50 Reasons to Switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple’s Mac OS X

Chris Pirillo Dot Com ^ | Feb. 14, 2008 | Chris Pirillo

[politicket]

Please keep on thinking that way.

Running Macs gives our small business a serious competitive advantage. I want to keep it.

I'm very happy for the success of your small business. You should also know that my small business centers on the financial industry and uses nothing but PC's running Windows XP. It is also extremely profitable. Please stay on the Apple side of the aisle. That way, my company will continue to win all of the contracts in the financial industry.

[politicket]

The so called Apple cult is an illusion Windows users imagine because they frequently have to run ask for help when their machine is acting up and anyone regularly using a Mac is naturally going to be baffled by the huge assortment of problems they've never had to encounter. This is because..., well, just because the Mac OSX is by far superior and if that sounds snobbish or cultish it's your problem. You don't have to join a cult to realize there's something on the market that puts Windows in the dark ages.

It does sound snobbish and cultish, just so you know.

Also, all of the computers in my small business have not had a single OS related problem (including spyware and viruses) for at least a couple of years. All problems have been hardware giving out over time. My systems all run Windows XP Professional.

Isn't it time for you to take your mat out and face West towards Steve Jobs? ;-)

[rattrap]

And now, I’d like to challenge any Windows enthusiast to publish 50 Reasons to switch from Mac OS X to Microsoft Windows. ;)

Dont need 50. Windows works for me just fine. I'm not a moron that opens random emails or goes to eastern european horse porn sites so I don't need a smug, superior religion I just need a computer.

However, if buying a mac would grant me one punch in the stomach to the guy who came up with those idiotic commercials, I'd buy 20.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

expensive outlets

I was comparing Dell to Apple. Just had to go back to Dell and make sure.

I have a simple macbook, 13.3 screen. Comparable Dell costs more (xps 1330) - about 30% more... The dell also had a slightly slower processor than mine, slightly larger hard drive. And no iLife sweet...

When I compare iMacs to similar Dells, I see the same thing. But I always start with the mac, because they don't have as many options...they just dont...and it is hard to line up the options.

You can certainly build a PC cheaper. But when the one you build compares to a mac, the mac price is quite comparable...if not cheaper...

[Swordmaker]

Specs:

• Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2160 (1.80GHz, 1MB L2 Cache
• Genuine Windows XP Home Edition
• Dell 22 inch Widescreen E228WFP Analog Flat Panel Display
• Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz - 2DIMMs
• Single Drive: 16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive
• 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
• Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
• 1 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 1 Year NBD On-Site Service
• 10GB for 1 Year Online Data Backup by Dell DataSafe

You are not comparing equivalent machines at all...

• Your processor is an older, slower 1.8GHz Pentium and has only a 1MB L2 cache while the basic iMac's is a 2.0Ghz 4MB L2 cache. This is a big difference.
• Your OS is a home edition while the OS on the iMac is a complete, non-crippled professional grade OS.
• Your E228WFP Dell display has a lower angle of view in both horizontal and vertical and the Apple's is a brighter display with better contrast ratio... yours is also apparently analog compared to digital for the Apple.
• smaller hard drive
• Integrated motherboard graphics vs. ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory Optical in/out on sound?

I just went to your Dell link and added the stuff that is standard in an iMac... to make it comparable... things like:

• the same grade processor,
• wireless N,
• stereo speakers,
• IEEE1394 firewire,
• optical mouse,
• 250GB HD,
• 20" Digital display (took out the 22" analog),
• upgraded your OS to an equivalent match (sort of),

and guess what? The price of your bare bones, strippy computer is now suddenly $1212.00 including the "instant savings" discount.

Write back when you do a real equivalent comparison.

[pointsal]

Heck, if must run windows, then Parallels runs okay. I even purchased a recent version of WinXP for my iMac laptop (just in case).

Pages in iWorks is nifty for word processing and mixing in graphics.

.... just a word of encouragement, since I have two windows boxes and three macs.

[webschooner]

I have a simple macbook, 13.3 screen.

