Hello, it's time for me to buy a new computer and would like some advice. Is it better to buy a Mac or a P4 PC? I'm more of a multi-media person not a gammer. I know almost nothing about Mac, is it easier to learn then Linux?

Abort, Retry, Fail?

Wi-Tiger, to Mac or not to Mac, that is the question..... he he

Basically there's not a lot in it. OSX is very very cool, easy to use and backed up by solid hardware and good technical support. The downside is that you really have to pay for it....

If you get a P4 system, with a solid chipset, decent memory, good hard drive etc (basically don't try and do it "on the cheap") you can build a PC for a lot less.

I am a musician, and have always used Macs, but I bought a PC to get into programming and other nerdy PC kind of stuff, but the PC is so powerful I am doing all my music on there too now, but there's just something inspiring about the Mac OS and the pretty mouse and the beautiful cases....

If I won the lottery I would get a mac, no question.... But as it is, I can't see me getting a Mac again, XP is great to work in and PC cosmetics have come on in leaps and bounds...

So after going round in circles my conclusion is this;

Performance wise there is very little difference between the two. The things you need to look at are the way you work and the way you feel.

If you post up here what software you want to use, and the things you want to do then I can give you more specific advice if you want....

Just keep swimming....

If you can afford it, I would say a Mac definately. It is rock
solid, easy to use, and you don't spend your whole life
maintaining/updating it and fighting off viruses/spyware.
I am a Lan admin and spend all day dealing with windows
machines and it is a real pleasure when I come home to
my mac. I have several windows and linux machines at
home as well, but I prefer the OSX Mac. Since OSX is unix
based there are tons of programs available as well.
Just one man's opinion....

I used to have a Mac a long time ago but when i started Uni studying Computer Science I had to buy myself a PC (programming etc). I've been using WinXP for quite a while and have to say its not too bad...apart form having to reinstall it every few months or so because the crashes get too frequent.
Recently though, my brother who is a Graphic Designer has just bought a IBook. I borrowed it for a couple of days to play around with as i hadn't really used a mac for a few years. I really didn't want to give it back!! OS X Panther is simply brilliant! Its not just how cool it looks but everything is so easy and just works! Office X is so much nicer to use than Office XP for Windows. Macromedia Studio is also very good!
I know for sure that when i finish Uni i'll only have Linux on my PC and my main computer will be a Mac.
Buy a Mac you won't regret it!

Go 4 the Macs.
Expensive..? naw, not really, buy 'em used...a used G4 is still as good as a p4 (IMHO) and is just simply better, and not really that expensive, when you consider it's gonna not be obsolescent for three times as long..besides, PC's are so cheap you should get 'em both, which is what i've done, in case I need a 2 gig processor for something- tho I'm finding my G3 much, much faster -real time- and it feels better, and absolutely never, never, gives me any error messages ( last one I had was around halloween) and I just have no reason to use the P4...
I'm quite well known in PC circles too, as an WinNT afficianado, but franlkly, havent been heard from much since I got my G3...
So there!

Mac Mac Mac no problems (nearly never) reinstall an
OS mayb once in your life time. And if you need
support youve got a whole lot of mac geeks out
there to help you out. Also on the learnign front they
are realy easy to learn! thats one of the reasons they
are used so much in education. BUT if you are going
to buy a second hand machine make sure it has no
less than 500Mhz and about 384 of RAM and OS X -
its a must OS 9 and all before are like the difference
between DOS and XP (not quite but a big big
diference) you need to make sure the system has OS
X on it or is a G3 G4 or G5 processor so you can get
OS X there are currently 4 versions out 10.x (not
worth it kinda acts like a beta) 10.1 ok but a bit slow
sumtimes 10.2(.8)(Jaguar) great 10.3(.3)(Panther) on
FIRE! with things like exposé you cant go wrong!
(www.apple.com/macosx to find out more about OS
X) btw we are on out 4th version in 4 years not like
Windows 5yrs between updates! so OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
should be out in 2005 sumtime (we all hope)

No question about it. It don’t want to have to continually maintain your computer you’ll go Mac OS-X. It is more expensive, but you won’t have the headaches and aggravations you get with a Windows machine. There’s more software available for Macs than what most people believe. Determine what you want to do and then look for the software that does it

Hi

I'm also looking to buy a new computer and am trying to figure out which will be better for my needs.

I am a web designer/developer. I use macromedia products for the design work. I would however like to start working with Photoshop and Illustrator.

For development I would need support for
Notetab Light, apache, microsoft visual studio, mysqladmin.

What happens with excel, access database, sequel server etc, powerpoint? Are these best/available on a pc?

I am exactly 50/50 on design and development. I realise that mac is best for design work but I am worried about the development side.

I am currently on a pc (officially from the ark) which I can keep using if I need a pc. I also have a pc laptop. When I go away I'd like to be able to take the laptop with me for work. Do you think I should just stick to pc so everything is compatible or move to mac?

Thanks!
lee