Still Pentaxian but...MAC or PC?

<p>Wow, I never thought this would generate that much interest. Thanks to everyone for your comments, either on my blogsite, by email, or Twitter and Facebook as well as on this Photo-Net forum. I love Photo-net because most of the members are friendly... most of the time.<br />I have learned a lot about the iMac platform from your comments. In the end, although I do like the looks and user friendliness of Apple better, I am going to stick with the PC platform and will be upgrading to the Dell Studio XPS 9100 Desktop, Intel® Core™ i7, 8GB RAM, 1T Hard Disc, nVIDIA, etc. I know Dell is not the only fish in the ocean, but their warranty is unmatched. <br /><br />Like many of you said, both platforms are now just as good for graphics and since I already have the software for PC, and I am familiar with its operation, it makes more sense to stay with the same platform. <br /><br />The $300.00 iMac I purchased to get a feel for Apple will go to my wife for emails and family photo album, all JPEG files. She's real happy about it, and it will have a place in the family room with it's good looks..<br />Again, Thank you for all your comments.<br>

And the winner is:</p><div></div>

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<p>verybody seems to keep (conveniently) forgetting that you CAN RUN WIN SW ON MACS! So all this b*** about not finding SW is worthless and in case just applies to PCs, where elegant, effective, easy to use, extremely integrated and dirt cheap sw like iPhoto and iMovie and all the iLife and iWorks suites are not available.</p>

 

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<p>Hmm, no one is forgetting, I think the fact that Mac users NEEDED to be able to run windows on Macs, while windows users have everything they need is pretty much a bad example of why a Mac is superior.</p>

<p>I'm not a fanboy, actually I owned several apple products over the years, including until 6 months ago my Studio Display which was a wide gammut 21in CRT that simply blows away most (if not all) IPS/PVA monitors on the market.</p>

<p>That said, I don't think anything on the Mac is "dirt cheap".</p>

<p>Sure Mac comes with some free stuff, so do most windows PCs. The difference is the "Free" stuff on a windows PC is FREE, while on a Mac you ARE PAYING FOR IT.</p>

<p>If a Mac cost 3X as much as an equivalent PC for the same hardware, how is anything that comes with it "Free". It's not, you just think it's free.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>On windows, as I said in previous messages, you pay later... And you forget the quality of what you buy, it has a value. The screen you mention was an example, the one of the iMac 27", or on the iPhone4 for instance, is another. You don't get that quality in a Dell, and the law of diminishing returns tells you that to get the last 10% of quality it can cost a lot more than to get to 90%.<br>

If that quality means things last longer, you save in the end. If it means you avoid losing time, you save money and aggrievation (of course it depends on how much one values his time). Anyway. As I said I own no shares, so everybody makes his own math.</p>

<p>Yvon, that appears to be a very powerful computer! And it looks to have 2 disc drawers, as my old one also has. There seems to be a trend now to just have one drawer, so to copy a disc to a blank, you have to upload the content, take the disc out, then insert a blank and download. I would rather simply copy right from disc to blank disk using 2 drawers.</p>

<p>Several years ago, I had mine upgraded to DVD burning, with a Nero system installed.</p>

<p>Heck, mine still has a floppy disk drawer as well. Never have used it. Perhaps it is of no value. </p>

<p>Seems like a lot of folks here are ignorant of the fact you can run Windows on the newer Macs.</p>

<p>And you can always run Windows on Linux PCs too. ;)<br /> Even beyond that, because many media and Hollywood houses run their entire production on Linux -- from turning desktops into night-time compute clusters down to Maya for editing during the day -- Adobe supports running PhotoShop under WINE. Why? Because it's a $1B/year business for them to support Linux, even though they don't release a native Linux version (for partnership reasons).<br /> Apple charges a lot for a PC, and there are better options for the price. If you're going to buy an Apple, run MacOS X on it. If you want the best bang-for-the-buck, buy a PC pre-installed with Windows and, optionally, Linux.</p>

<p>I just can't leave this old canard unanswered since it is repeated over and over above, ad nauseum.</p>

<p>It is true that the base price for a Mac is higher than for some base-line PC, but if you actually look at the specs of what you get for your bucks, the savings on <em>comparably equipped</em> machines is much less for the Windows boxes. Don't forget what you don't get - the Mac OS. Of course, praise has been heaped on Windows 7 to the effect</p>

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<p>It's the least worse Windows so far</p>

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<p>You get a lot for your buck, both in quantity and quality, on a iMac with a big screen. :P<</p>

<p>JDM,</p>

<p>I run windows XP which is supported till 2020 (Per microsoft), and I haven't reset my Netbook, laptop, or PC in ages. I merely hibernate or go to standby. At one time I had gone 3 months on the desktop without a reboot. My netbook goes at least 2-3 weeks, sometimes a month or two.</p>

<p>How is that for stability? I'm not quite sure what the Mac OS does that windows doesn't, but my understanding was it's amazing stability. If that is negated, please tell me specifically what makes OSX better? <br /><br /><br>

The Mac OS is a bit over rated. Do I think it's better for those without ANY computer acumen? Yes! Do i think it's gods gift to operating systems? No</p>

<p>And quite frankly being the best OS never meant superiority. The Palm webOS is universally acclaimed even by fanboys of other systems the best mobile OS on the market (even Apple's Steve Jobs noted Palms ability to produce great software), yet Palm was forced to sell itself to HP because being the best doesn't always mean you are the best.</p>

<p>The bottom line this is way overplayed. And it's merely a poor justification for spending 2-3X as much on similar (if not identical or even inferior) hardware.</p>

<p>My experience with Windows goes back to XP. May you have much happiness with it.</p>

<p>Please, the decision is made. For $1,000.00 I get to keep the same software that I am familiar with, that is CS4, Lightroom 3, Elements 9, Office 2010 , I keep my new Samsung 27" monitor P2770, my wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard. Then for the current reduced price of $899.00 I get the <a href="http://www.dell.com/us/p/studio-xps-9100/pd?oc=dxcwqu1&model_id=studio-xps-9100">Dell Studio XPS 9100</a> <br>

I ordered it with 8GB SDRAM installed and another 1000GB<a rel="technotes:hard-drive" href="http://www.dell.com/mc.ashx?id=technotes:hard-drive&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&modalwidth=400&modalHeight=150&ovropac=0&modalscroll=yes&modaltarget=div&modaltype=tooltip&position=bottom&title=Important Details&flip=false&eventType=rollover">⁴</a> SATA hard drive (7200RPM) as mirror to the first drive. All for less than the iMac 21.5 inch<br>

The question has been asnwered. PC is a better deal and equivalent machine.<br>

Thank you guys.</p>

<p>Wait, are you saying you want this thread closed? <br /><br />Done!</p>