MacinSpot

This so called battle has been going on for decades now, so I figured I would lend a hand to this. I am not bias towards either so I think this article will be fair to both. As long as I have a working computer, I am quite happy. It really doesn’t matter to me either way. I have a custom built PC that I put together myself, and I have two Mac OS laptops that I love as well. I have been focusing my tech experience around Macs as this is a rapidly growing market. Roughly 50% of the customers that walk out of an Apple Store are new to the world of Mac OS. Maybe this will help others understand what the real difference is between Macs and PCs.

To be very straight forward, you cannot compare a Mac to a PC. They are built with different ideas in mind. An Apple computer is built to be used straight out of the box with minimal setup time wasted. It doesn’t come with the extra clutter that PCs try to advertise to you. They come with what Apple thinks the average home user needs to just setup and go. They are not built to be customized, and adding ram or hard drive space isn’t customizing a computer. They have a nice clean style to them so they don’t look ugly sitting on your desk. Apple builds their computers with quality in mind, not quantity which is why they are a little more expensive.

PCs are built, for the most part, with quantity in mind. You can get a bajillion gigs of ram and lots of disk space for a low price. Makers of PCs such as Dell and HP build their computers with cheaper parts though. They do this so they can assemble large quantities of computers for an inexpensive price, and then sell them to the consumers for a fairly inexpensive price. The cost here is quality. PC makers such as Sony do have some lineup of PCs with quality in mind, but for the most part, PCs are built with quantity in mind.

Using cheaper parts leads to a shorter lifespan. Apple Computers can last seven to ten years all with very little service during the life of the computer. Sure there is always the possibility that you might get a dud, but that comes with anything you buy. Most tech shops will tell you that the average lifespan of a PC is roughly five years. Most PC owners need some kind of service to their computer at least once a year if not more. Add that up and your looking at the price of a new Apple Computer anyway over the long run.

While many techies argue back and forth over which is better you have to realize that neither are really built with the same idea in mind. Windows has always been more business oriented, while Macs have always been more home user “fun to use” oriented. Macs are not built to be customized, they are built to work, and run for several years. PCs are built around the whole easy to fix, upgrade your internal parts when you can concept. In the early days of LeMans racing(which is a 24 hour car race for those who aren’t familiar with it), the cars that were built for the race never lasted 24 hours. As a matter of fact, the last one standing usually won the race. Porsche recognized this quickly and they started building race cars to put in the LeMans race, not for speed, but for stability and durability. They built a car that would last the entire race and started a consistent winning streak because their cars were the last ones standing after 24 hours. Apple has adopted this concept and applied it to computers.

PCs are great computers don’t get me wrong. Apple however creates the operating system for the computers they build. Have you ever seen a Microsoft computer? No. HP, Sony, Gateway, and Dell all build their computers around the Microsoft Windows product. You have several companies involved with one project. So who do you call when something breaks? If its an Apple, you can take it to the Apple Store or call Apple. They put the entire computer together, and then they programmed the operating system to work properly with the hardware they used. That makes sense. When I pieced together my custom built PC, I put it together, then I installed Windows XP on it. After that, I installed the necessary drivers for the hardware I used to ensure that everything functions properly. I installed anti-virus(you can’t have a PC without anti-virus), and after several hours I had a working computer. Now you won’t have to do any of this when you buy a new pre-built computer obviously, but know that when you have to reinstall the Mac operating system, you don’t have to install drivers to ensure all of the hardware works properly. It just works because all of that is built into the operating system. You should install anti-virus on your Mac but you certainly don’t HAVE to(see article: Antivirus/Antispyware on Mac).

Bottom line is this: There is no perfect computer out there. Both PCs and Macs break. PCs are a little easier to fix from a techs perspective, but Apple Computers are designed to leave the consumer out of the break/fix loop. They want to bring you a nice quality computer that quite possibly won’t break, but if it does you definitely know who to call or where to take it. They want to provide you with everything you need right out of the box. They want to make things as simple as possible for the average user to be able to learn a Mac quickly, AND they want to provide the public with a computer that can integrate into a world of PCs very easily. I have a PC/Mac network at home and I swap files back and forth between the Macs and PCs all the time. All of this is what Apple means when they say “Mac just work.” At MouseCalls, the tech shop where I work, we see roughly one Apple computer to every 20 PCs. When I setup a Mac on a client site, I rarely ever hear back from that client. When I setup a PC on a client site, I frequently hear back from them wondering how to do something, where something is, or why is something not working.

This is the main difference between Macs and PCs. Go to the local Apple Store and at least look at the Apple Computers on display before making a final decision. You may spend a little more money, but then again you may be happier in the end.