He got a PC

Nice.

 

Great!!!

 

"Windows Vista Home Premium? I may be poor, but I'm not retarded!"

I think I'll use that line next time somebody asks me for advice on computers.

 

If your not aware of the current MS commercials, here's the first and second in the series. Good parody and was probably cheaper to make.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU]YouTube - Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRF9-5itZA4&feature=channel"]YouTube - Laptop Hunters $1500 - Giampaolo gets an HP HDX[/ame]

 

Hilarious

 

I'm sure Frank is use to dealing with viruses.

 

Some people shop for specs; some people shop for quality. With a large number of companies making PCs, you can buy a cheap PC with great-sounding specs, but poor quality. Apple is a high-quality manufacturer. You cannot buy a cheap Apple because Apple does not cater to that market. Then a PC runs Windows (i.e. garbage) or Linux (requires a lot more savvy than most computer users have). Mac runs OS X.

So, yes, you can get a PC cheaper than you can get a Mac. But you better buy the aftermarket extended warranty with that cheap PC. If you want quality, the PC and the Mac will cost about the same. And the PC will still run Windows. I.e. garbage.

 

Good luck. There's over 6000 posts in three threads about the first 3 MS commercials debating your opinion at Macrumors forums right now. There are good arguments for or against both systems.

 

HP has always made quality products and is also one of the top ten companies to work for in America. I can also run a ton more software on the PC than the Mac. Furthermore, many parts in the Apple are the exact same as the parts in the PC such as Video Card, memory, CPU, hard drive, keyboards, mouse etc. . . so pray tell whats the diff? BTW I own both.

Wildkow

 

I have always liked HP as a company and HP products. It probably dates back to my first calculator, an HP-45, which cost almost $400 in the 1970s. HPs calculators have always been top shelf.

As for computer products and printers, they have produced a few duds, just like every other PC maker. Most of their printers and PCs have been at least okay, many really good, but there have been a few clunkers along the way. The entire Deskjet 600 family had problems. I owned a high end Pavilion laptop that ran so hot it burned up its own system board. You couldn't buy replacement parts because all of the rest of them burned out too. There is a class action lawsuit working its way through the courts right now.

Apple has made its share of crap too. Apple's early operating systems were terrible, and their early networking even worse. I made a lot of money bandaiding their networking together. They were saved by their own failure. Apple had lost so much market share that they laid off engineers to the point that they couldn't produce a new OS. This forced them into the decision to use Unix, which is the best decision that they ever made. In one bold stroke their OS limitations and networking problems were solved.

I don't think any computer manufacturer is immune from making bad products, but there are more bad ones on the PC side. This is simply because the PC market is more price driven. It is the Wild West of computers. You can buy great PC products, but you can also buy a lot of junk.

Tom

 

Over what? PC vs Mac? I certainly hope not. Both sides have strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately the Mac is like religion, and we all know what happens when you start arguing religion.

As for me, I like well made generic hardware and Ubuntu Linux. It works so well I can't imagine why the rest of the world allows themselves to be exploited by the software vendors. As for software vendors, I will happily pay reasonable fees for Linux based versions of some products, but unfortunately not many of them are willing to do development for what appears to be a small market. As a software developer, I write code that works in all three worlds: PC, Mac, and Linux. It's not that hard to do, once you decide to make your code portable.

Tom

 

Linux works great. Unfortunately, it is extraordinarily difficult for the non-tech to set up. I am a savvy computer user, but not a tech, and not knowledgeable at a systems level, and I have tried several times without success to get Linux running on a PC system. I did finally get Linspire going on my laptop, but Linspire is unusual in its inclusion of proprietary code. And it still would not do everything I needed my home computer to do. The laptop, which was for travel only, has fewer requirements.

I am delighted with my Linux Asus Eee PC, which came pre-installed with Linux, but I still had extreme difficulty getting it configured. My sister (as an example of a serious computer user with zero tolerance for administration issues) could never have gotten it to work. And it, too, is for travel. It could not replace my home computer.

I'd be using Linux on my desktop computer now if, two years ago, I had been able to get any version of it to work, or if I had been able to find someone to set it up for me. At that time I tried SuSE, Ubuntu, and I forget which other one.

Linux is still not ready for prime time. But once set up and running, it's great.

 

I just bought a used PowerMac G5 tower. Besides taking 15 min to figure out how to open the cd tray, I would say it's a good machine. The case is beautifully over-engineered. Apple does make crap, though. Their MacBooks seem to get a lot of complaints for failing screens. I also hate the new iMacs since Apple has made it such a bitch to get into them to do any kind of service.

 

I think we have been over this before, but your Linux experience is dated. The new Ubuntu installations are easier than MS Windows, and easily allow for proprietary drivers. You just pop in the CD and everything installs.

There is a lot of commercial software that won't run on Linux. Much of it will, but you have to understand the limitations when you go the Linux route, just like you do if you decide to run a Mac.

Tom

 

Actually, Apple's dirty little secret is they often ship with *lower* quality components than PCs. Integrated Intel Graphics and GeForce 93xx cards aren't any better (or worse) than what PCs offer. And Apple has notoriously (in the past at least, unsure if they still do) skimped on the types and speeds of HDs shipped in their computers.

Now that Apples are x86 based, you really are just paying for something that looks fancy and OSX. The quality thing just isn't that different anymore.

 

Except of course for the proprietary codecs, which you need if you want to hear/view streaming media.

How about the morass of repositories and dependencies? I tried to install knights on my Asus, and after much agony and a great deal of help from the Asus users board I was never able to. Fortunately, it turned out that Shredder is available for Linux, and installs like any normal PC or Mac program, for a moderate cost.

 

One simple check box on "Software Sources" under the System menu.

If you use a Debian based system, like Ubuntu, all of the dependencies are taken care of by the package manager. "Dependency Hell" is a thing of the past.

Tom