What made you decide to switch?

[craigdcan]

1. They're awfully purty
2. The picture quality/monitors look better than any I've ever seen
3. The OS looks awfully purty, clean, and orderly
4. The Apple reputation for stability, reliability, clean design, programs that work seamlessly with each other, and security
5. They are plenty of computer for me and have top notch components
6. They come with software that's actually very very useful, fun, and easy to use
7. Apple seems to put a significant amount more effort into designing a well thought out computer than other manufacturers
8. I've never had a Mac before and I just wanted to try one

This about sums it up for me as well. My XP was in need of a complete reload having been run for a few years without one and there's just no other monitor out there like the 27" iMac, that I have seen.

Viruses, stability, looks, being different, and really just learning something new. Sometimes I sit there a bit lost, but it's all fun to discover a new method or a new program. Tweakability has been a nice bonus. It just works, and it's just fun.

 

[fridayxiii]

I just got my first Mac - a Macbook 13" - today. My switch was for a few reasons. I have an XP desktop & wanted a notebook, so a Macbook made sense. The lack of viruses & inherent stability of the Mac OS was hugely appealing. The beauty of the display, and the Macbook's physical qualities were also a plus. And I gotta say, Apple stuff just seems to work, and work very very very well.

I got my first Apple product - an iPod Nano - for Christmas '08. Instantly I could see what all the fuss was about. Then, I got an iPhone 3GS last summer, and the addiction grew. With the UI's, and the physical design(s), I just knew that a Macbook had to be my next computer. And I am sooo happy I made the jump!

 

[nospeed411]

Well I was sick of spending 3 to 4 hundred dollars every other year on disposable hardware. I was also sick of constant windows updates, hanging software and just purely unreliable computing experience. The final straw was last week my almost new Toshiba fell 8 inches to the floor and landed smack square on the power plug.....dead as a door nail. I went to BestBuy and procured a brand new 13" MBP. I had actually been distantly considering a switch ever since we got our iPhones for Christmas and we both had iPods already.

Now after a week of sheer bliss...**** its good to be back. I was still in possession of a windows machine....my wifes bargain basement Everex. She had used the MB like 2 or 3 times over the last week and was in love. Well today the inevitable happened..yup you guessed it, she tripped over the power cord and killed it..LOL I call a friend of mine who is an Apple nut and he had a completely refurbed white MB (non unibody) that he was gonna sell. I said have it ready !! We will be there in 20 mins.
We are now the proud owners of 2 little wonders. LOL ....albeit a tad lighter in the wallet at the moment.

 

[Yarrrm8e]

My ancient Dell laptop finally died on me. I have a 17" Dell XPS laptop for work (not the one that broke down), and it is a lovely machine, very powerful, never breaks down, all that. 17" is a lot to carry around. When I first got it, I thought it would be great for watching movies on a plane, but it won't fit on the tray table, it's that big. So anyway, I wanted something small, portable, but powerful. I was looking at 13" notebooks, but it's hard to find one that's not a netbook, and that's just not powerful enough for me. So on a whim I went into the Apple store. They gave me a military discount, and I picked up a 13" MBP for $1099. Any PC laptop with a 13" screen and similar specs was similarly priced, so there goes that whole "Macs are too expensive wah wah" argument. When people ask me what's the difference, I just tell them that it's a million and one little things that it does better. It's the attention to detail.
Now, I haven't had a BSOD for years (that wasn't related to a hardware fault, and don't give me any BS that Mac hardware doesn't fail) and I got a Vista computer after the service packs came out, so I haven't had any issues. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit via parallels, and although I need more RAM, as I only have 2 gigs, the computer is fast and stable. All in all, the machine is so good I honestly can't see ever buying a non-Mac laptop again. I'm still finding little things that make me happy thanks to their simplicity. It's amazing how simple they've made all these programs, yet they are very powerful. iPhoto, for example, is stellar. It has most of the functionality of Adobe Bridge, but in my experience it runs better, or at least it doesn't draw the same resources as Bridge.
Now if we could get a tower without blowing 3 grand, I'd be happy. Still not sold on the iMac, and the Mac Mini is cool, but just not powerful enough for what I need.

