Which is better: PC vs. MAC?

After this, can we discuss Kirk vs. Picard?

Kirk seemed to have a worse memory than Picard, but was better at applying the Federation’s concept of sharing new ideas with all of those green women. Lifespan…well, Kirk didn’t live as long, I believe.

Picard is very Windows. Kirk is totally Apple.

“General Discussion”

Good luck with that.

Owning both, I tend to think they both have their pros and cons.

Picard was always giving someone else the con, @dverhey , so he could be part of the Away Team.

Apple is great, as long as you don’t run any Red Shirt applications.

@yankeetooter You mean Kirk

Of course, Kirk went down to the planets a lot too (had to meet those green women some how), but he was always safe as long as he had some unfamiliar guy in a red shirt with them…

No, @filmfann, remember Picard also went on “Away Missions” too. He just didn’t kiss as many green women…

Sorry, @MasterAir16…you didn’t actually expect us to be serious at this hour, did you?

Now, Kirk used his hardware more…

Sorry, the correct answer is “Janeway”. Because I don’t see Picard or Kirk taking on the Borg as frequently, destroying as many, or getting their crew back safely across the galaxy whilst maintaining a fabulous hairdo.

PC- quanity beat quality. I buy one PC one year, the next year it no good, so I get another one with many new features, then it breaks the year after that, buy another one with many new features. Three PC equals One MAC in cost.

But seriously, n00b? It depends entirely on what you want in a computer. They both have their ups and their downs, and I wouldn’t have a MAC for anything, but I also think it’s a better choice for my grandma.

Im sorry y’al, but Chuck Norris will beat Picard and Kirk blindfolded and with a 500 pb vest on.

My first laptop was a PC….as were all of my home desktop computers growing up (except my dad had an Apple…one of the first…humongous chunky thing).....I now have had a Macbook for a year and literally cannot think of a single problem I have ever encountered with it. I do pretty run of the mill things with my computer….internet browsing, typing, and a lot of photography stuff. The Macbook does everything better than any of the other PCs I’ve used, and also does not take 10 minutes to reboot, and I never have to worry about viruses….and I also don’t know anyone who has had the same desktop PC for 12 years or the same PC laptop for more than 3. My dad has had the same Apple for about….14 years now and it is in tip top condition and he uses it constantly. I have a few friends who have Macbooks going on 5 years which….I think is just unheard of for a PC.

I said after this, but apparently we’re starting now. I agree that Kirk is more of an Apple. Picard is all business, just like a PC. You never saw Picard drop-kick the Gorn or fight his best friend to the death over an alien babe.

Why have to wait, @GladysMensch , when you can have your cake and eat it too?
Oh, sorry, wrong discussion…back to whacky phrases, lol!

Kirk was the perfect weapon against the Borg. Remember how many computers he talked to death? There was V’ger, Landru, Dr. Daystrom’s program, and Nomad. He could easily talk the Borg to death.
Picard was captured and turned into a Borg. He was assimilated, much like Windows assimilated much of the Apple design.

@yankeetooter , i don’t mind if you guys not being serious, because its my first question on Fluther.com :D

@MasterAir16 Welcome to fluther!

Congratulations! @MasterAir16…many more happy questions!

@MasterAir16 Welcome. Sorry for the douchey response, but this questions is one that gets asked all the time and never gets anywhere.

Still, you didn’t know that. Welcome.

I’ve had a PC and I currently have a MacBook.
I definitely prefer my MacBook over the PC. My family loves my laptop so much, they switched their PC to an Apple iMac.

@dverhey thanks and it fine, really.

PC, hands down.
More control over what hardware you have, more control over what software you install, greater selection of free applications, more games, and more control over the deep layers of the system itself.
Also, Apple is the equivalent of communist China. Its hardware manufacturing employees have a history of killing themselves because of minimal pay.

Well, it took me a while to start watching Star Trek: TNG, so I guess I’m first an foremost an Apple person…

@yankeetooter @filmfann Thanks.

