gasmansteve":cuak1dcx said:
Never so much as dipped a toe into the Mac pond is it worth having a go?. Win 7 seems to do all I need too
Steve
I'd highly recommend using a Mac. The main benefit I've found is reliability. Mac hardware costs a bit more than PC hardware, but is considerably more reliable and lasts longer. My current Powermac dual processor G5 is nearly 7 years old was bought second-hand and still does everything I want - I've had one hardware problem with it in all that time. The graphics card died - which may well have been my own fault - I hadn't realised it had a tiny on-board fan, so didn't notice this had clogged with dust and stopped working causing the card to overheat and die :-( Friends of mine who use PCs have had far more hardware failures per machine in the same 7 year period - with graphics cards, motherboards and memory seeming to be the most problematic items - and most have had to buy 2 - 3 new PCs during that time.
There also seem to be fewer software problems on the Mac, and those that there are seem less catastropic. I rarely have to reboot my Mac to fix a problem, or need to power it off because the software has locked up - something my Pc using friends do frequently.
Other Mac benefits are:
Far less virus & security problems
Plug & Play of new hardware really is and it works
What probelms do occur seem easier to fix (and do not always involve re-installing the operating system and multiple re-boots!)
Hardware has higher second-hand value for longer
You can be a Mac user without having to learn to be a Mac hardware/operating system expert
Most Mac hardware looks incredibly cool
Intel-based Macs can dual boot & run Windows too if you need to.
The downside of Macs are:
Hardware initially costs more
Less really cheap accessories and add-ons available
Less choice of cheap home software - plenty of professional software (at professional prices!) open source software and decent shareware available though.
