Apple Macs Are Cheaper Than Windows PCs - Really?

[toms94z71]

So far in life I have used, windows 8, 7 vista, xp, millennium edition (cringe), 98, 95, 3.1, and dos 6, Linux ubuntu 14.04, Mac OS X,  OS 8.5 and  OS 9. None of them where all that hard to use to me. Windows seems the simplest to me out of all them, but none of them were difficult to  me to use at all. Performance came down to what machine it was on, and windows has the best software compatibility out of all them. I prefer windows, then linux then mac osx, but if some one gave me something running osx i would still use it.

[-iSynthesis]

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)

I hate windows. It sucks. I hate apple aswell, but i have to give them 2 things. 

1st- The new mac pro is quite bad ass for the price

2nd- osx is better than windows, doesnt support quite enough games that im going to do a hackintosh though. I may do it for editing though

[Guest]

1. The design? Each to their own. The specs? Any decent highend WS could match that.

2. You can still dualboot. Use windows when gaming.

[Guest]

Hackintoshing isn't illegal you need to buy a mac to create a bootable OSX drive which means you are still paying Apple. (also have you ever heard of the police showing up at anybodys house because they use a hackintosh?)

Police doesn't come to your house, and yes you do pay apple but you are using their OS with hardware that is not meant to be used with it, why do you think it's called "HACK"intosh?

[LAwLz]

2nd- osx is better than windows, doesnt support quite enough games that im going to do a hackintosh though. I may do it for editing though

Please explain how OS X is better than Windows.

[theelitegamer]

 For one of the tests the guy was testing Windows Vista against Mac OS X Lion

He went with one of the worst OS windows ever made? Like BIll Gates even hate it, and he built the dam thing.

[Yummychickenblue]

Police doesn't come to your house, and yes you do pay apple but you are using their OS with hardware that is not meant to be used with it, why do you think it's called "HACK"intosh?

But not all hackers are bad and you are still throwing your money at Apple just only for the OS and not the machine itself the "HACK" just means that it is hardware that apple hadn't originally intended their OS to be used on, not that it's illegal.

[-iSynthesis]

Please explain how OS X is better than Windows.

Less laggy, no annoying start screen, its not from microsoft, no annoying sounds that you have with win8 and stuff like that. Also, windows fucks up the registry so you have to use programms like ccleaner once in a while

[Fred Castellum]

Less laggy, no annoying start screen, its not from microsoft, no annoying sounds that you have with win8 and stuff like that. Also, windows fucks up the registry so you have to use programms like ccleaner once in a while

I think you meant you prefer OS X... so in your opinion its better than windows. You kinda looked like you made a straight up statement in your last post.... 

 

Less laggy? Not very easy to compare on that basis because of hardware differences. Start screen personally doesn't bother me. It's not from microsoft? That's like a straight up bias against anything microsoft makes then isn't it? 

 

OS X isn't immune to having its preferences file corrupted, though it is a easy fix if it does. Windows registry getting messed up isn't a hard fix either to be honest... plus ccleaner doesn't just do registry stuff, its great for cleaning just about everything temp on your PC. 

[Geekazoid]

Less laggy, no annoying start screen, its not from microsoft, no annoying sounds that you have with win8 and stuff like that. Also, windows stuffs up the registry so you have to use programms like ccleaner once in a while

Oh damn! You make me wanna get a Mac now. Windows sounds like it really sucks . (joking).

BTW my posts have an in-built swear word filter for the F-bomb and S-bomb and quoted posts with profanity have the profane words swapped for cleaner words. It just happens, I can't change it. Some settings thing.

[LAwLz]

Less laggy

What does that even mean? You mean the animations in the OS runs at a higher FPS and or drops less frames? Windows doesn't even have that many animations. Most things are instant.

Please elaborate what you mean and give some examples.

 

 

no annoying start screen

Neither does Windows 7

 

 

its not from microsoft

Wow... That argument surely isn't biased at all. Do you want me to list "it's from Apple" as a reason why OS X is bad?

