Apple Macs Are Cheaper Than Windows PCs - Really?

[MrSuperb]

Do we have an Apple fan here? Just asking.

 

you see my signature, don't you?

[Geekazoid]

I can't say that there haven't looked at the latest iMac (http://www.apple.com/au/imac/) and thought "Ohhh! That'd look great on my desk". I do own a 2012 MacBook Air and I do love the fluidity of OS X, but is that enough for me to buy one over a better value build that I could do myself for much less? Hmm, well there have been times that I would've said "absolutely" but now common senses kicks in and saids "You can get better value by building your own system". You can't ignore common sense. It's kind of like a kitten biting at your ankles wanting you to play fetch (yes, I did say kitten and, yes, she does fetch, weird kitten I know). You can't help but give in to it because it just makes sense.

You know what though, and I have said this in a status update before, if Sony Vegas Pro was natively supported on OS X without using a VM or dual booting Windows via boot camp I'd jump ship and buy that iMac. I know, crazy right? Well that's me for ya.i know it kinda contradicts most of what I just said in the first paragraph but it's most definitely true.

[Toxic Tom]

Okay so now apparently you have to pay for antivirus? This is news to me...

[Samdb]

Before I start I would like to say that I am not an Apple hater, I actually think that they make beautiful machines and that the Macbooks are actually the best laptops you can buy. Not you mention that the new Mac Pro is actually worth considering if you need a workstation.

 

1. Most of Apple's computers run on SSD's whereas an awful lot of Windows machines run of HDD's, my PC boots up in roughly 7-8 seconds and I don't even have the highest end hardware.

2. Fair enough. Windows is pretty overpriced.

3. If you really needed the software to be as good as possible, you would pay for it, an awful lot of people just use browsers.

4. Wot. Hardware is hardware; Windows PC and Macs both use the same hardware it's dependent on your PSU to do this, not to mention he is comparing mobile parts to desktop parts. Again, wot.

5. You don't need to purchase antivirus software as there are many free alternatives that are actually better than most paid. MSE isn't great but pair it with Malwarebytes and you have yourself a fortress of a PC.

6. I've been into the Bentley offices where the depend on computers to literally do everything, every PC they have is packing a Xeon E5-2687W, you won't find that on a Mac. The funniest part is that they still struggle.

7. Apple discontinues their OS for their PC's when they are about 7 years old. There are still PC's using XP even though it is a dead platform, actually most EPOS use XP.

8. The hardware is worth exactly the same, you are paying for the little Apple logo on the back.

9. Refer to the second sentence of number 7.

10. It isn't hard to fix your PC (

). But hats off the Apple, if you have one of their newer machines and something goes wrong, they will most likely just replace the entire thing.

11. Again, wot. PC and Mac software is almost identical and the developers provide for both OS's and the only reason that Mac apps are made by "Mac people" is that you need a Mac the develop programs for Mac, which is genius on Apple's behalf. 

12. Whoever wants to take their business seriously has a server that is running some distro of Linux with everything in a VM.

 

I don't mean to be rude, but this guy is an idiot, Mac has it's advantages of PC but these are almost none of them. If you really are thinking about buying a Mac however are unsure, Hackintosh your PC, if you like it and want a more stable and compatible system, buy a Mac, they aren't that overpriced these days.

 

Edit:

I just found this, not even surprised.

[Geekazoid]

Just something that I thought that I would share with you all.

In 2012 I was thinking about getting an iMac and was studying IT at the time. I was going to get the entry level iMac which would've sufficed for my needs. Then that same year Apple had come out with the iPad 4 and my mother was constantly commenting on how great her iPad 2 was that year and said how much she used it. Long story short, I ended up buying an iPad 4 which coincidently took a large chunk of the cash that I was saving for the iMac. To this day I'm glad I made the decision, with help from my mother, to buy the iPad 4 because I think I would've regretted buying the iMac. My mum was my saving grace with nagging me because I wouldn't be typing up this post on an iPad 4 right now if she hadn't done so. I have used this iPad so much since buying it and it was worth every cent that it cost to get it.

