ports, so you'll need a hub if you want to use it with a lot of accessories at home. I really like the DVD burner; it's a slotload model, which is fantastic on a laptop because you never have to worry about breaking a tray of. OTOH, I have no idea how you'd get a stuck disc out. By the way, you cannot upgrade this drive at the present time because it's the new 9.5mm optical drive format (most laptops use the standard 12.7mm format, so you can abandon hopes of upgrading to a Pioneer DVR-K06).
Inside is a 2ghz dual-core Intel T2500 "Yonah" processor, nice and fast. The ram and hard drive are user-upgradeable; all you have to do is remove the battery and a metal shield (3 screws, cake). By the way, the battery has a nifty button with 5 LEDs to show you how much battery life is left. Apple charges a fortune for ram and doesn't even offer 7200rpm hard drives for the MacBook, so I decided to upgrade it myself. 2 gigs of ram ran about $150 and the 100gb hard drive was about the same. I picked up a USB 2.5" SATA enclosure to put the stock 60gb drive to work for backup and swapping files between Windows and Mac.
The one downfall with this machine is the video card. The MacBook sports a 64mb integrated video card, which means it sucks video ram from the system ram (bummer). It's not exactly a gaming card, but it'll do the job with Photoshop and most basic 3D games.Heat-wise, my model does get pretty warm, but it's nowhere near as hot as a MacBook Pro. There have been problems reported with fan "mooing", serious overheating, and so on. One problem I've encountered is that my second A/C adapter (which I use for travel) has a serious whine to it. It's going to go back to Apple to get replaced shortly.
Regarding battery life, it's about 3 hours and 30 minutes with Wifi on and the screen turned up. Pretty decent compared to my old laptop, which was about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. A longer battery life would be appreciated, but it's plenty for where I'm coming from. It sleeps decently well; I lose about 20% of the charge if I leave it in sleep overnight.
If you're looking for accessories, upgrades, and other information, I have a MacBook Resource Site here:
http://macbook.wiredby.com
The 123MacBook forums just launched as well:
http://www.123macbook.com
Review of OS X:
OS X is dirt-easy to install, but you have to be choosy about what you have it include because a standard installation is about 20 gigabytes with all the accessories (GarageBand, language packs, etc.). I think OS X itself runs less than 5 gigs, but part of the Mac's appeal is their included iLife software, so do with it what you will.
Boot time is pretty good; it spends awhile at the white Apple screen before booting; I guess you'd compare this to the BIOS boot screen on a PC. OS GUI layout is pretty simple, menu bar at top, dock with apps on the bottom, drives/folders on the right, system menu (small Apple logo) at the top left. Definately check out Expose, a method for showing all open windows and select one to be on top, and Spotlight, a Google Desktop Search-style integrated app.
Macs are definately not crash-proof. The operating system rarely locks up, but programs have an annoying habit of just "disappearing". No error message, no warning, just "blip" and it's gone. All I can say is save often; it's especially bad in video apps. When I say bad, I exaggerate. Maybe once every few weeks does an app crash on me.
What about software? I've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in software for Windows. I use my machine professionally and all of my software is legitimate. I use everything from Office to Photoshop CS to Rhino3D. I would classify myself as a Power User; I have about 55 applications I use on a weekly or monthly basis. So far I have found exactly the same software or good replacements for every single application. Macs have certainly matured since I last used them! With the ability to run Windows, I can still run my old Windows-based apps if I want to. If you can't find a replacement for your favorite software program (aside from games), chances are you're not looking hard enough. Mac is a UNIX-based system (BSD, actually) and there are TONS of open-source applications available, not to mention the pay-for ones. For finding replacement software, I'd suggest looking into VersionTracker, which is similar to Download.com but has a Mac-only section:
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
What about security? OS X has a built-in firewall (I think you have to enable it manually with the latest OS update). Currently you don't have to worry about spyware or any of that junk, same for viruses. I don't know whether that will hold true in the future as Macs get more popular. OS X is a pretty robust system, but even Unix can be hacked with enough effort. I'd imagine Apple will release the appropriate software; if you're really worried about it you can pick up something like ClamXav for doing virus scans for now.