 

 

no annoying sounds that you have with win8 and stuff like that

what annoying sounds? Please stop with the vague crap and be more specific so I can tell you how you're wrong.

 

 

Also, windows fucks up the registry so you have to use programms like ccleaner once in a while

Nope, Windows do not fuck up the registry. Users fuck up the registry. I haven't had to touch my registry for several years now. I don't even use programs like CCleaner because a lot of the time they do more harm than good.

Can you please explain how the registry gets fucked up in more detail?

[Tr3vor]

*Insert pretentious comment here about how everyone is discussing which is better for them and I have both. Whoopty fuckin doo.*

[Geekazoid]

*Insert pretentious comment here about how everyone is discussing which is better for them and I have both. Whoopty puckin doo.*

Yes, well I have both as well. I like OS X for different reasons and Windows for different reasons. Each have their own pros and cons. And yes, this fence is quite comfortable to sit on.

[-iSynthesis]

Nope, Windows do not fuck up the registry. Users fuck up the registry. I haven't had to touch my registry for several years now. I don't even use programs like CCleaner because a lot of the time they do more harm than good.

Can you please explain how the registry gets fucked up in more detail?

I just installed arma 3 and got about 12 directX and DLL problems. 

[-iSynthesis]

Wow... That argument surely isn't biased at all. Do you want me to list "it's from Apple" as a reason why OS X is bad?

I never said it wasnt biased . I generally dont like microsoft and what they're doing. For example, Xbox, how they tried to integrate Xbox live into windows with games like Dirt 2 and stuff like that

[Fred Castellum]

what annoying sounds? Please stop with the vague crap and be more specific so I can tell you how you're wrong.

 Haha I laughed reading that.

 

I just installed arma 3 and got about 12 directX and DLL problems.

Right so its window's fault right? That's still very vague... how do we know it was a user based problem? Poor overall system maintenance that causes software conflicts?

[Fred Castellum]

I never said it wasnt biased . I generally dont like microsoft and what they're doing. For example, Xbox, how they tried to integrate Xbox live into windows with games like Dirt 2 and stuff like that

That's because their marketing department thinks all the moneys where the consoles are at... god that port was seriously bad though...

[-iSynthesis]

What does that even mean? You mean the animations in the OS runs at a higher FPS and or drops less frames? Windows doesn't even have that many animations. Most things are instant.

Please elaborate what you mean and give some examples.

Sorry, didnt explain that very clearly. I mean things like programms crashing and stuff like that, my father is lawyer and wrote some pages long document then word crashed and it was gone. 

[Geekazoid]

Nope, Windows do not f**k up the registry. Users f**k up the registry. I haven't had to touch my registry for several years now. I don't even use programs like CCleaner because a lot of the time they do more harm than good.

Can you please explain how the registry gets f**ked up in more detail?

Wow! Could you have anymore funks (change the "n") in that post?

[LAwLz]

1) Mac OS X is faster than Microsoft Windows.

I've proven this myself. I've tested (and I have been a PC tester professionally for Electronic Arts) 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. You may be getting "more memory" and/or a "faster processor", but you need it for the slower operating system. At the end of the day the most important thing is simply how fast the computer runs and the most significant factor which influences machines performance is software, not hardware. Price to performance, I've done the testing and the calculations, Mac is cheaper.

There is no proof of this anywhere in the article. He just says "it's faster and you should trust me". He doesn't specify the hardware or software he used so it is impossible to validate if what he says is true or false.

