PC's Or Mac's Poll

[isaiahk9]

I agree with gandalf.
I see fighting about this is a colossal waste of time- as both of us are biased, we'll never get anywhere.

So I'm going to quit this argument now.

[Jack140]

Hello Everyone,

So far everyone seems to be enjoying this debate topic.

I just have to add one more thing that supports my argument...
Which are some statistics from Wikipedia that incorporates their marketing and advancement since they began selling them.

Quote:

Market

In 2001 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48 thousand in 1977. More than 500 million PCs were in use in 2002 and one billion personal computers had been sold worldwide since mid-1970s till this time. Of the latter figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest sold for personal or home use. About 81.5 percent of PCs shipped had been desktop computers, 16.4 percent laptops and 2.1 percent servers. United States had received 38.8 percent (394 million) of the computers shipped, Europe 25 percent and 11.7 percent had gone to Asia-Pacific region, the fastest-growing market as of 2002. The second billion was expected to be sold by 2008.[2] Almost half of all the households in Western Europe had a personal computer and a computer could be found in 40 percent of homes in United Kingdom, compared with only 13 percent in 1985.[3]

As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion, while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. The emerging markets were expected to double their installed PCs by 2013 and to take 70 percent of the second billion PCs. About 180 million PCs (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped into landfill in 2008. The whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.

This is probably another reason why people voted for Pc's instead of Mac's, based on their marketing, reliability and stability

[[Gandalf]]

Note, what I meant was arguing as in trying to declare a winner and prove one side is completely wrong (ie. pages 3-4 of this topic). Talking about it is fine, it might even lead to someone changing their views. Let the discussion flow, but trying to convince people directly in this context is stupid.

[Tony]

I don't think there can be a general all-purpose winner here, as each system satisfies different niches.

A user's requirement to avoid any learning curve could outweight possible gain in any other category.

Similarly, a user's strong preference for a certain quality of experience will allow them to overlook certain setbacks, when clashing with the members of the other group(s).


Personally, my biggest problem is with people who make uninformed or misinformed decisions, in favour of either choice. Such as Jack140 up there...

Jack140 @ Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:38 am wrote:

This is probably another reason why people voted for Pc's instead of Mac's, based on their marketing, reliability and stability

Way to know what you are talking about. Granted that Window's reliability/stability issues have improved since its Blue Screen of Death days, historically it doesn't have a good track record. There are still problems that need to be addressed, though perhaps those have to do with the fact that people use a home-use operating system for the purposes it wasn't designed for...

As for my preference... I just don't want my software to look like this:


Seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEjZt0y6OOw

[wtd]

Also, Windows' long-term stability and reliability lags substantially behind that of Mac OS X. I deal with no end of systems that have "slowed down over the last few months." Generally there's no malware problems in these cases. The software's just gotten less reliable with time.

I never encounter a Mac user with this complaint.

[[Gandalf]]

It seems pretty much everyone is talking about Windows vs. Mac OS, which is not the way I interpreted the question. This seems a bit flawed, since PCs can run Linux and other operating systems too. Oh well.

Definitely agree about simplicity being key in software. Another example, I couldn't stand something like this, and that's not even intentionally cluttered like the Word screenshot.

[Insectoid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-22EpQOm8c&feature=related

*Not my opinion, but related [sort of] to the topic.

[wtd]

[quote="[Gandalf] @ Sun Dec 14, 2008 11:21 am"]It seems pretty much everyone is talking about Windows vs. Mac OS, which is not the way I interpreted the question. This seems a bit flawed, since PCs can run Linux and other operating systems too. Oh well. [/quote]

Macs can run Windows and Linux perfectly well too. Down that road lies madness.

[DemonWasp]

PC. I own 4 computers, and of those, 3 I assembled myself (the last one is a laptop). They let me install whatever I want on them, and there's less of that pesky hardware-level DRM nonsense to get through (I don't know how deep Apple is in this, but it's nasty and I want as little of it as I can get).

Windows XP for gaming, Linux for coding, laptop, server and experimentation.

And no, I won't buy an xbox (or playstation or Wii). I paid a lot of money for this 24-inch 1920x1200 screen, and I will NOT have it sullied by software rendering at 640i - only 1080p is acceptable.

Why wouldn't I touch a Mac? Because what little I've seen of the OS is uninviting (my gf has a MacBook), and what I see on their webpage is "less hardware, more costy costy". Even their mobile hardware doesn't appeal (neither does anyone else's, to be honest)...I think I might just be an old fart before I'm done university.

[gianni]

DemonWasp: I don't think you're an "old fart", I think you may be ignorant though. Hardware DRM? What kind of baseless claim is that?

And I'm sure that by "less hardware" you mean the built-in accelerometers, or perhaps the built-in webcam, or would it be the dual-GPUs, or possibly you meant the illuminated keyboard, actually it must be the optical audio in/out?