 

[JUKE179r]

I bought a MBP back in Dec '07 because of getting tired of my 5 year old VAIO laptop crapping out on me. Since getting the MBP, I haven't had any problems from my VAIO. I think it's jealous.

 

[T_O_P12]

27inch HD display.... need i say more?

 

[craigdcan]

Beyond HD even!

 

[Davanw]

I'm a Windows server administrator. After a long day of dealing with Windows issues, I didn't want to come home to Windows as well.

Also my Dad has been a Mac user since the mid-80's!

 

[webuggshoe]

Justin Long, he's just so cool and hip.

For real though, I'm not quite sure. Partly aesthetics, partly rebellion

 

[style0]

My old PC's hard drive crashed so I went shopping at the new Micro Center in my area. I marched in with a strict budget of $750 for just a new tower, my old monitor and printer would do fine. Well I looked at many different brands and models and finally exhausted I walked past the Mac section of the store. Well you can only guess what happened then. I am typing this on my 21.5 iMac and digging it.

 

[613]

Back in 2006, my step-dad offered to get me a laptop for university, I looked around and the MB was at the top of my budget, my iPods had given me nothing but joy and plus nobody had an Apple laptop, so I got it. Simple

 

[Badvostro]

Years of Windows influenced my decision, especially Vista...

I've been using Windows since Windows 95, and it's always been frustrating when it feels like it. My first computer was an HP Pavilion desktop, terrible terrible computer, always froze and crashed; multiple BSODs. Next I had a Dell Dimension with Windows 98, better but still not very good. The next desktop we got was an upgrade, a newer Dell Dimension with Windows 2000 Professional, we ended up using that for about eight years (400 MHz Pentium II, upgraded to 512MB of RAM, eventually put two 80GB HDDs in it); it became my computer when my mother got a new Dell desktop from one of my uncles and my sister got my dad's old Dell laptop. It needed to be 'rebuilt' every two months and finally died in March 2008. I got a Dell laptop identical to my sister's as a replacement (I think it was a Dell Inspiron from the early 2000's, it had a 4:3 screen ratio, 20GB HDD, it was ancient for 2008 anyways) running Windows XP. The screen wouldn't stay up and the battery wouldn't last more than two minutes, so I hooked it up like a desktop computer. That one died after about five months of use, so I got a loaner Dell desktop from my dad's office that was FUBAR, slowest thing I've ever used. My last Windows computer was a Vostro 1000 laptop, dual-core 1.9GHz AMD Athlon X2 processor, 80GB HDD, 15" screen, 2GB RAM, Vista Home Premium. It ran great for the first ten months and then started slowing down. It broke after a year, and for the past four months something on it has broken. I treat my stuff well and rarely moved it off my desk, so it shouldn't have broken, but it did. Also, Vista updates made the computer slower and slower, it performed TERRIBLY and crashed often. These updates came along every two days it seemed.

... so I finally got frustrated enough with that laptop that I went and bought my Macbook. About time, too... this thing is great!

 

[chashutch]

I switched because, as I have gotten older, I have begun to appreciate things that "just work". I purchased my 13" MBP three days ago and could not be happier.

Over the last few months I began to find ways to migrate myself completely off of Windows products. I started by dual booting Ubuntu and Win7. As I found more and more ways to use open source software, I began using windows less and less. The only thing I used windows for was verifying that podcasts I create are working properly. I moved from dual-booting windows to running windows virtually on ubuntu with Virtualbox.

Now that I have my mac configured, I only need windows for... well... nothing! I keep my old windows desktop running and remote into it from my mac to move files to the home server (which I then access via the macbook!)

