When I bought my first MacBook in 2007, I drank the Apple Kool-Aid deeply. I was a big fan. But over the years, as the number of programs I installed increased, as the storage space decreased, and as the average complexity of software increased, I became somewhat less excited with Macs. Also, because I had the old 10.4 Tiger OS, there became a number of programs that I couldn't run or update. I thought about going back to a PC. Who knows, I thought, maybe the new Windows 7 made some significant strides in catching up with Macs. My chance came when I had to buy a PC for my job.
I went to Best Buy and bought a brand new Acer Aspire with 2.13 Ghz duo-core Pentium processor with 4 GB of ram and a 500 GB hard-drive for $300. I then sold my 5-year old, that had a Pentium processor duo-core 2.16 Ghz, 1GB of ram MacBook for $300. Even though the free market said that the deal was equivalent, I thought I got a better deal by buying the Acer because it was brand new. I would soon find out that even though 5 years had passed, my MacBook was the better deal. Here are four ways that illustrate this.
Superior DVD players - I don't really understand how DVD players work, and I don't know how much of the DVD experience is due to the software or the hardware, but this much I do know: MacBooks play DVDs a lot better than other products. I have some DVDs that I cannot play on my laptop or the standalone DVD player. But put that disc in a MacBook and there is no hesitation. My analysis may be biased because I have lower-end types of DVD players (i.e. Acer laptop, and a relatively cheap Sony DVD player), but the point is that Apple excels at video content.
Processing power and memory (efficient and strong and powerful) - I expected that since I had quadrupled my ram in my new purchase, that I would be able to have all sorts of programs open at the same time with little to no lag. I was disappointed when the first day I was waiting abnormally long for a couple tabs to run at the same time (one of which was a video playing). The fluidity and seamlessness of running programs on a new MacBook cannot be overstated. It's a magical experience.
Reboots - One thing that I have always hated about Windows is the number of reboots that are required. You ever have a problem and the first recommendation is to reboot. Install a new program? Reboot. System update? Reboot. I thought that some of this would change with Windows 7, but unfortunately that is not the case. Not only am I pestered with annoying popups on a regular basis that I need to restart my laptop for a security update, the longest I can delay the reminder is 4 hours. The other annoying thing is that if you are not attending to your computer when this notice appears, it will restart automatically closing the programs you were running. I hate this more than almost anything.
Quick reboot (turn on) - I was spoiled over the years by my MacBook by getting accustomed to opening up my laptop, and being able to immediately get to work. The PC is not very instantaneous at all. Windows 7 has made improvements since XP, but nowhere near where Apple has been for a long time.
There are other features that I like about Macs, but these are the main ones. In sum, Apple is way ahead of the curve. If you are debating about the two, and you want your computer to last a long time, go with your gut and choose an Apple product.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
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8 comments:
Trent,
Thanks for your article, but I want to inject a few items that may be worthy for thought.
First, not much has happened with DVD technology over the past five years. DVD players have been around since 1995, and by now speeds and price have pretty much reached their equilibrium in the market. The only thing that has changed is the varying levels of quality. Obviously one could purchase a "high-quality" DVD player, and another could purchase a "low-quality" DVD player.
I am assuming you bought your Mac for more than $300. (The only thing you can get from Apple for $300 is a Thank You card.) That being said, your Apple purchase price was much higher, and some of this price was dedicated to better equipment. Assuming that DVD technology has remaind close to stagnant over the past few years, it is most likely that your $300 dollar purchase did not do much for a better quality DVD player.
Processing power and memory resources are quite efficient and powerful on a PC. You probably just need to perform a little optimization. The Windows footprint is larger than the Mac OS. So you will probably be stretching those 4GB of RAM. The first thing I would recommend is creating a static page file of at leat 1.5 to 2 times physical memory.
Also, the reason you were able to purchase your PC at such a low price is the large subsidies that software developers throw at the PC market to have their software included. This "bloat-ware" needs to be removed from the system. You probably have a ton of unnecessary services running in the background slowing your machine down. With a little fine tuning your machine should fly.
