For the past twenty years, I’ve used nothing but Windows computers. Every time it starts off great! Everything works and I’m content with my purchase however, if you talk to me several months later I’ll have a list of complaints for you. I decided that this time was going to be different and I bought a Mac instead.
Trust me, I know the arguments, when my friends found out I was even considering getting one they started dishing out every single one they could think of. “It’s hard to use.”, “Everything is different.”, “There’s only one button on the mouse.”, “They can’t do anything.”, and the ever popular “Games look horrible on them.”
I ended up ignoring them for several reasons. I looked up reviews from former PC users and found that they were all extremely positive. I researched Macs a little and found out about Boot Camp. It’s a program built into OS X that allows you to install Windows onto the machine so it can dual boot, picking your operating system at startup. I figured “Hey, if I don’t like it, I can always just put Windows on it and use it like a PC.” The deciding factor that convinced me to go ahead with my purchase was that most of the customer reviews talked about Apple’s customer service and how great it was. With every PC, I’ve had terrible experiences with customer service and the idea of getting help when I needed it sounded heavenly.
After waiting for several weeks, I finally got the Mac and decided to set it up and start using it right away. Everyone was right. It is different. I turned it on and for once, everything worked. I was used to the three hour hassle of Windows rejecting hardware because of missing drives or bad internet connections but this wasn’t the case with the Mac. Everything I plugged into my machine worked. No missing drives, No I can’t identify this device. It all just worked. It knew what everything was and it all synced up seamlessly and the process of finding discs and installing drivers was cut from about three hours to less than five minutes. Great first impression Apple.
To address some of the other complains my friends tried to throw in my face, you can hook up a two-button mouse to a Mac and it works the exact same way it does on a PC. As for “They can’t do anything.”, That’s completely wrong. They do everything and what’s more important, it doesn’t seem to slow down at all either. I was so used to only being able to run so many programs on my PC. If I ran too many the system would freeze up. I have yet to have this problem with my Mac. The PC would make so much noise with it’s fan and groans of protest. The Mac quietly sits on my desk, never making a peep except when reading a disc. “It’s hard to use.”, maybe for a monkey. Everything is extremely straight-forward and easy to understand. I bet I could sit my ninety year old great grandmother in front of this thing and she could have it figured out in half an hour. “Games don’t look as good.”, I bought The Sims 3 and the gameplay looks exactly the same as every screen shot I’ve ever seen.
While those being the good points, there are of course the bad. Because Mac’s aren’t primarily used, there isn’t a very large software collection. That being said, everything they do have works and works well. I haven’t ever had a program crash on me or freeze. If you install Windows on the machine, it eliminates the problem. The other downside is that they aren’t as customizable. You know how iTunes looks? Everything looks like that on a Mac and it’s sadly depressing after coming from a PC.
If you haven’t tried a Mac I highly recommend it. They’re great computers and are very easy to use. You only have to give up some customization rights and try to live with the smaller software library. Trust me, you won’t miss what you’ve given up. You’ll be too busy exploring the better system and transitioning into an easier life with computers.
