Switch to Windows???????
 

Hello, I have beeen experiencing some problems with my Mac and am tempted to buy an new one because my existing one is a bit too slow. But people keep telling me how much money I could save if I bought a Windows PC.

I really like Mac but am repeatedly told that for the money I could spend on a new Mac I could get a really, really fast PC.

Can a Mac's spec be compared to a PCs?

Perhaps if you give folks a notion of what you do with a computer it will help them to give useful advice.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Trouble is, I use a Mac mainly for word processing, email, internet and storing music. People would argue that you can do all that on a PC and it would save you money.

If you never go online and only install professional software from reliable vendors, your OS should do fine. If you buy a high-quality PC box and maintain it well (blow out dust often), and never install anything that was not installed from the factory, then your hardware should be fine. If you have an IT friend who can help you out if you ever have trouble that you cannot seem to fix or if you do not mind having to buy a new computer to work with the latest OS from Microsoft, then by all means, get a PC.

I pay the extra cash for Mac because after 25 years of playing with all sorts of PCs, the Apples I have bought from the Apple IIe to my present Mini have consistantly worked and worked and worked with good resale value. All my PCs burn-out or not able to run the latest OS that I need to run the latest software.

My Macs seem to get faster with every new OS. My PCs bog down with every new OS, requiring a hardware upgrade.

For what you have mentioned you wish to use your computer for, I would venture to say that your friends are right for the short term. For the long term, the Mac pays for itself. For all the tasks you mentioned, consider the Mac Mini--I think you will be happier with it.

Yeah I had a look at the Mac Mini and really liked the look of it. I would have to buy a new screen.

Is it true you can't connect any sort of sound input to the Mac Mini?

what sort of mac u got? (make, colour, speed, ram)

you might find that adding some more ram and getting a bigger hard drive may well be a cheap solution!

The Mac I currently have is an Imac g3, 500MHz, 128MB RAM. It may have a hard disk problem and it would apparently be a lot of hassle to replace the internal HD.

I would have to send it away to Apple and get them to look at it because there (to my knowledge) is no way to open a Imac G3

The RAM is very low at the moment with about 2MB free and my Mac unsurpisingly is running like a snail! The beachball is very frequent !

The drive and RAM are easier to replace than you think. If you do a Google search, they show you step by step how to do it. My in-laws had a bad drive, and I thought, like you, that the iMac was sealed with special tools, but I found that with a little finess, it can be done.

http://www.macworld.com/2001/10/bc/howtoimac/
http://www.nelsonbc.ca/mactech_suppr...ard_drive.html

However, getting a Mac Mini is a better answer because you will get a faster processor, more memory, more HD space and the latest OS. Yes, you need a new monitor, but this will put you in a better position for future upgrade. You can find a 17" Dell monitor with DVI input for fairly low-cost on eBay.

You can get into to the imac G3's! I have done it myself!!

I guess your still running OS8 or 9..... these aint as stable as OSX

Also if you mean your imac only has 2MB of Hard drive space available... then it will run VERY slow! computers need at least 800mb+ to run okay under normal conditions.

The way I see it you have 3 options...

1- Upgrade your current imac...... Extra Ram £35, New Hard drive £80, OSX £80. (so £200 ish)

2- Get a mac mini with a gig of Ram....... £400 ish

3 - Get a cheap PC (I had to order one from Dell for a colleague.. it was basic and it cost £590, we have had a play with it and it is NOT quick even with 1 gig of ram and an intel 4 chip!!)

I would go for option 2!

I don't really like to participate in this kind of discussion but I'll just point out that the price premium for the consumer-level Macs (which is what you would be considering) is very small (e.g. 10%) when compared to comparably spec'd PCs.

There used to be a bigger price premium and many people aren't aware of the change in recent years. And the fact there are many el-cheapo Windows machines available makes it seem that Macs are more expensive - there is a huge difference in price between the cheapest PC and the cheapest Mac.
But that is like saying that there is a big difference in price between the cheapest dog food and the cheapest restaurant meal - Apple has minimum standards as to what it is willing to sell. And "really, really fast" for a computer is like "really, really big" for a meal - you only need so much food and after a certain minimum amount, quality is more important than quantity.

I agree with option 2, however, unless you are working with RAM hog programs, the standard 512Mb RAM will work just fine.