The things that sold me on a mac:
1. Customer Care - The apple store reminds me of the Lexus dealership and I appreciate great service.
2. User Community - I started using the mac forums (this one and Apple.com/support), asking questions, etc. I found the folks very friendly. The night before I went to the apple store to buy my Macbook, I posted a question on the apple support forum about applecare. Within three minutes there were three helpful replies.
3. Build quality - I needed a laptop that I could be comfortable carrying everywhere with me. It needed to be solid and well built. My MacBook Pro just "feels" solid.
4. The machine just looks cool. It's like a fast car that looks sexy even when it is sitting still.

What do I miss about a PC? I miss a backspace key. I will learn the keyboard shortcuts and probably be better off without it.

Hutch

 

[valladon]

the first time I saw a 20" Imac it was all over. No more pc box. Plus, having 5 kids in the house at the time, my windows machines had to be wiped clean every two months.

 

[Mr. Drums]

They look really cool and cost a lot of money. Those are the main reasons I switched. Oh, and they scratch easily, and everything at the Apple store is over-priced. That's why I switched. :0

 

[Chris H.]

My ancient Dell laptop finally died on me. I have a 17" Dell XPS laptop for work (not the one that broke down), and it is a lovely machine, very powerful, never breaks down, all that. 17" is a lot to carry around. When I first got it, I thought it would be great for watching movies on a plane, but it won't fit on the tray table, it's that big. So anyway, I wanted something small, portable, but powerful. I was looking at 13" notebooks, but it's hard to find one that's not a netbook, and that's just not powerful enough for me. So on a whim I went into the Apple store. They gave me a military discount, and I picked up a 13" MBP for $1099. Any PC laptop with a 13" screen and similar specs was similarly priced, so there goes that whole "Macs are too expensive wah wah" argument. When people ask me what's the difference, I just tell them that it's a million and one little things that it does better. It's the attention to detail.
Now, I haven't had a BSOD for years (that wasn't related to a hardware fault, and don't give me any BS that Mac hardware doesn't fail) and I got a Vista computer after the service packs came out, so I haven't had any issues. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit via parallels, and although I need more RAM, as I only have 2 gigs, the computer is fast and stable. All in all, the machine is so good I honestly can't see ever buying a non-Mac laptop again. I'm still finding little things that make me happy thanks to their simplicity. It's amazing how simple they've made all these programs, yet they are very powerful. iPhoto, for example, is stellar. It has most of the functionality of Adobe Bridge, but in my experience it runs better, or at least it doesn't draw the same resources as Bridge.
Now if we could get a tower without blowing 3 grand, I'd be happy. Still not sold on the iMac, and the Mac Mini is cool, but just not powerful enough for what I need.

The Mac mini has 2.26 to 2.66 (no hyper thread) GHz and a maximum of 8 gigs of RAM, what more could you need? Heck the hard drive is pretty much swappable.

Just saying.

 

[Chris H.]

I switched because I had enough of Microsoft's BS excuses for why my computer had problems. "Oh it's the hardware..blah blah blah". No, it wasn't. It was Windows. The hardware works fine, I know, I can tell!!

That and viruses, and...I think I mentioned this somewhere else on this forum.

 

[Lakeloon]

Because PC absolutely suckssss.

 

[arbiggs]

I needed to replace an old and failing Win Laptop and figured it was a good time to convince my wife to let me make the change to Mac. I've been using PCs for about 25 years, starting at work. Now that the MacBook Pro has cross-platform capabilities I thought it a great time to give it a spin. Afterall, if needed I could load WinXP and keep on going.

It has only been about 2 months and I'm still trying to unlearn/relearn a lot but I'm very happy with the performance and, it does look prettty cool. I haven't loaded Windows yet and am now leaning much more away from the idea. I warming up to my cute little Snow Leopard and think I'm well on the way to becoming a full-fledged convert.