Does anyone who's not a computer whizz use an Apple Mac?

[Dottoressa]

Our PC is on its last legs, and DH has spent the day doing research (as they do) into the best replacement. He has read lots of good things about apple macs - but a) we have no experience of them ourselves; and b) we know stuff all about computers. Someone said that you can't use Windows on Apples - but does this mean that you can't email Word documents to other people?

I fear this is a stupid question (as I said, we know nothing about PCs). I need it to do fast word processing, and DH uses MS Publisher and does various things with photos. I do regularly have to email Word documents to people.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!

yes

you can get MS Office for Macs, so you can still use Word and all the other programs (not sure about Publisher, you;d need to check if they do a Mac system). The pain is that you need to buy it separately, rather than getting it automatically on a PC.

the Mac system is much better (IMO), more stable and MUCH easier to use once you get the hang of it. Plus they are pretty . There are all sorts of good extras as well, like Front Row (home entertainment stuff) and the inbuilt camera and all sorts of other whizzy things.

I have a mac, and aren't a whizz by any means.

We do however run Windows on our mac, it is a special mac version (or something!)

I regularly mail word documents backwards and forwards and before we got the windows for mac software I just had to make sure I saved the document as a .doc file, otherwise it would be jibberish the other end.

I love my mac, in fact, this is my 2nd after several PCs. But DH is the mac user. I adice would be to visit an Apple store, they are very helpful.

I recently got a Mac,tis a wondrous thing..I love it.

I don't do much except mumsnet /shop.but dd does use word on it.

I agree that the macs are very easy to use. They seem to have designed stuff so the obvious way to do something is in fact the way to do it.

And yes, they do look damn good. But I am very shallow too.

i'm not a whizz on computers, and up until 2 years ago had only used pc's, but now use mac's instead. it took a bit of getting used to, mac's don't use windows, it is called 'operating system' instead. i have osx which isn't the latest version but works for me. once you have got your head round the different way of storing files etc, it's pretty straight forward. i have word, excel etc, and tend to use either safari or firefox for the internet. have no problem mailing .doc format, there is an option to choose which says 'send windows friendly document'

Thank you!!

This is very encouraging. I am keen on the prettiness aspect too, though DH says I'm not allowed to think about that!

You don't need the Windows operating system to run Microsoft software, including MS Office and any other MS applications.

I use a Mac and am not techy at all. You can have MS Windows on a Mac, but the Mac operating system is great - there's no reason to want Windows (unless you like viruses and trojans!)

I use MS Office for Mac on my MacBook, and open the same documents on PCs at work and on DP's Dell; there's no problem at all with this these days (in the days of yore one I remember having to do strange conversion things, but that was about a decade ago).

yes - I am a fool with matters technological, and I manage fine on our Macbook. I seem to be able to transfer everything from the Macbook to my PC at work with no difficulty. And once I'd got used to the little differences it seems easier to use a Mac than a PC.

There was a reason why DH installed windows on his mac, but I can't remember it! He does however run a networked printing business off his powerbook so that might be why. I certainly haven't installed it on my macbook.

Another thing to bear in mind is that Macs tend to be the computer of choice for those working in the publishgin/design industry. They are more expensive BUT seem to last a bit longer - my MacBook is about 2 1/2 years old now and though a bit battered still works really well. I'm not sure a Dell or HP laptop would have the same shelf life.

Although the annoying thing is that as soon as you buy a Mac they bring out another that does even more whizzy things at the same price

yes you can run Windows in a kind of virtual environment on your Mac, so you open up a window and it suddenly looks like a PC. Most disturbing. There was a reason DH did it (it might have been because he could).

Oh and you can now download a plug-in so you can use the IV version of iplayer (previously restricted to Windows users, bah). So we can watch Sherlock Holmes of an evening.

ITV not IV!

EffiePerine, that might have been why my DH did it!

Very good for music!! Itunes - downloading onto Ipods etc...

we bought ours for music and photos....

i must admit a couple of times the incompatability thing has reared its head. We must sit and wait for the whole world to go Mac!!!

I was scared of getting a mac because I was used to PCs and windows, but dh persuaded me and it is much, much, much better.

I'm not an expert but I would recommend getting the MS Office for Mac software rather than running Windows on the mac. Because the mac operating system is better, faster and easier to use than windows, so you negate the benefit of having a mac if you then run windows on it. IMO.

All very, very interesting. Thank you!

It seems that this is less scary than we feared. I think we might have to have a trip to the local Apple shop when the DCs are at school next week!

Much easier to use - using Windows at work drives me mad. Much more beautiful. Admittedly, much more expensive. I'm currently lusting after a MacbookAir so that I can Mumsnet in bed. Strangely, my DP is not that keen...

I've always had Macs.

My G4 i book just died and am not sure whether to repair or get a new MacBook...

It's about 4 years old, and needs a new hard drive.

But I've always found them fairly idiot proof

I dearly love DH's. And want one for myself. Very much.

DH has Mac, I have PC (cause it's cheap). The only difference you'll notice is that Macs are muuuuuch, muuuuuch better.

(plus they cost a bomb)

Also hardly anyone makes viruses for Macs so that's another bonus - safer for web stuff.

I am not technical at all and have a Mac (about 6 months old) we don't have windows but something called Pages which we had to buy separately. Tbh I find it a pain in the pants, especially as you seem to have to transfer documents to pdf format to be able to attach them to an email (but I could probably be doing something wrong!).