Live Poll: Apple vs. Dell

"Game" on a notebook computer? Sure they may have the processing power these days, but they really don't have the graphics power. That said, what makes you think that Dell's are better at graphics intensive tasks?

Blogging can be done on either platform quite readily. After all, how much power does it take to edit a text file.

As to the iLife suite and the lack of competition on Windows side, I would say that anything that iLife can do make the Mac a better choice. You get hundreds of dollars worth of software for free with the Mac and iLife. Sure Windows has a few of those programs like Windows Movie Maker (do you have to download that. I haven't seen it on any of the Windows installations I have) and iTunes for Windows, but WMM is nothing compared to iMovie. (This from a current Windows user that is in the process of switching to the Mac)

Add the fact that it's near as to impossible to get infected by God knows what when going to web pages and I can't think of any reason to use Windows. Hence the reason I'm switching. Oh yeah games. As I said, notebooks just are not the best platform for running games.

"Game" on a notebook computer? Sure they may have the processing power these days, but they really don't have the graphics power.

HalfLife 2 Ep 1 runs very well on my MacBook Pro thank you.

And it runs very well on my Acer Aspire 3023, which cost me under £650 - more than a little less than an MBP... :P

Not that I'd dismiss the Macbook Pro. I'm having to work hard to convince myself not to buy one, particularly since it's now capable of running XP (for games and syncing with my MDA Pro - I already use Linux for everything else).

Nathaniel

I beleive you know this but you can do both with a MBP(MacbookPro).

Just a friendly reminder.

ilyanep

And I understand why notebooks aren't ideal for gaming, but it'd probably be better than my current desktop PC (ATI Radeon 9600SE with AMD Athlon 64 3200+ socket 754 and 512 MB ram)

My point about notebooks was not that they are not very good game machines because of speed and configuration, but because of the lack of ability to be "upgraded".

I played TES: Oblivion on my MacBook Pro with the textures, distances, everything on the best settings and it wasn't until I put on 2x anti aliasing that it started to drop a few frames when things got busy.

Laptops can do games.

I Guess I have never been really good at communicating...

I am *NOT* trying to say that notebooks are not good at gaming.

I am *TRYING* to say that notebooks are not good *FOR* gaming due to the lack of ability to upgrade graphics cards. That's really it. Sure, the MacBook Pro can run Oblivion and probably WoW, but when the next gen games come out, will you still be able to play them? Probably not, because desktop folks will be able to go out and get the latest and greatest video card and notebook folks will not.

I use my MacBook for "casual" games and webgames. I'm more than happy with that. I'll be using my Mac Pro (?) for games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and World of Warcraft.

Some gamers may be more than happy with "medium" settings. However, I suspect that "true" gamers won't. I certainly am not. :)

Our desktops are about 2 1/2 years old now (Dell Dimension 8400's, 3.2GHz). It probably could handle Oblivion without a new video card, but my wife and I decided it was time to upgrade the video card to allow us to play with better settings.

As it turns out, WoW and GTA: SA run amazingly well with the new card. We are able to run at 1280x1024 with over 50fps. The upgrade made all my games run soooo much better.

I wouldn't be able to do this with a notebook.

Now if it's portability you are looking for in a gaming rig, for LAN parties and such. I would strongly suggest looking into Shuttle cases and Shuttle PC's. Upgradable as a desktop, small enough to be as portable as a notebook.

OpenOffice has more features than iWork, and probably enough for most uses. Still, it lags behind in usability and performance. Also, it's ugly on the Mac. :)

I seriously wish there was a solid Office alternative on the Mac. I think it's one of the biggest gaps for this platform.

Office:mac is absolutely fantastic, infinitely better than the PC counterpart.

It's a bit pricey though (around $350), which is sad. :(

Well, there is "NeoOffice". It's a much better version of OpenOffice for the Mac, but I'll admit. It's no OpenOffice for Windows or MS Office.

That said, how many features of Office does one need anyway? I only use about 5% of MS Office at work and about the same of OpenOffice at home. iWork may be all I need when it comes to an Office suite. I haven't tried it yet myself.

Office:mac is absolutely fantastic, infinitely better than the PC counterpart.

In the sense that you don't get death by 10,000 features, yes. :P

Office:mac is absolutely fantastic, infinitely better than the PC counterpart.

In the sense that you don't get death by 10,000 features, yes. :P

No, in the sense that it's slightly nicer looking, is slightly more user friendly, and has a couple of areas that are better under the mac version. I disagree "infinitely better", but office mac is definitely a noticeable improvement over the windows version. With the exception of Access, which hasn't been ported to mac.

With the exception of Access, which hasn't been ported to mac.

...in an act of mercy. (Access sucks).

I once worked on a piece of software that had to use Access as a back-end because our clients insisted. It was ridiculously slow. We ended up loading the entire database file into memory so that all of the slowness would be right up-front, and they just got a machine with 2 gigs of memory. Apparently it was that important to them. *sigh*

It's interesting that you bring up price. As other articles here and other sites are showing. The price gap between Apple and comparable PC clones is getting much smaller if not starting to go the other way.

Comparisons I have made show Apple actually a little cheaper than the PC clones I have compared Apple with. Now, this is comparing completely identical systems and configurations. If you don't want some of the bells and whistles Apple adds to their systems, you can probably still find some systems that are hundreds of dollars less. I personally like the "bells and whistles" Apple adds. With notebooks, I add Bluetooth and WiFi anyway. Sure a "webcam" isn't really all that necessary on a notebook, but hey, it's kind of cool and I'm find quite useful in some cases. (Delicious Library) The remote control is nice too when you want to use the notebook as a video player and want to use Front Row for the interface.

The response is overwhelmingly in favor of the Mac. I wonder if that's indicative of the community (and the fact that I accessed this article under the 'Apple' category), or, if prices and specs weren't an issue, that users would really choose Apple over Microsoft (and Dell, et. al.).

I pointed this out in a similar thread: Apple users are more likely to watch the "apple" tag than Windows users are to watch the "windows" tag (if you had used one).

Actually, the iMac desktop is a far cheaper solution than any PC configuration of similar or equal speed, power and quality.

Right now, the most value-for-money you can get is the 17" iMac, followed closely by the 20" iMac. More than being cheaper while giving you more power than most PC configurations, it also takes up much less space and adds OS X + iLife to it.

It's not as cheap as the el-cheapo PC's you can find, sure, but those are nowhere near comparable in specifications.

I know I sound like a fanboy here, but honestly, if you're buying a complete new computer setup (i.e. screen, computer, keyboard, mouse), the iMac is definitely cheaper. If you already have various parts, it may well not be, so it all depends I guess.

Yeah, you are probably right. But in my case, I always build my own computers and so the parts of a PC are way cheaper (and easier to find) and it just makes more sense to me. Don't get me wrong though, I would definitively go Apple if I had the money. ;-) Anyways, I don't want to diverge too much from the original subject. Great poll!