[HighInquisitorWhitemane]

Hi, I'm new on these forums, and I just registered to ask some questions.

So I am probably going to be getting a laptop soon, and I am not sure whether I should look into getting a Windows/PC Laptop, or a Macbook. I have been asking my friends (one of whom has a laptop with Windows, the other has a Macbook) about the pros and cons of each.

When I asked my Windows friend, he said that the major reasons to buy a PC over a Macbook are:
cheaper price for equivalent hardware
more software compatibility
customization
user interface smoothness is better in a PC (he said Macs don't have a right mouse button? i thought he was kidding but is that true?)
he said a lot more but thats all i can really remember for now

When I asked my Mac friend, she said Macs were more for creative and artistic people, and windows was for business, casual use, and gaming, but she didnt give any specifics. So I'm asking here to see if I can get any details about why a Macbook might be a good option to look into, since I want to weigh both of my options before making a purchase.

Any feedback would be appreciated, mainly benefits of a macbook over a Windows Laptop, so i can have logical arguments from both points of view, thanks

[pcryan5]

Buy and Mac and get both. Dual boot into Windows or OS X depending on your mood that day. That is my set up and I suspect any month now the mood to use windows might return....

[olePigeon]

Howdy, and welcome to the forums.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

cheaper price for equivalent hardware

I've found that PCs may be cheaper, but not necessarily a better value. Apple only offers a select few laptops at specific price points with not much to customize on. If you were to compare prices between a Mac laptop and a PC laptop with comparable features, you'd find that the price difference isn't that great. However, PC vendors often have much cheaper laptops by offering slower or lower quality components, removing features, and using cheaper housing materials.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

customization

Yes, and this is generally where PCs can become cheaper by dropping features you do not want.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

user interface smoothness is better in a PC

Both GUIs are hardware accelerated and work fine. I doubt there's any noticeable difference.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

(he said Macs don't have a right mouse button? i thought he was kidding but is that true?)

He could either be kidding or misinformed. On desktop Macs, the mouse comes with 4 buttons. On laptops, there aren't any buttons, it's just a trackpad. A click with one finger makes a left click, a click with two fingers on the pad makes a right click.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

When I asked my Mac friend, she said Macs were more for creative and artistic people, and windows was for business, casual use, and gaming, but she didnt give any specifics.

Macs have their roots in the creative field, but that has changed drastically. OS X is UNIX now, it even has X11 support. It's as geeky as you can get. If you were to walk into a computer science classroom, you'd see just as many Macs as you do PCs. It's a great development platform.

Most major software packages available for Windows are available natively on the Mac.

Your friend is right about the gaming part. You can't beat a Windows PC when it comes to gaming, there are just way more options, not to mention games. Interestingly enough, even this is changing. Valve of all companies is porting their games to OS X. Most major titles are released for both platforms.

Also remember, you can always install Windows on your Mac and boot natively into Windows, or run it via VMWare or Parallels. So if you buy a Mac you can have the best of both worlds.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

So I'm asking here to see if I can get any details about why a Macbook might be a good option to look into, since I want to weigh both of my options before making a purchase.

A large part of the recommendation depends on what you plan to use the laptop for.

[ibook_steve]

Obviously, coming to a Mac forum, you're going to have everybody recommend Macs!

The best recommendation I can give you is to go to an Apple store and actually try out the hardware. Just spend time playing with the machines. You should notice immediately how much easier they are to use and configure than a PC. Ask the store employees questions. They are very knowledgeable and should be able to help you out.

And as someone else mentioned, with the dual-booting or virtualization options available for Macs, there's really no need to get a PC. And trust me when I say that a Mac you buy today will serve you for far longer than a sub-$1000 Best Buy PC.

Steve

[ghporter]

If you want a computer that will only be used for some surfing and minor application uses, spend a lot less money and buy a netbook. If you want a computer that will remain useful, functional and enjoyable for years, get a Mac. I got a MacBook Pro in 2006 for school, and it's still my favorite portable machine ever.

Your friends' ideas that "Macs are for creative and artistic people" and Windows machines (technically they're ALL "personal computers") are for business is about as outmoded as 14.4k modems. They USED to be that way because the Windows world was pretty slow in supporting creative and artistic users. But things aren't that way anymore. "Business" applications like word processing and spreadsheets are easily as flexible and powerful on the Mac platform as on Windows. I did my entire healthcare graduate school using my MBP, and was constantly getting things done easier, better, and faster with it than my classmates did with their HP or Dell laptops. It didn't help them that Vista was all the rage then-and most laptops were having trouble with it. On the other hand, OS X hasn't been static, but it hasn't been incompatible with older apps the way Windows has been.