The example I gave was a Dell desktop, and desktops was mainly what my post was about, but I can address your example.

The 13.3" Dell is a not very popular and thus is an over-priced model. And 13.3" is not a popular size of laptop in general, so 13.3" PC laptop models by any manufacturer are rather pricey. If instead you compare the commonly sold screen-size models in laptop PC's, which are 15.4" first, and 14.1" second, then you will find that you can get a PC laptop much cheaper than an Apple laptop in commonly sold size of comparable specs.

Here is a desktop configuration of a Dell Inspiron I just configured at Dell.com:

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition - English
MONITOR No Monitor
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD+/-RW Drive
VIDEO CARD Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT 256MB
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
KEYBOARD & MOUSE Dell USB Multimedia Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader
MODEM & WIRELESS 56K PCI Data Fax Modem
OPTIONAL PORTS IEEE 1394a Adapter

Cost after $300 coupon code is $864 with Free Shipping
Add my new Sammy 24" monitor for $400 for a Grand Total of $1264.

From Apple website, just now:

MacPro
2.8 gHz Quad Core Intel
4GB Ram
500GB Hard Drive, 7200 rpm
23" Flat Panel Display

Total Cost: $3798.00

The specs on these two machines are pretty close. The apple has a faster processor, 2.8 vs 2.4 for the Dell. But the Dell I priced out with a gorgeous Samsung 24" monitor, vs a 23" Apple monitor. The hard drives, ram, and video cards are identical in my examples.

The cost of the Apple desktop is exactly 3 times as much as the cost of the virtually comparable spec Dell desktop. So even if you want to pooh-pooh the larger monitor in my Dell, and toot the faster processsor in the Apple, it does cost 3 times as much. If the Apple is worth that much more to you, I have no problem with that, but the fact is, the comparably-equipped PC is, in fact, way way way less money. So much so, you could buy 3 of the Dells above for the same money as one of the MacPro's. And if you run dual monitors, like I do, you apparently have to buy Apple's proprietary over-priced displays, which I see are 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 times the cost of a comparable size flat panel monitor for a PC. Apple may in fact, have a nice desktop product, but it's way way out of range of what I am willing to spend.

I rest my case.

[In veno, veritas]

I remember trying to work with a Mac once. It took less than ten minutes of use to get me to the point of a strong desire to chuck it out the window.

[D-fendr]

First off, you could run the monitor from dell off the laptop, instead of the Apple display; and you could run the apple monitor off your dell, so that part of your comparision is in error.

You can run any monitor you want, though Apple’s are very highly rated and a good bargain for the quality.

As for the monitor on the laptop itself, there are are a large portion of the laptop cost, I don’t know how you could compare dells to apples.

Second as you note, the processor speeds are different.

Third is bundled software.

Not sure what the dell wireless comparision with the airport card is; dunno what the difference in interface connections are.

I would also imagine the case difference is considerable.

Is the XP home edition 64 bit and networking and otherwise comparable to the OS shipping with the Mac?

Someone else can perhaps compare the audio and video cards.

[Swordmaker]

I rest my case.

You have no case. You really don't know what you are talking about. You are comparing a home/home office computer setup, the Inspirion, against a professional WORKSTATION class machine. There is no comparison. The base Dell you should be starting with to do a proper like to like comparison is the Dell Precision^TM Workstation. Let's see what you put together and compare against the base Mac Pro:

• Processors:
  Your Dell has ONE (1) 2.4GHz Quad cores for a total of FOUR processors, 8MB L@ cache, with a 1066MHz FSB, retail (Neweg) $268.50.
  The Apple has TWO (2) XEON 2.8GHz Quad core for a total of EIGHT processors, 12MB cache L2, with a 1600MHz FSB, retail (newegg) $733.00 EA total $1466.00.
• Operating System:
  Your Dell has Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition - English - 32 Bit... $109 The Mac has OSX.5.2 Leopard professional level... 64bit... $129
• Memory:
  Your Dell has basic 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 unbuffered SDRAM at 800MHz- 4 1GB DIMMs - good enough for home use. (Newegg) $93.00
  The Mac has 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 fully buffered Error Correcting Circuit DIMMS - that's workstation level RAM. (Newegg) $240.00
• Power Supply:
  Your Dell has either a 350 or a 540 Watt Power Supply.
  The Mac has a 970 Watt Power Supply.
  