As far as rebooting the machine goes, I would first recommend using the sleep/hibernate option. (Although hibernation creates a fairly large hiberfil.sys file that can be pesky.) You can come out of a sleep/hibernate within a few seconds at most.
If you want more control over your updates, just change the scheduled time the computer runs its updates. Or turn automatic updating off. If you open up Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Update > Change Settings, you can entierely customize when and what will be updated - if at all!
I want to welcome you back to the enlightened world of computing - PC land. And I am sorry if you have experienced poor performance. If you would like, you and I could start a remote session, and I could help you update your system, and customize/optimize the machine to your liking.
After a few simple steps, your experience will really be much better than you ever had on a Mac. Why?! Because you can accomplish so much more on a PC. Just like learning to drive a car, a Geo Metro may be less likely to break, but when you learn how to drive and clutch on a Ferrari, the experience, and occassional repair/tweaking is entirely woth the hassle.
--Stan
trent, i could not agree with you more. my mac is 3 years old and it just still works. so does my 4 year old iphone. with apple, things just work, and they are obsessed with that very important quality. how can you expect components - coming from so many different hands and so many companies, who each have their own competitive business strategy - to produce a machine as seamless as a mac. design is not just in the specs or in the way a computer looks.
"design is not just what it looks like. design is how it works" -- steve jobs
@Scott, maybe you should check your facts more closely. Do you really believe that Apple is making all the different components that comprise a Macbook or iPhone? Below is just a list of the primary components from the iPhone and the different companies and countries where these parts come from. The list for Apple Computers is even more extensive. Come on... recall your Econ courses, Apple cannot maintain is comparative advantages by trying to specialize in all computer component manufacturing. Your statement is not only a lie but a falsehood perpetuated by Apple.
The only reason why your Apple products just work is because of the innately locked down environment that you work with. You aren't allowed to break things! (Yes that is a bad thing.) Apple assumes that their users are either too dumb or not energetic enough to learn how to compute.
Guess what, my PC has worked for years! This is because I have taken the time to learn how to use a computer and I do not balk at the idea of having to learn something new or challenging.
If we looked at service records of a Daewoo Nubia and a Lotus Elan, we would think the Nubia is a better vehicle - less mechanical issues. It doesn't break because it doesn't let you go faster than 70 MPH - on a 30% downhill slope. But who would really want a Nubia over an Elan?
I guess that Scott is correct if your sole purpose on a computer is to do nothing more than Blog, write an occassional document, and post on Facebook.
But come one - do we really need an i7 quad-core processor to post something to Facebook? What are you doing with all that hardware you purchased? Perhaps Universal Voice Command that has user recognition, artifical intelligence to learn from mistakes and make assumptions, increased software compatibility? NOPE!! These are a small portion of things that a PC can accomplish that a Mac cannot. But you can probably post on Twitter like nobody's business.
I think what Steve Jobs meant to say was "Just make it look pretty, that way the users won't notice the utter lack of functionality."
iPhone Primary Contractors - a partial list
Software and design
Apple
USA
Assembly
Foxconn, Quanta, Unknown
Taiwan
TFT-LCD Screen
Sanyo Epson, Sharp, TMD
Japan
Video processor chip
Samsung
Korea
Touch screen overlay
Balda
Germany
Bluetooth chip
Cambridge Silicon Radio
UK
Chip manufacture
TSMC, UMC
Taiwan
Baseband IC
Infineon Technology
Germany
WIFI Chip
Marvell
USA
Touch screen control chip
Broadcom
USA
CMOS chip
Micron
USA
NOR Flash ICs
Intel, SST
USA
Display Driver chip
National Semi, Novatek
US, TW
Case, Mechanical parts
Catcher, Foxconn Tech
Taiwan
Camera lens
Largan Precision
Taiwan
Camera module
Altus-Tech, Primax, Lite On
Taiwan
Battery Charger
Delta Electronics
Taiwan
Timing Crystal
TXC
Taiwan
Passive components
Cyntec
Taiwan
Connector and cables
Cheng Uei, Entery
Taiwan
I'm gonna jump in here real quick. @Stan, I think that you raise really good points. I was comparing a higher end laptop (Macbook) with a low-end laptop, which is not fair (even if it's 5 years old!). That being said, I know a lot of people that own Macs for 5 or so years and that is almost unheard of in PC land.