I'll also note that I have used EVERY single version of Windows up to Win7 but with only a small amount of experience with Vista. I mean every version, starting with Version 1, which you started up with the command line (and which looked like the last runner up in a "let's look like System 2" contest). I've written programs for Windows, run security management offices to protect Windows, and been an investigator when Windows systems have been compromised. Get the Mac.

[ghporter]

If you want a computer that will only be used for some surfing and minor application uses, spend a lot less money and buy a netbook. If you want a computer that will remain useful, functional and enjoyable for years, get a Mac. I got a MacBook Pro in 2006 for school, and it's still my favorite portable machine ever.

Your friends' ideas that "Macs are for creative and artistic people" and Windows machines (technically they're ALL "personal computers") are for business is about as outmoded as 14.4k modems. They USED to be that way because the Windows world was pretty slow in supporting creative and artistic users. But things aren't that way anymore. "Business" applications like word processing and spreadsheets are easily as flexible and powerful on the Mac platform as on Windows. I did my entire healthcare graduate school using my MBP, and was constantly getting things done easier, better, and faster with it than my classmates did with their HP or Dell laptops. It didn't help them that Vista was all the rage then-and most laptops were having trouble with it. On the other hand, OS X hasn't been static, but it hasn't been incompatible with older apps the way Windows has been.

I'll also note that I have used EVERY single version of Windows up to Win7 but with only a small amount of experience with Vista. I mean every version, starting with Version 1, which you started up with the command line (and which looked like the last runner up in a "let's look like System 2" contest). I've written programs for Windows, run security management offices to protect Windows, and been an investigator when Windows systems have been compromised. Get the Mac.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

cheaper price for equivalent hardware

Not really, if you get quality hardware, prices are comparable. The advantage of getting a Windows PC is choice -- unless you want to settle for lower quality.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

more software compatibility

Nope. This is a stereotype from 1997 or so. You have everything from Microsoft Office to Open Office to Lightroom to Photoshop. And more. Unless you are interested in very, very specialized applications (software to control your €500k electron microscope, for instance), you have at least one (typically many) Mac equivalent,

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

user interface smoothness is better in a PC

Quite the contrary, OS X (the operating systems Macs run on) has a much more coherent interface.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

(he said Macs don't have a right mouse button? i thought he was kidding but is that true?)

Of course they do! It's a two-finger click on the touch/trackpad. Once you get used to the touch trackpad, you never want to go back

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

When I asked my Mac friend, she said Macs were more for creative and artistic people, and windows was for business, casual use, and gaming, but she didnt give any specifics.

That's also from the 1998 era when Macs were a niche product. They're mainstream consumer and business products now. The only field where Windows has a clear advantage is gaming. But then, you can install Windows on your Mac and run the game there.

Originally Posted by HighInquisitorWhitemane 

Any feedback would be appreciated, mainly benefits of a macbook over a Windows Laptop, so i can have logical arguments from both points of view, thanks

It's actually quite simple: if you buy a Mac and it turns out you don't like OS X for whatever reason, you can install Windows on it. Then you have a sleek high-quality Windows laptop. That's the worst-case scenario.

The main advantage of Macs (compared to other high-quality laptops) is OS X: its slogan is `it just works.' If you buy a new printer, for instance, all you need to do most of the time is plug it in. You don't need to `create a printer' or something, within seconds, it just appears in your print dialog. It is much less noisy (you don't need 5 clicks to eject a USB stick), etc.

Other than that, you get good service that is on par with that of other high-quality manufacturers (think Lenovo, not Acer). As with any laptop, I recommend getting the extended 3-year warranty (my sister was very happy I insisted that she get the extended warranty for her HP notebook, the power brick died two weeks before she had to hand in her master's thesis; one day later, she had a new power brick).

[Waragainstsleep]

Yes. The ONLY reason to buy Windows is to save money in the short term.
Mac gives you more compatibility and vastly better build quality.
OS X is just way less annoying.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Unless you are interested in very, very specialized applications (software to control your €500k electron microscope, for instance), you have at least one (typically many) Mac equivalent,

Software to control scanning electron microscopes is readily available for OS X. Nerds love OS X.

[sek929]

I don't know of anyone who bought a Mac and regretted their purchase. Especially now with our ability to boot up Windows whenever we feel like.

I use my iMac 50/50 under OSX and Windows XP (gaming) and it excels in both fields. Plus, it's nice to give Windows a small sandbox to play in in case it catches a cold.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Software to control scanning electron microscopes is readily available for OS X. Nerds love OS X.

Dunno. I remember that the software was a bit particular: it would run only on DOS-based versions of Windows To be honest, that was about four or five years ago, so I suppose the situation has hopefully changed -- but even then, they were starting to have problems to get compatible components for the pc.