My Windows to Mac Journey and Back

[AlphaGamer46]

Hi all.

 

I thought I would share my Windows to Mac journey and back again.

 

It started at the end of 2013. Me and my dad went laptop shopping and found a nice laptop for $700AUD. I was going to save my money and get one like that.

 

At my previous school, we used 2010 MacBooks as our computers. They were going out of lease and going up for sale for people to buy.

 

My parents bought one for me for my birthday because they were so cheap ($280AUD cheap to be exact).

 

It worked fine and started to get extremely slow after about 3 months as I had accumulated about 150GB of Steam games.

 

It would be fine BUT on a laptop that has 250GB and there was 10GB free and it took like 5 minutes to turn on, I had to put a stop to it.

 

Once I finished school at the end of 2014, I stopped using it immediately. I started using an old laptop that had Vista/7 on it (can't remember).

 

At the start of last year, I bought a gaming PC, transitioning back to Windows.

 

I started using the MacBook a bit more midway through last year as I needed it for school this year (I live in Australia and we still are on holidays!) and I thought I might as well mess around with it.

 

I purchased a 120GB SSD for it to get more speed. More speed it brought.

 

I decided to conduct a teardown of it to clean the insides. Never do it unless you know what you're doing/you have the money to fix stuff-ups.

 

I damaged 2 of the 3 AirPort antenna connectors and damaged some of the pins on the display connector beyond repair.

 

My dad went halves in buying me another 2010 White MacBook A1342 (Look up that model if you want specs) and it came with 4GB RAM rather than the 2 I was running in the other machine.

 

I put my SSD in it and it ran like a beauty.

 

My comments on MacBooks and OS X.

 

The MacBook is an engineering feat and still is, 6 years after release. I love it to bits as it just slips into my backpack and I can take it anywhere. It does have some outdated hardware like a Core 2 Duo which I'm fine with (all of the computers I had before the MacBook all had like Intel Core Duos or one had an AMD Sempron single core. I know right!). The C2D does everything I need from a laptop and surprisingly quickly. However, it would have been good if Apple had still used Aluminium for this model as the polycarbonate isn't exactly the most durable.

 

My comments on OS X now.

 

I was an idiot and didn't do a backup before I upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite. Mavericks ran fine on 2GB RAM whereas Yosemite beach-balled everywhere (only Mac users will get that ). Yosemite is still a very demanding OS but I am lucky as to which MacBook I have. There were 2 versions of this model. A 2009 model at 2.26GHz and mine at 2.4GHz. The 2.26GHz model can only support 8GB of 1067MHz DDR3L RAM whereas the 2.4GHz model can support up to 16GB of RAM. It is amazing how good 6-year-old hardware is (just look at the Power Mac G5 (the RAM can be upgraded to something like 16GB on the quad 2.5GHz model)). OS X is nice and streamlined, Finder is nice and has all of the features I need and El Capitan became better on older hardware like this Mac. The only issue I have with El Capitan is the absolutely HORRENDOUS Disk Utility. I cannot stand it. I have been unable to do what I wanted on it for the past 2 times and have had to use Disk Management on Windows. Yeah, that bad. Apple, don't pull a Microsoft and change something that works absolutely perfectly.

 

Am I glad to be back on Windows? Absolutely. Gaming is so much better on Windows and my gaming PC is so expandable. I can add so many more drives than I could in a Mac Pro/Mini or an iMac.

 

Would I go back to Mac? God no. I am back on team Windows and I'm here to stay. For real this time.

 

I have been using an iPod touch 4th gen for a few years and I will be getting a Samsung tablet in the next month. Let me know if you want an iOS to Android discussion as I know iOS inside and out, at least iOS 6.

 

Thanks, Alpha.

 

(Be sure to leave your switching journeys below. It truly interests more people than you think).

 

 

[You_are_a_cunt]

Few years back my dad managed to get an iMac for free from the school he teaches at (they upgraded to some pretty hefty Windows machines and wanted to get rid of the iMacs).

My mom absolutely hated it and my dad kinda knew how to use it (should be noted that he's a wizard on Windows machines now, so it's not lack of knowledge or skills). Heck, mom still used my FIRST proper PC (Sempron 2800+ awfulness running XP) instead of it.

I never touched it at first, but then I got curious.

