what makes mac different?

[encity5]

Was wondering what makes macs so special and/or different wtih graphical editing tasks (video editing, photoshop, flash web design, etc.) ive been in the market for a new computer and been looking at macs, besides looking beautiful and having final cut pro, i cant find a suitable reason to switch. Most macs are priced higher than PCs based on the computer specs. im pretty sure theres more to it tho than just the specs. but wanted to know what are some of the core differences to use a mac over windows for these types of applications.

 

[giulio]

If you really compare hardware, you'll see that the prices are really really close.
I can compare it to a 4 door truck I bought. It was the Toyota Tacoma (mac) vs the Chevy Colorado (pc). Sure the colorado was a less money than the tacoma. But then if you add all the things to the colorado that the tacoma came with, it was the same price. But the Tacoma is a better vehicle.

Now the other question is the interface. The Mac is a nicer user experience. The way things work, and the workflow, is more ergonomic... it all makes sense without having to learn anything. Things work the way they naturally should.

 

[baggss]

Here is a test. Go to the Apple site and price out a MacBookPro. Then go to the Dell Site and price out a Dell laptop as closely spec'ed as possible. You will be surprised. Do the same with a Mac Pro and a Dell desktop, keeping the spec's as close as you can. Again, you will surprised.

Dell Laptop:
XPS M1210
$2,617

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7600 (2.33GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Integrated Webcam and Mobile Broadband Antenna
2GB Dual Shared Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7400 TurboCache™
Integrated Audio

MacBookPro:
$2,499.00

2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
120GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 6x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
Accessory Kit

The Dell only gave me the choice of Integrated Graphics, ala the MacBook line, or a 256Mb card and the HDD size is 100GB for the Dell and 120Gb for the Mac. Even with more tweaking, the prices are not far apart on either machine. Both include built in wireless as well, although the Dell has built in Wireless Broadband as well.

 

[Zoolook]

Was wondering what makes macs so special and/or different wtih graphical editing tasks (video editing, photoshop, flash web design, etc.) ive been in the market for a new computer and been looking at macs, besides looking beautiful and having final cut pro, i cant find a suitable reason to switch. Most macs are priced higher than PCs based on the computer specs. im pretty sure theres more to it tho than just the specs. but wanted to know what are some of the core differences to use a mac over windows for these types of applications.

For the average home user, there is little or no difference, apart from a slightly more attractive interface. The Mac's reputation for being better at professional design and editing is a historical one, based the the fact that Macs were able to handle complex scaling graphics far earlier and far more efficiently than PCs. In fact until the mid-1990's, PCs were bascially not powerful enough to do scaleable fonts etc, much less deal with video or animation.

Because of this, most professional design apps were made for the Mac, rather than the PC and to an extent that tradition has conitnued, with most professionals sticking with Macs. There is also the fact that Macs have been far more stable than Windows based PCs, at least up until Windows 2000 at which point the debate becomes a little more interesting, but DOS, OS/2 Warp and Windows 3.1 were not exactly graphics power houses.

Even in te music world, in the 1980's right up until the late 90's, many musicians would rather trust their masterpeices to an Atari ST than Windows... and there was good reason for that.

Now apps like Quark or Adobe Photoshop, run just as well under a stable WinXP environment as they do on OS X - but whereas PCs try to do everything at least adequately, Macs are really designed from the ground up to do this kind of work very well (the OS at least).

 

[D3v1L80Y]

Was wondering what makes macs so special and/or different wtih graphical editing tasks (video editing, photoshop, flash web design, etc.) ive been in the market for a new computer and been looking at macs, besides looking beautiful and having final cut pro, i cant find a suitable reason to switch. Most macs are priced higher than PCs based on the computer specs.

As was already pointed out, the "Macs are more expensive" bit is a myth. They cost the same as any other machine out there with the same specs.
The difference lies in the OS and that is really about it. It is a different way of doing things. Outside of that, there is no difference.
Boths Windows systems and Mac systems can acheive the same results with just about every thing you can think of. Again, they just reach that acheivement in different ways.
If you "can't find a suitable reason to switch", then there is no need for you to do so. Use what is most comfortable and what works the best for you. If that is Windows, then stick with your Windows machine. Nobody is making you get a Mac, so if you don't feel it is right for you, then don't get one.

