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Hi everyone
I'm looking to get a new PC and I really like the look of the Mac Pro systems by Apple. Has anyone got one, are they any good for general use? (Not much gaming etc)
My friend says that Mac is a million times better than Windows but I'm not so sure. Is it?
:help:
Mac Pro for general use??
Your friend is a utter numpty, it's a bit like saying that the best car to pop down the shops is a high end sports car.
Mac Pro's are work stations, they start at two grand and go up because they are using high end server grade components.
The imac's are ok, spec wise they are good, cost is high and personally I think the current design is ugly.
The older core2duo mini-mac's I really liked, although the new ones have dropped the slot loading dvd and aluminium for a slightly smaller case. still good options for a general use pc, not too expensive for a prebuilt small form factor pc.
One big question to ask your self is which OS do you prefer? windows7 or OSX?
Mac Pros are not a good starting point for entry to the Apple world. They currently use quite out of date CPUs and GPUs and are overpriced by quite a margin IMHO. If you want a Mac for general use then check out an iMac or perhaps even a Mac Mini. Both will meet your requirements easily and are cheaper than the Mac Pro by quite some margin.
As Pob says, a decision between a PC and a Mac boils down to which OS you prefer. In my case I prefer OSX and so have a Mac. If I preferred Windows 7 then obviously I'd get a nice PC...
There are lots of rumours about the Mac Pro at the moment - either that it's being scrapped or it's getting a refresh in the near future.
No-one really knows if either is true! There is another option, Hackintoshing. It gives you the best of both worlds, it's running OSX on PC hardware. There are a lot of resources around on this but have a look at TonyMac's method for a particularly well-supported and not too difficult approach, if you're interested..
I use Windows, Linux and OSX and they all have their strengths and weaknesses! Not one of them is a million times better or worse than the other.
Hey,
Like the others have already said, it comes down to which OS you prefer. I like both W7 and OSX so I own an iMac to do my e-mail, Photography, Music and Video work on and I have my PC which is my gaming system (although I do also use the PS3 from time-to-time).
I think you might find getting a mac mini or an iMac is the best starting point, the Mac Pro is an awesome piece of kit but I don't think you would get your worth out of it if you just plan on using it for general day-to-day task like browsing, music, email etc etc.
If you are in the same situation as me and like both then why don’t you buy yourself a nice mac mini, a good monitor and then build a W7 machine for gaming or whatever?
If you are just looking to have a mac then I would say the iMac will be everything and more for general usage and it will save you £££’s in comparison to a Mac Pro.
Rookie
Macs look nice and are certainly user friendly. The big disadvantage (for me) is that they cannot be modified or upgraded from a huge range of off-the-shelf components in the way that a Windows based PC can.
Mac users are often obsessively loyal to the brand. This makes them say silly things from time to time. My brother in law used to work for an Apple subsidiary (now sold) and converted a few family members to Mac (his employee discount helped!). The last time I used my father in law's iMac, it froze several times - the worst case I've seen since the bad old days of Windows 95. I also know that my brother in law has had "issues", but he won't admit it. I'm not saying that this is typical, just that Macs are not perfect. Nothing is.
Well, Apple tend to have the leading products in every field they are in, so their best Mac device is surely going to be the best computing device out there.
Or that is my friends logic anyway...
I'll get one and see if I like it. :)
But they dont have the leading products in every field, exept for iPods, and perhaps iPads because of the Apps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fnoop
Your friend is an Apple fan boy. I can't stand people like that. He really can only see that Apple is the best platform without accepting there are other options out there too which would be just as good.
I appreciate that there is always going to be two sides of the coin. Windows and OSX are both very good operating systems. If your heavily into publications, photo editiong and video editing then you want OSX.
However if just looking for a jack of all trades master of none then Windows 7 is right up your street. But given you haven't told us what you will bw uaing your new PC for, it's hard to suggest what would suit your requirements.
This is not very true anymore, it used to be the case, the general view does still hang on esp within the creative industries but I have seen people switching over to windows.Quote:
If your heavily into publications, photo editiong and video editing then you want OSX.
Things like photoshop run just as well on a pc as it does on a mac and things like firewire are falling behind and out of favour.
I know a couple of people who DJ, do studio production and create music who've switched over to windows pc's, I know some comic artists who have done the same, they've gone from rather old struggling mac's over to pc's mainly because of the cost of a new mac and they really enjoy the change (granted I had to explain to one of them that a new mac would of been similar as he'd got from the imac G4 to a phenomII x6)
Software was a key part in the difference between pc's and mac's, there are some very good bits of software that are still only available on mac, however many of the key things are also on windows now and there's still some very good software out for windows.
side note: I loved the G4 design I think it was much nicer than the current imac, which I personally think is quite ugly.
your friend knows nothing about the field of technology that is available and his advice should be ignored and avoided at all costs. He will cost you money unnecessarily and possibly push you into something you dont particularly want.
What do YOU want from a computer. Work from there to figure out what you need.
If you play games, you need to get a traditional windows PC.
If you like to have some flexibility to upgrade, you need to get a traditional PC.
If you want to get a computer and have the minimum security risk, you need to get a traditional PC and put Linux on it.
There are a lot of things which can be done well on OSX but not a many of them justify the extra costs.
It just needs to be 100% clear that there is no clear cut comment like 'Macs are better' which actually works.