A couple of months after I started using it I began researching how to install Windows on it and bootcamped the hell out of it. Fast forward about a year or so, it started acting up so I figured I'd go OS X on it, at least for shits and giggles. While installing the OS wasn't too much of a pain, problems started coming up. 10-15 minute boot times, beach ballin' (hehe) for another 30-odd minutes after a fresh boot, apps disappearing and so on. The pinnacle was when the USBs stopped working alltogether. They'd provide power, but no data. That's when I said screw it, I'm going in and proceeded to tear it down. Electrically everything seemed fine and I had managed to somehow get the USBs to work (kb/mouse thingy were working at least). Two or three months later I get a call from my mom telling me it exploded. Almost literally. She was looking something up on the internet when the screen went black. She did a hard reboot (unplugged, waited 30-odd seconds and plugged it back in), and lo and behold magic smoke and a white screen literally split in half down the middle.

My thoughts: I'm so glad it was free. But I still want my money back.

Should also be noted that I tried to get a ram and storage upgrade before I decided to bootcamp and it would've cost me about as much as a mid-range Gigabyte Brix would have (no storage or memory included) that was far better spec-wise.

[LordXenu]

I just switched from windows to linux for like the 5th time in the last 15 years or so. This time I went with Arch linux, admittedly it isn't for the feint of heart, but I have gotten more done pretty much building my os from scratch as opposed to the hair pulling, teeth grinding experience with mavericks installed in a VM. It's already installed and running. I just want it so that I might test any software I write on it so I can make software for mac people.

 

What I have been seeing last 30 years of my pc life makes so much sense now. Schools have had macs thrust upon them for so many years, and we always knew it was so kids got used to them and wouldn't want windows ever. One of my hippie ass teachers in high school showed us 11th hour and marathon and was so smug about how cool gaming on a mac was. We would go home from school everyday and "marathon" doom and doom 2 for hours and hours until our parents physically pried our hands off the keyboard. Mac gaming has always sucked and it always will. What dawned on me was finally the answer to why mac operating systems are so ass backwards, it's to keep inexperienced users from switching to windows.

 

Yeah, you people think it's cool to hate on iHipsters? I've been hating on them since the 90's. What happened to Steve Jobs was karma catching up to him. Apple has never seen a dime of my money, and they never will.

[AlphaGamer46]

Heck, mom still used my FIRST proper PC (Sempron 2800+ awfulness running XP) instead of it.

 

 

 

Wow man, that sounds like my dad's PC that he used until about a few months ago. I reckon it was worse than your mum's (I think Athlon's are worse than Semprons but my dad upgraded to an Athlon 3200+ ages ago) and he had to stop using it because his anti-virus would not work on Windows XP despite it was working on an old Sempron laptop that had XP on it.

 

Never mind, he has a much better machine now running Windows 10 with 4GB RAM and a Socket 775 Pentium.

[Bsmith]

-snip-

Am I glad to be back on Windows? Absolutely. Gaming is so much better on Windows and my gaming PC is so expandable. I can add so many more drives than I could in a Mac Pro/Mini or an iMac.

 

Would I go back to Mac? God no. I am back on team Windows and I'm here to stay. For real this time.

-snip-

 

But outside of gaming? I mean from a more casual standpoint like just checking mail etc. would your choice then be the same or might a macbook be a bit more appealing then?

[AlTech]

As my computer science teacher once said. "Macs are meant to be put on a girl's desk and never to be used"

[ALwin]

So this is another "why I hate Apple/Apple sucks" rant post?

[You_are_a_cunt]

 

Wow man, that sounds like my dad's PC that he used until about a few months ago. I reckon it was worse than your mum's (I think Athlon's are worse than Semprons but my dad upgraded to an Athlon 3200+ ages ago) and he had to stop using it because his anti-virus would not work on Windows XP despite it was working on an old Sempron laptop that had XP on it.

 

Never mind, he has a much better machine now running Windows 10 with 4GB RAM and a Socket 775 Pentium.

 

I eventually bought mom a NUC and my dad's using my old wallmounted PC (FX6300, 32Gb of ram and it used to have a 770 2-way SLI but the cards were used for bitcoin mining so they eventually died, getting replaced by an R9 270)

[BOT Edward]

I got a MBA for nothing from my work place (was suspected faulty mobo by different tech), awesome for every day things.

Its perfect for my meetings and can even smash AoE 2 flawlessly. 10/10 would recommend for "Thin and Light".

