Thread: PC vs Mac
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Old 13-04-16, 09:39
EdR EdR is offline  
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: SE Michigan USA
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My experience with computers overlaps magnetic core memory by a decade, my first PC ran DOS and I couldn't imagine how I'd ever fill up that huge 20 megabyte HD. Since then, and until three weeks ago, I've only owned PC's but last year finally got fed-up with Microsoft and Adobe and resolved to convert to a Mac. My point being that I too have been around a while, tend to be rather crusty and opinionated, however my experience has been very different and I'd like to share it and urge Mr. Birdsnapper to give his iMac a fair chance.

In my case I did spend considerable time researching things and realized that expecting a Mac to be like a PC was unrealistic, I'd have to reset to zero and learn, evaluate, and appreciate it for what it was. First of all, I did not expect to use any of my PC programs, and so far and at low cost I've found very good ones which accomplish what Lightroom and Photoshop did on the PC. And I'll put in a plug for Affinity Photo and LYN.

Here are a few thoughts about my experience to date:

Expensive- well.. considering that like most photographers I don't blink at shelling out major money for a quality body or lens if I feel I need it, the three grand my 27" Retina iMac cost isn't all that bad-especially considering that in the PC world I'd have to spend, and did, over a grand for a monitor that isn't any better. I'd also point out that it comes with the equivalent of MS Office and the Apple programs seem very tightly integrated with each other. In fact, outside of photography related stuff, there hasn't been anything the Apple integrated software won't do for me.

In terms of the ports, there is a slick usb hub that has a card reader plus three ports, it works well and looks like it belongs with the machine. Ports on the back have been a non-issue for me to date. The thunderbolt drive has been lightning fast to augment the rather small (!) 500 GB SSD.

I had the same concern about a dvd burner, although they are cheap, I too would find it annoying to have to deal with an external. However, I decided not to get one until I need it and so far, that hasn't been the case and I don't think it ever will.

As far as the wireless 'magic' keyboard and trackpad go- a charge lasts for months, so charging them up once in a while is hardly onerous. I have wrist problems typing and have used a MS Natural keyboard for years and was bothered by looking at that tiny 'magic' keyboard and realizing that there isn't a good ergonomic option for the Mac. However, I'd read that it's surprisingly good so decided to give it a chance....and Magic indeed! While I'm still getting used to it, I'm typing on it now and it's as fast and seems as comfortable as my old one. Looking at it, it makes no sense, but I can't argue with the results.

As I said, I realized that I needed to learn Mac from scratch so I looked for some good books as I like to be able to flip around and rapidly find what I'm looking for, something I can't do in a long video tutorial. I found the 'For Dummies' books to be too simple, but the El Capitan Missing Manual to be just right. I have and am putting some major time into it, after all it's like learning a new language and I've got over 30 years of PC habit to break. But it's proving well worth it, at this point I don't intend to ever go back to the PC.

So, in terms of Birdsnapper's analogy, the Audi is indeed an Audi just as long as I'm not disappointed in that fact that it doesn't act like a Ford F150! I would encourage him to step back, find the Mac based programs that do what he needs doing ( so far I've spent less than a hundred bucks and am pretty well set up) and give the Mac another chance.
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