Why should I buy a Mac?

[camdave]

Went into PC World today (when you are retired you do crazy things like that on a hot day!) to catch up on the latest prices and specs. for a desktop to replace my wife's aging XP machine.

I was approached by a charming young man who proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes explaining to me why I should buy a Mac instead of a Windows 8 PC. There's no doubt they look fabulous, albeit expensive compared with a Windows machine.

Can anyone tell me, in no more than 100 words, why I should follow his advice.

[Steve]

If you can get to an Apple shop spend some time using one, they tend to be more knowledgeable as it's core business and to be honest I've never had the hard sell.

I'm a Mac OS X and iOS user and I think whilst finances permit I would not go back. I've lost interest in waiting for a machine to allow me to use it and the great thing is which ever device I use all my mail, documents, photos,music and bookmarks are immediately available. They are expensive and the 'family' work well together but I think until you use one it's impossible to tell whether it's for you.

If as a new OS X user the Apple store as more to offer in terms of training , PCWorld just want to sell you something.

[Gary]

Dont buy the new 21.5" iMac, no optical drive, no way to add more ram, in fact no access to ram whatsoever its hidden deep in the machine behind a glued in screen! They have 5400rpm drives so you need to shell out more to get a fusion drive. The older iMacs circa mid 2011 and earlier were better machines. Other macs are fine. As to the rest see Steve's reply. I use a Mac and iOS but I avoid cloud services as much as possible, I don't trust them. Would I buy a Mac again...no. I would buy a tablet again however.

[Glenn]

Went into PC World today (when you are retired you do crazy things like that on a hot day!) to catch up on the latest prices and specs. for a desktop to replace my wife's aging XP machine.

I was approached by a charming young man who proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes explaining to me why I should buy a Mac instead of a Windows 8 PC. There's no doubt they look fabulous, albeit expensive compared with a Windows machine.

Can anyone tell me, in no more than 100 words, why I should follow his advice.

He will get more commission on the sale?

They look better

You want a new learning experience in your retirement.

[Bill]

Can anyone tell me, in no more than 100 words, why I should follow his advice.

You shouldn't- take Steve's advice instead and make up your own mind after trying one.

I just find OS X much easier/slicker/nicer to use than Windows, but I'd be hard put to quantify it.

[Gary]

I should point out I meant I would not buy another iMac, maybe a Mac mini. iMacs are now horrible things, even the new 27" one is a nightmare as ram pops out as you try and put it in at the stupididly placed back door hatch. Form over function, I mean who wants an SD card slot on the back of a computer!

[Adrian]

Another good reason for buying a Mac is longevity. My 2007 Mac Pro is still going strong albeit with a few upgrades along the way, but it is limited to running OS X 10.7.5. I have a dilemma in that while I think it is time to upgrade I don't think I can justify the inevitable high cost of the recently announced new Mac Pro.

I also have some reservations about the latest iMacs - as has been said there is a large element of form over function and the near impossibility of performing a DIY upgrade rather puts me off. The one component in any computer that is virtually guaranteed to fail during the reasonable life time of the computer is the hard drive, so what is the one thing Apple have made almost impossible to upgrade - no prizes for guessing. My thoughts on this are to just regard the internal drive as an extra and run everything from external Thunderbolt drives.

The Mac Mini doesn't really cut it for me either. Even though it is more upgradeable, the graphics card isn't and it is rather limited in the Mac Mini.

I will have to make a decision before long as I am sure my Mac Pro will die sooner rather than later. I have been a Mac user since 1986 and while I have occasionally played with Windows, there is no way I could change to that operating system.

Such is life

[Technical Ben]

Well, I've got a Macbook under the stairs. It has longevity for working still, but not usefulness as safari for it only comes in 1.0 and no upgrades ever made (pre-intel model ).

[Adrian]

Well, I've got a Macbook under the stairs. It has longevity for working still, but not usefulness as safari for it only comes in 1.0 and no upgrades ever made (pre-intel model ).

Well, there is longevity, as in the case of my Mac Pro and inevitable obsolescence , which will one day creep up on it as it seems to have done with your Macbook. My Quicksilver G4 languishes unused in the spare room. I suppose I should just ditch it now.