$499 for the low end Mac Mini

I have a PC that I won as a door prize. I consider it to be far more expensive than my Dual 2 Ghz G5. The reason is simple: Total Cost of Ownership. The TCO for any computer must include the time spent on the phone with tech support, money spent on anti-virus, anti-spyware, and other security devices like routers needed to protect the computer.

The amount of time I have spent on the phone with tech support for this PC dwarfs the amount of time I have spent on Mac tech support in all the years I've owned Macs (since 1989) and most of the PC time was highly frustrating.

Some will tell you that a "properly configured PC" is fine. I'm telling you that it isn't. The fact that it needs to be properly configured is a big problem. My father has two Macs, neither of which is "properly configured." He doesn't maintain them properly. He does things with them (to them?) that boggle my mind, but they keep running without problems. There was a period of time (about 3 years) when he had a PC. I remember it well, because I used to get frequent calls for help until I got fed up and told him I was going to charge him for any help I gave him. We're both much happier now that he has Macs.

Ask those people what their experience is like with Macs. If they can say that they know the operating systems equally, and still think PCs are a better value, then more power to them, and you can respect their opinions. However, my guess is their views are based on the stereotypes or the CompUSA sale papers.

I must, in the course of a day, use both a PC and a Mac. I've never had a PC that was useful for longer than three years, and when I was responsible for funding a large student network of PCs we routinely budgeted for rolling over about a third of them every year.

Over the same period I've been using a Mac as my main machine, a B&W G3/350 that I bought in the spring of 1999 when they were new. Since then, I've added a PowerLogix G4/550 and later a PowerLogix G3/1100 CPU upgrade, I've increased the memory to 896 MB, I've replaced the original CD reader with a Pioneer DVR-109 so I can burn CDs and DVDs, I've added a PCI/ATA card and two Maxtor 80GB hard disks, I've moved from the OS 8 it came with to OS X 10.4.3 through nearly every system in between, and I've installed a Radeon 7000 video card so I can drive two displays with one card.

Wow, you might say - you've spent enough to have bought a new machine. And I would reply, yes - but I've spent it gradually over the intervening years and I've always had a machine that was just slightly behind the times working well for me.

I've never been able to do that with a PC. Never over many years.

Now I've purchased a new dual core G5/2.3GHz machine, and I'll probably keep it with gradual improvements for several years. Why didn't I wait for the Intel based machines? Because I don't believe, at least initially, that they'll be all that much better - I'll wait and see. In the meantime, unlike my PC, I'll have a machine that will do my bidding for years.

I don't hold the same opinion regarding the INTEL chips. To me, it is the operating system that makes or breaks the user experience. I think the initial boxes that Jobs will introduce will be low-end Minis or laptops. But after that, I think they are going to be MONSTERS. Can you imagine a 3.5Ghz Quad INTEL box? We will probably see it in 2006. Maybe they will even push for 4Ghz, who knows. But you are right. I would not want to be the first one to buy the low-enders, unless it was a great price like the Minis were when they were first introduced.

For your needs you could pick up a nice old dome-style iMac on eBay, have a great 17" display, for about the same price as a Windows box and an LCD. It will be faster than you need. Just get enough memory (384MB minimum).

It is true that for the price of a Mac you can get a much faster Windows machine. The Mac includes everything you need to be productive, while the Windows machine will require a bunch of extra expenses. The people who claim the price difference simply haven't used a Mac and assume it comes with only junk software just like Windows, and that you have to buy extras. Not to mention anti-virus and spyware/rootkit control. Once you add in the total cost of owning the two machines for a couple years, they are about par, but meanwhile, you didn't have to deal with/fear viruses and malware on your Mac.

I agree with cwtnospam.

The TOC (or should I say Total Hassle of Ownership?) for PCs is much higher than for macs. Not having to deal with anti-virus, anti-spyware, hd defragmentation, driver download, network config (very, very, very complicated on windows XP) and the like will save you at least one hour of work per week - what amounts to over 100 hours/year!

You can expect a Mac to give you at least 5 years of solid usage - specially if you don't do processor intensive tasks - video, 3D modelling/animation, professional audio. A new Mac will come with all the I/O you'll need (ever wonder why windows XP comes with movie maker, but most PCs have no firewire ports?), and you can easily add an external hd.