[Gr0egercesg]

Bought MBP for my mum (teaming up with family) for Christmas, upgraded the ram (saves money - £65), stuck MSX on it and now it runs like a treat.

[AlphaGamer46]

But outside of gaming? I mean from a more casual standpoint like just checking mail etc. would your choice then be the same or might a macbook be a bit more appealing then?

Still, it would be no. Macs for something casual like just checking email still seems expensive for just that. My choice would pretty much be the same but if I required it for something then I would make do with it. Essentially, if I went out and bought a Mac just for email, it would be like buying a Windows Vista machine all over again.

 

The MacBook is a nice laptop, still has a fair bit of speed in it. I can probably get a few more years out of it as it is really just a machine for watching YouTube, using the internet and doing schoolwork (Office, online stuff and a bit of light video editing (I put Premiere Pro CS6 on it and haven't tested performance but will use iMovie if it runs terribly).

[AlphaGamer46]

I eventually bought mom a NUC and my dad's using my old wallmounted PC (FX6300, 32Gb of ram and it used to have a 770 2-way SLI but the cards were used for bitcoin mining so they eventually died, getting replaced by an R9 270)

Just goes to show that PCs can still be used even if they are old. You just need to be accepting that you won't have the best thing on the street and you may not be able to play GTA 5 at highest graphics settings.

[sqzit]

My first ever computer was a macbook pro. I was 13, and was trying to by my own computer, and dad said if i got a mac he would pay half of it. I didn't know at the time, but it was because he knew that gaming was shitty on a mac, and was against getting really into games. In hindsight, if got to hand it to him that it was a pretty slick move. Anyways, that was fine and I loved my macbook for a few years. However as I got more into computers and electronics, I realllyyy wanted to build my own desktop. So I sold my macbook and built a pretty decent system (a 3570k and a gtx 660ti). I loved my desktop for a few years, but then I kind of got uninterested in gaming, and focused a lot more on school. I decided I needed a laptop again, so I sold my desktop and bought a lenovo thinkpad (was not being tricked into a macbook this time  hahaha). Thats when I realized how frustrating windows is to use on a laptop. I REFUSE to cart around a mouse (or accessories of any kind) around with me when I'm using my laptop, and the lack of trackpad gestures (reallll ones. not basic shit like 'pinch to zoom' and 2 finger scroll) makes navigating around the OS feel like I'm wrestling with it, rather than the natural, smooth, gesture based navigation you can get on OS X with the trackpads apple makes. So after a while with the lenovo I decided I would try to find a laptop with a better trackpad (though ngl, the lenovo had the best laptop keyboard i have ever used). After a short period of searching I realized that there is no windows trackpad that even comes close to the macbook one. So, despite my (at the time) windows fanboy nature, I decided to buy another god damn macbook -.- literally JUST for the trackpad. So I bought a late 2013 macbook pro with a 512 gb PCIe ssd, an i7, 16gb of ram, and a 750m. Was normally priced at around 2400, but I bought it from the certified refurbished section on the apple website so i got it for 1800. Say what you will, but at the time, that was an extremely reasonable price for a laptop with a 512gb PCIe ssd (btw, 10/10 would recommend. literally no reason to ever buy a brand new apple product. their refurbished stuff has the exact same warranty). Anyway, I initially felt the buyer's remorse for paying so much money JUST for a trackpad. After time though, I began to fall in love with my macbook. Yes its true that it was barely able to play most games, but at the time if i ever did play a game it was counter strike, which can run on a toaster, so i really didn't feel the effects of having such a shitty gpu. What i DID feel however, was the speed an efficiency in just about every other task. The trackpad gestures are so good, that it is almost akin to having multiple displays. Its as close as you're ever gonna get on a laptop anyway hahaha. Then, I go to school for engineering 2 years later (currently at the end of my first year). I still use my macbook for most things, but some stuff that i need to do you just can't really do on a macbook (mostly drafting shit like solid works and NX). You can try to install windows, but then you just have a windows laptop. ew. besides, apple has the shittyest windows drivers ever, so its not even a decent windows laptop. So earlier in the school year i decided to build a budget system with some old parts i had in my house at home and some new parts. So now I've got a desktop with a i5 6400, msi b150, gtx 960, 8 gigs of ddr4, a 256g ssd (new parts) and a sketchy old case, a ballin old psu and a few TB worth of old hard drives. Oh, and a 34inch ultra wide. So anyways, long story short, I've got my desktop for CAD software, and gaming. Then my laptop for coding, math shit, reports and everything else. Im of the strong opinion that, that is the way to go, if at all possible. IMO windows is useless and a mobile OS, and on a computer with anything less than a 21 inch screen and a proper mouse. and OS X doesn't make any sense on a desktop where you're gonna have a big screen, a mouse, and unlimited battery life anyway. Theres my story from mac to windows to mac to a healthy mix of both.