Safari and Mail are the equivalents for Internet Explorer and Outlook. My wife likes Mail but I prefer Gmail and Yahoo. Safari is pretty nice but I prefer Camino, which is like Firefox but more integrated with OS X and more focused on only being a browser. You can get Firefox, Opera, etc. for OS X as well.
The Intel transition is something to keep in mind if you're looking to switch professionally. New code has to be written to run apps on Intel-based Macs (before they use PowerPC processors). Apple has a built-in app called Rosetta which allows older programs to run on Intel machines, but at a performance hit since it's basically emulating the PPC processors. More and more companies are releasing what's termed "Universal Binaries" which are compiled to run natively on both PPC and Intel Macs. If you're really into graphics, this may not be the best time to switch. Adobe is not releasing a Universal version of Photoshop until 2007 (CS3), so you'll eat some performance if you switch now. Another advantage to waiting is that the 64-bit chips (Merom, Conroe, etc.) are starting to be released and the next version of OS X, 10.5 or "Leopard", should be taking advantage of these chips. Late next year would be an ideal time to switch if you're on the fence about switching or really into graphics; the new OS will be out, most of the software available should be Universal by then, the more powerful 64-bit chips will be available, and the 64-bit machines will be tried, tested, and on the next revision to work out any existing bugs.
Review of running Windows:
You have 2 options for running Windows: natively or virtually. With Apple's Boot Camp software, you can actually install Windows natively and dual-boot your Intel-based Apple computer. It's nothing more than a PC after you select XP as the OS when booting. Apple includes their drivers for running things. It's still in beta; the full version of the app is due out with Leopard, the next major Apple OS release in 2007. There are two downsides with this solution: one, you can only run Windows XP SP2, and two, you have to reboot from OS X if you want to run Windows. Yes, you can game on it, but you'll probably want a Mac with a better graphics card like the MacBook Pro or the Mac Pro desktop if you want to do serious gaming. Or just buy an Xbox
The other option is virtualization. Since the new Macs run on Intel chips, there's no more need for emulation - you can simply assign a core to Windows while running within OS X. The primary option for running virtual machines right now is Parallels Desktop for Mac. You can actually run any version of Windows as well as other operating systems like Linux. It's pretty slick. It gives one core of your dual-core system to Windows and you can tell it how much ram and hard drive space to give the virtual machine. So far it's run everything that I've thrown at it aside from video games. It only has an 8mb vidoe card, which IS emulated, so don't expect to be playing any Counter-Strike. USB support is still kind of iffy, but they're working on that. I did notice that the entire GUI is slightly slow, by like milliseconds. It's hardly noticeable, but it's there. I can tell when using menus in Windows apps like Office or Firefox. Overall the Windows experience on Intel Mac machines is pretty nice.
I still require Windows for work and school (my school software is 100% Windows-based), so this was a real factor in getting me to switch. Oh, and about getting the systems to talk to each other:
HFS+ (Apple's format): Read/write in OS X, ignored in Windows unless you have some special software like MacDrive.
NTFS (Window's format): Read/write in Windows, read only in OS X.
FAT32 (Window's format, mainly): Read/write in Windows and OS X; limited to 4gb files (bad for large DVD rips, big movie projects, etc.)
Memory sticks work great between Windows and OS X if they're formatted via FAT32, same for external hard drives. The limitation is the 4gb cap. I also keep my old MacBook hard drive in a USB case for swapping larger files; in Parallels there's a shared folder feature so you can just drag-and-drop files into that to share between the systems.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I'm glad I switched. It's taken a bit of getting used to, but overall I like it so far. A week or two of solid use will have you flowing in no time. The machine is plenty powerful for 99% of the stuff I do, runs Windows quite well, and has a nice form factor. I'm impressed with OS X.
