MAC vs PC (Introduction)

Hi all, I've decided to get down to one of my favorite subjects. The Mac vs PC debate. I can’t actually think of one good reason to exclude Linux (it is a modern feature rich operating system) other than complicating the argument further.

If you haven’t already tried it check out one of the best linux distributions here: www.ubuntu.com , but that's another post all together...

I guess I’m going to focus on Mac vs PC because they are what most of us are using and most profession programs are available for at least one Mac or PC.

So which one is better?

We first let’s put the past behind us. History has no place in computing. When I did computing at school we studied early code breaking machines and the history of computers. What a waste of time! It may be interesting enough trivia to some, but the technology world moves far too quickly for that knowledge to be of practical use now. Same goes for anything that’s not still being commonly used right now.

So I’m not going to talk about Mac OS 9 vs Windows 98. Some Mac users could be accused of living a little in the past because Mac OS has always been ahead of Windows. PC owners either didn’t like to admit it (normally because they couldn’t afford a MAC) or genuinely didn’t realise that the Mac OS was better (because they had never used it).

Today it’s a different story. I’m a PC user and I am typing this using windows XP. With XP and Vista Microsoft Windows has caught up on many things and even surpassed the Mac on some features. This makes things more than just a little blurry.

So let’s get down to it. Which one is better and how do you quantify it. Giving the PC a slight advantage, I’m going to compare a PC running Vista, Microsoft latest OS with a MAC running OS X (10.4.9). My reasoning is that these are the operating systems that ship with current models. It gives Microsoft an advantage because Vista has just been released after five years and billions of dollars of development, while the MAC OS X is just about to be replaced with the new MAC OS X Leopard (coming out in October: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ -look for ‘Apple Statement’). The leopard released date has been delayed due to development of the iPhone.

The things I will consider in this argument are:

Value for money

Ease of use

Software availability

Aesthetics (both software and hardware)

I’ll put each one in a separate post (because I ramble a lot and if I don’t the information will be out of date before I post it).

Enjoy ;)