[thatpurpleguy]

Switched to OSX just under a year ago. Love the OS, but I do a fair bit of academic writing and as Word on OSX seems to get a bit clunky when I use a reference manager i've taken to writing in papers and cut and pasting references manually (papers doesn't support reference managers).

 

From that aspect I regret switching, but the rest of the OS experience makes it an acceptable sacrifice. That said, I will always prefer W10 for my desktop, but idk, just really like the feel of OSX for portability.

[LordLeewee]

MacBooks are brilliant, best trackpads available and build quality second to none. i love navigating through osx, but i hate how i have a load of storage taken up by files that are completely impossible to find.

[siddharthk4498]

you know i find all this crap that you people are posting to be utterly ridiculous because i am both a mac and pc user. the macs that you are talking about are completely and utterly underpowered and not representative of macs to be very honest. you have to understand to run the things that apple intended to be used on a mac it needs to be slightly capable of it or else just do not update the thing. 

if you want to use the best of the features and whatever a company has to offer, you have to have capable hardware. 

On 1/13/2016 at 3:05 PM, AluminiumTech said:

As my computer science teacher once said. "Macs are meant to be put on a girl's desk and never to be used"

that's the most generalised little bitch comment that i have ever heard in my life. tell me something, all that matters is your damn preference, such a little bitch. 

[SilicateWielder]

Thank you for this post, if you had not made it I may have tried installing Yosemite on my sister's laptop instead of Mavericks. Shes running an Intel Celeron and 2GB memory (Yikes!)

 

How is gaming on Mac OS X? Have you noticed any performance differences? I'm considering installing OS X on my PC seeing as some people are reporting success with AMD on Mavericks. (Although That's gonna require a kernel change from what I hear)

[SilicateWielder]

On 1/13/2016 at 3:26 AM, AlphaGamer46 said:

 

 

Wow man, that sounds like my dad's PC that he used until about a few months ago. I reckon it was worse than your mum's (I think Athlon's are worse than Semprons but my dad upgraded to an Athlon 3200+ ages ago) and he had to stop using it because his anti-virus would not work on Windows XP despite it was working on an old Sempron laptop that had XP on it.

 

Never mind, he has a much better machine now running Windows 10 with 4GB RAM and a Socket 775 Pentium.

Actually Athlon's are better than Sempron's, Sempron's are typically Single or Dual-core processors running at around 1.6 GHz (I don't know the exact range) while high end Athlon processors can be Quad-cores running at up to 2.7 GHz. The Athlon 5350 handles games like Fallout 4 pretty well, I do find that GTA V has random stutters when loading in the world but nothing too major.

[AWF_Noone]

On March 3, 2016 at 8:28 PM, sqzit said:

Thats when I realized how frustrating windows is to use on a laptop. I REFUSE to cart around a mouse (or accessories of any kind) around with me when I'm using my laptop, and the lack of trackpad gestures (reallll ones. not basic shit like 'pinch to zoom' and 2 finger scroll) makes navigating around the OS feel like I'm wrestling with it, rather than the natural, smooth, gesture based navigation you can get on OS X with the trackpads apple makes. So after a while with the lenovo I decided I would try to find a laptop with a better trackpad (though ngl, the lenovo had the best laptop keyboard i have ever used). After a short period of searching I realized that there is no windows trackpad that even comes close to the macbook one. So, despite my (at the time) windows fanboy nature, I decided to buy another god damn macbook -.- literally JUST for the trackpad.

This... This is why I can't stand Windows.  I don't do much gaming, and IMO, the workflow is just so much easier to get into on a Mac.  Windows 10 brings some virtual desktops to laptops, something I'v found really useful on Mac, but I'v found it really unintuitive to invoke it.  Another one of my reasons for using Mac is that Apple products work seamlessly together and are all share some of the same services (Apple Music, iCloud...).  Not to mention Mac exclusives (MainStage 3, Logic Pro...).