The design of the Apple symbol is an apple with a bite taken out of it. Isn’t that a lot like Kirk, who always seems to get chest-cut in spear fights?
@ragingloli, I would argue that more PC users kill themselves than Mac users, which is representitive of how many Enterprises Picard and Ryker seemed to have destroyed. I watched one episode where it blew up 5 or 6 times.

Agree with everything @ragingloli said. Also, they’re cheaper.
Macs are fine, but you’re paying extra money for decreased versatility.

I don’t know about “chest cut”, @filmfann , but his uniform sure gets torn a lot!

I’m going to go with Janeway also. Janeway had more balls than Kirk and Picard combined.

@Rarebear Unless there was a plot twist I missed, I am pretty sure she didn’t.

Oh…you missed that episode @filmfann , lol!

@filmfann
She definitely had more balls than them.
She collected them from her slain enemies for the glory of her master, the Dark Lord.

@filmfann She has way, way more balls than Kirk or Picard in all the lesbian fanfic I read about her. Detachable balls, to boot. ;)

First off, @Trojans40, I have no idea what you’ve been doing to your rigs, but I’ve had PCs last for years whereas most of the Macs I’ve seen in the last few years barely outlive the warranty. And if you do break something ona PC, you can fix/replace it yourself for cheap instead of either giving an Apple Genius your firstborn or sending your unit out.

Owning an Apple is akin to owning a car that has the hood welded shut and the steering wheel and pedals replaced with a button that says “Go!”. Your options are more limited, maintenance is nearly impossible, and non-dealership repairs are out of the question.

Owning a PC is akin to owning a regular car. It occasionally needs a little TLC, and many people who run into problems neglect those things (whether it be oil changes or updating your anti-virus stuff) but those who are responsible enough to be able to be trusted to own pets or children can easily make a PC last for years without much trouble or expense.

What it boils down to is simply whether your desire for a simple, maintenance-free system is worth limiting your options and paying 2–5 times as much as you need to for that luxury. Personally, I don’t mind using a little brainpower and elbow grease to get a reliable $600 PC that will shred an Mac that cost three times as much. (Okay, only twice as much since I took part of the money I saved and bought a 32” flatscreen TV that I also use as a monitor.) I don’t mind having a computer that will outlast that hermetically sealed toy either.

@jerv

That car example is the most perfect analogy of Mac vs. PC I’ve ever heard… :D

What @jerv said.

In my opinion mac is better. I should be getting one soon!

Mac (and Kirk, I love the Shatt almost as much as I love my Mac)

@jerv – don’t bother, I have nothing else to say, heheheh!

@rooeytoo I figured that; you and I seem to be diametrically opposed on most things. However, I would still rather have Kirk than Picard at my side in a bar fight.

In my opinion, they are two completely different machines that serve two different purposes. Windows machines are great for simple users who prefer affordable computers for casual use, whereas Macs normally require a pricier investment and tend to attract those with certain media needs (video editing, music producing, etc.)

I have both and prefer Windows over Mac. Apple computers are too pricy for me and can’t run all the things I need (certain games and programs.) At this point, most would recommend running Windows from the Mac, but that would be inefficient as I have no need for a Mac in the first place. I’m not a Windows fanatic by any means, nor do I dislike Apple computers. I just believe they’re made for different things and different people.

Let us not forget that many PCs run Linux, the same OS used by many servers and super-computers. And since OS X is derived from BSD both Linux and OS X are pretty similar under the hood. Many of the advantages OS X claims also hold true for Linux.

As has been said, the real question is “better for what, exactly?”

I like my various Macintosh computers, and not one has ever died on me. My wife still has a functional Mac from at least 15 years ago that she pulls out from time to time (she likes the keyboard for some reason), our desktop is seven years old, and my laptop is out of warranty. My wife’s current laptop is brand new, but that’s because she accidentally destroyed her old one (which was five years old and working fine at the time).

