PC vs Mac

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huihui
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hi guys,

Am thinking of getting a new laptop. Have been very interested in the stunning looks of the Powerbook laptops (studying comptuer science in university). Do you think you could give me a breakdown of the advantages of a Mac OS over a Windows one? I kind of know this is a Apple devoted website and I realised opinions are going to be bias but what the heck, persuade me to get a mac (other than the reason they are so darn gorgeous )

Thanks,

Hui Lim

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    Welcome Hui, hope you enjoy your stay.



    In short, here's my opinion (I'm also a CS student at uni):



    You get a well designed laptop, with a very reasonable weight (5.4 lbs), with a capable processor and a nice 15.2" widescreen display. Considering they should be updated fairly soon (assuming all the rumors floating are true), it'll have a bit more power under the hood as well. It's underlying system is Unix-based, so you get the power and stability of Unix. OS X is an excellent GUI, despite a few oddities here and there, and is getting more and more refined as Apple puts out updates. You can basically configure your computer to be a web server if you want (Apache and such), it has gcc for C/C++ compiling, Java, Project Builder will get you started quickly on making OS X Apps if you learn Objective-C and Cocoa.



    Powerbooks are a bit expensive IMO, but they're worth it if you can afford it.



    If you need more information, just ask.
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  • Reply 2 of 15
    sebseb Posts: 676member
    <a href="http://www.apple.com/switch/questions/index2.html"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/switch/questions/index2.html</a>;
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  • Reply 3 of 15
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    Just carrying the beautiful piece of hardware is great enough.



    OS X is great with all its cool apps. Dun worry, the learning curve for most of the apps is very low. Vey easy to learn.



    I dun know about computer science, but if your course requires you to use alot of windows based software and other applications, the Mac may not be the best laptop for u due to its incomptability with many software. A window based laptop may be better in that sense.



    Think carefully. The decision is yours, the pleasure is mine
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  • Reply 4 of 15
    smithjoelsmithjoel Posts: 240member
    PC vs Mac?



    Google fight!



    PC: 5,660,000

    Mac: 3,500,000



    PC wins.



    But in the real world it's up to you. You sound like you want a Mac, so get one as long as you can run all the software you want.
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  • Reply 5 of 15
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    Did anyone else understand that?
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  • Reply 6 of 15
    brian j.brian j. Posts: 139member
    When I studied computer science, most of my projects had to be done on UNIX. Many computer science departments require their students to learn UNIX, because it's an extremely robust operating system, and it's the operating system of choice for serious engineers. Windows is not nearly bullet proof enough for running mission critical applications. If your CS department uses UNIX, then OS X, with its BSD underpinnings, is perfect for your needs. You'll be able to do your assigments, but still be able to run major desktop apps like MS Word.
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  • Reply 7 of 15
    rodukroduk Posts: 706member
    When I was studying for a computer science degree, most of the time actually spent at a computer was either when writing up course work on a Mac, or when programming in C, Pascal, Modula-2 etc under Unix. I would check to see whether your university recommends a particular platform (Windows or Mac), but I'd have thought a PowerBook would be ideal.
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  • Reply 8 of 15
    huihui Posts: 5member
    Thanks for replies guys. Well actually, at the moment, I am indeed using Linux in my univerity and we do programming in Java. Well just wanted to see what a Mac OS had to offer that a Windows one couldn't. Particularly attracted to Mac because of the lovely designs etc...

    Any more opinions would be much appreciated.

    Many Thanks again,

    Hui
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  • Reply 9 of 15
    huihui Posts: 5member
    Oh yeah by the way, I kind of know that the Mac is limited to certain softwares but what kinda fun stuff can you do on the Macs (i.e. do games come out regularly) and if I DESPERATELY need to use Win XP, does "virtual PC" (I think its called, or windows emulator on the MAC if there is such a thing) work?

    Thanks again,

    Hui
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  • Reply 10 of 15
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    [quote]Originally posted by mrmister:

    <strong>Did anyone else understand that?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    i think he did a google search and posted the results...haha
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  • Reply 11 of 15
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    [quote]Originally posted by Hui:

    <strong>Oh yeah by the way, I kind of know that the Mac is limited to certain softwares but what kinda fun stuff can you do on the Macs (i.e. do games come out regularly) and if I DESPERATELY need to use Win XP, does "virtual PC" (I think its called, or windows emulator on the MAC if there is such a thing) work?

    Thanks again,

    Hui</strong><hr></blockquote>



    You will see a lot of commercial games for Mac, but the dime-for-a-dozen ones are usually not ported. However, we have our own share of dime-for-a-dozen titles.



    Yes, VirtualPC does work, but not for graphics-intensive games.



    Just a side note, I use two TiBooks at school (400MHz and 800Mhz) and I love them. Very thin and light, (seems light enough to me, at least) looks great, and runs the Mac OS (...9 Stupid **** for brains admin at our school...*makes several stabbing motions*)
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  • Reply 12 of 15
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    Mac really isn't the platform for playing games, as there are not many games that are ported to the Mac. In addition, most games take a much longer time to arrive for a Mac then a PC.



    But then again, there are some games that are made for Mac and not for PC. bubble trouble is one example.
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  • Reply 13 of 15
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    [quote]Originally posted by mrmister:

    Did anyone else understand that?

    <hr></blockquote>



    <a href="http://www.googlefight.com"; target="_blank">http://www.googlefight.com</a>;
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  • Reply 14 of 15
    a@rona@ron Posts: 201member
    [quote]Originally posted by CubeDude:

    <strong>



    <a href="http://www.googlefight.com"; target="_blank">http://www.googlefight.com</a></strong><hr></blockquote>;



    Yeah but try Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates I think we win. As far as Virtual PC (VPC) goes it will run alright in OS X but avoid running windows XP run 95 or 98 those two will work better. XP is dog slow on some x86 hardware I wouldn't want to see it using emulation <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />



    A@ron



    [ 11-02-2002: Message edited by: A@ron ]</p>
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  • Reply 15 of 15
    rick1138rick1138 Posts: 938member
    The Macintosh platform has killer programming tools-the developer tools come free with OSX -if you had to buy them commercially they would cost about $1000.Go Mac and don't go back (to Windows,Linux is cool as well)
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