Besides, you get up to 3 years warranty and fully legal OS and software - which is usually extra even on brand-name PCs! And migrating from one mac to another is a breeze.

I've used PCs for 13 years, and since my first contact with a mac - 2 years ago - I have never wanted to go back.

I second all these points about TCO. Since switching back, I have stopped worrying about anything at the OS level. Just stopped. No going into my "Add/Remove Programs" control panel to hunt down crap that got in there for no clear reason. No constantly fighting with tons of stuff in my systray hogging RAM that I have no memory of wanting.

Also, you can't assign a cost to the aesthetics of the OS. That's a personal decision. If it's not worth the very modest first-cost price premium to you to not have to stare at that dumbass ugly Windows XP interface all day ...

Windows is definitely a lot of trouble. Looks-wise XP is nothing compared with OS X.

Mac Minis and monitors. Will a Mac Mini connect to an older style monitor? I want to pick up quite a cheap monitor but obviously don't want to buy an incompatible one.

Mac Mini has a VGA port (adaptor), so it should be fine.

You can use any SVGA or DPI type monitor with the MacMini.

I don't believe that the mac mini has a VGA port built in but it does come with a DVI>VGA adapter.

chicorasia - A little math clarification. I agree that a Mac will save you at least an hour a week (I have experienced that) but there are 56 weeks in a year, so that would be 56 hours. But it's 56 hours of frustration you never needed to experience, and 56 hours you will never get back.

As for the monitor, before I got a Dell LCD, I was using a very old 20" NEC with VGA input with no problems.

yeah it will be fine

In chicoroasia's defense, it was at least an hour per week. My feeling is that it's more than two, and that could easily be an understatement. One piece of spyware could easily take up 10 hours if you don't get it all on the first shot. Mac users don't often realize what a pain it is or how long it takes to reinstall Windoze and reconfigure because you've run out of other options.

And to this, I will agree. ;) Especially the reinstallation. Not to mention HOW MANY security updates, service packs and whotnots!?

No. That's not true. You can connect lots of sound input devices through USB ports.

Chris

When Apple disappointed – CompUSA delivered
 

Hmm... We bought our last computer at CompUSA – and it was, in fact, a Mac and we bought it during MacWorld. For some bizarre reason, Apple could not and would not deliver a 12" PowerBook with the RAM and harddisk upgrade that my daughter wanted, within a reasonable time. CompUSA did.

That really disappointed me. It astonished me that Apple was not more flexible and service minded.

With best regards,
ArcticStones

Schneb & Chicorasia,
I would love to have either one of your calendars!
That would solve a lot of problems for me.

;)

When a new OS comes out do you think 512MB will be enough or is it best to be on the safe side and buy a GIG.

I read in a Macworld magazine that it was not hard to upgrade the RAM on a mini but it wasn't easy!

We have a mini here.... I have litterally this second just updated it from 512 to 1 gig! (with 2 pallet knives it took me 5 mins to switch the ram, and that was my first time)

with 512, it is fine for general use (mail, safari, word, excel) but we run Photoshop and Indesign... now it has a gig it seems LOADS quicker!

If you have the money it might be worth just getting the 1gig of ram... you will be glad you got it in 12 months time!

These websites look really helpful - thanks.

Yeah, that's what I thought. If I buy it now it will save me trouble in the long run. What is the size of your Minis HD. Will 40 GB be enough for home use?

40 or 80.. might be worth buying the 1.42 mhz model...

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObje...i&mco=6A2AA4B0

Alot of people are receiving a 'free' upgrade to a 1.5mhz processor's apparently! :D

Speed wise would there be a great deal of difference between the 1.25 and the 1.42 Processors? I am trying to save money and don't mind waiting a few extra seconds :D

I bought my first Mac at CompUSA. What I meant was, the sale papers (anyone's) lists specs and prices, which to those who don't know better, portray the Mac a being more expensive with less to offer.

The difference is about 170 Mhz in processor speed, so not a huge difference there. Then the bus speed is the same, so that 170 Mhz will only show up in processor intensive apps. The only other difference that I see is the hard drive.

For general use, you would not see much of a difference, same with your RAM. If you wanted to use GarageBand, I would go the opposite way and suggest you get the higher CPU, 80gig HD and more RAM. And unless you are doing audio or video editing, 40Gb will do just fine. However, if you have alot of music you want to grind for iTunes, take that into consideration.