Sadly I don't have that many up to date tests with OS X vs Windows but here are a few tests (by the way, Windows wins in all of them):

DAW workloads (please note that there are several pages of benchmarks)

Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop tests (please ignore the first test, it is comparing Excel vs Numbers)

Speed Testing Windows 8 and OS X Mountain Lion (please note that one of the tests OS X wins in is Safari vs Internet Explorer, when they use the same browser on both systems Windows wins)

Old Cinebench, iTunes encoding, COD benchmarks from 2009 (not that relevant anymore)

 

 

2) Cost of Operating System upgrades:

Have you ever bought a Windows upgrade? They're expensive! I mean, really expensive! At time of writing it ranges for 75$ for the Home Premium to 125$ for the Ultimate version. Mac OS X Lion costs just 30$ (prices in US$). That's 100$ less for the Mac Operating system (Lion is equivalent to the Ultimate version of Windows). Windows upgrades are so expensive that a common practice among PC users is to not pay to upgrade windows but instead buy a new computer with the newer version of windows pre-installed. And Windows users think they are saving money over an Apple Mac? Preposterous.

First of all, Lion is not equivalent to the Ultimate edition of Windows. I have no idea where he even got that idea from. Actually that's a lie, I know why he thinks that, because that makes his comparison favor OS X more.

What you have to remember is that 1) OS X updates are more like service packs. Do I have to remember everyone about "no new features" (and people applauded that)? They aren't usually dramatic changes to the OS. It's more like what Microsoft did with Windows 8 to 8.1. Some minor tweaks. How much did Microsoft charge for that? Oh right, 0 dollars.

 

 

3) Out of the box useful thanks to quality included Software:

A new Mac comes essential software for our digital lives. iPhoto and iMovie are so good it's ridiculous. There is nothing of a similar quality on a PC (no Picassa doesn't cut it and neither does Windows Movie Maker). Of course you can come close, if you pay.

There are a bunch of good and free programs for Windows. If you really value "out of the box" (aka, I am too lazy to download a program) then yes, OS X might be better in that regard. Personally, I don't care about the OOBE. iPhoto and iMovie sucks balls by the way. They don't even come close to being as good as the "if you pay" programs he is referring to at the end.

 

 

4) Lower power consumption:

That famous all in one/minimalist design of Apple products has an additional benefit. In order to shoehorn such advanced technology into a machine without making design sacrifices, Apple uses full specification mobile parts. These part generally use less power than a PC "tower". Because they use less power that means you save money on electricity.

This is just not true. If you compare some random off the shelf desktop PC vs the iMac then it might be true, but there is nothing magical in a Mac that makes it use less power. It still uses the same parts as you can get for a custom built PC.

 

 

5) No antivirus purchase needed:

On a Mac you don't need antivirus software. The reason is simple, Mac OS X is pretty damn secure, not perfect but why would you bother to make a virus for something as secure as Mac OS X when Windows is less secure and far more people use it? If you were creating a virus would you go for the easier system with 9 times the amount of potential victims. You bet you would! You'd be stupid not to.

OS X is not "pretty damn secure". It is what is called "security through obscurity". The question isn't "why bother make a virus for something as secure as OS X", the question is "why bother make a virus for something as insignificant as OS X".

OS X is (or at least was ~2-3 years ago) absolutely awful security wise. QuickTime is notorious for having more holes than a Swiss cheese. OS X was really slow at implementing ASLR (not sure if they have even implemented it yet), much slower than Microsoft to implement it. What did they do when they were informed about a security hole in their sandboxing? Ignore it... The built in encryption was leaking administrator passwords. It's not like getting the admin password has been hard on OS X either. Safari isn't really secure either. At least they are quick with patching stolen SSL certificates? Nope! OS X users were vulnerable for almost 2 weeks and iOS users for even longer.

By the way, noticed how I have not mentioned any of the countless security issues iOS have had? I am trying to keep this as much PC vs Mac as possible. My point is, Apple is not know for being secure. They are actually pretty awful in that regard.

This is before we get into all the countless widespread malware infections that have occurred.

Even if that was true, you don't need to buy anti-virus software for Windows. Microsoft Security Essentials is good enough and it's free.

 

 

6) Productivity (time is Money):

If you have a job then you exchange your time (your life) for Money. I bet you are always interested in getting a raise, you think your worth more, right? So why do you pay yourself so little at home by throwing away time thanks to a poorly designed operating system? Mac OS X is fantastic at saving you time. You don't have to scan for viruses, you don't have to clean the registry and there are a vast number of way the Mac OS helps you do things quickly and easily, like sharing a bunch of photos straight Facebook with face already tagged in only a couple of clicks or an email using a great looking html template with even having to find the files on the disk. You save time therefore you save money.