Would I recommend a Mac to an average computer user? No. The world runs on Windows and it'd just be too much hassle to get average computer users up-to-speed on making sure their stuff is compatible, running Windows so they could run the Windows apps their school or work requires, and so on. Unless they have a geek to help them when they'd need it, it would be a tad difficult. I would recommend a Mac to either a lightweight computer user (email/Internet/Word) or to a Power User. Regular users could run XP + Parallels for Windows apps and Office for Mac or OpenOffice (NeoOffice for Mac) for Word and whatnot. Power Users have a lot more options and don't need their hand held.
If you're looking into getting into OS X, I'd suggest picking up the book The OS X Missing Manual (Tiger Edition) by David Pogue. It's a good read (I don't recommend the Switching manual from the same guy, the Missing Manual for OS X is a lot better). Here's an Amazon link, it's under $20:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/059600...f=pd_bbs_1/102-1750243-9444117?ie=UTF8
Cliffs:
1. Bought a MacBook, sold my PCs
2. Used for a month
3. Glad I switched
If you have any questions, please ask!
Sections:
Background
Review of the MacBook
Review of OS X
Review of running Windows
Conclusion
Cliff's
Background:
After spending about half my life heavily involved in computers, especially on the Windows side of things, I decided to jump ship and get a Mac. Originally I bought a G4 Cube off eBay, an older, cool-looking Mac made in 2000. I just got it to play with because it looked cool and was different. I really liked the OS, but wanted more speed, so when the new MacBooks came out I decided to pick one up. They also have the ability to run Windows now (more on that later), so I decided to sell off my PC stuff and sink the earnings into parts and upgrades and whatnot.
My previous primary computer was a Gateway 7405gx laptop, which sported a 2ghz Athlon 64, 2gb ram, and a 100gb 7200rpm hard drive. Performed really well, I enjoyed it aside from the heavy weight. My new setup consists of a MacBook with a couple large hard drives at home, one for Mac and one for Windows.
Review of the MacBook:
13.3" glossy widescreen, 5.2 pounds. I love the screen size; the resolution is 1280x800. Perfect for my eyes. Physically it feels a bit heavy. I like how thin it is, but the weight really betrays the look. If it was a pound or two lighter it would be really awesome. With that said, it's still pretty dang lightweight. My last laptop weighed nearly 8 pounds (15.4" Gateway), so this was a relief for my back.
Performance is pretty good. I got the white model with the 2ghz processor and DVD burner. It has all the usual accessories built-in; USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi a/b/g (a is undocumented), Bluetooth, yada yada yada. My one gripe with the ports is that there are only 2 USB ports, so you'll need a hub if you want to use it with a lot of accessories at home. I really like the DVD burner; it's a slotload model, which is fantastic on a laptop because you never have to worry about breaking a tray of. OTOH, I have no idea how you'd get a stuck disc out. By the way, you cannot upgrade this drive at the present time because it's the new 9.5mm optical drive format (most laptops use the standard 12.7mm format, so you can abandon hopes of upgrading to a Pioneer DVR-K06).
Inside is a 2ghz dual-core Intel T2500 "Yonah" processor, nice and fast. The ram and hard drive are user-upgradeable; all you have to do is remove the battery and a metal shield (3 screws, cake). By the way, the battery has a nifty button with 5 LEDs to show you how much battery life is left. Apple charges a fortune for ram and doesn't even offer 7200rpm hard drives for the MacBook, so I decided to upgrade it myself. 2 gigs of ram ran about $150 and the 100gb hard drive was about the same. I picked up a USB 2.5" SATA enclosure to put the stock 60gb drive to work for backup and swapping files between Windows and Mac.