@Trojans40 Bruce Lee would beat them all.

Since my Windows 7 PC is a piece of crap, I vote for Mac. I have never used a more dysfunctional computer than the one I’m using right now. I want to rip out all the keys from the keyboard in a fit of rage, and then just stab the damn thing until you wouldn’t even know it had been a Toshiba computer.

@Aesthetic_Mess I take it you learned on a Mac? Toshiba is one of the four PC makers that beats Apple in hardware reliability. Most software issues are caused by lack of maintenance.

@jerv I’ve used a Mac a couple times, and I love how they operate.
I have not lacked in the maintaining department, plus, I’ve only had it for a few months. It’s not even a year old

@Aesthetic_Mess They operate like many linux boxes or a slightly customized Windows rig, so I find the interface to be nothing special :/

I just have to raise an eyebrow when I run across experiences that run so far counter to my own. And just about every PC I’ve repaired other than my own had some combination of:
– Inferior, out-of-date, or absent malware protection
– Never been defragged
– Installed software from shady sources (often IE toolbars) that resulted in enough spyware to make the NSA look like amateurs
– Lack of system updates/patches

It is rare that I have run across any other issues on a PC. On the Mac side, its a different story.

@jerv
I have plenty security, and everything’s up-to-date
I defrag as often as is recommended
Are Evernote and Diigo shady? Because that’s all I have installed on my browser

Is it really so bad that I prefer Macs?

Came across this

@jerv
I’d have to raise an eyebrow when my experiences are so different to yours.
I’ve had negative issues with homebuilt PCs as well, and don’t even get me started on ubuntu.

The last homebuilt computer I built was 4 years ago and it didn’t go so well.
– Still randomly restarts itself when playing 3D games
– Can’t seem to update the drivers without installing commercial crapware.
– 2 HD crashes.
– General slowdowns. Reinstalled XP 3 times over the course of 4 years.

Now my macbook, which I bought at roughly the same time has had:
– Display issue, had to fix the screen
– Broken HD
– 2 new power adapters
– Broken firewire port

Now that was about 4 years ago. I still have my macbook, and I recently built another desktop PC. I haven’t had any issues with it at all, and although the hardware in my Macbook is outdated compared to it they still run fairly similar in everyday tasks.

Now, I actually preferred both of my homebuilt PCs over the macbook hands down. Even though the macbook has lasted me through 2 desktops, never had any software problems (haven’t needed to install mac OSX again), and hasn’t failed mightily in the hardware department, I still prefer my PCs.

Why? They just feel like they are more personable, not holding my hand. When the hardware breaks, I can just open it up and fix it, rather than send it back to some Apple store and waste all the good hardware inside it.

So really, both are excellent for their own purposes. If I want a computer that will get my homework done without fucking up in some way, I’d choose a mac every time. If I want a computer that will actually allow me to play my games and not have to buy a new one after a few years, PC all the way.

As a future I.T specialist, get a pc

@dverhey Random restarts when gaming often indicate thermal issues or inadequate power. At least that is my experience. Nothing a big fan and a 650W PSU won’t solve. (Lessons I learned the hard way when I was younger.)

But personal preference plays a big role in this ongoing debate.

@jerv You can raise your eyebrows to our experiences all you want, but that’s not an argument. I could just as easily raise my eyebrows at your experiences for all the rhetorical good it would do me.

I owned a PC for several years when I was a teenager. Never had a virus on it, defragged frequently, always had up-to-date malware protection, and never downloaded anything I wasn’t sure about. I had help setting it up from a software engineer who was one of my neighbors, and he taught me how to take care of it. Still, it was a piece of shit. An expensive piece of shit, too (cost about $2,000). After two years, it just wouldn’t go on the internet anymore—even when I replaced the network card twice. Then it decided to stop starting up completely (in the middle of a paper I was writing).

