[mattb123]

As far as the OS goes it's more preference than anything else. The applications are where the action is. Get the one you are comfortable with that runs the applications you need.

[tuco]

On my OSX box, I avoid any application that starts with an "i".

[boriscleto]

On my OSX box, I avoid any application that starts with an "i".

Very few of those left.

iTunes and iMovie are about it. Oh, iBooks...

[kadajawi]

It just seems like the lines are so blurred these days, in what is prosumer, and what is professional, and what is trying hard to look like a Mac, but is still the same ole bloatware crap pot that cost 2K but lasts the same length of time. Then there are real workhorses out there, and I am able to identify those by, "out of my budget $3-4k." Is that really what one has to spend to get out of the prosumer market, and to be certain they have bought a good strong PC suitable for a business (ie reliable for whatever specific task it is bought for- my case video editing).

I have been scouring over reviews, and benchmarks, and Mac vs PC threads for weeks. I am still lost as a goose

It is like in a effort to sell these prosumer PCs, they disguise them as business PC's and then you dig and find out the opposite.

I just wish it were clear somehow! It is so much money when you look at if from a work aspect- money in, money lost with time deciding and troubleshooting a faulty product, etc.

Macs cost significantly more than a PC for the same amount of power and quality.

Business PCs are the way to go, and they aren't that expensive. If it has to be high performance then workstations.

IIRC Lenovo has the ThinkCentre and ThinkPad line, Dell has Vostro, Optiplex, Precision...

Microsoft stores sell signature PCs that come without bloatware... otherwise simply reinstall the computer without the crap.

[boriscleto]

OS X El Capitan seems to be a rather popular download. The App Store is telling me another 7 hours of download time...

[normhead]

Apple uses the same hardware that other manufacturers use.

OK I'm game. Prove it. I know Mac makes their own motherboards which means they don't use the same hardware everyone else uses. If you can be completely discredited with a one line response what is your answer worth? I've been in this with kadawo before.

And yes, it works. And they come for things that aren't even problems yet.

Ya right, they come right to your house at no cost to you and fix things that aren't even problems yet? Do you know how ridiculously opinionated you sound. Every sentence you write seems to leave out half the story. And the rest just takes you past the point of belief. So let my get this straight, for $500 you get a computer unlimited home repair service for as long as you own the machine?

I have two consumer laptops, both Macs, one 12 years old one 8 years old, and they both work flawlessly and do exactly what they did when I bought them. I have never needed a home service visit, I have never needed any warranty work on either of them. No one came to fix my screen flicker, because my screen never flickered, no one came to fix my DVD ROM after I dropped one of the laptops and broke it. $35 dollars bought me a new one. Just how much are you paying for this service you get, you never said. Oh right it's free with the laptop that cost half the price of a Mac.

So even if what you say is true, my Macs are better, I don't have to let people into my house to repair my equipment. I don't have to take them anywhere, they just keep on working , year after year.

How stupid do you think people are?

[mwilky55]

I've been a Mac user at home, but work, of course, is Windows. I'm pretty comfortable in either.
I've got MS Office on my MacBook Pro...the Mac to Windows integration in Office is almost seamless these days.
I'm sure Apple's Pages/Numbers/Keynote are good, but have never felt the need to learn them since I have no issues with Office.
I use Safari as my browser, but also have Chrome.
I use G-mail instead of Apple Mail.....at the time, it was a better cross-platform option.
I have installed versions of Lightroom 6 and Photoshop Elements 14 (I'm not a big fan of the subscription model) on my hard drive. You can probably get the two of them for about $350.
I don't know Photoshop well enough to justify the full version. There is not an awful lot you can do in Photoshop you can't do in L/R and Elements.
I've got a bunch of photo-editing plug-in type software that integrates pretty well with Lightroom.
I'd second AggieDad on MacPhun.....their SnapHealPro and Intensify Pro are pretty cool.
I use Apple's provided Calendar and Contacts apps....I prefer the integration of Outlook, but don't really need it for personal organization.

Quick story....we had a pretty decent HP desktop machine the family used. My wife is not very computer literate. One day, I got tired of the frequent complaints/questions/confusion. Stormed out to BestBuy and came home and plopped a new iMac on the desk.
I get very few help desk requests any more.
Pretty much the same thing happened when we traded in her Samsung for an iPhone.
I hope you like your Mac. They have always served me well.

[kadajawi]

OK I'm game. Prove it. I know Mac makes their own motherboards which means they don't use the same hardware everyone else uses. If you can be completely discredited with a one line response what is your answer worth? I've been in this with kadawo before.

Ok, yes. Apple uses their own mainboard designs. That's as far as it goes. And guess what... Lenovo does the name. And Dell. And pretty much everyone else. The CPU, GPU and other components apart from casing and keyboard are pretty much off the shelf.

Ya right, they come right to your house at no cost to you and fix things that aren't even problems yet? Do you know how ridiculously opinionated you sound. Every sentence you write seems to leave out half the story. And the rest just takes you past the point of belief. So let my get this straight, for $500 you get a computer unlimited home repair service for as long as you own the machine?