The one downfall with this machine is the video card. The MacBook sports a 64mb integrated video card, which means it sucks video ram from the system ram (bummer). It's not exactly a gaming card, but it'll do the job with Photoshop and most basic 3D games.Heat-wise, my model does get pretty warm, but it's nowhere near as hot as a MacBook Pro. There have been problems reported with fan "mooing", serious overheating, and so on. One problem I've encountered is that my second A/C adapter (which I use for travel) has a serious whine to it. It's going to go back to Apple to get replaced shortly.
Regarding battery life, it's about 3 hours and 30 minutes with Wifi on and the screen turned up. Pretty decent compared to my old laptop, which was about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. A longer battery life would be appreciated, but it's plenty for where I'm coming from. It sleeps decently well; I lose about 20% of the charge if I leave it in sleep overnight.
If you're looking for accessories, upgrades, and other information, I have a MacBook Resource Site here:
http://macbook.wiredby.com
The 123MacBook forums just launched as well:
http://www.123macbook.com
Review of OS X:
OS X is dirt-easy to install, but you have to be choosy about what you have it include because a standard installation is about 20 gigabytes with all the accessories (GarageBand, language packs, etc.). I think OS X itself runs less than 5 gigs, but part of the Mac's appeal is their included iLife software, so do with it what you will.
Boot time is pretty good; it spends awhile at the white Apple screen before booting; I guess you'd compare this to the BIOS boot screen on a PC. OS GUI layout is pretty simple, menu bar at top, dock with apps on the bottom, drives/folders on the right, system menu (small Apple logo) at the top left. Definately check out Expose, a method for showing all open windows and select one to be on top, and Spotlight, a Google Desktop Search-style integrated app.
Macs are definately not crash-proof. The operating system rarely locks up, but programs have an annoying habit of just "disappearing". No error message, no warning, just "blip" and it's gone. All I can say is save often; it's especially bad in video apps. When I say bad, I exaggerate. Maybe once every few weeks does an app crash on me.
What about software? I've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in software for Windows. I use my machine professionally and all of my software is legitimate. I use everything from Office to Photoshop CS to Rhino3D. I would classify myself as a Power User; I have about 55 applications I use on a weekly or monthly basis. So far I have found exactly the same software or good replacements for every single application. Macs have certainly matured since I last used them! With the ability to run Windows, I can still run my old Windows-based apps if I want to. If you can't find a replacement for your favorite software program (aside from games), chances are you're not looking hard enough. Mac is a UNIX-based system (BSD, actually) and there are TONS of open-source applications available, not to mention the pay-for ones. For finding replacement software, I'd suggest looking into VersionTracker, which is similar to Download.com but has a Mac-only section:
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
What about security? OS X has a built-in firewall (I think you have to enable it manually with the latest OS update). Currently you don't have to worry about spyware or any of that junk, same for viruses. I don't know whether that will hold true in the future as Macs get more popular. OS X is a pretty robust system, but even Unix can be hacked with enough effort. I'd imagine Apple will release the appropriate software; if you're really worried about it you can pick up something like ClamXav for doing virus scans for now.
Safari and Mail are the equivalents for Internet Explorer and Outlook. My wife likes Mail but I prefer Gmail and Yahoo. Safari is pretty nice but I prefer Camino, which is like Firefox but more integrated with OS X and more focused on only being a browser. You can get Firefox, Opera, etc. for OS X as well.
The Intel transition is something to keep in mind if you're looking to switch professionally. New code has to be written to run apps on Intel-based Macs (before they use PowerPC processors). Apple has a built-in app called Rosetta which allows older programs to run on Intel machines, but at a performance hit since it's basically emulating the PPC processors. More and more companies are releasing what's termed "Universal Binaries" which are compiled to run natively on both PPC and Intel Macs. If you're really into graphics, this may not be the best time to switch. Adobe is not releasing a Universal version of Photoshop until 2007 (CS3), so you'll eat some performance if you switch now. Another advantage to waiting is that the 64-bit chips (Merom, Conroe, etc.) are starting to be released and the next version of OS X, 10.5 or "Leopard", should be taking advantage of these chips. Late next year would be an ideal time to switch if you're on the fence about switching or really into graphics; the new OS will be out, most of the software available should be Universal by then, the more powerful 64-bit chips will be available, and the 64-bit machines will be tried, tested, and on the next revision to work out any existing bugs.
