If what you want from your computer are the usual things such as listening to music, watching films, playing games, browsing the internet, chatting, editing and archiving your documents (images, texts, etc), then I suggest you stick to the PC. The MAC was not designed for these things, but rather for being used by professionals in various areas such as, for example, image or film processing. The MAC is a computer to use at work, and the PC is the one to use at home.
The MAC's strength is it's reliability, which comes from a very compact structure of it's software. If you get a MAC, you will find that you need other programs than the default MAC programs, and the more of them you install, the more damage you inflict to the compact structure I was mentioning, therefore functioning problems occur. It also has a different interface and until you learn all it's tricks, it's rather annoying. And finally, most of the programs that were initially developed for the PC have versions for MAC, but these MAC versions usually are less developed, sometimes missing essential features.
I was recently given the occasion to have a very good (2500 dollars worth) MAC at my disposal for a week's time, for both work (DTP, which is an area of professional image processing) and personal entertainment. At first I was amazed at how good it was doing it's job, but then...
- I installed Yahoo Messenger but the MAC version looks awful and doesn't have the Voice Call feature, so I also had to install Skype too
- the video player sucks, as it has a very sloopy video filter (meaning that it's video rendering was syncopated) and a primitive audio filter (meaning that it had problems with newer audio formats and bringing the sound to a minimal, satisfying volume); a better video player and a serious filter pack are needed
- ITunes sucks, with it's limited file conversion and editing options and weird file stocking for example
- Safari, the web browser, does not have protection against ads (especially noisy ones
), making browsing sometimes horrendous; it also can't be customized the way Firefox can, for example;
- many others as such
So as I started making modifications to the programs and installing new ones, it begun having problems while using the major applications (such as Quark, Freehand, Photoshop) I was using; the MAC's owner even said that he never needed to use "Force quit" or to restart it for better performance before! We talked about these things and we agreed the best thing is to have both a MAC for work and a PC for personal activities.
Sorry Peter, I don't think you needed to know all these, they belong to the Ranting Room
Basically if you're not a very advanced PC user than you won't feel a big difference when passing to the MAC, and there are also major advantages like it's a lot safer (viruses are developed usually for PCs), it's very silent (it doesn't have a radiator) and it's easy to move (it doesn't have a central unit, everything is hidden in the monitor which is very slim), so go for it!