PC vs Mac

What do you exactly mean by that, the can of worms? :)

I have asked this question to many people and its always funny to play devils advocate, whatever the other person chooses!
 
I liked windows for a long long time, and blindly hated on mac's, until I built a hackintosh.
OSX provided a much better environment for productivity. I was able to build an efficient workflow through the many things it offered out of the box. OSX also uses screen space much more wisely, providing more area to work with.

I liked it so much, I later bought a Mac, and will probably never go back.
After buying a legit Mac, I realized even the displays are much better, I found the colors to be more representative of what will print, even with the decent calibrated monitor I had to compare with.
No longer am I fumbling around trying to get things to work.
 
GilmoreVisuals said:
I'm interested in seeing what other designers use.

Mac? PC? Both? Other?

Why?

You do know that 'pc' covers both windows and os-x based machines :rolleyes:

As to me

Desktop - windows, os-x does not support the software I use natively so no point in spending more to get what I need, plus they don't use the gpu's (quadro)I would ideally need to be using. Plus I can get 2 pc's for the price of one mac pro and 2 is better than 1 for my work. Note: I build my own windows pc's with my choice of parts, usually of a better quality nature with slight premium over say dell package pc's.

Would I use os-x on a daily basis, doubtful, I am faster using windows than I am using os-x as I am more familiar with it. It works the same for people who are more familiar with os-x, they're faster with it than windows. I can use both along with linux too.

Slate - WebOS (with preware) via fire sale £89 HP touchpad. Although I do like the asus transformer prime that's due out soon :) Keep wanting a windows one with full stylus though.... I will NEVER own an iPad

Laptop - windows one, although my main work isn't really suitable for laptops.

Phone - Android.... I have no interest in an iPhone, I want access to my stored files and like to tinker, unless I get one cheap instead of an iPod touch.
 
oh dear not again, can of worms alright!

I'm a mac person. for a long time I used windows but when I used mac i saw the light... well realised for me it was much better than windows. As a designer I use mac because it's a great system and generally becoming industry standard for a lot of people, however I am also an IT manager at the place I work full time so I use windows all the time too. I can see the pros and cons to both systems and generally they end up being pretty even, one thing though, over the last 2 years I've fixed lots of PCs but never a mac, nor have I even heard about someones mac going wrong, not to mention not having to buy antivirus etc an modern macs have it built it, saving a hell of a lot of money in the long run...... does that say anything?
 
We could all just do what my friend did....

Buy an expensive PC, install Hackintosh, then VM partition Windows and Linux.
 
Apples biggest pro:
looks better and doesn't crash.

Microsoft biggest pro:
Its much cheaper to build an epic system (but you still have to run windows)

.... I used to be a windows fan having used pretty much all of their OS' since win95 but In Jan I switched to an imac and I can't say I'd even consider the idea of using windows again.

In short things just work on a mac, things go wrong and do weird stuff on windows - usually fixed with a reboot but still annoying.
 
br3n said:
things go wrong and do weird stuff on windows - usually fixed with a reboot but still annoying.
Like I've said before, that doesn't happen to me, now I'll admit I'm no noob when it comes to computers, I build mine etc but all I do with mine is just install known/required software, up to date drivers, a few additional codecs, ms security essentials and then basically avoid junkware, trials etc.... and magically my system just works without any issues :rolleyes:

Windows isn't the issue 90% of the time, it's the people using the computer that causes the issues, usually down to them thinking they know more than they do and installing junk that then clogs up the pc. It's that or they listen to the people that know 'everything' down at pcworld and end up installing norton which requires it's own program just to remove it, unlike normal ones which just 'uninstall'!
 
Levi said:
Like I've said before, that doesn't happen to me, now I'll admit I'm no noob when it comes to computers, I build mine etc but all I do with mine is just install known/required software, up to date drivers, a few additional codecs, ms security essentials and then basically avoid junkware, trials etc.... and magically my system just works without any issues :rolleyes:

Windows isn't the issue 90% of the time, it's the people using the computer that causes the issues, usually down to them thinking they know more than they do and installing junk that then clogs up the pc. It's that or they listen to the people that know 'everything' down at pcworld and end up installing norton which requires it's own program just to remove it, unlike normal ones which just 'uninstall'!

On my mac I:
Just install known/required software, u̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶e̶w̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶d̶e̶c̶s̶,̶ ̶m̶s̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶u̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶e̶s̶s̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶v̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶j̶u̶n̶k̶w̶a̶r̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.... and magically my system just works without any issues
;)

That's not completely true though, as Apple gains popularity we will no doubt start to see some issues. It's always good to be safe on any computer.
 
JamesBrentwood said:
On my mac I:
Just install known/required software, u̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶e̶w̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶d̶e̶c̶s̶,̶ ̶m̶s̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶u̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶e̶s̶s̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶v̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶j̶u̶n̶k̶w̶a̶r̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.... and magically my system just works without any issues
;)

That's not completely true though, as Apple gains popularity we will no doubt start to see some issues. It's always good to be safe on any computer.

