<p>someone should make a thorough sticky about Mac vs PC… this question tends to come up a lot.</p>
<p>^And every time it’s answered completely subjectively. The PC vs. Mac debate isn’t based on anything rational. It’s completely down to individual preference.</p>
<p>I was a pc user for a long time. </p>
<p>Family bought a mac mini, first. Had a problem with the hard drive, and because it was under warranty, I was able to make an appointment with the genius bar at the local mac store, get it fixed and took it home. That day. All you have to do is find your nearest apple store online, and make an appointment. If you make an appointment at the close of one day’s business, you can often pick your time for the next day, which can make it more convenient, for you. Buy the extended warranty and get three years of computing without major worries. </p>
<p>Whereas, when I had problems with my pc, I would be on the phone for hours with a tech support agent in India. After enough of those phone calls and aggravation, taking apart the tower, reseating the cables, blah blah blah, I decided to go with something a bit more user friendly.</p>
<p>Since that point our family has gone all mac. My kids in college have their own, and the minor issues they have had have been much less frustrating than the issues we used to have on our pcs.</p>
<p>The price tag is more. True. </p>
<p>It’s all subjective. From a consumer standpoint, I prefer the mac, based on the reliability factors. You may prefer a pc.</p>
<p>This is an example of a point I said earlier. If your Dell or HP breaks, you will be out of a laptop for a couple of weeks while it is shipped off to India to be repaired. If your Mac breaks, you bring it to an Apple store, and are out a laptop for a day or two.</p>
<p>Skybax,</p>
<p>They even honored my warranty for that same mac mini after it expired after 3 years - because it was less then 2 weeks after the warranty expired.</p>
<p>My niece had a broken backlight in her mac. They fixed it, good as new and she was back at work on it a couple of days later. She still made her deadline for her paper, too.</p>
<p>Macs aren’t without glitches. They are just way easier to get fixed than their PC counterparts, IMO.</p>
<p>Personally I like the Macbooks more, but I can’t justify spending $1000 more just yet on one.</p>
<p>Mac’s are easier to get fixed because of apple’s retail channels which is comprised of apple stores across the country. Many PC manufacturer’s go through a retailer such as best buy, etc and handle most of their repairs at centralized depots that’s why it usually takes longer to get PC’s fixed. </p>
<p>However, many PC manufacturer’s also offer on-site repair warranty upgrades which often provide the same level of service as apple if not better. Those extra warranties cost about the same as apple care which is $249. So in reality, it’s probably not that much harder to get a PC fixed compared to a mac. You can look at it as Mac customers having to pay a premium for the extra warranty services or PC customers being too cheap to pony up for these services. Either way it’s two sides of the same coin.</p>
<p>having worked on broken Macs and PCs, Macs are definitely a PITA to work with. I’m specifically referring to the hardware side of things. The one exception might be the MacPro, but the iMac, Mac Mini, and to some extent even MacBooks, are just so troublesome to get into. i kno at my job, when an iMac has a damaged part, they bring in an outside hardware tech to work on it (not because the hardware tech we have can’t do it, he certainly can) because it takes so long to open up and then close up and test.</p>
<p>On the software side, I suppose it depends on how much experience you have on working with the Mac OS. I know how to diagnose most Windows problems pretty quickly because it’s the OS I’m most comfortable with and the one I’ve been using for 10 yrs. Granted I only have 4 years experience with Macs, but I personally find software issues on a Mac even more troublesome. Why? Generally, not many students bring in Macs to fix, most of the problems are on Windows machines. But those times students bring in Macs the problems are much harder to fix than on a Windows machine. In other words, in my experience, when someone has a problem with a Mac it’s a serious problem (not just some virus cleanup on a Windows machine, etc.). This is sort of like when the department I work in gets calls from within IT (I work in IT), it’s usually a much more serious problem.</p>
<p>That’s just my experience with Macs from the tech’s perspective. As a consumer, I can see why it seems like Macs are easier to fix since all it takes is just an appointment. but as it has already been mentioned, many PC manufacturers offer the same service on-site. That’s the kind of service I used to get from Dell. I’d call in on say Monday and the tech would be at my house Wednesday.</p>
<p>BP,</p>
<p>That is lucky for you. I had major issues with my Dell and “in home service” that I paid a premium for. Unfortunately, I never had anyone come to my home to actually service my computer, although I did have to send it in 3 times for replacements - bundle it up, ship it off and wait. That would be my old desktop, so it was a huge pain to ship.</p>
<p>Then a new one would arrive, I would reinstall all my software. My drivers for my printers. I would reload the documents that I saved from my hard drive to disk if I was lucky enough to have backed it up.</p>
