When it comes to stability and performance, I've been really impressed with Windows 7. I've been using it all the way through; beta, RC, and now RTM, and in all that time I haven't had any crashes and the whole OS 'feels' snappier, although benchmarks indicate it isn't significantly faster than Vista. This isn't on a high-spec computer either; my laptop's a few years old, hardly the standard of a netbook but not top of the range either, and I find it performs very well. But I know not everyone has experienced this, so I appreciate that which OS is better with regard to stability and performance is more a matter of opinion and personal experience than something that can be decided upon.

With regards to price, the Snow Leopard upgrade may be cheaper but the actual Macs aren't. As a comparison point, I designed a Mac Pro on the UK Apple Store with a 2.93GHz Intel Xeon quad-core processor, 6GB of DDR3 1066MHz RAM, a RAID card, 4 x 1TB 7,200RPM hard drives, an ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB graphics card, one 18x superdrive, a wireless mighty mouse and wireless Apple keyboard, iWork '09, and all the other settings set to the defaults. The total price was £4027.02 including VAT and delivery.

I created a virtually identical specification using the www.pcspecialist.co.uk website, which I have used before and know to be good value. The ONLY differences were that it came with Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit with a free upgrade to Windows 7, a different case and motherboard, wireless mouse and keyboard (although they were good quality ones), Kaspersky AntiVirus 2009 (but if I was ordering it myself I would just use a free anti-virus), Microsoft Office 2007 Professional (as the equivalent of iWork), and there was obviously no iLife. Before you query this, I did use exactly the same model of Xeon processor, I didn't just use any quad-core. The total price was £1729 including VAT and delivery.

A difference of £2298.02 is a huge amount to pay for a copy of iLife, OS X and the Mac style, IMO.

I'm not an Apple hater or anything; I have an iPod Touch and an iPod Nano, both of which I really like. But I don't like Macs because I can get the same hardware for much less, as you saw above.

Linux > Windows > Unix > OSX

DOS!

Yes, yes i do.

Because I'm fully capable of fixing the problems myself, despite the fact that when I do face the problems, that they are really annoying.


Caboose, you really fail to realize that you don't need top-of-the-line hardware with a Macintosh system. No one goes to buy a Mac to get very good hardware on their system. If they wanted to do that, they would just get a Windows PC, they already know that. The reason people get a Mac is to get a STABLE, reliable, attractive, and fast OS, Leopard, that they can use and expect to face little problems with. They don't need heavy hardware with this, as the hardware that Apple provides already performs very smoothly with the system.


Supports hardware? What are you talking about? Didn't I just tell you that the hardware that Apple allows you to choose, even the basic hardware, is more than adequate for anything you wish to do with a Mac?

Windows 7. Don't need to justify it, I hate using Macs.

Blah, someone reply to that. Caboose didn't in the other thread.

And.. Windows -/- Mac

/thread

@Kam: Agreed. To the Windows users, some people like Mac. They have a better experience with it, and they see no reason to switch back to Windows. So why try to convince them do so? Just get over it and move on. Same with Mac users.

Evidently not, since the problems you complain about are obviously still persistent.

STABLE, reliable, attractive and fast OS? Linux can offer you all this and more, all for the amazing price of APPSOLUTELY NOTHING. I use Windows for gaming, and a lot of people use it for compatability. What you're paying for is average hardware and an OS. You can't honestly believe that the OS is worth more than the hardware do you? That must be what, £800? Come on...

Tell me whatever you want, it still won't amend the fact that you have a limited choice of hardware when you go to buy a mac, and putting the OS on a different machine violates the EULA. A company that wants that much for a product clearly not worth that is not a company i'm going to give my money to.

Leopard is a STABLE, reliable, ATTRACTIVE, and fast OS. I've used both Linux and Leopard, by the way, and I find Leopard to be more reliable, attractive, and fast than Linux or any other distributions of it. Leopard looks ridiculously amazing, you can't possibly argue that Linux looks better than it. Leopard is also very quick and reliable, even with your so called "average hardware." I don't see the point in having tremendously good hardware, anyway. Why do I need it? I'm not a hardcore gamer. I'm an average computer user who likes to browse the web, make some media, do some work, all on a clean, pretty system. Now I'm not saying that Windows or Linux isn't stable, reliable, attractive, or fast. I'm just saying that to me the Mac does a very good job in all these aspects.

This is exactly the way I feel about Vista. As a user that knows only a little bit more than the general population, I don't need the big talk that people get into. I like the way it looks, it's fast, and I'm used to Windows. There's not much else to say.

Never used a Mac for more than 4 minuets inside best buy. (That's like 30 miles from where I live and the only good place to get anything. ) But if I had to pick from pre-made computer for my mom or dad, it would be Mac. PC's are for people who know how to use a computer and is good at it. PC's are more for games (Not that Mac's can't use games just that PC's are better at it.) Mac's are for more professional things, like MS paint sucks but any Windows user should know this. That's why I have to add 3 other photo editing things.

I have a question to Mac users; why do you guys have such big monitors? Right now I'm using a 15" screen, your guys are giant 24" ones.

I have a freaking 13"...good grief...

@Caboose, carrying over...

And? I bought a Macbook for US$994. I compared this computer to some at Best Buy and hhgregg. For $800 I could get a Vista with 1.8GHz, and 1GB of RAM. And an Intel GMA.

For $1000 flat, I could get a Vista lappy from Dell that had 2GHz, 2GB RAM, and an Intel GMA.

For $994 I got a Macbook that has a visually appealing look and a 2.13GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and a nVidia graphics card.

Oh, and twice as much hard drive as any of the others. The most any of the others had was 120GB hard drive. This has 250GB.

Any questions?

I paid $1k for my acer and it had an Intel GMA.

