Wednesday, July 15, 2009

why I love my mac

It's been almost two weeks that I've been using my macbook and I have to say that I'm pretty much in love. Over the last couple of years I've been considering a switch and in that time I always asked devoted mac users to tell me why they love their mac so much. They never really could tell me much. Most of their claims seems inflated and when it came down to it, they all just said, "it's so much better". I was always after the "why". So, I'm hoping to jot down a few observations from my short two-week experience with mac that will say why I seem to love it so much.

Some things I like better about mac (in no particular order):
  • expose' mode - if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it, but it's much nicer than many windows open at the bottom of the screen
  • the power cord is much smaller and easier to carry
  • great battery life - rated at 7 hours, but I get an actual 4.5 hours with wifi on and a lot of stuff running at once
  • the wifi app (airport) connects to wifi networks much faster and is much more solid than any pc I've had
  • the look of all the programs is cleaner and easier to read
  • fewer options - yes I said fewer. The system preferences in a PC are dizzying and I've always hated that. The preferences in a mac are fewer, but very adequate.
  • sleep mode - computer wakes up and is ready to go right away. yes windows vista has that too, but windows vista is deficient in about 100 other areas, so that doesn't count :)
  • The track pad shortcuts are nice, easy to get used to and save time
  • its quite a beautiful machine. I feel a little lustful when I look at it (Forgive me Father, for I have sinned)
Some mac lore I've found to be untrue:
  • they never freeze - not true. I've had two freezes that needed a force quit so far
  • every PC program has a mac counterpart - not true. There appears to be no equivalent to MS Publisher and PC study bible. I would like to have both of them
Closing Thoughts

Macs are not more expensive. If you buy a quality laptop computer (mac or pc), you're going to pay well over $1000. I'm talking about a machine that is made mostly of metal and that looks and feels solid. My macbook pro has a 2.26 ghz processor, 4 GB ram and 320GB hard-drive. I paid just over $1300. A Dell Latitude (which is comparable in quality) with the same specs and shorter battery life is $1500+.

Yes, macs look much cooler and I feel cooler using it. No apologies there. Just last week the fact that I was a mac user drew someone over to me and lead to a 20 minute conversation that was really beneficial to my function in ministry. I doubt that will happen much, but it's a good bet that nobody is going to come up to me out of the blue and say, "Glad to see you using a PC". I've switched and I doubt I'll go back.

4 comments:

Ken said...

Jason, take a look at a program named parallels (http://www.parallels.com/) to run your "orphaned" PC apps.

Drim said...

glad to hear you are loving it..

I found out about the price thing last summer when i was looking into new computer's for my parents church, and while PC's are cheaper, you get less, and i found that to match the PC to mac, you consistantly ended up paying 100-300 buck more...

Parallels would work, or maybe crossover for your programs. For a publisher equivalent, look into QuarkXPress, i haven't used it, but I heard a lot of people like it.

Here is the difference between mac freeze and windows freeze (in my experience) when a mac program freezes, 90% of the time you force quit the program, and you are good to go, but with windows, when it freezes, like 50% of the time, it crashes the whole computer, not just that program

Charity said...

*sigh*
Someday, I'll be joining you.

Rick Roth said...

I think you just sold me on Mac.