 

[Village Idiot]

Here is a test. Go to the Apple site and price out a MacBookPro. Then go to the Dell Site and price out a Dell laptop as closely spec'ed as possible. You will be surprised. Do the same with a Mac Pro and a Dell desktop, keeping the spec's as close as you can. Again, you will surprised.

Dell Laptop:
XPS M1210

$2,617

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7600 (2.33GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Integrated Webcam and Mobile Broadband Antenna
2GB Dual Shared Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)
100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7400 TurboCache™
Integrated Audio
My Accessories
53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g
External USB Single Analog Tuner w/Digital HD over-the-air USB Tuner

MacBookPro:

2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
120GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 6x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS - U.S. English
Accessory Kit

The Dell only gave me the choice of Integrated Graphics, ala the MacBook line, or a 256Mb card and the HDD size is 100GB for the Dell and 120Gb for the Mac. Even with more tweaking, the prices are not far apart on either machine.

You're also comparing a 12" laptop to a 15".

It could go the other way. I got a 2.0 c2d, 2gb ram, 256mb nvidia go 7900gs, 100gb 7200rpm drive, with bluetooth and everything else for $1400-$1500 new. And it's a 17" inspiron. The cheapest 17" Mac notebook is $2799 new.

So yes there is a difference in price depending on how you configure things.

 

[gilesjuk]

Was wondering what makes macs so special and/or different wtih graphical editing tasks (video editing, photoshop, flash web design, etc.) ive been in the market for a new computer and been looking at macs, besides looking beautiful and having final cut pro, i cant find a suitable reason to switch. Most macs are priced higher than PCs based on the computer specs. im pretty sure theres more to it tho than just the specs. but wanted to know what are some of the core differences to use a mac over windows for these types of applications.

Quite simply, the Mac OS is designed better. Windows is a bit of a mess.

You will spend less time tinkering and more time working. If you depend on a computer for your living and want to get things done then you don't want to be using Windows.

Things that are bad about Windows:

1. The registry, it is hard to manage, slows down the PC and hard to repair.

2. The filesystem, Windows sticks files all over the place. With a Mac it is a lot easier to devote a disk partition to be your Home directory. If you OS partition screws up, you can wipe it and reinstall the OS and Apps, mount /home and you'll be up and running in no time. The security model of Mac OS is based on Unix and it stops accidental damage.

3. The millions of pontential hardware configurations. You are often reliant on manufacturers drivers and they can't always test their drivers with the latest patches from Microsoft. Apple knows all the potential configurations. Your system will run more reliably.

4. All the malware, viruses, trojans etc..

I come from a Windows and Linux past, I used Linux (still do for MythtTV) and I found that my PC ran consistently fast always. But found I needed to run some commercial apps like Photoshop.

The only fast stable platform that runs commercial apps and isn't Windows is Mac.

 

[Mantronix]

I'm not a Mac owner yet but I have worked on a Mac this past month and I must say it OS X is a godly operating system. The interface, utilities and overall smoothness of OS X is a dream. And this is coming from a 11 yr Windows user. I CANNOT wait until I get my iMac.

 

[gilesjuk]

Plus Apple are helpful to developers. I've read about how Apple supports developers and how one developer found an OS bug, Apple replied and said thanks and even returned his application source code with some improvements.

That's proper support, on the other hand the same developer logged bugs to Microsoft and never heard back.

 

[baggss]

You're also comparing a 12" laptop to a 15".

It could go the other way. I got a 2.0 c2d, 2gb ram, 256mb nvidia go 7900gs, 100gb 7200rpm drive, with bluetooth and everything else for $1400-$1500 new. And it's a 17" inspiron. The cheapest 17" Mac notebook is $2799 new.

So yes there is a difference in price depending on how you configure things.

Yes, a 12 inch Dell is MORE expensive than a 15inch Mac!

I would compare an Inspiron to a MacBook, not a MacBookPro. Inspiron and MB are the lower tier offerings, MBP and XPS are the upper tier. If I compare the XPS 17 inch to a 17 inch MBP, the XPS costs even more than the MBP does. The Dell comes in at $2879 and Mac at $2799. Even the VRAM and the HDD matches this time. This is for the lowest tier XPS you can get from Dell. Again, the price is pretty close. If you go for the upper end XPS, it WAY out there ($4000+) but it does have BlueRay and some other options that Apple doesn't offer.