[Technical Ben]

Yeah, I'd forgive them if it was general obsolescence, it's just looking at it, they seemed to have just given up on the OS/powerPC cpu just after releasing it as the last model. In comparison to the XP machines I can kick up and there is very little I cannot do on them. The iBook (2004) I have under the stairs cannot even have a Linux distro added to it, a browser upgrade or an OS update (don't think it ever got one), or even a USB wifi dongle. I might get it out as a DVD/photo frame at some point.

I take that back. Just found a debian distro for powerPC and a mini gui option for iBooks. (My previous Google fu failed me )

[Gary]

Yeah, I'd forgive them if it was general obsolescence

In fairness that machine is nine years old. As far as XP no one should really be running that in this day and age since Windows seven was released as I see it, Seven is a much fater and safer OS. Saying that big changes at Microsoft so who knows what comes next, maybe they will go to the hardware and software linked model as well 

[SSK]

My Quicksilver G4 languishes unused in the spare room. I suppose I should just ditch it now.

Of course, it depends on what you want to do with your computer. I use mine mainly for word processing, surfing, email, occasional still photo editing, and occasional games. Most of my favourite games are quite old. I currently have a G5 and a MDD G4, both running OSX 10.4.11 and there's nothing that I want to do that I can't do on those computers. 

Basically, I always work on the basis of 'if it ain't broke then don't fix it'. As long as it continues to function and does what I need it to do, why keep upgrading? Even if I wanted to play new super-duper games, I wouldn't buy a new system just for that but would probably choose a console. Certainly I wouldn't buy a new system just for something prettier or slightly more convenient, especially when that convenience is offset by having to learn to use a new operating system and the expense of buying new software.

[Gary]

Of course, it depends on what you want to do with your computer. I use mine mainly for word processing, surfing, email, occasional still photo editing, and occasional games. Most of my favourite games are quite old. I currently have a G5 and a MDD G4, both running OSX 10.4.11 and there's nothing that I want to do that I can't do on those computers. 

Basically, I always work on the basis of 'if it ain't broke then don't fix it'. As long as it continues to function and does what I need it to do, why keep upgrading? Even if I wanted to play new super-duper games, I wouldn't buy a new system just for that but would probably choose a console. Certainly I wouldn't buy a new system just for something prettier or slightly more convenient, especially when that convenience is offset by having to learn to use a new operating system and the expense of buying new software.

The problem with that is security has changed a lot especially in OS X. Older operating systems on the web without security patches are a liability, fine if its offline of course. Also older machines cant keep up with modern web content, browsers etc.

[SSK]

The problem with that is security has changed a lot especially in OS X. Older operating systems on the web without security patches are a liability, fine if its offline of course. Also older machines cant keep up with modern web content, browsers etc.

What specific security problems apply to 10.4.11 that weren't fixed at the time that cannot be avoided by wise and carefully surfing and downloading, e.g always using an non-admin account with no access to important files? What  instances of actual exploitation of security flaws in 10.4.11 have ever been reported?

I'm far from being an expert in this, but as I understand it, the most serious recent threat involved changes to a newer version of Java (7?), and I think the latest 10.4 update only had Java 6. Later security holes might have occurred in newer OS versions, but were they exploited? And I doubt anyone has recently bothered trying to exploit any potential 10.4.11 security issues. After all, it's about 8 years old and hasn't been updated in any way for some years and represents only a small percentage of the current installation base, so who would waste time exploiting such an old OS?

Indeed, it could be argued that such an old OS with such a small user-base is safer than the brand-new OS which attracts people trying to look for security holes to exploit.  Of course there may be some risks to using such an old OS, but There are risks in everything we do in life. One has to balance how great are those when compared with the cost of buying new computers and software. Also, in my case, a good third of all my favourite software and games require Classic and are not available for later versions of the Mac OS, so as well as buying new computers and software, I'd have to give up some of my favourite games.