Review of running Windows:
You have 2 options for running Windows: natively or virtually. With Apple's Boot Camp software, you can actually install Windows natively and dual-boot your Intel-based Apple computer. It's nothing more than a PC after you select XP as the OS when booting. Apple includes their drivers for running things. It's still in beta; the full version of the app is due out with Leopard, the next major Apple OS release in 2007. There are two downsides with this solution: one, you can only run Windows XP SP2, and two, you have to reboot from OS X if you want to run Windows. Yes, you can game on it, but you'll probably want a Mac with a better graphics card like the MacBook Pro or the Mac Pro desktop if you want to do serious gaming. Or just buy an Xbox
The other option is virtualization. Since the new Macs run on Intel chips, there's no more need for emulation - you can simply assign a core to Windows while running within OS X. The primary option for running virtual machines right now is Parallels Desktop for Mac. You can actually run any version of Windows as well as other operating systems like Linux. It's pretty slick. It gives one core of your dual-core system to Windows and you can tell it how much ram and hard drive space to give the virtual machine. So far it's run everything that I've thrown at it aside from video games. It only has an 8mb vidoe card, which IS emulated, so don't expect to be playing any Counter-Strike. USB support is still kind of iffy, but they're working on that. I did notice that the entire GUI is slightly slow, by like milliseconds. It's hardly noticeable, but it's there. I can tell when using menus in Windows apps like Office or Firefox. Overall the Windows experience on Intel Mac machines is pretty nice.
I still require Windows for work and school (my school software is 100% Windows-based), so this was a real factor in getting me to switch. Oh, and about getting the systems to talk to each other:
HFS+ (Apple's format): Read/write in OS X, ignored in Windows unless you have some special software like MacDrive.
NTFS (Window's format): Read/write in Windows, read only in OS X.
FAT32 (Window's format, mainly): Read/write in Windows and OS X; limited to 4gb files (bad for large DVD rips, big movie projects, etc.)
Memory sticks work great between Windows and OS X if they're formatted via FAT32, same for external hard drives. The limitation is the 4gb cap. I also keep my old MacBook hard drive in a USB case for swapping larger files; in Parallels there's a shared folder feature so you can just drag-and-drop files into that to share between the systems.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I'm glad I switched. It's taken a bit of getting used to, but overall I like it so far. A week or two of solid use will have you flowing in no time. The machine is plenty powerful for 99% of the stuff I do, runs Windows quite well, and has a nice form factor. I'm impressed with OS X.
Would I recommend a Mac to an average computer user? No. The world runs on Windows and it'd just be too much hassle to get average computer users up-to-speed on making sure their stuff is compatible, running Windows so they could run the Windows apps their school or work requires, and so on. Unless they have a geek to help them when they'd need it, it would be a tad difficult. I would recommend a Mac to either a lightweight computer user (email/Internet/Word) or to a Power User. Regular users could run XP + Parallels for Windows apps and Office for Mac or OpenOffice (NeoOffice for Mac) for Word and whatnot. Power Users have a lot more options and don't need their hand held.
If you're looking into getting into OS X, I'd suggest picking up the book The OS X Missing Manual (Tiger Edition) by David Pogue. It's a good read (I don't recommend the Switching manual from the same guy, the Missing Manual for OS X is a lot better). Here's an Amazon link, it's under $20:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/059600...f=pd_bbs_1/102-1750243-9444117?ie=UTF8
Cliffs:
1. Bought a MacBook, sold my PCs
2. Used for a month
3. Glad I switched
If you have any questions, please ask!
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