[brian0526]

I've been considering switching to a Mac for about two months now. I'm waiting for Apple to release the updated iMacs. As I wait, I'm beginning to get antsy.

I realize there will be some transitioning. I have a few programs that don't have exact equivalents in the Mac world. I've got tons of data in Quicken that I'm going to have to manually re-enter or lose. I'm willing to go through the pain, if it's worth it. But, I'm leaning back to just buying a Dell with Windows XP and dealing with Microsoft for another 3-4 years.

I'm curious to know what other people's experience has been with switching. Pros and cons. I know the Mac is a superior platform. I have no doubt. I'm just curious as to what the pain is like to get there (besides the fact it costs so much more than a PC).

Thanks!
Brian

[Dell Switcher]

I too am considering switching from 3 yr old lemon Dell and have vacillated between HP with XP and iMac 17. I have talked to several associates who have changed from WIN ME or 98 to XP and they have problems with old SW compatability as well as drivers for older peripherals such as printers. My biggest concern with PC's are the poor quality hardware compared to Apple plus the poor tech svc. After comparison shopping of HP with the Apple HW, I kept going back to the Apple (iMac 17 and PowerMac) equipment which was far superior!

In general, the switchers to Apple seem more satisfied but are more challenged by learning a new OS. The SW compatability was expected and the main complaints were the added costs.

My big concern with Dell is the big drop in service after Dell changed most of tech svc to overseas subcontractor. The standard response from the techs is to reload OS and all SW...even when I had minor problem with sound! I have posed several E-mail questions to HP and the responses have been spotty!

Good Luck! I plan to wait until the next iMac update to make my final decision

[bradoesch]

When I switched, the only thing I missed were a few games. I was never much of a gamer before, but it was nice on the PC to be able to play almost any game (provided my system could handle it, of course.) Switching to the Mac has been so good I wouldn't care if the Mac didn't have any games at all.

[andycroll]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
When I switched, the only thing I missed were a few games. I was never much of a gamer before, but it was nice on the PC to be able to play almost any game (provided my system could handle it, of course.) Switching to the Mac has been so good I wouldn't care if the Mac didn't have any games at all.

I agree.

If you want games get a PS2 or Xbox(!) they're actually pretty good value. My two pence.

Oh and switch dammit! You won't regret it. Everyone I know whose seen any of my machines wants one too.

Andy

[RenaissanceGirl]

I'm a fairly recent switcher - got an iMac after being a Windows user for about 5 years. The transition was very smooth for me, especially since I had a fantastic Mac mentor that walked me gently through all my Mac questions via AIM.

A couple of the software I used before was not available for Mac, but I soon found good to superior alternatives. There are a few small, weird adjustments though, such as uninstalling programs by simply dragging them into the trash can. This was a weird concept to grasp since doing this in Windows will send the system to the grave.

The only bad thing I would say is this: people who were once your friends can suddenly turn on you and find every reason to try to convince you of the terrible decision you made by switching.

Other than that, being a Mac user is a lot of fun.

[TomHMeredith]

"But, I'm leaning back to just buying a Dell with Windows XP and dealing with Microsoft for another 3-4 years."

This seems slightly silly, in 3-4 years you will either have lost your interest in Mac's, or will wait for the next iMac upgrade, get antsy again and buy another PC.

The iMac as they are are amazing machines, so either go and buy one tomorrow or wait for the update, but whatever you do DONT DONT DONT buy a PC!!!!!!

[Viv Savage]

Originally posted by brian0526:
I've been considering switching to a Mac for about two months now. I'm waiting for Apple to release the updated iMacs. As I wait, I'm beginning to get antsy.

I realize there will be some transitioning. I have a few programs that don't have exact equivalents in the Mac world. I've got tons of data in Quicken that I'm going to have to manually re-enter or lose. I'm willing to go through the pain, if it's worth it. But, I'm leaning back to just buying a Dell with Windows XP and dealing with Microsoft for another 3-4 years.

I'm curious to know what other people's experience has been with switching. Pros and cons. I know the Mac is a superior platform. I have no doubt. I'm just curious as to what the pain is like to get there (besides the fact it costs so much more than a PC).

Thanks!
Brian

What Quicken data or programs are you talking about? When I "switched", the data files exported from Quicken 2000 imported to the Mac version with no problems. If you have compatibility problems, you can always run Virtual PC which should handle the Quicken programs just fine.

I can't tell you how great of an experience the macs in our household have been. Our supposedly "slow" FP iMac is a marevelous machine. I don't think you would regret even one of the current models. Hopefully there will be an upgrade soon. I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

[Anand]

I would agree with Viv Savage. My quicken data from a Compaq PIII500 was imported fine by the new quicken on the mac. No problem and has worked great.