Are you beginning to understand what "Comparable Machines" means? We haven't even started to talk about the differences in workstation class motherboards...

[antiRepublicrat]

Oh sorry, I must’ve missed all those ads for a WS2003 update. No, I’m pretty sure this was advertised as a new OS.

Whatever the marketing is, the truth is that Vista is based on the Windows Server 2003 code, which was based on the Windows 2000 Server code, which was based on Windows NT 4 code, which was based on Windows NT 3.51 code, etc.

It's just another update to the NT line, like OS X Leopard is just another update to the OS X line.

[Petronski]

...virtually comparable...

*lolz*

[antiRepublicrat]

Ars Technical does a system builder's guide quite often, showing the current good deals for a "Budget Box" (under $800), "Hot Rod" (around $1,500) and "God Box" ($10,000+), all prices including monitor, speakers, keyboard, etc. Even the budget box is a solid performer that'll last you a while.

[SwankyC]

well golly gee beav I stand corrected. All hail the Mac - It’s far superior to a reworked windows OS that’s unstable in its first release. Maybe now it’ll get somewhere in the market share ball park Windows has.

[webschooner]

You enjoy being rude, don’t you. It’s really not an attractive debating technique, you know. I could respond point by point, but once you have taken the conversation down that road, I’m gonig to choose the high road and opt out. I’ll remain polite and leave it at that.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

Like I said, the ‘comparable’ mac was more like 3x than 2x.

Our mac mini and macbook have both been able to display on our 37” tv. The mini only has 1 dvi output, but the macbook can treat the 37” as either a mirrored display or a second display. Not sure about the Pro.

It was hard to drop 1000+ on a small laptop. I could have gotten 2 (underpowered) vista laptops for about the same coin. I finally pulled the trigger on the macbook (right after the new OS came out), and I haven’t regretted it once.

Trying to catch the thing up so I can use it as my development environment - still have work to do. I want to give xcode a shot, but I think I will stick with eclipse.

I still spend more time on my work pc (xp), but my goal is to set up my laptop to also run windows. and some other parallels appliances.

Also looking hard at a 24” iMac. I should post a pic of my wife’s desk...argh...as soon as I prove to myself that parallels will let her have both a mac and an xp sitting there together in 1 small form, could save some precious space...

[rwfromkansas]

good point about the dock.

[Swordmaker]

Where have I been rude? I have not called you names. Pointing out that you don’t know what you are talking about is self evident when you claim a 4 processor computer is “virtually” the same as a much faster 8 processor computer when comparing pricing is equivalent to comparing the price of a small pickup truck to a Mack 18 wheeler. That means you don’t know what you are talking about. Ignorance is curable.

[dennisw]

I get $679 for a comparable Dell system. I kept the 22” analog LCD which most people will take over an Apple 20” digital display. I upped to a processor superior to the imac

I put in same HD as the imac
Put in fire wire
The Dell comes with 2gb memory
Apple comes with 1gb memory

Just curious ....where does Apple come up with a Core 2 duo processor at 2ghz with 4mb cache? I don’t see any anywhere except maybe a laptop processor

[Swordmaker]

Just curious ....where does Apple come up with a Core 2 duo processor at 2ghz with 4mb cache? I don’t see any anywhere except maybe a laptop processor

It is a high end mobile version of the big box Core 2 Duo processors. IIRC, it is the Intel® T7300 Mobile "Merom" processor in the low end iMac and the Intel® T7900 2.8GHz in the high end 24" model. It draws considerably less power (35 Watts v. 65 Watts on its big brothers) than the other models of the same speed and thus generates considerably less heat. While still very powerful, it is how Apple can make such a quiet computer in a very slim case.