Which is better and why?

Mac is actually better, but it's not worth the money. PC because it's worth every cent you pay for it

Seriously, why should I pay thousands of dollars (which I don't have) on a Mac? I don't need to play around on things like Final Cut Pro to be happy. Made of titanium? Like there's any natural disaster that's gonna destroy my computer

PC FTW
no reasons, I just love it.

I prefer PCs for ease of use and simplicity. Especially the WIndows OS's

*Cracks Knuckles*

The killer feature of every Mac which can't be underestimated (and you don't realise how important it is until you own a Mac) is OS X's 100% reliable, near-instant suspend and resume.

Windows PCs have just never had this. Reliability on Windows is hit and miss, and it's nowhere near instant. As a result most people are in the habit of shutting down their PC totally -- or worse, leaving them on 24/7, chewing up power.

The difference between Mac and Windows in this respect is the difference between broadband and dialup internet. Back in the 90s, many people couldn't see the point of paying extra for an always-on internet service, as "it only takes a minute to connect using the dialup…"

I always shake my head in bemusement when I read about Microsoft working on dramatically shortening boot time on Windows. Boot time shouldn't be such a pivotal issue if suspend and resume worked well. Mac users probably reboot their Mac on average about once a month -- and often only to install an OS update. Which leads to my second point.






Rebooting a Windows PC can be such a painful experience that you really procrastinate doing it. Unless you're running on the highest spec hardware, Vista can take minutes to start up.

Mac OS X starts up from a cold boot in about 25 seconds on a current-gen MacBook Pro. As another journalist contributing to the discussion observed, this is not a faked boot speed, where the operating system maker has rushed to get the login window on screen, but delayed loading the rest of the OS. It's a genuine boot-to-usable-desktop time.





Aside from the operating system, Mac hardware is usually good quality. Apple's fit and finish doesn't generally bend and creak like the plastic panels on many PC laptops; Apple's keyboards are high quality; Apple selects good quality parts like very good LCD panels for its screens.

You can essentially buy a Mac product sight-unseen and know you'll be happy with the quality of the display, whereas PC laptops are a huge grab bag ranging from horrendous, dim rubbish to spectacular. (I have to admit I personally don't think the basic MacBook screen is of a quality that I would want to buy, but then, I think it's still better than a lot of PC notebook screens.)





Oh sure, Apple festoons its OS with hooks into online services designed to get you to spend money. But on the whole, Apple's festooning with vendor-specific services is much less intrusive than on Windows. -image-

Just about every (brand name) PC sold comes loaded up with junk that keeps popping up at you reminding you your six month trial is about to run out, and some apps are deliberately difficult to uninstall.



Macs come with iPhoto (linked to with Apple's book/photo printing service), MobileMe (stays out of your way unless you specifically activate it), iTunes (to purchase stuff through the iTunes store) and so on. Basically, Apple doesn't try to force its way into your wallet like PCs tend to -- Apple takes a carrot approach with some genuinely useful services rather than a stick ("your PC is our advertising billboard, cough up buddy").

Of course, this isn't a problem with Windows itself per se, but it is inextricably married to the Windows user experience for most people.




every version of OS X has sophisticated screenshot capability built in. CMD+4 provides a selector marquee. CMD+4+Spacebar takes just one window. CMD+3 takes the whole screen. You can set the format of the screenshot file and where Mac OS saves it.

The inbuilt image viewing app is powerful -- it can view PDF and open/export to most other image formats; you can crop, resize, rotate, adjust colour balance, etc.

Expose lets you quickly see all your open windows, or your desktop, or just the windows of your current app. Way better than ALT+Tab (which Macs also have) or Flip 3D (which Macs thankfully don't have.)

The Dock is much more efficient to use than the Windows start menu and taskbar -- the icon opens an app or returns to it if it's already open. It doesn't become crowded when you have lots of windows open.

Target disk mode allows you to boot a Mac into a mode where the whole machine acts like an external hard drive. Plug it to another Mac using Firewire and you have the easiest way in the world to do a system-to-system drive mirror.

Quick look lets you view pretty much all major file formats by clicking on the file and pressing the space bar -- no need to wait for an app to launch. Windows simply doesn’t have this.





On a Mac, you don't have to run additional security software, which therefore doesn't slow down the computer, doesn't cause problems, and you don't have to shell out for an annual subscription for it.

This is an enormously contentious point. Some people will argue black and blue that you need to be a good citizen in the world and make sure you're scanning for Windows viruses on your Mac email in case you accidentally forward on a virus sent from one Windows user, to you, to another Windows user.

My opinion is: if Fords have a problem with their wheels falling off that's never going to be resolved, I'm not going to drive my Holden slowly on every road just because a Ford might find its wheels falling off at any time.

And what's with Microsoft selling OneCare anti-virus? It has decided to make money off selling a fix to a problem in its original product (Windows). That's just offensive.

PC = Peter Chao

I read it, and I agree with some of your points.

But I cant read..

A mac is better, but PC's are cheaper and are almost are as good as mac.
So if you have the money for a Mac, get a mac.

I love you CAPS LOCK.

tl;dr. Can you make a bottom statement please?

Apple is overpriced. An iMac is $1800, and it isn't even that good. With that money, you could get one of the best PCs out there with good ram, hard disc space, and more.

With that money, you could buy like, 3. Exactly the point I've been stressing.

Macs are sooo much better, but waaay to much money.

I think if you weren't such lazy asses, you could work a little so that you could buy a Mac.
Oh and by the way, instead of even having crappy versions of their computer like PCs, Macs only make the best version of their computers available with tons of RAM and hard drive space

The thing the I hate about PC's is the programs they have, sure PC's have a trimmed down versions of Adobe but Macs have killer programs like Logic Pro and Final Cut.

Just for the record, would everyone who posted there opinion state whether or not they actually have owned their own PC and their own Mac at one point?

Never owned a Mac.