You do know that unix (the base of os-x) requires drivers (pretty much ALL os's do), apple sends them out as updates (so does microsoft for most things now) - you could also include the firmware updates updates too, we don't get them on windows :p

Codecs, do you use perian? If you do then you've installed additional codecs as that's a codec package (you could argue that vlc media player installs codecs too).... and you have to avoid junkware/trials on a mac too....it's even in apples app store.

:p
 
Kexts, yeah we got em. But like you said it's not as big of a deal.

The only reason why it's so difficult with Windows is Windows has to accommodate an array of machines and home builds. I can't say how they do it in W7, as I rarely boot into that partition, but if they figured out a way to accommodate, more power to them. It's not an easy task.

Not sure what you mean about the Firmware updates, but it only shows a company covering itself before a problem gets bad, so I don't see anything wrong with that. Although, I usually don't update anything, pain in the butt, and Apple always tries to ruin something with an update by taking more control over it. I really can't stand their controlling nature. Lion and the appstore is such a joke! I'm just glad they invented the laptop before the iphone, otherwise we'd have some insanely restricted machines.

Regardless of all of this, I think br3n was speaking less about the external threats, as he was the typical slowing of processes, random registry screwups, and things of that nature. I remember having to restart my Windows machine a lot. But I leave my Mac on for weeks, I just put it in sleep mode and experience none of these issues.
 
JamesBrentwood said:
Kexts, yeah we got em. But like you said it's not as big of a deal.

The only reason why it's so difficult with Windows is Windows has to accommodate an array of machines and home builds. I can't say how they do it in W7, as I rarely boot into that partition, but if they figured out a way to accommodate, more power to them. It's not an easy task.

Not sure what you mean about the Firmware updates, but it only shows a company covering itself before a problem gets bad, so I don't see anything wrong with that. Although, I usually don't update anything, pain in the butt, and Apple always tries to ruin something with an update by taking more control over it. I really can't stand their controlling nature. Lion and the appstore is such a joke! I'm just glad they invented the laptop before the iphone, otherwise we'd have some insanely restricted machines.

Regardless of all of this, I think br3n was speaking less about the external threats, as he was the typical slowing of processes, random registry screwups, and things of that nature. I remember having to restart my Windows machine a lot. But I leave my Mac on for weeks, I just put it in sleep mode and experience none of these issues.

The only drivers I get on a regular basis are graphic card drivers, the rest are pretty much all available via windows update at install (actually my ati drivers can be found there too) and to be honest I don't need to update them that often. You can opt to get alternative firmware from the manufacturer but usually it's no different.
Windows uses drivers instead of firmware updates, you can brick your hardware with a firmware update, a driver means at worst you just reinstall windows.

I can leave my windows machine on for weeks too, it usually at 100% cpu usage as well while it's rendering..... like I said it's down to the junk people install, windows is NOT inherently unstable if set up correctly. Just think how much crapware is installed on shop bought pc's, then think how it performs once you remove it all with a clean install.

And iirc there's been plenty of people getting issues on macs too now that they've become more popular. Windows will ALWAYS have more reports of issues, it has the largest market share after all.
 
I think a lot of people are quick to jump on the "Oooh look I have a shiny mac PC, I'm a graphic designer now!" bandwagon, I don't really understand why everyone thinks you have to go out and buy an expensive mac to create graphics and they always say things like "Oh it's just better!" or "Once I made the change, I never went back!" as if they were in an advert or something. Very rarely do they actually give proper reasons or anything of substance to help differentiate between a mac/pc experience.

Some one I work with has a mac and christ.. It's slower than my old Windows 98 PC. It was taking ridiculous amounts of time to load programs, copy files, anything. It was horrible and it would be constant, not just occasionally loading something slowly, everything would take ages - all the time!

I built my own windows based computer too and just like Levi I don't fill it with crap and it seems to work just fine. Everything appears to be automatic as far as drivers and downloads and what-not so it's really not much hassle.

Ultimately, I think it's just as tedious as the Xbox/PS argument. Both are virtually identical in what they do so use which ever one you prefer! There is no need to get involved in all the drama and side choosing :)
 
Squiddy I used to have the same opinion as you, you can probably even find a post about it.

My mac does get slow every now and then, but you just reset drive permissions (which takes about 1 minute) and its back to how it should be, pretty similar to a disk cleanup on windows I guess?

The thing that anoyed me most about windows (and I know you can turn it all off) is all the crappy interfering windows does, bombarding you with messages "Do you really want to install..." "Warning, you are installing something" bla bla bla...

If they made a "Windows - Its ok I know what im doing just leave me alone" edition I think there would be a lot more competition.
 
br3n said:
If they made a "Windows - Its ok I know what im doing just leave me alone" edition I think there would be a lot more competition.
There is, you just set UAC to a lower level on windows 7 or on vista you download an app that makes it 'silent' so that it only bugs when it's important :)
 
I know it can be done, I had vista briefly and disabled it all, but there are 2 points here.

1. You shouldn't need to be that concerned about every little thing happening - Shows how insecure windows is.

2. You should have the option, from the start to shut it all off - MS shouldn't presume that its users are clueless.
 
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