Before I purchased a Mac I was nervous about buying one for several reasons. Actually I can pinpoint it to one reason in particular…I was worried about the enormous hole it would burn in my pocket. Let’s face it, Macs are ridiculously expensive. I didn’t feel like spending my hard-earned savings on a piece of technology.
However, Every Mac user I spoke to said something along the lines of “I love my Mac, now I have one I could never go back to Windows!”
I put a Tweet out on Twitter asking what laptop I should get and everyone replied telling me to get a Mac.
I posted a question on Yahoo Answers about whether to buy a Sony or a Mac, and this was one of the responses:
I’ll put it bluntly. Do you want to spend twice as much for a toy that is incompatible with the software and hardware market when you can spend half that and get a valuable tool that is? If so, get the Mac. If you want a valuable tool, get the Sony EDIT: There are far more people out there that bought them and found they were junk. They just don’t tell anyone as not to be embarrassed.
However on the Pro-Mac side, someone else said:
if you want a crappy computer that will turn into a giant billboard and get slow in 6months, get the sony. if you want a computer you’ll be happy with for a long time, get the macbook. im not an apple fanboy, but theyre computers and software are well above the competition.
I was yet to be convinced by Apple though. You see, in my head Mac users were a bit pretentious and obsessed with looks and shiny packaging. The types that thought possessing a Mac made them an ‘artsy designer’. I’m not saying that’s true, but that’s the stereotype I had of a Mac user.
I do a lot of video editing, and I could have bought a super duper Windows laptop with a lightning fast processor, loads of memory and a gigantic hard drive for less than the cost of a Mac. I’d also been discouraged from buying a Mac because of all the talks of incompatibility and the fact that switching to Mac was a ‘big process’.
But I was equally disheartened by the fact that my previous two Windows laptops had become incredibly slow. So slow I could barely do anything. My Sony Vaio could no longer retain any battery power so I spent 90% of my time hunting for power sockets when travelling. When I did switch it on, I spent most of my time watching a frozen screen. My productivity was at an all time low.
I bought a little Netbook for travel, and whilst it was much faster running Windows 7, after a couple of months I noticed it begin to run slow again.
When I saw that Mac had released a new line of Macbook Pros, I knew it was time. They hadn’t gone up in price, thank god, and they now had far better processors, more memory and better hard drives.
Ever since buying my Macbook Pro, I’ve been blissfully happy. It’s like the U.S Marine of laptops.
It’s solidly built and every time I open the lid, it’s good to go. It responds to every click instantly and it never runs slowly. It never even has to think for a second.
Every time I plugged in a device to my Windows laptop, it had to install driver software, then told me it couldn’t install it. With my Mac, I plug any device in and it’s ready to use straight away. I don’t have to think about viruses and every piece of software I’ve needed has a version for Mac.
People told me learning to use a Mac would be like learning to use a computer all over again. That’s not the case. For the first few hours I was cursing because I couldn’t find the hash key or the delete key. But I googled it and figured it out. Within a day I was using my Mac like I’d had it forever.
As for video editing, I have the 15″ Macbook Pro and it’s perfect for using Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects. It responds well and rendering doesn’t take too long.
Even if you need to sell your house or your own mother to buy a Mac, I say do it. OK, maybe not, but seriously these things are more than just good looks.
Will I ever go back to PC? No.
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I made the switch (well, half-switch, still have a few PCs around the house) and I will say even though I have used Mac’s in the past, I was a little apprehensive, really, for no reason.
I got my Macbook Pro in late March and forced myself to use it for everything, including work. Unfortunately, in my line of work, some of the software is not all Mac compatible yet, but that is actually a pretty small number of apps that I need to use my PC for.
I agree with the sentiment about the Mac costing more, as it does right from the store, but applications wise, I have only paid for 1 application, a mail app for my GMail called Sparrow. Highly recommend it for $10.
One thing I have learned is that dedicated Mac people are a different breed and do things quite a different way. You, like me, are just coming from a PC and it is hard to let go of all of those PC-ish ways. Right clicking, file management, etc.
So, needless to say, I have some things to learn, but so far, so good.
I love Macs and have since 1984, but bang for buck I have to say I have drifted to PC. Macs are irreperable, I have lost 2 iMacs from small faults that would have cost more to fix than the price of a new equivalent PC
PCs can nearly always be fixed with a screwdriver and some Googling about.
If I am given a Mac to use, and in most advertising creative depts I am, I am very happy. But I wont be spending any more of my own money on another Mac, too pricey to buy and when they go wrong it’s straight to landfill.
And I reckon PCs are faster for photo and video work, as you can customise them for exactly that.
Windows still sucks tho
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Love Mac for their operating system…haven’t had any faults yet but we’ll wait and see. It does suck if anything with Apple products goes wrong out of warranty. They’re extremely expensive so you’ hope you’ll get quite a few years out of them. I had 2 iPods that both stopped working so now I just live without music rather than spending anymore money!!!