9 (pretty lame) reasons people use PCs rather than Macs.
March 8th, 2007 by Marcos
Hmm, so first we had this post about 42 reason why people might switch to the Mac. (Hooray!). Then later we got this response of nine reasons people should stick with PCs. It’s a doozy. Let’s go over it.
- Cost:PCs are cheaper
Well, there are PCs that are much cheaper than the cheapest Mac but they are also much, well ,cheaper than the cheapest Mac. Slower, with less features. If you compare similarly equipped Macs and PCs, the Mac is even or ahead. This shocked people when the Mac pro came out, but it’s true.
2: Operating System: yes, some may laugh, but with a PC you’ve got choices.
You’ve got Windows, which is precisely why people would want to flee the PC, and Linux . Linux runs on Macs too, but OS X has all the goodness of Linux anyway. If you’re sticking with the PC for Windows, well, God help you. Plus with Parallels you can run all these other OSes anyway, should you want, including Windows.
3: Software: The is a huge smorgesboard of software available for PC’s. Mac on the other hand suffer from a serious lack of options.
There may be a few situations where some specific application is unavailable or lacks a counterpart for MacOS X. But these are rare situations that will not effect 95% of PC Users. People don’t want 20 different programs that do the same thing poorly, they want one or two that does it well. Plus, you can run Windows within Parallels or boot camp if need be.
Gaming
This is a legitimate advantage for PCs. If you want to play the latest games, and that’s your priority, a PC is for you. You can Boot Camp it with a Mac and play them at good speeds, but you’ll have to drop some serious dough for Windows. Blizzard is awesome about Mac support, and Aspyr and others do some great ports, but gaming (due to people programming for DirectX) is something better done in Windows.
Servicability: something gone wrong with your Mac? not a problem, if you’re lucky enough to live near a Apple shop they’ll fix it for you…. Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, Apple doesn’t like you tinkering under the hood so you can fix it yourself. Something with my PC goes wrong, I flip the lid and have a look, or I take it to any number of PC shops that do repairs all within close driving range.
If you live far from an Apple authorized service provider, this might be a problem. If under warranty, Apple will overnight you a box which you can overnight a Mac back in.. at least, they do this for laptops. For heavier equipment this may be a problem indeed. For Mac Pros, they are quite serviceable by the user for something like a HD replacement. Most “regular” PC users aren’t going to want to perform surgery on their PC anyway, I thought this list for was “regular” computer users?
Parts/ Upgrading
I somehow doubt most 59 year old mothers are going to want to open up a PC and perform an upgrade. I thought this was about “regular users.” Anyway, the Mac Pro is the easiest computer to upgrade on the planet, with an awesome case design that allows for easy hard drive upgrades and access to all the PCI slots. The iMacs and Macbooks… not so much. All laptops are typically a real pain to open up, but the MacBook has a very simple hard drive bay, and RAM is easy on both the MacBook and Macbook Pro. The MBP has an express card slot. Most Macs have things built in like wireless networking and firewire that upgrades aren’t that neccesary. The biggest problem would be hard drive upgrades on an iMac. You’re sort of stuck with firewire or usb drives. Nor can you upgrade the video card on an iMac (that is lame). But, the notion that all peripherals work with PCs because of “extensive driver support” must be a joke. I’ve seen PC users struggle with getting hardware to work more times than I can count. (Let’s not even talk about Linux’s hardware support).
Peripherals: …Sure you can plug something into a Mac the same way as a PC, but will it work with a Mac? Believe it or not theres more to peripherals than digital cameras, which all work with a PC anyway.
Is this a joke? It’s often a driver install fest on PCs to get perihperals to work most things work on Macs that don’t even say they support OS X. What peripherals is this guy talking about anyway? USB memory cards work, no drivers. USB Printers work with the gimp-print drivers, or the driver from the manufacturer. USB Mice work, just plug in and go. External hard drives, plug in and go. Macs probably support a smaller set of hardware in totem, but it’s much more likely to work.
Better Peripherals: more choice and no stupid 1 button mouse. PC mice also come with a scroll wheel for scrolling, a Mac Mouse…well a weirdish rubber button thingy.
It’s fast becoming obvious this guy has never used a Mac. All USB 3 button / scroll wheel mice just work on Macs. I bought a $20 USB Kennsington mouse with 2 buttons and a scroll wheel and both the scroll wheel and all 3 buttons are recognized and used by OS X; I didn’t even install a driver. Mac Pros and iMacs have come with the 3 button “mighty mouse” for almost a year now. (not 100% sure about that time frame, but the mighty mouse is standard issue.) A legitimate critique would be say, force feedback joysticks and such; a Mac won’t know what to do with them. But, this goes back to the gaming thing, which I already conceded.
Usability: for the average person who doesn’t live in Silicon Valley, PC’s are actually more usable, after all, not only do you hardly ever find a Mac in an average (ie non-tech firm) business, very few other places run them, where as PC’s are everywhere and virtually everyone has exposure to Windows.
Yes, you’ll have to adapt from your Windows-entrained ways to use a Mac. Because the Windows-way is usually so complex and confusing that it may shock you when something is much simpler on the Mac. There is always inertia when moving to a different platform, but just because you use Windows at work is not a reason to tolerate it at home.
All in all, a very unimpressive list. Other than for gaming, I can’t imagine why I personally would ever want to deal with Windows.
kabababrubarta Says
Cool! kabababrubarta
Mar 26th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
geoff Says
You could also mention that, say, reading a good book is better (more intellectual stimulating) than gaming anyway. Although I suppose that most PC users would probably find that reading a book is not complicated enough for them feel comfortable with it. Perhaps if someone could design paper that “crashes”.
Apr 8th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Mac Mini Says
Only cool and unique people use Mac!
Besides using a PC is like the norm, if you want to deviate from the norm us a MAC!
:D
Apr 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Vaius Says
Personally I agree with the writer; The only good reason to go with windows instead of mac is work/gaming, and you can dual boot Macs, or install Parralels/VM Fusion/Virtual Box/Q/Whatever to run windows for that guy’s precious gaming “needs”.
Aug 16th, 2008 at 2:31 pm