I've fixed them. Don't tell me what I have and have not fixed.


Leopard is a STABLE, reliable, ATTRACTIVE, and fast OS. I've used both Linux and Leopard, by the way, and I find Leopard to be more reliable, attractive, and fast than Linux or any other distributions of it. Leopard looks ridiculously amazing, you can't possibly argue that Linux looks better than it. Leopard is also very quick and reliable, even with your so called "average hardware." I don't see the point in having tremendously good hardware, anyway. Why do I need it? I'm not a hardcore gamer. I'm an average computer user who likes to browse the web, make some media, do some work, all on a clean, pretty system. Now I'm not saying that Windows or Linux isn't stable, reliable, attractive, or fast. I'm just saying that to me the Mac does a very good job in all these aspects.


Stop ignoring what I say. Let me tell you this again, you don't get a Mac for hardware. A lot of people who get a Mac know that. If they wanted to get top-of-the-line hardware, then they would go get a PC or custom-build their own system. And in fact.. this thread isn't even about hardware. It's about the actual operating systems. Not the computer, not the pieces inside the computer.


All in all, everyone has a different experience than others with each operating system. Some people find that Leopard is better suited for them, others find that Windows or Linux are. For me, if I get my hands on my own Leopard OS (my sister has one ), then I would never turn back to Windows. But don't carry out arguments against another operating system if you haven't fully used it. Anyway, each operating system has their own pros and cons, and in the end there really is no "best operating system." All operating systems perform equally well.

The Operating System has to use the hardware, and the hardware has to be good enough to do what you want it to. Don't tell me that Hardware isn't an important factor in this, because that would be a damn right lie.

The poll question is simply: Which?

I use Snow Leopard, but I think it's simply a service pack for OS X. (Which I guess it is, everything has been 10.0, 10.1, etc.)

But I believe that Windows 7 is truly an operating system upgrade, it's MUCH better than Vista, hands down.

Just got back from a friend's house. His mac wouldn't turn on at all. Then the ram door wouldn't open up and of course you can't take it apart.

Now I remember why I hate macs. (Although OS X is kinda cool, but I'd rather have Windows)

For the third or fourth time, the hardware that Apple allows you to choose is more than adequate for anything you wish to do with a Mac.

That's just a truly stupid way of looking at it. The only way to get the OS 'legally' is to buy a mac, and most macs have hardware that is inferior to what you want at this time. For that price you can get a computer three or four times better, easily. Or the same for half as much. Apple doesn't allow you to 'choose' hardware, they're retailers. Not system builders.

Anyway, I agree with Caboose and King Aragorn: Macs may be good but the hardware is extremely overpriced. The example I posted in my first post was two computers with virtually identical specifications, just one was a Mac with OS X and the other was running Windows Vista with a free 7 upgrade. The Mac was over £2000 more for the same hardware; I really can't see how such a blatant rip-off is justified.

I can.

I need a computer for college/university. My friend has had his Mac for almost four years now, smooth sailing.

The most I've ever owned a PC for was four years. And it crashed after three.

I can't have a crash and lose my college work. Simply not allowed here. And I can't have an OS that requires retarded amounts of dedication to keep running. Windows fills both of these.

My friend has done virtually nothing to his Mac, just kept it updated. And it's been running for nearly four years.

So, that's my opinion and my needs. Windows does not fit my needs. End of story.

EDIT: And no crap about external hard drives. To easy to corrupt in my experience.

I can.

I need a computer for college/university. My friend has had his Mac for almost four years now, smooth sailing.

The most I've ever owned a PC for was four years. And it crashed after three.

I can't have a crash and lose my college work. Simply not allowed here. And I can't have an OS that requires retarded amounts of dedication to keep running. Windows fills both of these.

My friend has done virtually nothing to his Mac, just kept it updated. And it's been running for nearly four years.

So, that's my opinion and my needs. Windows does not fit my needs. End of story.

EDIT: And no crap about external hard drives. To easy to corrupt in my experience.

We're talking about today, and todays versions of Windows DO NOT CRASH.

Well dammit Caboose, that may be so but I'm not ready to risk my fudgeing future on it.

Also the one that crashed was Windows XP, SP2.

Also, I don't get why you and Bcloutier have had such problems with external hard drives. My family has two, extremely cheap external drives that are both five years old. We haven't had any problems with either, nor have I had many problems with hard drives in general. I've only had one drive ever fail, and it was an internal one. After buying a new hard drive, I just slotted it in and restored everything from an image backup made a couple of days before.

Well dammit Caboose, that may be so but I'm not ready to risk my fudgeing future on it.

Also the one that crashed was Windows XP, SP2.

Don't get me wrong, my externals have normally been fine. I've had this one for over 10 months and it was fine until I did a Disk Verification in preparation for Snow Leopard. It then showed that it was failing. I've also had internal drives fail. We just use our drives a quite a bit (lots of data on/off the drives, moving it around). My other externals which are older are perfectly fine. Two 250GB's are fine, my 500GB is failing (won't even mount) and our 1TB should also be fine. It's just dumb luck.

And this is no reflection on the OS. I've had HD's crash now under Leopard, XP and Vista, so there is no evidence there.

But with your other points, Mac does those things, just easier and friendlier. It's more integrated into the OS, so people are more likely to use its features.

~Bcloutier~

And i can pretty much guarantee that is was by no fault of the OS. If an OS was going to crash anyway it wouldn't wait two years to do it. 

That dun got shizzle to do with the OS boi

That's called Apple makes a great OS but they need to let other companies make Mac OS computers (see Psystar and all that pisswaddery).

Long story on that short, Psystar is getting shot at from all directions because they want to make no-hassle Mac OS computers (as in ones you can take apart and shizzle)

Got any better ideas?