looking for opinions on Apple

[madscott]

Just took a long look at an Apple for the first time in 5 or six years. I must say the core duo machines were impressive. I liked the quad core G5, but my wife liked the core duo iMac, wanted some opinions , pros and cons(other than sofware titles)Oh , its going to be my wifes, so I probably will get the iMac.

[Adrynalyne]

Moving thread to the Mac forum.

Pros:

1. OS X
2. The new Intel chips are on par with the AMD X2 CPUs. If mory serves correctly, the 2.0 ghz in the iMac is running on par with the AMD X2 3800+.
3. Descent video chipset for once.
4. Front Row--Apple's first attempt at an aio media application, comes with a remote.
5. Possible it may be able to dual boot Windows Vista.
6. Built in iSight camera.


Cons:

1. Price still. Although the new machines are more on par with the OEM X86 solutions.
2. Limited software. Games are mostly out, save for some. While software is limited, there rarely is a time you can't find what you need to do the job. Software is even more limited at this time due to the limited number of universal binaries ( applications both for x86 and ppc). Rosetta helps a ton with that problem by translating apps on the fly. I hear speed is very good, considering.
3. Limitd upgradeability. You won't be servicing much of this bad boy yourself. In addition, to upgrade just about anything is a daunting task, except maybe ram.
4. PC zealots will shun you and cast stones.

[AnthonyKinyon]

Welcome.

I would avoid PowerPC based Macs simply because a few years from now they will be toast and no longer supported - although Apple says they will for the next couple of years. Might as well get an Intel Mac now since the price is almost the same if not the same.

Universal apps are coming out each day more and more but some big name ones aren't for a while. Microsoft (Office), Adobe (Photoshop etc.) for instance.

Most other apps have universal binaries coming out soon rather than later.

With Boot Camp which is free from Apple you can now run or dual boot Windows XP (Service Pack 2) with MacOS X on the same machine - so you can run Windows games and other apps you can't find Mac versions of yet.

MacOS X has better security, performance and power management than Windows does (any version of it, including Vista). There are only a couple of Mac viruses out there and there are like 30,000 active ones for Windows.

Macs are very nice quality and look nice also. The newer ones are really offering good performance and bang for the buck. I have two Mac Minis (one PowerPC and one Intel) and they are both great. I like the Intel more since it has more power and speed (dual core CPU).

Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger) the latest Mac OS, really networks good with other Macs and with Windows machines too. Very simple to set up and fast.

The most popular Windows games often get ported to OS X.

Any other questions please ask!

[Adrynalyne]

This is a dead thread.