mac-vs-pc

Image credit Daniel Bozet, found on the Web.

There are people who are in love with the slick and user friendly designs of Apple products. And there are people who are in love with the inexpensive solutions and a huge software choice for PCs running Windows. As there are no perfect operating systems, each camp will have some points.

What counts for me is my experience.

Mac experience

I switched to Mac two years ago and this has been one of my best decisions in life. I have worked on Unix, Linux and Windows systems for many years, but my best experience is with Mac OS. It takes some time to get used to the Mac philosophy, but once it is done – you are converted 😉

When you work on a regular laptop or a PC you do not see any need for change, especially when you tweak and optimize your machine for performance. And, yes, you can greatly improve the speed on a PC. Perhaps this has also become your hobby so that the part of the PC experience includes the fun of tweaking. However, once you switch to a Mac and go back to work some hours on a PC, you experience a mild shock, to say at least. What you notice first is that Windows is a messy OS. What you notice second is that Windows makes you tired.

What inspired me to write this post is a pattern that has finally become clear to me. There are some days when I develop painful eyes and intensive headaches after a few hours of working on a computer. And there are days I can continue for hours without any sign of tiredness. Well… it turns out that the headache-free days are the ones spent on a Mac only. The other days include working on a PC or both, a PC and Mac.

When I really look into why it is so, I have to bring it back to the great typography, clarity and sharpness of the letters, lines and curves on a Mac and much worse designs of these on Windows. I simply have to strain my eyes while I am working under Windows. Perhaps, it is not surprising why my friends who work long hours on Windows laptops complain about their painful eyes. I can work 10h on my Mac a day and my eyes are fine. I am still fresh by the end of the day. But when I switch to a Windows machine, especially in the evening, I immediately get tired. This is not a coincidence in my opinion but a side effect of a poorer design.

One key reason to work on a Mac

So, my one most important reason to work on Mac is this. I am simply much more productive on Mac OS than on Windows, because Mac creates a platform where I can get things done. Easier and faster.

  • I can work for hours without being tired.
  • The overall design (hardware + software) is user super-friendly.
  • There is no need to constantly tweak Mac for performance or usage.
  • Mac is great while traveling. I easily work on buses, trains or airports.

Note that I do not say that a Mac is better than a PC. The answer depends what you need your machine for. If you are a gamer, PC is your answer. Moreover, Mac is not perfect and there are times when you experience problems with it (e.g. multi-tasking is not good; while you keep waiting for a response from a website, the whole system becomes very slow and switching tasks is slow too). As we know, Macs are also very expensive and the company is somewhat fascist – things have to be the Mac-way or no-way. However, if you are in eduction, a student or a teacher, you can get some discount.

My point is as follows. Time is currently the most precious for me and I want to focus on my tasks. These are research, reading, writing, creating content, connecting to people and some programming. For such tasks Mac is a fantastic machine.

Why working on Mac is better

Below I present a few more arguments why working on a Mac is a better experience than working on a PC. Again, I am talking about a personal experience not about the objective comparison of the machines’ performance or capabilities. I will focus on the few points which I find the most important.

  1. Fast booting times. When you start to use more and more programs on your machine, Mac OS X can start up 2-3 times faster than Windows.
  2. Mac OS is reliable, near-instant sleep and resume. It is a key feature because you can run your Mac for weeks without rebooting it. It saves lots of time.
  3. Good quality hardware; built to last. What helps is that the Mac OS is designed specifically for the Mac hardware. They become one. Hence, they work better together than many of the hardware + software combinations on a PC.
  4. Very clean hardware designs. Few blinking lights on a Mac notebook. Mac keyboards are good to use. I like them.
  5. Neat Mac OS. It is a clean design.
  6. Neat config settings. Nearly all OS config settings are in the Control Panel.
  7. Troubleshooting is easier on Macs than PCs. You need to look for three tools: Activity Monitor which is a Task Manager, Console (which shows all system logs in one place) and Disk Utility (to identify disk integrity issues).
  8. Time Machine – a great back-up facility.
  9. Little need for an additional security system. Even if you start using an antivirus program, it does not hang the machine neither creates conflicts. I had horrible experience with Norton Antivirus on my previous Windows laptop.
  10. Easy file sharing.
  11. Free software developed for Mac is often neatly designed. The programmers keep the standards high.

While Mac OS is not the fastest operating system, it wins for functionality, pleasure of working (=healthy eyes too) and ease of use. Knowing that no OS is perfect, I can live with the imperfections of a Mac and sacrifice the speed for the gain in my overall productivity and joy of working. There is nothing to compare with being fresh and getting things done.

Choose Mac as your next computer. Luckily, the choice is not extensive: iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or Mac Pro.

Addendum

If you however want to stick to regular notebooks, one of the sturdiest and best functioning notebooks are produced by Asus. I definitely recommend them as my experience has been fantastic. My new twitted friend is convincing me that the best laptop combination is Asus + Ubuntu Linux OS.

Ubuntu is free, easy to learn and has a number of great features. It is fast and a well-designed OS. If you are money tight, and both speed and performance are your concerns, then Asus with Ubuntu OS may be the solution you are looking for.

Check it out.

 

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