My Macs, on the other hand, have never given me problems. The desktop computer that my wife and I share has even managed a software update we were told might not work (due to the computer’s age) quite perfectly. Also, when I was in music school, the electronic music studio was powered by an Apple. The guy who ran the studio—who had degrees in both music and computer science—couldn’t get a PC to run all the various programs and components the way the Mac could. This is part of why I said earlier that the important question is: “better for what, exactly?”

Maybe coincidences explain some of our different experiences, and maybe personal preferences are behind our disparate purchasing histories. Regardless, there hardly seems to be a clear winner among the various platform options absent considerations about what people need and want in a computer.

@jerv Yeah, it looks like my dog crawled in there, there’s so much dust. And the PSU is only 400W, I may or may not replace it later.

It’s more of just a question of if it’s worth it.

@dverhey Just cleaning it might work wonders if it’s that fuzzy in there. And if it’s a name-brand 400W you might be okay; the no-name PSUs generally only put out about 60–70% of what the sticker says at operating temperatures while something like an Antec or Thermaltake will put out it’s rating at those temps and even more when cooler.

@SavoirFaire No, there is no clear winner. And you are correct that it matters a lot what you intend to do.

Many of the CAD/CAM programs (especially CAM) I need for work don’t come in OS X versions, and neither do most of the games I want to play, so I have no use for OS X, and even if I did, I lack the desire to pay tomorrow’s prices for yesterday’s specs if I can get my needs met onteh other side of the fence.

Macs are better for the more artistically inclined in the same way that a Ferrari beats an F-250 on the race track, but which one would you rather haul furniture with? And for those who just want to get from point A to point B, either will suffice… though one costs more and is trickier to work on.

That said, there is one Mac I actually love, and unlike the rest of the Mac lineup is actually quite a bargain; the Mac Pro. While it’s easy to find a regular i7 PC for half the price of an i5 iMac, Macs are much more competitive once you get a bit higher on the food chain. It has the added pluses of being easily repairable/upgradable, having more configuration options, and unlike most iMacs having a better graphics card than the one I pulled out of the bargain bin two years ago. Of course, it’s also a bit more computer than most people myself included need, but I have to admit that if I had the money to spend on a kick-ass computer, the Mac Pro would be a strong contender for my excess cash. And it wouldn’t be running OS X either :p

I would say that MAC is better because 1. it’s faster, and 2. it’s by Apple. Sure different people have different perspectives, but owning a Mac book Pro as well as a PC, it’s easy to tell which is better. If you have Windows on your PC or Laptop, it will go very slow and you have to be patient and wait, but on a MAC, Safari is fast, precise and easy to use.

If you had a choice to take a free MAC or PC, choose the MAC, otherwise, you’ll regret it.

@blackks “It’s by Apple” isn’t really an argument. Why does being by Apple matter?

@blackks Safari also crashes like it has British royalty in the back seat and is rather limited in features.

I would like to see documented evidence of the speed advantage, and I would also like to know how being from Apple makes things inherently better. The reliability figures I’ve seen say they are not, the performance tests I’ve seen place them no better on average (and often worse) so I would like to know what evidence you have to support your statement.

I can say honestly that I have never had Safari crash, ever. Why do you say that? And what are the limitations? And limitations compared to what? I use Safari almost exclusively, only occasionally will I want to download something and Safari will stutter so I use Firefox, other than that, I see no difference.

@jerv So it crashes once every hundred years? Also, Safari has by far the most superior bookmarking system.

@SavoirFaire Are we talking a system similar to Foxtab ? Aside from that, I saw nothing there that I couldn’t and don’t already do with Firefox. Then again, “superior” is highly subjective anyways, which brings us back to a matter of personal preference. As for crashing every hundred years… read on.