As in all life, everything involves risk and requires a considered risk-benefit assessment. I've used 10.4.11 without problems for almost 8 years. I've not seen reports of any real instances of exploitation of potential security issues in 10.4.11. So for me the benefits of not paying out huge sums of money for new hardware and software, plus benefits of keeping favourite software, far outweigh any tiny potential security risk there might be when I access the internet from a non-admin account.

[Den]

You could always buy at least 4, PCs for the cost of a Mac all running Windows 8 or you could replace one PC every three years for 12 years and end up with the most recent operating system in the end. I like the look of Macs but unless I come into a lot of money then cost dictates what I do, beside I like W8.   

[Steve]

He doesn't want 4PCs or the modern version of Vista

[camdave]

It's amazing and amusing to watch a thread develop from a relatively simple question into a wide ranging discussion which almost, but never quite, manages to go off topic.

So, the answer to my original question seems to be that while many people like the looks of a Mac there is an element of a luxury purchase about them. Den probably has the best answer, although I think he exaggerates just a little, I would suggest only two PCs per Mac giving 9 - 10 years of use. 

[lozcart]

I don't think you will get four PCs to one Mac anymore, a quick comparison gave me the following.

Apple Macbook Pro 15" £1,499 compared to Dell Latitude E6530 £1,303

Apple iMac 27" £1,499 compared to Dell XPS One 27 £1,349

Not an detailed comparison I know but does show Macs are now more competitive. Also with a Mac you will lose much less in depreciation when you come to replace it, old Macs still fetch a good price on ebay even when in a poor condition.

[Simon]

But those are quite high end PCs, are they not?  Is that like for like on specs?  You can get a pretty decent PC for £500-600, which would do for most average users.

[Steve]

New Macs tend to be highly specked in terms of CPU and motherboard etc, The Mac Mini is comparable to a decent PC in terms of function but it is still more expensive. But again I like the OS and associated software whilst I can afford it. It works for me, I retrieved an email that I'd accidentally trashed and deleted last night- all it took was to open the mail program , bring it to the front and then open Time Machine scroll back a few days and there was the email sitting there liked it looked originally. The backup was automatic all I did was click on that email and restore.

To be honest I was surprised it worked, to restore something within the relevant applications window I thought was quite neat and in someways that's the way a restore should work.

[lozcart]

But those are quite high end PCs, are they not?  Is that like for like on specs?  You can get a pretty decent PC for £500-600, which would do for most average users.

Simon, I tried to pick specs which were as close as possible to each other to give a accurate comparison. As Steve says Macs generally have higher specked CPUs and so I was trying to compare Apples to Apples or should that be Apples to PCs 

[Steve]

I agree the bi yearly Mac updates come with the latest hardware so whether it's PC or Mac you are going to pay.

[Technical Ben]

In fairness that machine is nine years old. As far as XP no one should really be running that in this day and age since Windows seven was released as I see it, Seven is a much fater and safer OS. Saying that big changes at Microsoft so who knows what comes next, maybe they will go to the hardware and software linked model as well 

That's not the point, and it's not a point. "Should not be running XP" is like saying "should not have that classic car/watch/pen/paper". It's a tool. If it works it works. The thing is, the XP machine works, the ibook that is younger, requires some persuasions.
I accedently installed the Debian GUI so am re-doing it in mint now. Will report back on how it goes.

Although, granted, my XP machine has a 3GHZ cpu in it, and the ibook a 900mhz. But I've cleaned up 1ghz XP laptops, and the thing is, I can do things on them. I find that not possible on older Apples, and see the limit set only at my knowledge with Linux.

[Simon]

"Should not be running XP" is like saying "should not have that classic car/watch/pen/paper". It's a tool. If it works it works.

Have to agree there.  I'm still using XP, and I know that every time I switch on my machine, it will boot up without issue, and it will do everything I want it to do.  I'm not saying the newer OS's aren't any good (although I still take exception to those tiles on Win8), but, as a further example, just because Kindles have been invented, doesn't mean people shouldn't read conventional books any more.  The new doesn't always render the old obsolete.   

[Steve]

True but the roads are busier these days so traction control,ABS and airbags make life safer.