<p>I thought a Mac was considered a PC since the hardware has been the same for sometime now. Back in the day Macs used to use RISC processors , now they use the CISC processors like all current PCs.</p>
<p>Also the Mac OS is Unix based so a Linux distro can replace it for some usages.</p>
<p>If you want power, Macs just don’t have a good power/price ratio. They do, however, have some of the best battery life in a 15" notebook. As you can bootcamp and Parallel/VmWare Windows, its going to come down to whether you need to spend a lot of time away from the plug or need to save some money to get more performance.</p>
<p>Consider that the purchase price is only once, so be sure you’ll be happy with what you live with for a few years afterward.</p>
<p>Resale value of a Windows laptop - minimal at best in 3 years. Resale value of a MacBook Pro in 3 years - 50% of purchase price on average. </p>
<p>Check eBay if you don’t believe me. That helps make up the price difference</p>
<p>Some of the older tablets like the Fujitsu T5010 retain about 50% of their value as well. Right now my Fujitsu T5010 is worth about $900.</p>
<p>God, VMWare, really? So you’re going to make your processor handle two OSes (one of them absolutely horrible), an emulator, and whatever you were trying to run on Windows in the first place…all at the same time?</p>
<p>I seriously don’t understand why people are willing to buy a Mac if they’re going to have to run Windows programs.</p>
<p>If you really want a Mac, then get an expensive MacBook Pro, and SET UP A WINDOWS PARTITION ON IT. Aka dual-boot Windows. If you can get away with, use Windows XP, but you might have to have Windows 7. That way, you’ll be running the aforementioned horrible OS (Windows) on a not-too-horribly spec’ced computer. It’ll be a tad bit slow and annoying, but more workable than the emulator.</p>
<p>I know a dozen people who have tried emulators and now everyone I know with a Mac has a Windows partition. It’s a bit harder to set up (and you can totally destroy your computer if you’re not being careful) but it’s just so much faster and worth it so much.</p>
<p>That said - if you ever need to run a processor-intense program (cough AutoCAD cough) just bite the bullet and get yourself a Windows computer.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t quite understand the obsession with Macs. Yes, Apple makes a good OS. They aren’t the only ones. I have Ubuntu 11.04. It’s beautiful - boots so close to instantly on my 3-year-old laptop, runs GIMP without a sweat, almost never throws a bug (and usually when it does it was my fault 
). Speed-wise, it beats out my dad’s new(!) MacBook Pro and also his SSD-equiped Dell. And when I need to use Windows, I just boot back into Windows. Simple, easy, and so much cheaper than a Mac.</p>
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<p>The Mac interface is not more intuitive, you’re just used to it. In fact, I’d argue that the Mac interface is now less simple than Windows. How do you open a program you don’t have pinned? Windows/Ubuntu I swipe to a corner of my screen and type in the first few letters of the program’s name, and the OS brings it up. Mac, well, I’ve heard that there’s a certain key combo that will bring up a program search function.</p>
<p>How do you root around in the system folders of a Mac? If I remember correctly, it requires typing “cd” and “ls” over and over again. I don’t know. I grew up with the ability to manipulate files in my filesystem, without mercy to my OS. I’ve manually removed a virus from a computer before. I’ve messed around with my drivers. I’d have much more trouble doing this on a Mac. (My dad and I tried for hours to figure out where his Outlook files were on his Mac. Still can’t find them.)</p>
<p>I’ll admit that it also bothers me how expensive Mac upgrade components are, despite the fact that I personally don’t have any upgrades. (At this point, more RAM would cost me something like 30% of the cost of my computer, and linux-swap makes it irrelevant, anyways.)</p>
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Definitely. There’s so much you can do with Linux GUIs. Heck, for a time I made my Ubuntu-side a Mac-look-alike, just to confuse people :D. It’s now back to looking like Ubuntu.</p>
<p>Also - I like that I can debug my Linux computer if anything goes wrong. (Thank you, Ubuntu boot drive). I have grown to hate my iPad because anytime anything goes wrong, I have to wait for Apple to fix it. And no, it’s not jailbroken.</p>
<p>(There’s a reason why I’m going to get myself an Android phone and not an iPhone).</p>
<p>so…tl;dr if you’re the type of person who doesn’t want a computer that you can mess with, customize, and potentially mess up, and you don’t mind the price tag, get a Mac and set up a Windows partition. If you’d rather have a customized computer that might occasionally throw a bug but is really fast and really really powerful, get a Windows computer and dual-boot Ubuntu.</p>