Apple vs. PC - Page 3

Curious --what programs did you need that weren't available for Mac? The two main ones for me were Adobe Audition and FruityLoops Studio. But for school, everything I used was available--Matlab, Labview, etc.j

Two instances of word 2003, Trillian, winamp, mulberry, firefox 0.9 (8 tabs) and the GIMP all currently running, all on a system with rather less grunt than an XPS. No slowdown yet. Will be sure to let you know when it arrives. Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on quite what you mean by multitasking, having sneered at someone else's example earlier on.

OK. Given that the G5 portable is, by all accounts, still a long way off, what relevance could this possibly have to anyone considering buying a Powerbook? All current apple laptops are 32-bit and will so remain. Supplying them with a 64-bit capable OS is like putting lug nuts on a birthday cake - sure, there are situations in which they'd be useful, but they're rather pointless under the circumstances.

In case you hadn't noticed, this isn't a race. Having been the first to implement a feature is useless if all your competitors have long since caught up. I'm not looking to hand out awards for innovation, I'm looking to buy the machine that can best meet my demands at the best price, and those are the only criteria by which the majority of consumers will judge any product. And for what it's worth, Mozilla is faster than Safari (or rather, was as of august 2003; if you have newer data, by all means, supply it).

Sure, installing and uninstalling third-party apps might cause conflicts if you haven't the faintest idea what you're doing. On the other hand, I and all my friends seem to manage to run our systems with all these apps and nary a conflict in sight. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Incidentally, going back to your claim about happily multitasking with OS X on a G3 with 256Mb RAM, I'm going to have to express a little scepticism. OS X is pretty, but it's also an absolute memory hog - as you can see below, barefeats went so far as to recommend 1Gb as the minimum amount of RAM for multitasking under X. Note that X alone will happily grab over 400Mb.

http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

Finally, it's worth noting that while Apple's build quality is normally very good, they've had two nightmares in comparatively recent times - the iBook logic boards and the white spots on the first revision 15" AlBook screens. Very serious engineering flaws in both cases, and certainly not something that inspires confidence when one is supposedly paying a premium for a top-drawer product.

i read an article a few days ago, it actually was a thread on here, that in theory, mac will be abandoning the emac. Therefore, they will have the powerbook, ibook, and whatever the G5 desktop is called. They tried to aim themselves as a high-end computer manufactorer for so long, what with no being available in retail stores, only through mac stores, etc, that when they tried to be competitive in the mid-range market again, with the imac, emac, etc, they has been viewed as a high-end computer manufactorer for so long, with the prices not being comparable to pc's, that so many people bought pc's, and won't give mac a second thought now. i agree full heartedly with what you are saying, that the emac will do anything that most computer uses need to do, but because of not the best marketing for so long before the imac and emac came out, they lost ground in the mid-range computer buyers market, that will be very hard to make up. that is my opinion atleast. i am not here to argue which is better, i am just saying that apple made some marketing mistakes, and as a result, lost the mid-range computer market because of it

plswdth - i will be studying architecture at the university of kansas, starting this fall. i went to a mac store to look at the 15" powerbook, and the guy there had no idea about if CAD programs and rendering programs were supported on macs. So i called the school, and they said they only have PC versions of the software for sale (which would be much cheaper than through somewhere else), and even though i probably could get a mac version of what I would need, he wasn't sure about compatibily issues, and he wasn't 100% sure if i could get what i needed. so, i am not going to buy a powerbook, and have it maybe, maybe not work for what i will be studying

saying that, i wish i could buy a powerbook. i love them, but it wouldn't economically or logically plausible for me.

Johnny...if you wanna' stick with XP then go right ahead.

Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying X.

Im a gamer, a mac would be umm, well.. pointless =)

Hence, why I built my own PC.

first of all i'm a former mac owner before i get labeled by these fanatics. uhh, even compusa carries a full line of mac products. apple just doesn't allow competitive prices on its products NOR does it allow multiple companies to make their components. this is what economists would call a vertical monopoly. apple controls the design, manufacturing, assembly, sales, and operating system of all its products. not to mention they go and buy software companies and stop them from releasing their titles on windows. hats off to apple for accomplishing this very sound business strategy. it allows them to charge their customers an arm, a leg, and a pint of virgin blood (most of whom dont look at price, only the apple logo). that said, never want to hear anyone call microsoft an evil monopoly again.

Hahaha...

Dustpap: I can do anything on a Mac!

Roarak: Macs are pointless for games.

Duspap: That's why I built a PC!

If somebody gave me a Powerbook for my b-day, if i were you, i'd look for it on ebay. Because i would use the money for an AW

LOL

Yupp...defintely never said I could do EVERYTHING on a Mac....and I also just mentioned Macs do play games....you just have to be fairly wealthy to afford the ones that do. So be a gentleman and get your facts straight.

dalton...i'm sorry, i should have been more clear...when i said retail stores i meant best buy, circuit city, etc...compusa's aren't everywhere, and i don't beleive are as popular as bb or cc (could be wrong), and neither are microcenter's (who carry apples as well). i should have been more clear, I am sorry.

Its not a problem of mac hardware not neing able to run games, its just that the titles offered on macs are VERY VERY VERY limited. I would say about 5% or less of pc game titles are ported for macs.

that's interesting abf...you would spend the money on an AW, but yet AW can kiss your mooning smiley in your signature...yeah, that's makes sense...?

Yeah...back in the day Sears and Circuit City sold Macs.

Macs might only get 5% of the PC games, but they only get the good ones.

Oh really? that i didn't know

See, a prime example of how people will make random, clueless comments just for the sake of dissing Apple.......no dignity at all these days

talk about spending money for a name. People say you spend more money for the apple name, which you do, but you can get the exact same notebook you would get from AW for <1500$ less