Are Macs really worth it? Selling points for choosing Mac vs. PC

No crashes….
No BSOD….

Well I will finally get to experience all of this on my own Mac and get the full satisfaction since I can’t change anything on the school Macs. But I will still have my PC because I still love it ;)

Anonymous Coward – Hmm…your name fits you well. Anyways….there are only a few things on the list that “normal people” won’t understand, and the things they can understand are enough to help convert them (and for some of the more technical things there are links to what they are all about). But your points about actually showing people are true, but since this is an article, that would be a bit difficult :p

Markus,

I appreciate your comment even if you have a different view on some things. As I’ve said before, I like a good debate every once in a while. I would like to respond to some of your claims…

In the 3 years I’ve had my MacBook Pro, I’ve only encountered a single kernel panic. It happened during the first week I had it and was easily fixed by repairing permissions. Not to mention that it was caused by a piece of 3rd party software, not the OS itself. No one else I know with a Mac has ever encountered a kernel panic even once. Blue screens are far more common and difficult to diagnose in most cases.

9. I don’t have much experience with Boot Camp so I won’t comment on that aspect. However, the virtualization programs like Parallels and VMWare are fantastic! It’s really amazing what they’re able to do to make the integration so seamless.

11. & 12. A lot of people care about the environment and might even be more likely to buy Apple products just because of their excellent track record. Apple’s setting the standard for green products and it’s likely they will serve as a model for other companies to do the same. Every little bit helps and once more people join in, it will have a significant effect.

22. & 23. You just proved my point. The fact that the stickers and endless amounts of crapware need to be removed from brand new PCs at all (and take 2-3 hours to do so!) dilutes the customer experience. You should be getting right to work and having fun with a new computer, not spending hours cleaning up the junk right off the bat. No, this alone doesn’t make a huge price difference worth it, but it does contribute to the overall value.

36. Yes, it was meant to be a joke.

I work for a school district that has about 50% macs and 50% windows xp. All in all we have a few thousand of both types. (and the occasional Linux running here and there, on both apple hardware as well as other vendor hardware)

I’m fairly experienced in both mac and windows although more from a support perspective than an end user perspective.

Apple hardware breaks just about as often as other vendor hardware. Mac OS X has software/application issues just as much as windows xp does.

Each platform has its place. When choosing which one to buy, honestly it comes down to user experience and aesthetics. Most of the stuff on your list is generalized.

#2, yes there are viruses / malware / spyware for OS X. There are just so few of them in comparison to windows that it doesnt even register as a blip on the radar, and the underlying structure of OS X makes them much less likely to be installed or do damage. (just trying to correct a misconception, but it does deserve to be on the list)

#13-15, also readily available on machines made for windows.

#21, same for windows (example http://www.opensourcewindows.org/)

#22-23, many smaller vendors that you can buy from that dont put stickers or software on the machines.

#31, I’m pretty sure its compatable with windows as well.

#32, works in windows as well.

#33, yup, its in windows, and very easy as well.

Basically, your list would be better if it did not list stuff that is also the same in windows as a selling point for a mac over windows, or by trying to mislead people into thinking that windows is lacking a feature that it isn’t lacking.

I alwasy had an underlying dread using my PC for my business. As I was never really sure when things were going to go wrong next. Then Vista came along and trashed my profile, which it seems in turn trashes al my settings, all my software installs etc etc.

So I thought, sod it and got a MacBook Pro… That was two years ago. I still use the same notebook as my primary machine (except i put a 500GB drive in it ::myself::) and now th ewhole of my business is on Macs… Except my accounts as Sage requires windows. Which is fine as I have a Boot Camp partition which VM Fusion is only too happy to run virtually for me and sleep when not needed.

But, the most important thing is, in two years and four macs of different types I have only had to worry once! And that was due to a faulty nVidia chipset, which Apple fixed the very same day.

The total lack of stress when it comes to our computer requirements is worth so much more than the extra few hundred quid I would save for a PC instead.

#32 is a point that Apple should REALLY make a point of telling people.
I am a teacher and I usually use OSX at school. One day, I was running a demonstration how to use Powerpoint on my Windows XP. When my students came into the classroom, I tried to wake the computer from sleep mode with no effect. It totally ruined my prepared lesson and I lost over ten minutes setting everything back up again.
If I were a businessman and it was a business presentation, I’d be looking for a new job.
It really made me ask myself why any business would use Windows when a sudden system problem could be the end of a possible business deal.
From that point on, I started telling my students about my story. Some have actually come up to me and asked about which Mac they should buy.

I honestly think that Mac pricing is beyond a joke.
I’m currently looking to buy a new laptop as I will be using it to run CS5 amongst other software I want a fairly powerful computer.
I have customised a Sony Vaio to a suitable spec as Sony’s are one of the most comparable to Mac’s in terms of build quality. The price;
£1290
The price of a Mac to almost as good spec (I couldn’t actually get it up to the same spec);
£2490
That’s as good as twice the price, for what?
Mac’s OS is good I admit, but is it worth £1200? No. Especially now that Windows 7 is out which is actually a bloody good OS itself.
I have been running the beta and now the full version of windows 7 on my desktop for well over a year now and it has never crashed.
Finally a big problem for me is Mac’s reluctance to add simple things which make life easier, such as;
A right mouse button, I don’t care what any Mac users say, I’ve used both systems a lot and a right mouse is a good thing and makes work flow quicker.
An eject button on the DVD rom. When I was at uni a fellow student had his coursework on a dvd in the drive of a Mac and his deadline was later that day, the Mac crashed and died (yes it does happen) We spent ages trying to get the Mac OS to boot so we could eject the dvd with the keyboard button but it wouldn’t. On a PC this wouldn’t have been a problem as the eject button is mechanical to the drive and can be used as soon as there is power going through the machine.