de Cor's Handmades - Malaysia Handmade Jewelry: Mac or PC?

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Mac or PC?

pcvsmac

I created a Vote and Poll for this entry. :)

I have been using PC all-my-life, and recently I have been thinking about making a change.

I had a horrible experience few years ago when i visited United Kingdom for my brother’s graduation, we took the opportunity and visited other part of the UK and, as we were in Edinburgh, the backpacker place we were staying had charged internet facilities. Mind you – it was more than half a decade ago, WiFi isn’t a norm and internet access were never be free back then. So I paid for an hour of service, thinking that I should be able to reply some mails and even visit my fav forum to catch up with friends. I ended up spending 35 minutes trying to figure out how do I even launched a web browser, while that white mouse was being difficult. Finally I manage to login to forum, composed a post while uploading a couple of photos, I even made it to embedding those photos into that post and… just in time for them to cut me off before I clicked that submit button.

There were people queuing up waiting for that little white thing (Mac) so I sighed and walked back to my room, that moment I though: “Mac makes me feel dumb, and without a PC, or Microsoft, I am nothing.”

And now… after half a decade later, I am actually consider to feel dumb again – and I am thinking to start with Mac.

When asked, my excuses would be:

“I’ve used enough of Dell or HP…”

“I’ve had enough of Microsoft…”

I need a change!!!”

Heh! *Whatever.*

So here it is. I am still uncertain of my choice. Microsoft is something I am totally familiar with, and software for PC are easier to obtain, MAC is an alien, but I think I have to quit all of things I am familiar of for a new start.

Vote please?

4 comments :

Sue said...

My advise? If you want to try mac, try it. BUT, keep your old reliable pc just in case. Why?
cuz you already have your business going really well on your pc. And you will need something you can count on when you are feeling "stupid" on the mac. Hope that helps. HUGS Sue

Corra said...

Hehe Sue yes like what I said in post I felt stupid operating on MAC!

Shuku said...

There are advantages to both PCs and Macs. Me personally, I'm a PC user at the moment because my custom-build is way good enough for what I have to do, and while I do graphics, it's not intense enough to need the capabilities of a Mac. I'm also not a full-time musician/audio engineer like my brother, so I don't need that sort of capability or power yet in my PC. What I do now - the little bit of audio mixing, editing and musical notation, is just fine on the current machine.

That said, I used a Mac when I was working in globalization and it really is a nice sleek machine with great features. My DTP people worked solely on Macs for the simple reason that they were very stable and less crash-prone than PCs for that amount of work level. And especially nowadays, the new system platforms that the Mac is using is very much like how one would use a PC, with different hot keys. It's more intuitive, and the learning curve isn't as high as it used to be, thanks to modern technological improvements.

However - as much as I do like the Mac and its peripheral products, the price is prohibitive here. Peripherals like monitors, speakers, etc. are all separate purchases from what I recall. The biggest deterrent is that proprietary parts are expensive, and in my experience, a Mac breaking down is usually painful to owner and pocket. They're usually very stable machines, but they can and do crash. And when they crash they tend to crash biiiiig time. Furthermore, software is a factor as well - some software that you're using on PC might not be compatible with Mac yet. We've had it happen in our office before when it came to transferring some stuff to my admin's Mac and vice versa. And not all Mac stuff is compatible with PC, despite having a great OS like Jaguar which handles a lot like a PC.

So it really depends on money, the mileage you'll get out of your Mac, and if you're prepared to sink in a loooot of money. I know a lot of people will immediately say, GET A MAC! But personally, I wouldn't even if I could right now. My use doesn't merit such a high price tag for a machine, and as I said, for a lot of people that I see, it's simply a very expensive status symbol especially if everything they're doing can be successfully (and more cheaply) replicated by a PC.

As for the Apple care package, I'm not too sure about that. It is probably worthwhile, but from what I remember, it is EXPENSIVE. Check with some friends perhaps who have done that?

Shuku said...

Oh, and yes. Do keep your old PC too as Sue said. There will be times when you need to have it around, especially if something you've got in Mac isn't compatible with something else.