[soup]

Not quite sure what you mean by "jest". I'm assuming that this is a typo, yes?

 

 

 

Not a typo.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jest

[Geekazoid]

Not a typo.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jest

I see :blush:. My bad.

[Geekazoid]

.Edit:

I just found this, not even surprised.

 

That explains everything!

[Geekazoid]

you see my signature, don't you?

Yes, I was just messin' with ya, mate!

[Mooshi]

Not quite sure what you mean by "jest". I'm assuming that this is a typo, yes?

I think any Windows wouldn't deny that they've had their own fair share of headaches, even I have.

And what truth would this be exactly? Sorry, I'm probably a bit slow.

Well a lot of them can be annoying. But there are some people who use both a Mac PC and a Windows PC.

So, do you use Linux do you? Just curious.

 

Joking/kidding/messing around.

 

The fabled flawless Windows 7 has annoyed me its fair share of times. :V

 

By truth, I mean the counter arguments I've made, the ones that were more serious and less taking a jab at Apple and hipsters I suppose.

 

TBH, I actually have nothing against Macs at all and even find OS X to be pretty, but like Windows, I'm not one to quickly nod my head when someone tells me how great something is. There are pros and cons to both.

 

Every so often I mess with Linux mint as I find that to be the most user friendly distro of Linux - I use Mint and Win7.

[lufihengr]

This is why I got my MBP

[Guest]

Reasons why Windows is better than OS X.

 

1. You can upgrade your PC if you want.

    You can have a lot more hardware in a PC than in a Mac.

2. You don't need to buy an antivirus.

3. How do you ever want to play games on a Mac?

[DavidTheWin]

One nice contradiction I found:

 

that identical hardware running Mac OS X vs Windows Vista (that's all that was available at the time - don't kid yourself that windows 7 or 8 will be much better) was at the very least twice as fast and up to almost 6 times faster. 

 

in order to shoehorn such advanced technology into a machine without making design sacrifices, Apple uses full specification mobile parts. 

 

Apart from the fact that trying to use mobile hardware in a desktop is nothing to be proud of, what does it matter if Mac OS X is 6 (yeah right) times faster than Windows on the identical hardware if you never have the identical hardware because you run Windows on desktop grade hardware and Mac on mobile grade hardware?

[Blade of Grass]

1) yeah, only that most Macs with HDD are faster than Windows PCs with SSDs

4) OS X has far better power management than Windows. Don't believe it? Look up some Macbook review with batterie runtimes for OS X and Windows for a start.

5) You probably would call Fort Knox an easy target ... There is a reason why there are no viruses for OS X (and no it isn't the lack of potential targets)

6) Have you tried to work on a windows pc, while rendering on all cores?

12) If a company still has "so many Dell boxes still running Windows XP" the CTO should look for an alternative career ...

1) define faster? Starts faster? Opens applications faster? Performs better?

5) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/mar/20/browser-economics

Conversely, the Mac is easy to hack not just because it's relatively easy to find security holes in Safari but because they are so easy to exploit. Miller says:

The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don't do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don't have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you'd find in Windows.

It's more about the operating system than the (target) program. Firefox on Mac is pretty easy too. The underlying OS doesn't have anti-exploit stuff built into it.

6) yes I have, all this tells me is that my rendering tasks has a higher priority level over doing other stuff.

Have you ever tried using a MacBook pro while bouncing all the tracks in logic? It's pretty similar to what happens on Windows.

12) not really, the school board of my city (TDSB, largest in Canada) still uses dell's w/ Windows XP. Computers are expensive, and considering the TDSB has hundreds of thousands, upgrading takes time and money.

Have you ever worked in an enterprise environment?