Yeah, because not having to scan for viruses saves so much time. It saves a whole 5 seconds every month or so. You don't have to clean your registry in Windows either.

I think it's funny how he talks about being productive and then says "sharing a bunch of photos straight to Facebook". Yes! I have always wanted to be more productive by sharing photos to Facebook! It's nice to see that he understands what most people use Macs for though, as overpriced Facebook machines.

This is pure bullshit. It's completely subjective. OS X does not inherently make you more productive. Using what you are used to makes you more productive. In his case that is OS X, but in my case it is Windows, and for someone else it might be a GNU/Linux distro.

 

 

7) Longer lasting:

Mac OS X is slick. It's not as bloated as Windows and Windows continues to get even more bloated over time. Windows has a "registry" which records the essential information about the files each program needs to function (as well as important system information). The longer you use windows, the bigger the registry gets and slower windows becomes. Both Linux and Mac OS X are better because they do things differently. For that reason Macs are perform better longer. Mac users have been statistically shown to purchase new hardware less frequently because their current hardware still performs well and looks good. It's a classic proven cost saving.

This part is wrong and shows how little knowledge he has. Yes, the registry gets bigger over time. No, it does not become slower because it becomes bigger, it actually becomes faster over time.

I wonder if he realizes what the registry is. It is a collection of settings. OS X and GNU/Linux has similar settings as well, but they are spread out all over the disk instead of collected in a single database. Now why would you want to store settings in a database like that? Because you can write binary directly to it. Settings saved in various other formats has to be converted both when read and written, which reduces performance. It's faster for a computer to go to a few hundred locations in a single database and read binary data, than it is to fetch a few hundred separate files which all have to be converted before read.

A registry is also easier to backup and restore, and is more uniformed because it all uses standard APIs (instead of having each program write settings in their own way)

You don't have to use the registry for your program either by the way. You can decide to save your settings in .ini files if you want, which would be similar to how Linux and OS X handles things. It's up to the developer.

I kind of got derailed a bit. My point is, most people who hate on the registry (like this Andrew guy) has no idea why it's there and what benefits it has. That it's slow is a very common misconception as well. It's FASTER than the alternatives, and it doesn't become slow when it gets big.

The whole "OS X is longer lasting" argument is bullshit based on misinformation. His wording is so vague it's hard to even debunk his claims.

 

 

8) Resale value:

Ever wanted to sell an old PC? It's hardly worth the bother. Macs on the other hand can still command a reasonable price after a number of years. Given that the amount you end up paying for a product is the purchase price minus the sale price. Don't believe me? look up Ebay, you'll find people will even buy 20 year old Macs for a good few bucks just for the case!

Nope I have actually never sold an old PC. I upgrade them in steps and sell individual parts. I will agree that second hand Macs do retain their value very well though. I have no idea why but they do.

 

 

9) Low maintenance:

OS X's lower maintenance means less utility programs are needed. Macs OS X is well built, slick and reliable. Although there are many techies who don't care about this because they can fix things themselves (and often actually enjoy their computers more when they're in pieces), the Mums, Dads and less technical siblings may not be so lucky. Worse , they often accept the recommendation of their "I.T." friend who loves windows because he/she enjoys the configuration needed. If you know what your doing with windows, you should image the disk after install, keep the the registry free from errors and periodically restore your disk image to keep windows running well. Not to mention, protect for viruses, Trojans, mallware etc. The tools to do this cost money and for those who can't do that themselves, having a computer serviced costs even more. Which brings me to the next point…

Isn't this kind of the same as number 7, as well as number 6? Number 6 was "you can save time by not running AV software" and number 7 was "if you don't do maintenance the registry gets bloated". Sounds very similar if you ask me...

