IMAC vrs the PC (Apple iMac Desktop 800-MHz)

Name: leenewham

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Product:	Apple iMac Desktop 800-MHz
Date:	12/08/04 (656 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: dont crash, easy to use, quick

Disadvantages: bloody powerbutton is hard to reach, can be confused with hair remover

I have always used macs since my early days as a designer. I seem to have graduated from the early years of all in one grainy beige boxes, through to the colourful sweet wrapper imac of yesterday.

The new imac is something that is out of this world to look at. It has a flat screen, a domed round base, white keyboard and mouse. But I guess you have seen it. Macs are the computers that always seem to be shown on TV.

Stylish boxes.

Most non-mac users seem to dismiss macs as mere eye candy.

The clock speed (the MHZ the processor runs at as shown on all those ads that have a liitle chime ?dun dun dummmnnnn? after them signalling that it has an intel pentium processor) is lower than a pc, they are more expensive, they have less software and are slower.

The only reason to buy a mac is because they look nice.

THIS IS NOT TRUE!

You can buy a PC very cheaply. This is true. My dad (against my better judgement) bought a PC from TINY. Within a year the power pack had broken because it was underpowered for the usage it got. The man who came to fix it charged my dad £150 to fix it. The power button broke. The mouse broke. One of the USB ports broke.
My dad runs basic programs on his PC. It cost £1000 new with a web cam (which he has never used and is such poor quality its virtually useless) a poor quality printer worth about £60 and a mouse mat.

I own an 800MHZ imac. It too cost £1000. I didn?t get a mousemat, or a free printer or a webcam with it. I got those later when I could afford them (and when I needed them). The imac is faster than my dads TINY 2.25MHZ pc. Macs run OSX rather than Windows. This is the main difference between the two products. OSX is really easy to use. I struggle on a PC to work out where everything is. Everything seems clunky to use. Macs on the other hand are very user friendly. My imac, in the 2 years I have had it, has NEVER CRASHED.

OSX is amazingly stable. Nothin
g has gone wrong with it. The screen is bright and clear. It uses very little desk space too!

Macs come with the following FREE software:
? Mail (an e-mail program, simple to use with all the features you need)
? Address book (for all your addresses, number etc. You can add pictures to this, it will automatically open MAIL to send e-mail from writhing the application, phone numbers are shown in LARGE print across the screen.
? ical, which is a very neatly designed calender which syncs with your phone, address book, and shows to do lists. You can back this up to your ipod or pda.
? Itunes, regarded as the best music management software on the planet. This also links to your itunes music store via the where where you can buy most new music for £79p per track.
? safari the web browser that?s 4 x faster then internet explorer
? calculator (er..it calculates and you can do conversions between measurements, currency, weights and measures o it at the touch of a button (it includes conversion tables)
? ichat is one of the best aim style programs around. If you purchase an ichat webcam you can make exceptional quality calls all over the word with virtually no delay for free over the net.
? Quick time which is the best movie playing software available.
? Imovie which is an incredible movie making program which is so easy to use. It has many professional features and titles. Someone actually won a prize at cannes for a fim she edited in this FREE software on her mac.
? iphoto which is the best way of managing all your digital pics. You can even send them off via a weblink to be printed and bound in a hard back book. You can make slideshows and play music while they play (it syncs with itunes).. You can import pictures from this into imovie . You can retouch the images, make them black and white, sepia tones, reduce red eye among many other features.
? Sherlock is a speciality search program for the web
? Fontbook, a ve
ry user friendly, quick and stable fint management piece of software.
? preview, which allows you to see any pdf?s or images on your computer
? Idvd which allows to you write dvds, make title pages and intros.
? Stickies, liitle post it style notes

There is no end of programs you can get for the mac. Its worth looking at www.downloads.com. They have lots of free utilities for the mac and tips and tricks for how to improve how your computer operates.

Finally there is OSX itself. Its very simple and quick to use. Its stable and rarely crashes. You can switch between users without shutting down your computer. And it rarely gets ht by computer viruses and bugs like windows. Security is a lot better too. Its easy to get rid of cookies for instance in your web browser.

One the downside with the imac?the on off switch is at the back which is a pain to get to. Why didn?t they make thee on switch the large chrome apple logo on the front? I would have liked a headphone port on the front also and making the usb ports and fire wire on the side instead of the back would have helped too. Im not a huge fan of the mouse, as beautiful as it is. I would advise anyone to invest £65 and buy a wacom tabllet Graphere 2. It has a wireless mouse and pen and its so much easier to use.

Spec wise, even though I am a professional designer I haven?t used up half of my hard drive space and if you manage your files correctly you shouldn?t really use that much hard drive anyway. I included a lot more ram than it came with (Apple are a bit stingy with their ram). Really you should upgrade it to as much as you can afford, at least 512MB.

So there really is no excuse for buying pc. I would advise anyone looking to buy one to search ebay first. If that scares the hell out of you, then go to www.macsol.co.uk. They are by far the cheapest sellers of macs I have ever seen. They are friendly and helpful too (they are based in Wembly, North London)
.

So why should you buy a mac?well, you are not giving money to Bill Gates, they are easy to use, reliable and well made.

Oh yeah...and they look nice.


If you really do think that a mac is better than a pc, or vice versa please add to the comments. It would be interesting to hear other people views!

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