I just saw at the Apple Store that the 1gig is only $100 more. So I am changing my mind and advising the upgrade. Man, when I bought mine, it was $300!

I think from everyone's posts that you would be better off with this configuration and to run screaming away from Windows.

So--The Schneb's advice... Mac Mini with 1gig upgrade.

yeh, I am with everyone else!

if you can afford it.... get it!

that aside.... if you only do internet, mail and text... a 1.25mhz with 512 ram is very respectable and will still be loads quicker than your imac.

My advice would be to get the 1.42mhz (there are alot of rumors that apple are shipping them with faster 1.5mhz chips) with 1 gig of ram, get a cheap monitor off ebay (£15-20) and use your old keyboard and mouse if you really need to save money!

OR, follow these steps to make your own PC.

Note: Be sure to read all the pages, it will only take a few minutes.

Fantastic! I reckon this deserves a thread of its own! I recommend everyone takes a look at this.

Reminds me of my Ebay Make a Computer and be Disappointed Days.

OS X just works. While I had some kernal crashes with earlier versions, 10.3 and 10.4 have been maintenance free.

If you choose to get a PC, get disk imaging software, such as Acronis True Image and burn a backup image to DVD or save to an external hard drive. Then when the inevitable virus and/or spyware attack renders your computer useless you can simply restore your backup image.

Very funny schneb! Especially that audio guide at the end. :D

Oroberts, We still don't know how hard you will be pushing the limits of the machine you will buy.... Unless I slept while reading - I may have - who knows!

But having used both pcs for many years, built my share, and a Mac for little over one, I definitely prefer the Mac. The statements about properly configured pc's working well are pretty close to my experiences. (And you can find decent freeware on the pc platform for antivirus/spyware.)

That said, if the design of your "Mac of choice" is within the scope of what you plan to do - I think you will like the Mac experience better. he only reason to own a pc is for gaming in my humblest of opinions.....

I don't really know how hard I am going to push the limits of the machine. I am unfamilar with Tiger's features but I currently use a Mac for Email, Internet, Itunes, word processing, excel and powerpoint.

I am just getting tired of waiting for my Imac to perform simple tasks.

I want to upgrade to Tiger, because it looks really cool! :cool:

I have also had a go with the developer software

It is indeed. The Mac Mini does not support The Cool video effects though.... For that you've got to ante up the bigger bucks.....

What sort of video effects?

The "ripple" effect, for one. When you open a new Dashboard item, the area around it ripples as if you had dropped it onto water. It's a cool effect, but I don't know if it and others are worth spending more.

The "ripple effect" is simply one indication that you've got a Quartz capable video chipset. There are a lot of benifits to this in 10.4

So do these effects simple not appear on the Mac Mini or do appear but very slowly. There's nothing worse than a choppy effect!

Speaking of the Mac Mini I found an Imac G5 1.6GHZ on the Internet which is about £580 + Tiger which comes to £639 , faster than the mac mini but worth the extra cash??

The Quartz effects are only possible with video cards that support it. So, no, it is not slowed, just absent.

Picking a home computer for me hasn't always been easy either. For windows, I built them, for the Mac, I went with a machine I would not outgrow, and that would allow at least some changes (hard drives, video cards) down the road.

Do you play games....? If so, you'd be better off with a machine like a G5. Games push the envelope of home computers pretty hard. If you only will do internet/documents/iPhoto/iTunes - the basics, any Mac with enough RAM and a hard drive big enough will get the job done. Digital video editing starts to push the machines as well.

Do you have access to an Apple store.... I would seriously go there and play/ask questions, do some of the things you plan on using the Mac for. That may sway you one way or another.

Believe it or not the eMacs are a pretty good bargain... look at the specs and reviews. One of their biggest drawbacks is their all-in-one designs... Really though, try to play at a store, you may find the answers there. And whichever Mac you do get, I am certain you will get some enjoyment out of the OOB* experience!

*Out of Box - that initial wow of unpacking and using

No games, just the standard sort of stuff. I usually go to the Apple Store in London's Regent Street. Ok, well I might go up there and see what I can see.

Thanks for everyone's help and advice. I definitely won't be switching to Windows!

oroberts