Anyway, the tools that do the things he mentioned do not cost money. I mentioned a free anti virus before. Making a restoration point is built in to Windows. CCleaner is free and can fix registry errors (although I do not recommend you do it)...

Yes, thing that go wrong in Windows, but it's the users that cause it and the same things could potentially happen on OS X as well. This is another one of his "I am going to be as vague as possible so nobody can debunk my claim" arguments. I don't know what kind of issues he is referring to, so I can't disprove him. He just says "things go wrong on Windows but they don't on OS X".

 

 

10) (practically) Free servicing:

If you live near an Apple store and anything goes wrong, just take it back to the Apple store and they'll fix it and (often) show you how to do it at the same time. No charge (mostly - depends on machine/problem). To get the same level of service in the PC world, you will have to pay for it.

Yeah... I have no idea why Apple are famous for having "good" customer service. It is awful.

Their response to the purple flare issue on the iPhone 5 - "Don't point it towards a bight light source, if you don't want purple haze"

Their response to scratches on brand new iPhone 5 (please note people were reporting this on brand new products, straight out of the box" - "Any aluminum product may scratch or chip with use, exposing its natural silver color. That is normal".

Have an issue with iTunes? Pay Apple 49 dollars to even look into the issue...

What did Apple say to their customer support when the MacDefender Trojan was infecting Macs left and right? "AppleCare does not provide support for removal of the malware. You should not confirm or deny whether the customer's Mac is infected or not" Yeah great customer service... Even tried asking a genius something that is a tiny bit above the average knowledge of a regular college student? You won't get an answer. I asked if OS X supported TRIM on third party SSDs (my friend was planning on changing SSD in his Mac) and he had no idea what an SSD was, or what TRIM was. Another genius knew what an SSD was but had never heard of TRIM.

 

 

I don't feel like commenting on his last two points but they are absolute bullshit as well.

[Fred Castellum]

Sorry, didnt explain that very clearly. I mean things like programms crashing and stuff like that, my father is lawyer and wrote some pages long document then word crashed and it was gone. 

He should probably consider using a newer version of word that recovers the last document you work on, should get into the habit of saving mid-way anyway. Lag =/= program crashing.

 

-snip-

Dang leave it LAwLz to dissect article....

[LAwLz]

I just installed arma 3 and got about 12 directX and DLL problems. 

Those are not registry issues. You just have to install DirectX and it should work. DirectX, DDLs and the registry and 3 different things.

 

 

Wow! Could you have anymore funks (change the "n") in that post?

Well I was just repeating what he said. I don't usually swear that much but I don't really see the point of not swearing either.

 

 

Sorry, didnt explain that very clearly. I mean things like programms crashing and stuff like that, my father is lawyer and wrote some pages long document then word crashed and it was gone. 

Pretty sure word create snapshots every now and again, or at least the newer versions does. Even if it didn't, that would be an Office issue and not a Windows issue.

 

 

Dang leave it LAwLz to dissect article....

I am not sure if I got too much spare time or prioritize things the wrong way...

[Geekazoid]

@LAwLz, Great post with fantastic research. You would make a good debater in such a subject. You researched everything to back up what you were saying, unlike Andrew, and I was thoroughly impressed. If I were a teacher and marking something like that I would've given you an A+. Did you do well at school? I'm betting you probably did. Well done mate!

[Geekazoid]

Well I was just repeating what he said.

Yeah I know. I was mostly just messing with ya. I could tell that's what you were doing.

I don't usually swear that much but I don't really see the point of not swearing either.

Ah, I'm not too concerned. I have read posts with much more colourful language than that post. I guess when the worst that I say is "crap" any other stronger profane word seems quite harsh. But it's also the fact that I'm a Christian and don't use that sort of language out of respect of my faith and I don't want to use it anyway.

[-iSynthesis]

Those are not registry issues. You just have to install DirectX and it should work. DirectX, DDLs and the registry and 3 different things.

Well, i clicked on registry in ccleaner and got the issues...