For a comparable Inspiron vs MB I get $1172 for the Dell and $1299 for the Mac (White). Again, pretty darn comparable.

My point is that the myth that Macs cost significantly more, or is some case more at all, than their PC counterpart is a load horse manure.

 

[dtravis7]

OSX. The only reason I use Macs. If you like Windows or Feel OSX is not a better OS, stick with a Windows machine. OSX is what sets a Mac apart from a PC, and yes I use both, daily.

 

[Village Idiot]

Yes, a 12 inch Dell is MORE expensive than a 15inch Mac!

I would compare an Inspiron to a MacBook, not a MacBookPro. Inspiron and MB are the lower tier offerings, MBP and XPS are the upper tier. If I compare the XPS 17 inch to a 17 inch MBP, the XPS costs even more than the MBP does. The Dell comes in at $2879 and Mac at $2799. Even the VRAM and the HDD matches this time. This is for the lowest tier XPS you can get from Dell. Again, the price is pretty close. If you go for the upper end XPS, it WAY out there ($4000+) but it does have BlueRay and some other options that Apple doesn't offer.

For a comparable Inspiron vs MB I get $1172 for the Dell and $1299 for the Mac (White). Again, pretty darn comparable.

My point is that the myth that Macs cost significantly more, or is some case more at all, than their PC counterpart is a load horse manure.

It doesn't really matter what "teir" the company offers them as, it's more about what hardware.

The 17" inspiron just has a slower clocked chip, but has a 7200rpm drive, better video card and is 17" with 1920x1200 viewable resolution, just for under $1500. The 17" Macbook pro has a slightly faster processor, slightly worse video card and is the only macbook in the line up to offer a 7200rpm drive.

you can't really compare the 17" inspiron to the macbook. It's a lot better performer, only slightly more, and has a 1920x1200 res 17" screen.

and the 17" dell will perform just as well as the MBP if not better in some aspects (gaming and 3d performances mainly, because you can even over clock the nvidia GPU with no ill affects). You wouldn't look twice at a Macbook for playing games at that level or doing 3d rendering. Sure you can run WoW on a macbook, but not at the resolution of the dell with all the settings about maxed.

So in hardware and function, the two are comparable, with a large price difference, and just because a company labels things differently from the next, doesn't mean that it's not a capable performer.

 

[baggss]

Actually I matched the clock speed and the HDD speeds as close as I could on both of them to get the specs as close as possible. When I matched the Inspiron to the MB and the XPS to the MBP the second time around, I made sure the RAM speed (667 vs 533) and the HDD (5400 vs 7200) were the same on each. You are correct, you might not buy a Mac to play WOW, but the OPs post was not about playing games.

I did not compare a 17 inch Inspiron to a 12 inch MB, I matched the that to the 14.1 inch Inspiron which was the closest you can get.

I never said any of the Dells was "not a capable performer", I was simply pointing out that the hardware prices were very similar for similar machine specs, nothing more. For whatever reason you seem to have a hard time grasping that idea. You can get similar machines for similar prices from both companies. Macs are no more overpriced than Dells are, plain and simple.

 

[PapaNoHair]

I come from a Windows and Linux past, I used Linux (still do for MythtTV) and I found that my PC ran consistently fast always. But found I needed to run some commercial apps like Photoshop.

Agreed whole-heartedly. This is one of the reasons I left Linux and came to Mac. You would find an application and it would not (for some reason) run on your particular machine. I am now running into some of the same problems with Sunrise browser so it is gone. Will stick with either Mac applications or those that have been around for years and have "proven" themselves.

 

[gilesjuk]

I had no real problems with Linux app performance. I used Kubuntu and before that Gentoo.

Most of the problems were with getting the whole kaboodle to work. Printer, webcam etc..

I decided it was time to stop being so geeky and get something dependable and simple.