<p>Then I would start computing. This was never a fast process, nor was it painless. I can’t tell you how much data I lost, such as my Quicken software - which is where I used to reconcile my bank statements and keep my register. </p>
<p>I lost data, files would be corrupted and eventually it was the biggest paperweight I owned. </p>
<p>When I have had mac issues which I have had repaired only at Apple stores by their techies, I have been lucky enough to be back in the computing business far quicker.</p>
<p>It really is a matter of what you feel most comfortable with.</p>
<p>I have bought warranties at Best Buy and they always seem to send things out for servicing (camcorders and ipods). Weeks later, we have gotten them back, not always fixed correctly. That camcorder went in 4 times, the ipod 3 times. </p>
<p>For me, I need my computer on a daily basis, and I need it to be reliable. I have not had good luck with pcs, nor with extended warranties, for the most part (cars, and small electronics, computers and appliances.) Things aren’t always “honored” as part of the repair - it seems. But with applecare, I have had good luck with several items, and they have helped in a speedy manner which is essential for my job, and reliably repaired the problem. Not so with others. </p>
<p>Viruses aren’t nearly the issue on macs that they were on my old PC, either. I would run a couple of different virus detection and spyware problems. Still, my hard drive crashed with a particularly bad one back in 2005. Viruses aren’t as prevalent a problem for macs - yet. </p>
<p>If you are a techie, you also have the added bonus of knowing how to fix some of these problems. I don’t! I would never buy another PC, because even though I learned quite a a bit about how to troubleshoot a computer, I still had problems. Repeatedly. This made my computer not exactly reliable. </p>
<p>Ironically, my old computer repair guy - a young college student is the one that told me it was time to move to a mac. He was making a ton of money from me, yet he said that they were just more reliable.</p>
<p>We all have to make the choices about what serves us best. My computing needs are more than adequately served by mac. They weren’t by pc.</p>
<p>that college student gave you good advice. i tend to give the same advice after gauging what a person is looking for when they want a new computer and how much they know about computers. it’s why i moved my sisters to a Mac. I got so fed up fixing their computers constantly, plus it was getting old (6yr old dell). I just got my aunt to get a Mac recently too. And almost had my uncle get one as well (it was too expensive for him though). Even though there’s money to be made in fixing computers, it can be bothersome to do so sometimes. Since coming home for the break, I’ve had about 5 people ask me questions or fix computer problems for them. I wish they had Macs. I would just tell them to call Apple. Time is too precious to be spending that time fixing computers (not that I don’t need the money, I do, but I much prefer to relax a bit when I’m on break). Macs are simple. And sometimes people need simple.</p>
<p>If I understand it correctly, gaming is much easier on a pc. Software is much more limited on macs and more expensive. </p>
<p>I think people should look at what their needs are when buying a computer. For me, I wanted word processing, powerpoint, digital imaging and music. That’s what I needed. The reliability makes my computing easy.</p>
<p>If I were interested in video gaming, pcs would be the way to go.</p>
<p>Many games are compatible with Macs nowadays, unless one wants to play some old legacy game, which case windows might be required.</p>
<p>Also, you can run Windows on a Mac, thus play games for both Mac and Windows on trhe same computer.</p>
<p>In the past, Apple zealots claimed superiority on two factors: hardware and software. They asserted that PPC was better than x86 and that OS X was better than Windows.</p>
<p>Now, Macs use x86 (64) processors. Now, the only difference is OS X. A Mac is simply a PC that runs OS X as a supported operating system.</p>
<p>
Yeah, but then you have to buy a copy of windows.</p>
<p>Anyways, I believe Topher06 [put</a> it best](<a href=“http://digg.com/tech_news/Macvs_PC_Is_it_a_tax_if_users_happily_pay_a_premium?t=22179490#c22184675]put”>http://digg.com/tech_news/Macvs_PC_Is_it_a_tax_if_users_happily_pay_a_premium?t=22179490#c22184675) with respect to macbooks:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is entirely a matter of personal preference. Some people, like me, simply cannot stand the Windows operating system. Others dislike OSX (though Microsoft seems to be finding more and more ways to make themselves similar to OSX).</p>
<p>Jaime: “Yeah, but then you have to buy a copy of windows.”</p>
<p>Yeah, but let’s see you run OSX on a PC completely legally.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but let’s see you run OSX on a PC completely legally.”</p>
<p>Assuming I wanted to do so, why should I care about the legality of it?</p>
<p>You said I had to factor in the cost of a Windows operating system, but if we are not going the legal route then I guess your point is invalid.</p>
<p>Touche, fellow CC’er. I concede the point.</p>
<p>Until we meet again my friend…</p>