The primary thing I want to know is, what can/can't they do?
What about in comparison to PC's? What are the pro's and cons?
And one question semi-linked to this one, iPods are really cool, does anyone have them? Are they really worth 300 dollars?
Well, unless you like getting the games after they have been out for two + years already.
"Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I am with you. I'll buy it for sure, it's just a matter of for how long I will be playing it..."
- Silvast, Battle.net forums
Mostly, I like how OSx looks and feels, it's very neat to use.
And what about the iPods? Worth 300?
quote:
Lord Monkah had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
Macs are good for stupid people, and Canadians.
Haha. I might like Macs...but my PC is a lot better 
In other News...
Janet...I know some of the high end Macs are really good for graphic software and stuff. one of the guys I worked with at my co-op placement was on a dual monitor system on his G2 mac. (with photoshop making graphics and stuff for the company)
OP's sister got an iMac while she was away because that's basically ALL she does on her computer is graphics editing and such.
[ 08-18-2002: Message edited by: Commie Nwist ]
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I would appreciate it if my PC usage prowess was not insulted =(
What are you wanting to do with your system? If all you are interested in is blizzard games, by all means, get a mac if its what ya want.
Otherwise, you may be best sticking with a PC and asking us any questions you may have if you aren't as skilled with a PC. 
OK, read some more of the posts in detail...
Note a couple things. 1) To upgrade, its gonna be kinda hard, you would be buying a new system just because ya want a small upgrade, while a PC of similar power will be cheaper for one, and 2 be more upgradable.
IF money isnt an object...go mac. [ 08-18-2002: Message edited by: Falaanla Marr ]
Cons:
-Harder to get games(Offset by good windows emulators)
-Slightly more pricey
-Slightly behind in some tech, graphics card mainly, but not as much lately
-You get flaemed by ignorant bastards
quote:
Bloodcookie stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
After being forced to use nothing but Macs at every school I've ever attended, I can say this: They are slow, crash often, and have no right-click functionality. Also, they are quite expensive and non-upgradeable. I would encourage everyone not to buy one.
Came in during my post...
OSX lets you right click, fused with Unix it is stable, and most crashes at school were crappily done servers in my experience, if you aren't a moron, you can upgrade them, the new ones are quite fast, and only slightly more expensive.
They are slow as balls though. A $3,200 duel 1ghz g4 mac is slower than a single p4 2.53 ghz. You can put together a system with that in it for around $1,600 if you go all out.
Also, you can never upgrade your Mac. Ever. They're not designed for it. In that respect, it's like the $400 super-micro-mini computers in the PC market. Once any one part gets outdated, you have to live with it or replace the whole Mac.
The advantage of the Mac is graphics. The Mac was designed around "looking pretty", both for hardware and software. They build in the best available graphics hardware, and you can generally find good artwork and desktop publishing programs for it.
Macs are great for the high end visual editting. CAD work is done on them a lot, a lot of special effects are done on them. And you can do casual business relatively easy on them.
But they do have their downsides. Games are the big thing, formatting stuff for school work generally isn't done in Mac (unless they've started pushing powerpoint presentation software and hardware in colleges you can't do any of that), and there's the general lack of compatibility with most of your peers.
So what it really comes down to is what do you need/use/want to use your computer for? If it's primarily (as in the top two things) are word processing and art work, then a Mac is a viable option.
If you want to do artwork, word process, and play games...then chances are what you want is a PC with a high end art software package (which you can usually get at a rather nice discount through school) or possibly just an art board/stylus setup.
Edit: [ 08-18-2002: Message edited by: Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael ]
In other words, what I'm getting at is this: Don't fix what isn't broken. If you can be equally happy outfitting your PC, don't give up PC's for Mac. Make your choice based on wants and needs.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
Now, Fal brought up a good point! Anyone know a mod or anything that will make XP more (visually at least) like OSx?
quote:
Archer-Janet's fortune cookie read:
Darnit, I thought this a thread like this would turn into something like this.I would appreciate it if my PC usage prowess was not insulted =(
When you open a topic with a phrase like "I wanna buy a mac but I don't know anything about them" you pretty much have to expect a few smart ass remarks.
It leads the reader to believe that the only reason you want to buy a mac is because of the way it looks. When posting such a question in a community largely composed of techno-geeks, its only natural for a few people to poke a little fun.
Luckily we also have a large base of sincerely helpful people who have offered up their assistance, however you probably would have been better served phrasing your question a little better. "I'm considering buying a new machine, but I'm torn between a mac and a pc."
This non-profit presentation of "How to Avoid the EC Lynch Mob" has been brought to you by the Piper Foundation for Happy Cresters
Windows emulators are absurdly buggy, completely unsupported by anyone, and will only run about 40% of windows programs at all. Of that 40% maybe 6% will actually run with full functionality.
On top of that, take the PC minimum system requirements of the program you're trying to run and multiply them by 1.5. Double them if you actually want tolerable performance.
quote:
Piper wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
When you open a topic with a phrase like "I wanna buy a mac but I don't know anything about them" you pretty much have to expect a few smart ass remarks.It leads the reader to believe that the only reason you want to buy a mac is because of the way it looks. When posting such a question in a community largely composed of techno-geeks, its only natural for a few people to poke a little fun.
Luckily we also have a large base of sincerely helpful people who have offered up their assistance, however you probably would have been better served phrasing your question a little better. "I'm considering buying a new machine, but I'm torn between a mac and a pc."
