Mac vers IBM comp Laptop

Question, My wife wants a laptop for work at the church, So I have been throwing around the thought of buying me a Mac and giving her mine. But not knowing much of a mac operating systems, can yall throw in the pros and cons. Many claim Mac os is very hard to infect or almost cannot be infected and in a Mac everything run with no hassle, then on top of it for IBM or Windows based software can run in a mac using something call virtualbox or something of the sort. Several people in the church are swearing by their Mac's. Your views please Jimbo1

I don't think people should be swearing in church. I don't know much about the macs but my daughter has one. (The college she attended provided it for her). The first year she had it… she really liked it… but even though it was provided by the university… there was always a continual hassle running the various software that the instructors used… so the IT department at Uni set them up as dual boot systems. About half way through year two, they dropped the dual booting and just installed windows on them. To the best of my knowledge… a windows system is a windows system. Windows running on a mac are just as vulnerable as windows running on an HP. The thing that makes macs virus "resistant" is that they don't have a registry to infect. If you install windows on one… you have a registry. It really comes down to - you like what you like. Linux systems are very infection resistant also. They are one end of the spectrum in some ways because everything is Open Source. Macs are the other end… everything is proprietary. Windows is in the middle… a bit of both.

Lots of folks who have an Apple Mac are very happy with them, especially among graphics professionals where they are very common and much appreciated. Some owners are "evangelistic" about their Mac's and would have nothing else: They do seem to be less prone to malfunctions and malicious code, as Tom says. Most malware writers concentrate on the more ubiquitous machines (Windows PC's) and the same goes for repairers….I have many competitors running Windows Repair shops of one sort or another, but repair shops that can fix up Macs are not so common. The cost of a Mac in terms of purchase price is likely to be high compared with a similar specification Windows machine. There is considerably more software (including games) available for Windows machines, and generally its cheaper. Applications like Wine can enable modern Mac's to run a lot of Windows programmes. A Mac has (some would say) more "street cred" and also a lot of folks prefer the design and style of a Mac, and its cachet of exclusivity the arguments for and against could last forever Just my 2 pennyworth Regards paws

Very good so far, aye Mac as they say are less prone to attacks, programs such a photos, music ans what not are less of a hassle, speed wise not sure. But again I am not ruling out a laptop with win7 64 bit also.

The one I like to get lest say a 640 gig drive, win 7 64 6 gigs ram 17.5 widescreen quadcore processer

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/8999…r:referralID=NA

Now I know what to watch out for as for virus attacks, but a drive by everynow and then is the factor, and really I have no beef with 7 yet as far as hooking up anyhardware.

Just the mac folks I wounder how far or a wise tale are they telling about their systems.

Only 3 thing I have against a Mac. 1. Their expensive 2. Their expensive 3. Their expensive

Gotta agree with Lee.

Unless you have a need to use a Mac , for example if you do a lot of audio recording, video editing or graphic design, it's cheaper to go with a PC.

Not to mention that Intel is trying to push the whole "ultrabook" idea.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/intel-ultraboo…news-11476.html

It's essentially a MacBook Air but with Windows.

It might be worth waiting around a bit to see what next year brings in terms of mobile computing. Both Intel and AMD are investing a lot in CPU/GPU chips and these have so far been aimed solely at the laptop sector. Desktops are getting less attention and are becoming more of an enthusiasts playground.

Gotta agree with Lee.

Unless you have a need to use a Mac , for example if you do a lot of audio recording, video editing or graphic design, it's cheaper to go with a PC.

Which is in bold is what I am doing a lot of now inside the church. My thoughts of PC is, lots of software runs and hardly no hassle to mess with, Mac if I buy one will have to use what I can to make software work that I will use and how much of a hassle I will encounter?

Hummm

Jimbo1

Well, it's not ideal to use a Windows Emulator like WINE.

Saying that though, Mac's come with something called Boot Camp which lets you dual boot Windows and Mac. Although this gets around the hassle it defeats the point of using a Mac somewhat…

If you're wanting to use your Mac for all those things then the best thing to do is to buy the Mac software to go with it. If your pockets aren't that deep, stick with a PC and use your existing software.

As a side note, I'm a big fan of Adobe and was lucky enough to get the Master Suite CS5 for a discount when I was at uni. They offer both Mac and PC versions, but as far as I know there isn't much of a performance difference. Similarly certain audio recording/editing/software suites such as Cubase , Sonar (from Cakewalk) or Reason are meant to work better on Macs. Thing is…software like that can cost thousands of pounds/dollars. Something like Reaper is much cheaper and does exactly the same thing.

So what you might find is that sticking with PC and looking for fledgling software studios may end up being cheaper and better.

I have had so many heated discussions about this its ridiculous. The only reason why the argument between PC or Mac gets me going, is because there is so much ridiculously false information around Macs. Thanks to Apple marketing many Mac users are clueless. First of all Macs are cute. I'll give you that. Make anything out of stainless steel and it becomes cool. Inside, they aren't any different than a PC. Same hard drive manufacturers, same motherboard manufacturers, same memory manufacturers, same LCD screen manufacturers. The only difference is because Apple wants to make them so cute, they are actually, in my opinion built less durable. Look inside a Macbook and see all the garbage connectors they have trying to hold things together in an environment where they tried to make something super thin. Those connectors literally fall out of their sockets. So, lets be clear, you're paying two, three, or four times as much for a Mac for the same hardware just so you can have the cool factor. Now, Macs are definitely good at doing some things better than a PC. They have always been optimized for media. They definitely have the capability to out perform a PC. They also tend to run more stable. But, the stability is for one reason only. Its a closed system. When you pick and choose exactly what goes in a computer and leave no room for any options, its going to run better. Now, look at a PC. Thousands upon thousands of choices, and millions upon millions of combinations. Hmm. I can't imagine why there would be occassional compatibility issues with that. Lets not even get into how limited your choices are for software. Lastly, Macs are essentially a unix based operating system with a GUI on top of it. Ultimately, Unix is susceptible to the most voracious rootkits. Malware for unix operating systems are easy to create, easy to implement, and very powerful. As long as you have a human being behind the keyboard you are susceptible to malware. And guess what, those human beings sitting behind a mac are generally less tech savvy, think they are impervious to viruses, and seldom ever run anti-virus software and are even told by Apple that they don't need to. If Macs ever gain enough market share to make them a worth while target, then there are a ton of them sitting around practically begging to be infected. There have been proof of concept studies done showing just how easy they are to infect. When it happens, Apple will have nobody to blame but themselves. Now, one big thumbs up to Apple. They have actually kept their tech support in the USA. I guess that's why they cost four times as much.