Things will be differnt, don't be fooled into thinking that everything is a bed or roses on the mac side. But it is nice. Doing stuff on the computer used to make me angry. I almost hated even surfing the net.

We also got a 800 FP iMac when they came out. We had had a kid and I loved the idea of making movies and putting them on DVD. When we bought our digital video camera, it came with a firewire card for the PC. Getting the PC to see the card and then the camera was a royal pain. And when it finally did work, making movies really sucked. Well with the Mac, making movies is really easy and buring a DVD is a no brainer. Making good movies is another thing...(:.

I don't think I will ever go back. Is the price high? Maybe, but in my mind it is worth every penny. I don't even think about it any more. It may not be the fastest computer but it is one of the best!

[BigCanoe]

The only bad thing I would say is this: people who were once your friends can suddenly turn on you and find every reason to try to convince you of the terrible decision you made by switching.

Other than that, being a Mac user is a lot of fun.

OMG! How true! I told a friend today that I was switching and he started freaking out, what a bad idea, Apples are so expenseive, you already have a PC, blah blah. Needless to say, all he did is push me farther into the Switcher camp

[Johnnyboysmac]

Hi All,

Just so very pleased to find I'm not the only PCeeee user/lurker on this great forum. I'm very much waiting to see what will happen with the Imac as well, as my choice will eventually come down to it, or maybe the new 1ghz PM G4 tower, with LCD display - all depending of course on $$ etc.

As a windows user, and mac experimenter, I'm well convinced, just awaiting with baited breath the latest Imac developments.

I have it even worse than XP users, as I'm on an P2 running win98SE - I'm my own worst enemy in that I think so poorly of MS + Win, I wouldn't spend a $ on upgrading it - just jump in to the Mac world when the product line seems right, and bye bye PCeeeeee.

Yay

Cheers all,

Fingers crossed for Imac upgrade real soon,

John.

[Jens Peter]

I did the switch almost 2 years ago, and I haven't missed the old PC. I can do everything I need on my (old) iMac, well, everything except using .NET (we use that in school).
My good friend that I share an appartmet with, really hate my mac and everytime I can't see a webpage like he can on his win-pc, he tells me how a bad computer I have. But then again, other of my friends would also like to have a mac, but the thing holding them from switching is that they can't play the newest games.

Just my story...

Jens Peter.

[Commodus]

I have a PowerBook, and I'm technically an "adder" (Windows desktop, MacOS laptop), but I believe that I can say a few things on the art of using a Mac in a Windows-heavy world.

One thing that might help in a switching situation: Move2Mac. That will let you carry a lot of settings over without much effort, although the actual time to complete the move can be long depending on just how much you want to move over.

I've found that working in a Windows-centric world with a Mac is relatively painless, but it helps to know what software is out there that will accomplish what you want. For example, alternative browsers: while IE is often the most compatible (simply because it's meant to duplicate much of what IE in Windows does), you can try Mozilla, Chimera, Apple's own Safari as well as a few other alternatives. I've actually found Safari to work well for the majority of sites, even in its beta state - sometimes it displays IE-oriented sites in a more correct fashion than IE does.

You want to have some fun with any die-hard Windows users that you might live with? While they're being bombarded with pop-up ads for online casinos and webcams, you can calmly point them to Safari's program menu and that easily-accessible "block pop-up windows" option.

[Centris650]

These "switch" stories are far better than the switch commercials! Why hasn't Apple called you people to make a commercial?!

[ngrundy]

the switching debate, one i went through but my path to the mac was a slightly different one.

I started my transition to Mac at the end of 2001 when I was asked by a friend to help him with rolling out a new server backend for a 1500 student college (14 servers, 250 imacs, 50-70 or so imac/powerbooks).

Now i've been a unix guy for a long time, ran redhat 6 as my primary desktop back when that was the latest and greatest redhat, converted to FreeBSD a couple of years later. But after rh6 on my desktop i went back to windows, played with unix as a desktop OS on and off in 6 month stints but kept FreeBSD for server grunt work.

When we were beating the OSX 10.1 server into taking our user data from NIS I came to realise just how powerful this thing was. We had a G4 400mhz machine running a very CPU intensive (read un-optomised) script every 5 minuites and it kept going for weeks and weeks without failure.

Again during my comp organistaion and architecture unit at uni i came to realise how much more elegant the RISC CPUs are.

I'd been waiting for 10 months for money to come through and arrived days after the 1ghz powerbook came out. by the end of the month i was the proud owner of a 1ghz 15" powerbook. I'm currently in the process of selling off a dual p3 866 with all the trimmings bar a cdrw (parents got that ).