@Scott, I think @Stan has a point that in terms of distribution of parts, both have parts coming from Timbuktu and back. And I'm sure that there are PCs that have really great designs, but because there are not so great PCs and they're all PCs, some people (myself included) judge the whole lot as bad.
That being said, I don't think that Macs unduly restrict the use of the computer. Maybe the iPhone and the App store is guilty of this, but I had a lot of flexibility to customize my MacBook. It really helped to have a unix-based OS (Windows, please follow suit and get rid of Dos) that allows the user to do a lot of powerful things.
@Trent - why would a user keep a PC for more than 5 years. One can buy a PC for $500 with performance equal to or greater than an Apple that would cost $1,200 or more. I can uprade/buy a PC twice in the same period of time, and then I get to take advantage of the newest hardware available.
@Trent - what exactly did you customize on your Apple? Were you able to customize your hardware, like upgrading your video card to take advantage of a newer and faster GPU? Did you add a new SSD with more space? No! Because Apple has compliance chips installed on their motherboards to lock your hardware choices. That is pretty restrictive!
Or perhaps you customized your kernel to optimize for file processing. Good luck! Changing the Mac OS kernel is like breaking one of Apple's ten commandments.
An entire industry has cropped up around circumventing the restrictions that Apple places on thier hardware and software.
@Stan, I agree that Apple has a somewhat lockdown on MacBook components, but that's not unique to Apple. Many semiconductor manufacturers integrate video and other components to reduce cost. And yes, OSX is not a pure open unix platform. They have somewhat modified it to restrict some functionality. But that being said, because it's based on Unix, it's very elegant and easy to operate under the hood. That is not the case with Dos. In fact, I would argue that Windows restricts a user in what he can do more so than a Mac, but I don't know enough about Windows to be certain.
The one contradiction I see in your response is pretty obvious. You said that there's no point to have a laptop last for 5 years because they get outdated, but at then you turn around and say that a big disadvantage for Macs is that they aren't upgrade-able. Here's the truth: for the overwhelming majority of tasks that computers perform, hardware has blown by software. Sure there are the high-end games or advanced graphics programs, but this is the exception. Users should not have to upgrade their entire system every couple years so that it can keep up with the software unless they are extreme.
Wow, I thoroughly enjoyed the debate! In a few years Stan will come around. They might be completely redesigning the MacBook pro soon...
Windows 7 = Ferrari???
Hmmm... It's important to recognize that Windows 7 = 6th/7th version of the garbage that is Windows NT. Blek! At somepoint they will need to ditch that kernel along with the registry garbage that it can never escape.
I offer the perspective of someone who has used apple computers for awhile to write windows software Microsoft has done particularly well in the application layer. For example the office suite of products has always been great, the application level software that sits on top of the OS has been good. Also, the application server products have been very good, SQL Server, IIS, and the .Net Application Framework. While recognizing the various good things that MS has accomplished, there OS development has not been one of them.
Apple has revolutionized user-friendly computing. even the most ardent windows user must recognize the extent to which Apple has challenged MS in that area, and has ultimately resulted in some improvements by MS in this area. Under there model Apple has the benefit of essentially designing the hardware configuration that there OS ships with. Apple customers buy an integrated product in the sense that for them the benefit of the latest and greatest is OS X, rolled up together with hardware carefully selected and supported by Apple.
Along the lines of what others have pointed out here, all my apple machines purchased in the last 6 years are still going. It makes it hard for me as a mac user to justify running out and falling victim to the buzz surrounding all their latest and greatest, when the stuff I have still works.
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