[Geekazoid]

One nice contradiction I found:

Apart from the fact that trying to use mobile hardware in a desktop is nothing to be proud of, what does it matter if Mac OS X is 6 (yeah right) times faster than Windows on the identical hardware if you never have the identical hardware because you run Windows on desktop grade hardware and Mac on mobile grade hardware?

Very true. Whilst trying to prove that Macs were better than Windows PCs he inadvertently contradicted himself. Haha

[DavidTheWin]

Very true. Whilst trying to prove that Macs were better than Windows PCs he inadvertently contradicted himself. Haha

 

I suppose technically it isn't a contradiction, just that he made one of his own points invalid. A contradiction would be if he said the exact opposite.

[Geekazoid]

I suppose technically it isn't a contradiction, just that he made one of his own points invalid. A contradiction would be if he said the exact opposite.

Hmm okay.

EDIT: Dang it! My post sounds as though I can't speak proper english. Would you mind adding the "ed" on the end of contradict please and I'll edit my post. Thanks.

[DavidTheWin]

1) define faster? Starts faster? Opens applications faster? Performs better?

 

I get the feeling that statistic is pulled out of his arse. There's no way that even on a 10,000 RPM drive with at best 200mb/s read speed, Mac OSX is faster than Windows on a 500MB/s read SSD, as well as the fact that literally any SSD will do that, but you have to pay top dollar for a 10,000RPM hard drive.

[Geekazoid]

I get the feeling that statistic is pulled out of his arse. There's no way that even on a 10,000 RPM drive with at best 200mb/s read speed, Mac OSX is faster than Windows on a 500MB/s read SSD, as well as the fact that literally any SSD will do that, but you have to pay top dollar for a 10,000RPM hard drive.

I think some people can really make themselves look like an idiot (to say the least) if they don't do enough research before they write an article like he did.

[FireFox]

*affect

 

On topic:

I guess from a biased apple fanboy point of view, he's right.

Otherwise most of them are BS.

 

'5) No antivirus purchase needed:'

 

LOL, Who really buys it.

[Guest]

These are reasons why apple is better, not why it is cheaper. I don't need to even tell that you can get  Windows legally for free these days with OEM machines. There is even a second way to get a free key code. Most of users in this world use windows, and if you need a reinstall, you download a pirated copy, but extract the key code from the same machine you want to install your new windows on, and you have it for free.... I don't even need to say how upgrading with Macs is a pain in the ass, and if you build a Hackintosh, oh, i remember, ITS ILLEGAL, I will just download a nice theme pack and stick to the Windows and the mighty PC....

[MrSuperb]

5) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/mar/20/browser-economics

12) not really, the school board of my city (TDSB, largest in Canada) still uses dell's w/ Windows XP. Computers are expensive, and considering the TDSB has hundreds of thousands, upgrading takes time and money.

Have you ever worked in an enterprise environment?

 

5) First, this was 2009 and Charlie Miller still recommended OS X over Windows

Second, let's read what the 2014 winner has to say:

“For Apple, the OS is regarded as very safe and has a very good security architecture,” Chen said. “Even if you have a vulnerability, it’s very difficult to exploit. Today we demonstrated that with some advanced technology, the system is still able to be pwned. But in general, the security in OS X is higher than other operating systems.”

Still, this is no virus and nothing a anti virus program could do about ...

 

12) yes, multiple large and smaller corporations.

[LAwLz]

Nope it is not true.

You just have to skim through it to see that it's all bullshit.

[Ertman]

steaming pile of crap. the whole "os x is more sucure" only less then 8% of people have a mac, so why make a mac virus, make a virus that could effect 92% of the internets...

 

plus OS X is confusing as crap and it inefficient (im a os x hater look below)

First part true.

Second part says a lot about you.

[Geekazoid]

PLEASE NOTE: I would appreciate it if you were to not start any debates that could become heated. I believe we can all voice our opinions without starting a fight of any kind. If a heated debate starts to erupt I will have no other choice then to request that this thread be locked. I know you all can discuss the article that I've posted in a mature manner without such a debate starting.