600 Euro. That's more than $500. And I forgot that included was 1 year of service, I paid another 140 Euro or so for 3 more years, while I already owned the machine. A similarly equipped Mac would have cost me significantly more. A cousin of mine bought a MacBook a few months later, and nope, it hasn't been trouble free. Including one defect that was there from the start Apple has been dealing with it quite ok, but she always had to bring it to the store (which in my country would have been impossible... there are no Apple Stores here). A long time ago I interned at a shop specialized on Macs, and there were always machines that had to be fixed, and some that just couldn't be. Though those were usually Mac clones, back when Apple allowed that sort of thing.

The problem that wasn't even a problem yet was that the screen was black once in a while, and by that I mean 1 or 2 times within a month. I probably overbent the hinge mechanism once, that's when the problems started. Dell fixed it while I was in Finland, free of charge. I had some graphics card related issues, but that was due to the GeForce 8400M GS chip. IIRC there was a class action lawsuit against nVidia, because all chips were faulty. IIRC they "unsoldered" themselves over time. The other 8400M and 8600M series GPUs suffered from the same issue, and those GPUs were used by pretty much every laptop maker, including Apple. Dell dealt with it in a very problem free manner, that was also the reason why I extended the warranty (the issue became public a few months after I bought the laptop). The warranty ran out a couple of years ago, but so far I haven't had any additional problems. Fingers crossed.

Keep in mind that Apple now makes products that are nearly impossible to fix, to upgrade, ... everything is glued together, soldered together, ... just look at iFixIt.

I have two consumer laptops, both Macs, one 12 years old one 8 years old, and they both work flawlessly and do exactly what they did when I bought them. I have never needed a home service visit, I have never needed any warranty work on either of them. No one came to fix my screen flicker, because my screen never flickered, no one came to fix my DVD ROM after I dropped one of the laptops and broke it. $35 dollars bought me a new one. Just how much are you paying for this service you get, you never said. Oh right it's free with the laptop that cost half the price of a Mac.

So even if what you say is true, my Macs are better, I don't have to let people into my house to repair my equipment. I don't have to take them anywhere, they just keep on working , year after year.

How stupid do you think people are?

You were lucky with your laptops. Fine. Others do have issues with Macs. They are among the better computers, I agree, but they aren't flawless, and Apple sure demands quite a premium for it. If you have the cash, then yeah, good choice. But if someone is looking for good value for money, he can have good quality and service elsewhere for less.

Apple was also very easy to use early on. OS X was a revelation, I still remember using 10.0 and classic Mac OS, and especially OS X was leap and bounds ahead of Windows at that time. However Microsoft did catch up (as usual), and with Vista and finally 7 they IMHO caught up and overtook OS X. At the very least they are competitive, and I think Windows 10 is pretty intuitive.

Oh, and one more thing: Macs are pretty insecure. Apple is notoriously bad at fixing security holes. What protects Macs is that they are just not big enough a target. Microsoft however has been targeted countless times, and still are. That Windows is as safe as it is is a testament to how good Microsoft has become. It's like saying the military of Vatican City is much better than that of the US, because, look how few casualties Vatican City had!

[haycyn]

I just bought a MBP.

I hope I can figure it out. I was just out of time trying to research the different PCs, and I needed Windows 7 + video editing + dictation. It had those capabilities.

I got an excellent deal that rivals a PC all day, so I am gonna give the Mac world go.


Good luck to OP!

Oh and when I went to test drive one- there were plenty in service that made me flinch.

[waterfall]

Not sure whether I will like it, but Im willing to give it a go for a while.
As someone who was firmly embedded in the MS world, I have no idea what are the must have programs?
Im installing office and capture one pro, what else is good in the apple world?

Mac Pages is a very good word processing software. It can open any Office document.

[noelpolar]

Macs to me are like Pentax is to Canon.

I switched to macs after 20+ years on PCs. (I go back to 8086 days) ...... was a repair person for PCs for a while...... best decision ever....no more windows error messages!

[kadajawi]

Mac Pages is a very good word processing software. It can open any Office document.

If you don't need the full functionality that Office offers (and who does, really?) then Pages is pretty awesome. I quite like the interface, and of course it's much more affordable than the full blown Office.

@noelpolar: Don't insult PCs like that... at least say Nikon.

Error messages aren't a common sight on modern Windows machines either. :P And I've had enough spinning beach balls of death on my Mac.

[starbase218]

I use LibreOffice myself. An OpenOffice.org fork with support for the latest M$ file formats, for free. It's all I need for personal use in an Office suite.

[boriscleto]

I use LibreOffice myself. An OpenOffice.org fork with support for the latest M$ file formats, for free. It's all I need for personal use in an Office suite.

It's a fork all right. It makes me want to stick a fork in my eye after about 15 minutes of using it.

[starbase218]

It's a fork all right. It makes me want to stick a fork in my eye after about 15 minutes of using it.

Then buy an alternative. LibreOffice is free. So if you don't want to use it, don't.