[rdrake]

DemonWasp @ Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:53 am wrote:

And no, I won't buy an xbox (or playstation or Wii). I paid a lot of money for this 24-inch 1920x1200 screen, and I will NOT have it sullied by software rendering at 640i - only 1080p is acceptable.

Alright, let me make it easy to understand.

Xbox 360 + VGA cable + 24" monitor == win.

That's what I use for gaming and it works fantastic.

[wtd]

MacBook Pro durability tested, the hard way.

[wtd]

Facts:

Let's look at Amazon's top seller list. Netbooks are the unmitigated king of the hill this season. Of the top 25, 17 are netbooks.

Though one must consider that most are variants on just a few basic models. Many of the variants are only in terms of color. Still, they're selling, very well.

But, Apple doesn't sell netbooks so we have to consider how they did do in the top 25.

Of the top 25, 6 are Apple products. That's 24%. Not bad for a single company. What kind of price is Apple commanding that it's competing so well against the netbook market?

Well, the average netbook price in the top 25 is $384.60. The highest priced was the Samsung NC10 at $478.99. The lowest priced was a $299.99 Acer Aspire One.

Apple's least expensive notebook that made the top 25 is $964.99. The most expensive to make the list is $1,898.98. The average Apple notebook price on the list is $1,400.32.

[DemonWasp]

gianni @ Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:03 am wrote:

... built-in accelerometers, or perhaps the built-in webcam, or would it be the dual-GPUs, or possibly you meant the illuminated keyboard, actually it must be the optical audio in/out?

1. I see no use for an accelerometer in any of my machines, with the possible exception of the laptop. Even then, I think it's probably easier to right-click -> rotate display than have some specialised piece of hardware do it for me (really, what else am I going to do with an accelerometer?).
2. Built-in webcam is pretty standard. I only wanted one on my laptop, so I saved the $25 or whatever per machine for that. Why would I have one on my server, or my gaming computer?
3. Illuminated keyboards sound alright, though I've never found myself wanting one. If I'm having a hard time typing by touch, it's my own fault. What might actually be useful is illuminated ports on the back of computers (how often have you plugged the green audio cable into the blue port by accident?)
4. I have no idea what the modern standards for display/audio connectors are. I know I'm using DVI for my screen and standard computer audio plugs, but not what you mean by optical connectors. Either way, I'm fairly certain that one of the plugs on the back of the computer corresponds to what you mean.
5. By "hardware DRM", I was referring to some vague claims I've heard; please fill me in on the various DRM transgressions of each platform. Certainly, I know it's difficult to install their OS on non-Apple hardware, which I don't like (maybe if I could try it out on one of my computers, I'd be more inclined to buy their hardware already).


@rdrake: xbox 260 + vga cable + 24" monitor = I can see jaggies, and they look ugly. Take a good close look at your Halo 3 / Gears of War screens, and you'll see it rendering at 640i. I get to run Gears of War at 1080p. Maybe you don't care about the difference, but I really do. There are a lot of reasons I prefer PC gaming to console gaming, and this is just one (another is that the sticks / d-pads are just dead clumsy compared to mouse + keyboard).

Were I going to get a console, I'd be getting it after I got the PC for gaming. It'd get hooked up to the same monitor, but it'd probably see less use.

[gianni]

DemonWasp @ Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:53 am wrote:

1. I see no use for an accelerometer in any of my machines, with the possible exception of the laptop. Even then, I think it's probably easier to right-click -> rotate display than have some specialised piece of hardware do it for me (really, what else am I going to do with an accelerometer?).
2. Built-in webcam is pretty standard. I only wanted one on my laptop, so I saved the $25 or whatever per machine for that. Why would I have one on my server, or my gaming computer?
3. Illuminated keyboards sound alright, though I've never found myself wanting one. If I'm having a hard time typing by touch, it's my own fault. What might actually be useful is illuminated ports on the back of computers (how often have you plugged the green audio cable into the blue port by accident?)
4. I have no idea what the modern standards for display/audio connectors are. I know I'm using DVI for my screen and standard computer audio plugs, but not what you mean by optical connectors. Either way, I'm fairly certain that one of the plugs on the back of the computer corresponds to what you mean.
5. By "hardware DRM", I was referring to some vague claims I've heard; please fill me in on the various DRM transgressions of each platform. Certainly, I know it's difficult to install their OS on non-Apple hardware, which I don't like (maybe if I could try it out on one of my computers, I'd be more inclined to buy their hardware already).

I was simply giving you examples that disproved your claim of "less hardware, more costy costy". Also, regarding the accelerometers, the Apple notebooks have this cute little feature called SMS - Sudden Motion Sensor. If you were to accidentally drop your laptop, the accelerometers will sense the fall and lift the heads on the harddrive thereby preventing the permanent loss of your data.

The fact that many systems can't boot OS X is mainly due to the requirement of EFI in place of the BIOS, and not some hardware DRM as you have suggested. EFI is far superior to BIOS in virtually every way, it's a shame it hasn't received more widespread attention.