This non-profit presentation of "How to Avoid the EC Lynch Mob" has been brought to you by the Piper Foundation for Happy Cresters
Ok! Thanks ^.^
You should test take one out for a test drive, and see what you think, really try everything you feel you would ever want to do with it...
If you want more detailed information, let me know and i'll see if i can scrounge a webcam from somewhere...
humour disclaimer, incase you percieve this post as lewd
No, Really. Bite me.
But I don't do as much graphic and art work as I do play games, so PCs are my friend.
I hope to have both soon.
Cthulhu
You know what by and far the BIGGEST reason that I wouldn't, is?
Because if there's a great new game coming out, all my friends are raving about it, and I want to play it... the first words out of my mout should be :
"BRB guys, heading to the store to buy it now."
And NOT :
"Wow, that sounds like fun! But, I bet it wouldn't run on a Mac. NONE of the great new games do... stupid fucking Mac."
There's more reasons than just that, it's just that that's the BIGGEST reason.
The fact that the hardware and software is extraordinarily sub par is forgiveable.
G4 performance is good when it comes to number crunching, but generally most Macs do lag in performance.
Only get a Mac if you're into doing mucho art, or layout work. Otherwise it's not worth the trouble IMO.
ben(at)netmastering(dot)nl
Upgrades:
An upgrade for you Mac cost the same as an upgrade for a PC.
SB card: $80-$100
GeForce4: 4400 ~$300
Memory: Same damn memory as your PC uses.
Hard drive: Same exact hard drive. they use ATA standard now.
Monitor: Same monitor.
Does anyone else see a patern forming here?
Software:
Most people hate that games arn't as availible for mac as they are for a PC. Well big F-ing deal. The Mac is not a gaming platform. It is a Production computer, not a toy. Outside of games you can buy anything for a mac that you can for a PC. And chances are that it will run as well or better. I can render images faster on my 733 G4 than I can on my 1.6Gh P4.
And even the games market for Mac is picking up. Warcraft3 is cross platform right out of the box. I have seen most of the more recent big releases out on both Mac and PC at about the same time. Hell even EQ is going to be Mac compatible now. (with some limitations however)
Go to the Mac software isle at CompUSA and you will see all the productivity software that you see for the PC. MS Office, ALL Adobe products, Video Editing, Sound Editing, EVERYTHING!!!! And then look at the games section. You will see it growing more than ever...
Macs retain thier value longer than a PC. This is one of the reasons I could justify the added cost for one. It just isn't going ot wear out as fast.
To be honest with you. My biggest complaint about the Mac is thier stupid 1 button mouse. However OSX supports two button functionality or more. So just get your favorite USB mouse and go with it.
Most of the arguments against macs come down to. OMG I can't play games. Which isn't true. Or OH MY GOD I can't upgrade it!!.. Which is REALLY not true. Most of these people have used older macs that did suck. However Apple has come a long way in the past couple years and now puts out one hell of a product. No crashes, it sure as hell isn't slow, and it is as upgradeable as any PC.
To upgrade my mac I pull a little lever on the side and have full access to all internals. PCI, Memory, Hard drives, Proccessor, everything is right there at my fingertips.
To be completely honest. If not for Games I probably would swich over to Pure Mac. I just like the overall performace better and handling better..
And finally. If you look now all Macs, even the entry level G4s, come with Dual Procs. Hold on checing the Mac site
Please stand by:
Ok here we go.
Dual 867MHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache
& 1MB L3 cache/processor
133MHz System Bus
256MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce4
56K internal modem
For $1699.00
And upgrades are as cheap as for a PC. In fact PC upgrades will almost all work. Yes a bit more than for a PC that would run as well. But not by much. And you get a kick ass Software suite right out of the box.
And finally on the iPod. It is probably the best Handheld MP3 player out right now. A bit overpriced but worth the money in my opinion.
quote:
Azizza wrote:
DOesn't it suck trying to wade through the comments from people who dont' bother to know something before they post.
Funniest. Thing. Ever.
quote:
Azizza had this to say:
I can render images faster on my 733 G4 than I can on my 1.6Gh P4.
There's your problem.
quote:
Mortious had this to say about dark elf butts:
There's your problem.
"But its a Pentium 4! How can people not want it? 4 is more than 3!"
The G4's are a different machine all together. They can be upgraded and what not just like a normal PC.
...But yeah, I personally perfer my PC, mainly because all that I'm intersted in is gamming and I'm quite happy with my PC running XP. I have no real inclination to switch, mainly because I don't have the cash or reasons to do it.
quote:
Azizza had this to say about Captain Planet:
Warcraft3 is cross platform right out of the box.
Most Blizzard games are cross-platform, Diablo II, I think was the first Mac/PC combo at release. Why is that? Oh yeah, Roper said on TechTV's "The Screensavers" that he uses a Mac! Heaven forbid the Senior Producer/Vice President of a company makes a game he can't even run
Not only that, Blizzards love for PC/Mac world wide release makes them one of the most profitable companies when release days happen.
quote:
Check out the big brain on Skaw!
Not only that, Blizzards love for PC/Mac world wide release makes them one of the most profitable companies when release days happen.
I rather doubt cross-platforming is a contributor.
Maybe 4% of the home computing market goes to Mac owners, and that's assuming that all of that 4% will even buy a game.
