Mac vs PC

[doesmybumlookbiginthis]

I have always had a PC but am now looking to upgrade and am thinking of getting an Apple MAC.
Can anyone give me advice-good or bad. I dont want to make a mistake.

Yeah, as if Internet Explorer was the bastion of stable multi-tabbed, secure browsing.

pmsl.

Oh, and I love Microsoft's unblemished adherance to WWWC HTML coding standards. NOT.

I'm with SenoraPostrophe on this issue. And I have both a Mac and a PC.

Safari is rubbish
Macs are overpriced and expensive when they go wrong

bah

Could you elaborate what you feel are the weak elements of Safari ?

For me the plus points are that generally it is incredibly stable. I routinely have about 4 or 5 browser windows up, each with maybe 20 open pages (in tabs), each page often full of images (browsing photography sites etc.) and a crash is very very rare. That's really all I care about. There are a few sites which don't play ball, but again, it's not common. I'm on Safari more or less all day too.

just out of interest, sp, what would have been the last Apple OS you used (extensively) - it wasn't Classic was it ? 10.2.onwards have generally been fantastic.

I have a mac laptop at home, and at work use both PCs and Macs. Before I started using a Mac professionally I was led to believe that there is a huge 'cultural' gap between them and PCs, and that I would have a completely different experience with the Mac. Actually I found making the transition very painless, and I still don't see why people find them so very different to use. Especially with Windows XP having adopted a lot of the mac touches, and I also think that OSX has adopted some Windows touches. They are growing together in my experience.

Having said that, the one major difference has been the reliability. Thankfully at work we have an IT helpdesk to come and fix problems with the PCs. They won't touch Macs. That isn't a problem though, since technical problems with the macs are few and far between (unlike the PCs).

FWIW I have recently started using Safari for browsing out of preference. I have found it to be very stable IE caused me no end of frustration.

I found that various website widgets didn't work in Safari (can't remember what specifically now - I switched to Firefox ages ago)

I'm on OS X 10.3.3

we have an ibook and a pc at home and I haven't used the pc since we bought the mac to be honest! love it. it has safari and we've never had a problem with it at all. pcs and esp pc laptops seem so clunky now when I see one
love our mac

Although I'm currently using Firefox 2 because of a constraint with Google Docs & Spreadsheets I prefer Safari and had no reason to switch until the Google problem came up.

The debate about whether Macs are expensive is pointless. There are plenty of comparisons to show that on a strict equivalance basis Macs are competitively priced and at the top end - Mac Pro and Macbook Pro - are cheaper by quite a margin than their PC friends. And, of course, with all current Macs you can run Windows XP either natively or through virtualisation so can have your cake and eat it!

In the end you buy what you can afford. But I think I'd prefer a second user Mac to a cheapo budget new PC - better deal all round.

I use netscape on my mac. Didn't really get on with safari & couldn't get a new enough explorer.

We've just got another iMac - they are soooo funky. I use PCs at work & switching between the 2 doesn't bother me. It's no worse than getting a different make of mobile phone IMO.

Everything about Mac just seems much more modern & rounded & it's great not having to have a tower!

bigbum - did we all scare you off then ?

aq: close the powerbook, wait a few seconds (it will sleep), open it up... your desktop comes back pretty darn quickly, right, and it finds your Wifi network virtually instantly, right ? Now go and grab a Windows laptop and try the same. I routinely move onto different WiFi networks as I travel, and it is just so reliable. Whenever I move around with a Windows laptop it just seems to be so hit and miss whether it will lock on / ignore it / require a 'rescan' / reboot etc. I can't honestly be arsed.

When was the last time you had to do a reformat and reinstallation of OS X on your Mac because it got its nicas in a twist with a completely unstable system ? Probably never. If you've ever 'gone back to blank' it will be just because you wanted all apps etc. as they were out of the box on day one with no junk installed. I found I was trying to skirt around doing Windows reinstalls all the time when I gave up on them (some years ago now admittedly).

It's also lovely silver and smooth, but now I'm getting shallow.

omg, that was a techie response, hub! Don't use a pc laptop, have desktops at home & work, but yes powerbook v.pretty DP is major techie, runs IT businesses so quite frankly I leave all the wifi stuff to him (and reinstalling etc). Clearly I am lazy cow as neither can I be arsed to learn how to use new mobile & I reverted to filofax soon after ds was born (gave shiny, silver palm back to dp). Must be the effects of pg & childbirth...
PS am not showing this to dp as he's already trying to persuade me to ditch the PC & get a G4 (or something).

No, he'll be wanting you to get the 24 inch iMac or else the just out core 2 duo laptops or maybe the antcipated 8 core Mac Pro TOTALBEAST which is going to come out around Xmas IIRC.

btw - lol @ "tech response" - which bit couldn't you follow ? I know you like stroking its smooth silver skin LOL.

I don't think so! He'll not have any time to play with new mac beasties as baby due at christmas...
I train people on search skills, write some software tips, design a database now & again - I don't do re-installs, so yeah that's techie

I don't suppose any of your search skills training is aimed at secondary school kids ? dw is an English teacher, poss could do with worksheets etc. ?

PS - dh will find time to play with new toys despite baby, LOL. If he can stay awake that is.

Sorry, am in the tertiary sector..can't think of anything of the top of my head. Do Becta exist anymore?
DP had just bought new mobile/pda, haven't seen him for dust this week so guess you're right

No worries, aq. I don't think Becta is in existence as dw isn't sure she's heard of it.