I own a PS2 so the game play factor doesn't worry me, I do have Q3 and Ghost Recon so I'm happy, now if i could just get UT without having to run OS9 (at all!).

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for OSX, the power of UNIX, the beauty of Aqua, the quality of engineered hardware products. This powerbook has more features packed into it than most of my 'hardcore' pc friends PCs do. (gigabit and firewire for example.). Two months down the track I don't miss the PC at all and the PB has yet to start feeling 'old' or obsolete. Something I noticed is that when you have a line up of a HP laptop, a compaq evo, a g3 bronze keyboard powerbook and a titanium powerbook there is an effect on the audience when your doing a presentation just due to the shiny nature of the TiG4

[cnarayan]

I am a switcher. I have ordered and waiting patiently for my Powerbook 17"; and now I see the new spring line of iMac. I am making this purchase as a replacement for my desktop PC. I use my PC for digital image processing, email and web browsing. I do not play games on my computer, but I do want to use it to see and make DVD movies. Portability is not a huge concern, but I would like to move it around the house occasionally. PowerMac does not work for me for this reason.

I see the following advantages of the iMac over the Powerbook:

Big price difference
Bigger hard drive 60 vs. 80 GB
Keyboard, mouse, and speakers
More sturdy

Disadvantages of the iMac when compared to Powerbook

Video card not as powerful
L2 cache as opposed to a L3
Upgradeability ??

Despite this, I am considering canceling my Powerbook order and buying an iMac. Can anyone see flaws in my reasoning ?

Thanks,
Chandru

[RenaissanceGirl]

I was actually anti-Mac for a while... until my digital arts professor forced me to use one (I was late to the first class and the PC lab was full). I pouted about it for a while, but in the end the Mac was so easy to work with and helped me earn a solid A in the class. Since then I've coveted a Mac of my own. I should probably write my professor an email and thank him.

[iChristopher]

That sounds like the start of a good switcher story for Apple. You should write a longer version and go send it to them at apple.com/switch.

Originally posted by RenaissanceGirl:
I was actually anti-Mac for a while... until my digital arts professor forced me to use one (I was late to the first class and the PC lab was full). I pouted about it for a while, but in the end the Mac was so easy to work with and helped me earn a solid A in the class. Since then I've coveted a Mac of my own. I should probably write my professor an email and thank him.

[dencamp]

The uninstall story reminded me of a friend who I convinced to switch a few years ago. He bought a new imac and did what many of us do-loaded it with a ton of software right away. After a few weeks he realized that half of the freeware/shareware was just clutter, so decided to uninstall. First he tried to find an equivolent to the PC's bizarrly complicated uninstall process. When he couldn't, he decided to take advantage of the free apple tech support. When the tech-guy answered and listened to my friends problem, he very nicely walked him through the process- 1. find the program folder--usually under applications. 2. Drag it to the trash...

[WinTroll]

I own an eMac (G4 700 mHz) and a Compaq Presario 906US laptop.

I bought the eMac on a whim in July2002 and forgot to send the OSX coupon in. So I recently went and bought a retail copy and wiped my MAC clean. I installed only OSX, no OS9 at all (what a joke that OS was!).

I love the thing now. I broke the keyboard USB connector by mistake (should watch where I am stepping!) and replaced that as well as bought the swivel stand (which is more cool than I thought).

I still use both but lean to the MAC for home use more.

I need to get some nicer speakers or perhaps just the subwoofer to complete the setup.

I have no regrets. You don't have to switch, technically. You can be a "Stradler" by using both.

[ApeInTheShell]

I recently switched from toast and scrambled eggs to my eggs sunny side up. What was my reasoning?
1) Sunny side up is easy to grab and eat on the way to school.
2) Even when i don't have school i also don't have to hunt for the individual pieces.

So there you have it. That is why i own a macintosh. Because i recently switched to my eggs sunny side up. It compliments my iMac.



Here's my short story:

Our family got a PowerMac way back in 1994.
System 7.5 was around people were still miffed about paying for it. Yet it introduced me to multimedia and games.
In 1999 I bought a iMacDV with 8.6 on it.
It included a dvd player and the bugdom dvd inside. I actually hugged a computer."L"
Now i'm 22 and still have that same iMac running 10.2.3. Regardless of what people say, the system is fairly quick even when using photoshop and the mx suite. Just proves that the G3 ain't dead yet.
Well, it's good to see the mac platform actually moving in the right direction. I don't think i could bare to see another clone made.

[Simon]

Originally posted by ApeInTheShell:
I recently switched from toast and scrambled eggs to my eggs sunny side up. What was my reasoning?
1) Sunny side up is easy to grab and eat on the way to school.
2) Even when i don't have school i also don't have to hunt for the individual pieces.

