Why I Ain't Buying A Mac

gphat writes "An article at Rush Magazine details why the author isn't buying a Mac. This is in response to Apple wanting our input last week."

Comments

Re:Why *I* am not buying a Mac

[garren_bagley]

You cannot do everything on a PC that you can do on a Mac. I bought my first Mac a month ago for the quality of entry level video editing. Within one day I had burned a DVD of my most recent ski vacation with edits and a soundtrack. I tried this for a long time on my PC which was supposedly more powerful and was never satisfied with the results. At one point I upgraded my PC to Windows XP and found it was incompatible with my Microsoft Mouse!

It is also not possible to do this on Linux, I tried that to. After finally getting firewire to work I found that there were too many incompatible file formats. Maybe you can get it to work but I'm tired of tinkering every night.

My SGI Irix machine worked fine. HELL! it is just 1 180MHZ RK500 and still seems faster than my PC but I could only get a 4 gig hard drive.

Everything else I've discovered that I love (iTunes, iPod, iPhoto) is just gravy.

Another idiot blowing his horn....

[Auckerman]

His points:
1. Macs are Expensive
2. He buys components to "stay ahead of the curve"
3. Mhz

My points:
Number 1 and number 3 are MULTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Every 4 or so years (+/- 1) I buy a Mac. It usually takes that long for a new use of computers to come along that challenge previous processors. I bought a 6100/60 to do word processing, e-mail, and what is now basic web browsing. I bought an iMac for mp3, CDRW, digital imaging (with larger images than the 6100 liked). I will buy a G4 iMac in the next year or so for digital video. I average about $1200 for 4 years, which is about $300 a year, or $1/day. I spend more on coffee/lattes than I do on Macs. Now my PC (bought to play video games). Every 6 months or so I do a mobo and/or processor replacement so that I can buy any game in CompUSA/BestBuy, which is about $250 a year in UPGRADE costs. That doesn't even take into account graphic cards (1 new one a year), hard drives (when I run out of space or when the cost of a new one that is 3X as big is same as origional drive), replacement monitors (evey few years), etc. All in all, I spend a little more on my PC use than I do on my Macs.

Number 3 is a bunch of shit. Think of it like this. When one purchases a computer, they (hopefully) buy it for a purpose. They have a need they are fulfilling. Lets use are car example. Lets say you could buy a sedan for $15000 or a normal run of the mill city car for $15000. Based on a simple look the sedan is a better deal. Now lets say that sedan had the drivers seat on the wrong side of the car AND every year you had to buy brand new tires to keep up with roads designed for sedans. Not only that the Sedan pollutes the fuck out of the enviroment, some times doesn't start for any appearant reason, and the radio keeps turning itself on to the easy listening station once you achieve highway speeds. Sedan isn't looking so good anymore, especially since the normal car is reliable, doesn't treat you as if you are the enemy.

His points are stupid. There are reasons NOT to buy Macs, but these aren't among them. He's an average WinTroll trying to get web hits and it worked.

Re:Another idiot blowing his horn....

[IpalindromeI]

Number 3 is a bunch of shit. Think of it like this. When one purchases a computer, they (hopefully) buy it for a purpose. They have a need they are fulfilling.

Unfortunately, this isn't really true, in general. Many people *don't* have a purpose in mind when they go out computer shopping. Last summer at work I was talking to this guy about computer upgrades and he was talking about his new computer. The 1Ghz's had just come out and he was getting one right away, upgrading from like a 700mhz I think. Then he talked about the kinds of things he did on his computer; the most CPU intensive task was playing a flight sim:P People just want the latest-and-greatest, they don't care that they're wasting their money getting features they don't need and won't use. Oh well, I guess it's what keeps the industry alive.

Re:Some problems here...

[coolgeek]

A comparably equipped Gateway, of course with a 2Ghz P4, is a mere $300 less than the G4/933. Both with large flat panel displays, of course. Being a guy who has purchased a whole glut of commodity hardware, and built my lab of 7 Pentiums $200 at a time, I have to say I was never able to appreciate the value of a Mac until I bought one and started using it as my "daily driver". For example, said G4/933 has 2MB L3 cache running at 1/2 clock speed. More than enough to keep your average loop-calls-several-nested-subroutines close at hand, and scads more than the what 0K (of L3-cache =) stock on a P4. The SuperDrive extracts CD audio at about 11-16x, ripping a whole CD in 2-4 minutes. Power management that really works. Or, on my TiBook, I actually get about 4-5 hours battery life when writing/testing code. Why? because Apple developed a power management chip that keeps all system clocks running, but idles the CPU down when the system encounters idle time, then bounces back to full speed in a few milliseconds. That kind of developement will never happen in a commodity PC market. And my VAIO never passed the 3.5 hour mark with TWO batteries.

And all that "fancy" design is more than just good looks. I can reach under the middle of my 17" Studio Display, and plug a USB device into one of the ports on the back, without moving anything, and without having too see ugly USB outlets all the time. There are many other subtle benefits resulting from Apple's design efforts. Suffice it to say, one cannot truly appreciate them until actually using them.

From a non-gaming Mac user...

[singularity]

This past weekend I bought my fourth Macintosh computer. For details, you can check my journal.

Disclaimer: I do not play games on my computer. The only thing I load up is MAME about once every month or so just as a stress-releiver.

That said: I have found Macintosh computers to be very low-cost in terms of life-time expenses. Yes, up-front costs are lower for PCs, but having used PCs (my job requires PC use, and I have done tech support on them before), they are far less hassle and expense to keep running well.

In addition, Macs tend to have a longer life than a comperable PC. I admit that you can throw Linux onto an older 486 or original Pentium, but most users will not do that. Most Mac users will hold onto their Macs for several years, even in its original configuration.

So comparing up-front costs does not give you the entire story.

Also remember that you cannot put a price tag on ease of use and ability to get things done.