***WARNING*** I apologize in advance for my incredible ignorance on this subject and I'm sure my questions are incredibly stupid. Now that that's out of the way... I have never owned any apple product except for an ipod when they first came out years ago. I really hated itunes so I ended up getting something much simpler that I could just drag and drop songs into without installing any software. I have an android smartphone and love it and finally most of my computers have been Toshiba laptops. I am currently in the market for an all in one desktop computer and the reason I am creating this thread is because all of the reviews I have read always put Apple at the top. I will admit I have been afraid of switching because: a) I have never used a Mac and am afraid of problems and difficulty in transitioning over from my standard windows based PCs to Apple b) I use almost all office products for work: outlook, word, excel, powerpoint; are these even available on Macs? c) I find it hard to justify spending so much more over something that may or may not be worth the extra cost. Now that that is out of the way, the 27 inch iMac sure looks nice. Could anyone who has made this transition and loved/hated it give their advice. What should I do? Thanks in advance. Lets please not turn this into a fanboy warzone.
I see bad things happening in this thread. For what its worth, I went with a macbook air last year...my first Apple computer after having owned 9 PCs. I couldnt be happier.
You can do everything on a Mac you can do on a pc. I would switch but I'm a life long mac user who has to work on a windows box so my opinion is Mac os and hardware is worth the extra cost.
Get a list of must have programs, and find out if there are Mac versions. There is MS Office for the Mac so your fine there. You could still run Windows to use any missing programs on the same machine but you'd have to restart into Windows or run a virtual machine so there's that. If you're all clear, go test drive one in an Apple store or Best Buy. When it was new computer time for me I tried one out for about 20 minutes, just web surfing, checking out the basic apps (calendar, email, etc), tinkered around in the system preferences to get a feel for everything. I liked it enough to take a chance and I'm glad I did. I far prefer OS X but in the end it's a personal preference. I'm sure someone will respond later and ignore that salient point though. Coincidentally I'm up for a new computer again (it's been 5 long years). Now the shoe is on the other foot and I'll be test driving Windows 8 (if it comes out in time) to see if MS can win me back.
I used to be strongly against macs until my brother convinced me to get one. I've been pretty happy with it. It's made life a lot easier and I don't have to worry about reformatting or random loss of functions that can happen on PCs.
Ive been a PC guy for many years. I was so pleased with the IPOD and IPad, that when my computer went down last July I decided to purchase an IMac. Very happy that I made the change. The transition was very easy and was able to figure out 95% of the OS within a week. You can purchase Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, which can read your old word, excel, and powerpoint. You can also purchase Microsoft Office for Mac. The thing I like the most is the way the magic mouse works with the Lion software. Its very similar to an Ipad. I also like the fact that I dont have to worry that much about viruses. I haven't received one virus or malware since my purchase. If you like playing a lot of video games the Mac is probably not for you.
i decided myself to get an imac 4-6 months ago. i have been waiting for the refresh on them that will include ivy bridge. they are due out any day now. i will have to purchase windows, and bootcamp to windows. because i want to play diablo3. but from what i have garnered in my opinion from messing around on friend's macbooks it will be worth the switch.
You don't have to bootcamp to play any Blizzard game dude. Bootcamp is the ultimate option for indoctrinated Windows users though. Macbook Air+SSD= money I work at an IT consulting company that hands out Macbooks like candy. Tech leads develop on their Macbook Air...and play D3 w/ the lowest settings on it. Me...I'd wait until the 4GB ram limitation is lifted on future models, but with the SSD, you really don't need that much ram. I'm still more accustomed to windows, but the Macbook is the most flexible platform, and you get to screw around with Linux-like geek **** that more than justifies the price. It becomes more than a luxury. Compare this with my Windows v. Mac posts beyond six months, and I'll just say that I didn't know better. The leap to OSX and Intel chips has wiped away any notion of overpriced and underfunctioned.
to play at maximum settings you will get somewhat considerably higher frame rates. and that is what i want : )
Not that I condone piracy, as for the selection of games, boot camping to Windows removes any compatibility issues.
Viruses exist and if your machine has a browser, you're just as vulnerable. In other words, spring for an AV scanner...even for a Mac
They exist but you don't have to worry about them as much if you're a Mac user. This isn't a knock on Windows, it's just more likely that your computer will get infected if you have a Windows computer because of the volume. It's nice to have a AV scanner though, doesn't hurt to have one.
That reminds nee if that line from Usual Suspects: The best lie the Devil told was that he didn't exist.
They weren't a problem when Macs were RISC based and less popular but they're all using the same CPUs now.
It's definitely more susceptible to viruses now than in the past, I agree. But definitely not up there with Windows, at least not yet anyway.
Apple all the way! Bought the MacBook pro, ipad2 and iPhone3 (& then 4) at Christmas. After years of suffering through windows...me gusta.
Closed system and overpriced if you look at the tech data. Don't know why people pay so much more just for "comfort".