So there you have it. That is why i own a macintosh. Because i recently switched to my eggs sunny side up. It compliments my iMac.

Original. Thanks for making me laugh on this rainy morning.

[pliny]

I think the switch or straddle can be fun. You get to learn something new and use a good machine to do it. The new updates to the emacs and iMac should get the switchers thinking a bit more.

[ApeInTheShell]

Thanks. Glad to see someone laughs in here.

I really really really want a new mac but it's like my friend says, "you need to pay off yours first. Then you can think about the next mac."
I bought my mac but he was talking about applying what you know now and using your mac to get it done.
I think that is the real point of owning a mac. You learn through your mac different things that you thought couldn't be done or had no interest to pursue. Just like life huh?

[docholiday]

Hey Chandru,
I read your post and want to suggest that you go for the new iMac. I want to convince you of that by having you look at your own points and some points I make.

The iMac is an amazing machine and a lot better priced than the Powerbook. You can get a fully loaded iMac, an AE Base Station, and a digital camera for a price equal to or less than the Powerbook. Heck, you could even go for an iMac AND a low end iBook. You will have two amazing machines for the price of that Powerbook!!!

Portability is not a huge concern, but I would like to move it around the house occasionally.

It's possible to move the iMac around the house, not a lot harder...
And if you opt to go for the iMac/iBook combination, then you got the portability and you have the stationary.

(...) but I do want to use it to see and make DVD movies.

The iMac burns DVDs at 4 times the speed of the Powerbook (Superdrive 4x vs. Superdrive 1x)

I see the following advantages of the iMac over the Powerbook:

Big price difference
Bigger hard drive 60 vs. 80 GB
Keyboard, mouse, and speakers
More sturdy

It's all you need, at a price that easily beats the Powerbook. Also, the HDD is faster on the iMac than in the Powerbook (7200rpm vs. 5400rpm).

Disadvantages of the iMac when compared to Powerbook

Video card not as powerful
L2 cache as opposed to a L3
Upgradeability ??

The GeForece 4Mx in the iMac is better than the notebook one. And while both machines are not very upgradeable, the iMac is slightly easier to upgrade.

Alright, that's it. I hope you realize that buying an iMac (and maybe an iBook ) will be a decision you won't regret.

Good luck in deciding,
docholiday

[cnarayan]

Hey Doc:

Excellent points. Guess what, I did end up getting the iMac, to be delivered next week !! Thahnks for the input; here is the config I ordered:

Summary:
� 1GB DDR266 - 2 DIMMs
� AirPort Extreme Card
� Bluetooth Module
� iPod - 20GB (Mac)
� AirPort Extreme Base Station (with modem and antenna port)
� .Mac Promotional Bundle
� Keyboard/Mac OS X - U.S. English
� APP for iMac/eMac - Enrollment Kit
� 17-inch widescreen LCD flat
� 1GHz PowerPC G4
� 80GB Ultra ATA drive
� 4x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
� NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
w/ 64MB video memory
� Apple Keyboard
� Apple Pro Mouse
� Apple Pro Speakers

This is a huge purchase for me, no more toys for years to come !!

Thanks for all your help !! I will post pics once I get it.

- Chandru

Originally posted by docholiday:
Hey Chandru,
I read your post and want to suggest that you go for the new iMac. I want to convince you of that by having you look at your own points and some points I make.

The iMac is an amazing machine and a lot better priced than the Powerbook. You can get a fully loaded iMac, an AE Base Station, and a digital camera for a price equal to or less than the Powerbook. Heck, you could even go for an iMac AND a low end iBook. You will have two amazing machines for the price of that Powerbook!!!


It's possible to move the iMac around the house, not a lot harder...
And if you opt to go for the iMac/iBook combination, then you got the portability and you have the stationary.


The iMac burns DVDs at 4 times the speed of the Powerbook (Superdrive 4x vs. Superdrive 1x)


It's all you need, at a price that easily beats the Powerbook. Also, the HDD is faster on the iMac than in the Powerbook (7200rpm vs. 5400rpm).




The GeForece 4Mx in the iMac is better than the notebook one. And while both machines are not very upgradeable, the iMac is slightly easier to upgrade.

Alright, that's it. I hope you realize that buying an iMac (and maybe an iBook ) will be a decision you won't regret.

Good luck in deciding,
docholiday

[ApeInTheShell]

Wintroll...i don't have anything ask you but when you call the old mac os a joke that's stepping over the line. Maybe you've forgotten that without "Mac OS 7-9" companies like Adobe and Macromedia wouldn't even bother with our system. Yeah, when i saw mac os x over the horizon i dropped mac os 9 in 5 days.
The macintosh was always easy to use, it just took people a little longer to realize Apple designs the best hardware and software hands down.

Thank you for reading.