 

[Alexis]

Was wondering what makes macs so special and/or different wtih graphical editing tasks (video editing, photoshop, flash web design, etc.) ive been in the market for a new computer and been looking at macs

As has been mentioned, historically Macs have been the computers of choice for designers and as a result various design tasks are easier on Macs today - font management, colour management and PDFing for example.

The operating system is the biggest plus point today. With Windows, you're stuck in a rigid one app per screen, filling the whole area. Designers need to be more fluid in the way they work, constantly swapping between programs, having different areas of the same job visible on screen etc. OS X is designed to work in this way and has features such as Expose (ways of switching windows and displaying programs) which are lacking in the rigid Windows operating system.

 

[D3v1L80Y]

You're also comparing a 12" laptop to a 15".

It could go the other way. I got a 2.0 c2d, 2gb ram, 256mb nvidia go 7900gs, 100gb 7200rpm drive, with bluetooth and everything else for $1400-$1500 new. And it's a 17" inspiron. The cheapest 17" Mac notebook is $2799 new.

So yes there is a difference in price depending on how you configure things.

Yes, there is a difference... when you don't include "everything else".
Using a Dell Inspiron and a 17"MBP, the MBP with a 100GB HD is $2699.
The Inspiron, with the 17" screen, without the complete software that would compliment the iLife suite, and without the faster processor brings the total cost to $2209.
You also have no FireWire 800 port, the maximum RAM is only 2GB (the MBP can go up to 3GB), and you have a Windows system with no anti-virus software included.
By the time you would add those features from third-parties that you could, the cost would be even closer.... and you would still have the slower processor.
If you went with a more true comparison, the XPS would be the choice and the cost would go even higher.

The point is, when you match systems as close as you can, the cost is the same.

 

[Village Idiot]

Yes, there is a difference... when you don't include "everything else".
Using a Dell Inspiron and a 17"MBP, the MBP with a 100GB HD is $2699.
The Inspiron, with the 17" screen, without the complete software that would compliment the iLife suite, and without the faster processor brings the total cost to $2209.
You also have no FireWire 800 port, the maximum RAM is only 2GB (the MBP can go up to 3GB), and you have a Windows system with no anti-virus software included.
By the time you would add those features from third-parties that you could, the cost would be even closer.... and you would still have the slower processor.
If you went with a more true comparison, the XPS would be the choice and the cost would go even higher.

The point is, when you match systems as close as you can, the cost is the same.

You can get the Dell for about $1500 after tax, and the max memory in pretty much any c2d pc or notebook is 4gb, including the inspiron. Dell always has 20%-30% online coupons.

The fact remains that you can get pc hardware for cheaper than mac hardware because of the competitive aspect of the pc market. I can name 10 huge large notebook manufactures off the top of my head that all make similar pcs. Most are trying to out sell the rest and price factors into that. Apple computers has a monoply on hardware to run osx on(legally) and since they're the only ones that make the computers, they can charge what they want without worrying as much about competition as the pc manufactures.

You can even get a pc that will browse the internet, compose word documents, and check e-mail for about $200. You can't get a mac for that cheap. It's not going to have the specs of the mac, but it's more accessable for people that can't afford that price.

 

[baggss]

You can even get a pc that will browse the internet, compose word documents, and check e-mail for about $200. You can't get a mac for that cheap. It's not going to have the specs of the mac, but it's more accessable for people that can't afford that price.

I'm sorry, that is just stupid. A $200 PC is going to be a POS and we all know it. I wouldn't buy a PC for that cheap for just that reason. Stop being purposely obtuse and simply admit the obvious. Macs are competitively priced with mainstream PC makers. Yes, you CAN get cheaper PCs, but cheaper does not always equal better unless you are a moron. They are not significantly more expensive by a long shot and comparing a $200 POS PC to a MacBook (or a Dell XPS/Inspiron) is disingenuous at best and downright idiotic at worst.

If you dislike Apple hardware so much, or can buy a PC so darn cheap, why are you even here? Perhaps your best bet would be to ditch whatever Mac you have and buy a $200 PC. Tell us just how well that goes for you.

 

[sockeye]

What does windows do better than os x?

I have read above why windows can be bad , but are there things a pc can do better than a mac? I am expecting "nothing" will be some of the replies, but , I am wondering if I should hang on to my pc too.