@rooeytoo Safari worked well on my iPod Touch and I’ve never seen any issues with it under OS X, but the Windows version hasn’t run well on any of the Windows boxes I’ve tried. In fact, 95% of the time, it won’t even start. That has been true across five PCs running three different versions of Windows, so I think that is enough data to establish a trend, especially since it jibes with the experiences of other people I know.
It may be that Apple doesn’t care if their software runs on an OS that they don’t make though, since the same is also true of iTunes. By the same token, Firefox runs great on Windows and Linux, but the OS X version is a little flaky.
Then again, Webkit-based browsers in general are a bit wonky and, for the type of stuff I do online, a bit limited. They work fine for just casual browsing though, and my wife prefers Chrome (a Webkit browser that actually runs) though it seems to have issues with PDF files, which makes it largely useless to me. There are also many add-ons I have that have no functional equivalent in Chrome or Safari. That said, I tend to do things that I would wager you do not even want let alone need to do, so I can see how you would not see Safari as being as limited as I do.

for me, the “it’s by Apple” is actually an argument against it

@ragingloli As much as I would like to agree with you, I must concede that Apple makes stylish products that work well (as long as you only run Apple software on them), are of above average reliability, and do a good job of locking/hiding/omitting anything that would scare a normal, non-tech-savvy person. In other words, the type of things that many techies find useful, if not essential. At least OS X gives Macs a command line though.

And considering how many people are willing to pay mad money for simplicity and style, Apple does cater to a certain demographic well enough to allow them to do their real job. Of course, that job has less to do with making good products and more to do with enhancing shareholder value, but looking at their sales figures, you have to admit that they are good at that. It also makes their products less appealing to those who are frugal or who care more about substance than style, but people like that are a minority.

@jerv I don’t know that people who care more about substance than style are a minority; it could be that Apple fans are really, really vocal.

@MyNewtBoobs Entirely possible. Then again, I have seen many people add body kits and fart cans to their cars to make them look like racers as opposed to merely adding style without making any performance-related enhancements to the engine or suspension, so I wonder sometimes.

Apple has substance and style.

@jerv, hehehe, it took @ragingloli‘s bs to make you say something nice about apple! Good job @ragingloli , good job!

See? Incredibly vocal Apple fans.

@jerv No, I’m talking about the system that Safari has had for years and years. But yes, it’s just as subjective as the rest of this.

P.S. I can only think of one British royal who has died in a car crash. I was picking on your simile, not saying that Safari doesn’t crash when used on a system for which it wasn’t built.

@SavoirFaire A program that cannot run on the hardware of my choosing is of no use to me, therefore I find Safari useless. If you don’t then we disagree and life goes on.

@jerv I don’t disagree that it might be useless to you. I disagree that it is useless to me. But it’s interesting that people liked Safari enough to want it available on non-Apple systems. It runs fine on some of them, and it doesn’t run well at all on others. If only software was an evolving industry…

P.C.!!! Mac’s are really cool, but there hard to use and its hard to understand how to work them. I currently have a Windows 7, and it works great.

@jerv Safari has ‘Addons’, just like FireFox and IE. Safari on Windows isn’t a great experience (Safari needs good hardware), but on Mac it’s pretty good. Safari on Mac IS faster and more reliable http://www.apple.com/au/safari/whats-new.html (look at the performance chart)

@the question
The question isn’t PC VS Mac, it’s What do I won’t to do with a computer.

@Unit057 , don’t you mean to say ‘What do I won’t to do with a computer’ meant to be ‘What do I WANT to do with a computer’? And that is a good point. Good job!

@Unit057 True. I want to ruin the software I need for work, a well as plenty of third-party stuff that is Windows (or WINE) exclusive, so OS X is a non-contender.
I want hardware that is affordable since a computer in the showroom isn’t as useful as one in my living room. The iMac isn’t exactly cost-effective for the specs, especially not if you already have a decent display you can reuse.
I want something I can get into if I need to, which eliminates any Apple product except the Mac Pro.

For what I want and need, PC makes far more sense.

”I want to ruin the software I need for work”
That seems kind of counterproductive…

@ragingloli Autocomplete will be the downfall of literacy :p