A bit of a computery question re: Choosing Desktops...

[davidwalton]

The only PCs I had problems with were those god-awful chips made by Cyrix, the 6x86 line. Went through 3 and 2 boards in a year. So bad it was funny. In comparison all other computers and consoles seem stable and reliable .

Yes, you can get a PC that lasts and lasts, and lasts, at least until MS tel you you have to upgrade.

Chances are better with that happening with a Mac, in terms of how long it lasts.

I used to do PC support for a living, and you get a much bigger picture after dealing with thousands of PC's.

 

[laurence]

can we merge this thread with the one about which way to fit a front wheel and send them both to soapbox?

 

[bonj2]

OEMS. see below which was one of the findings of fact from the United States vs Microsoft case below:

"One of the ways Microsoft combats piracy is by advising OEMs that they will be charged a higher price for Windows unless they drastically limit the number of PCs that they sell without an operating system pre-installed."

Basically prior to 2002 if you sell PCs and don't put MS Windows on every single one you sell then you will get punished by MS financially.

ok, however morally wrong you think that is, it's still untrue to say they charge you for things they haven't given you, which is what you made it sound like when you say they are "charging for every PC regardless of whether they had Windows on it".
They're just saying they're unwilling to do business with you unless it's on certain terms. If you don't want to resell their products, you don't have to contribute to their profits. Simple. Christ, it can't even be that difficult to circumvent it - just set up another company under a different trading name if you want to sell PCs with a different OS or no OS at all. But why you would bother - god knows. If you're in the PC selling business, the fact that your PCs have got windows on isn't going to put enough people off to harm your sales.

 

[bonj2]

There is also the facts showing MS to be a Monopoly who is often in breach of acting in a reasonable way, and fined millions as a result, and told to change their ways. They are still in court over some breach or other.

and?

Morality doesn't really enter the equation.

If you are a shareholder and think that Microsoft's business practices bring disproportionate harm on the business by way of fines, then go and complain at the AGM.

 

[twowheelsgood]

Sorry to burst your bubble Mac people but a Mac now IS simply a PC. they have exactly the same Intel CPUs and chipsets as a Dell. They are even assembled by various Taiwanese and Chinese sub-contractors who also make PCs (I think Asus is one of them). Apple also have quite a lot of quality issues currently too, from Macbook heat issues, to poor LCD screens and discolouring plastic (white models). Oh, and we won't mention the stability problems of the latest version of OSX shall we.....

All you are paying for is the OS and the design if that kinda thing floats your boat. Indeed, with a bit of effort to get around Apple's deliberate knobbling, OSX installs on A.N.Other PC.

However, in most cases hardwarewise you are actually buying somewhat outdated and slow hardware with limited options for customisation and upgrade. I can only marvel at the dumbness of their desktops permanently welding the most expensive component and otherwise re-useable item (the screen) to the actual (already obsolete) computer, ineffect creating a laptop without the convenience of being portable. Marketing idiocy 1, common sense 0.

I'm not sure what you mean by "doing" graphics but if photoshopping then that's nothing to even a bottom of the range system today.

Indeed the only reason whatsoever to buy anything other than a bottom of the range dual core with a couple of gigs memory is if you encode video (more CPU) or play games (better graphics).

For photoshop extra graphic won't buy you anything at all over even integrated graphics. although at the professional end (quadro pro, which cost £600 and I have at work) it does support hardware line anti-aliasing, which makes sod-all difference in the real world.

It often beats me why people say windows is unstable, other than some dodgy drivers (the pitfall of actually having a choice of what hardware you can use) and some ill-advised overclocking, Windows 2000 and XP has never, ever crashed on me in 8 years.

And David, your G4 was left behind by even a cheap PC somewhere around 2004, with the first die-shrink of the pentium IV (it's when Apple had to withdraw their adds for claiming they were faster, when they weren't).

Really, the only reasons to buy a Mac are if you like the style and the OS, the other reasons simple don't exist anymore, some people seem to be stuck in some kiond of weird Windows 95 timewarp. You can avoid viruses by not being an idiot and opening dodgy attachments or installing dubious freeware. anti-virus programs can be had for free. And if you think you are buying into some culture of the cool hippy little guy over big business MS, think again. Apple's restrictive practices on both their machines and their portables are far, far more fascist than anything to come out of Redmond. Don't like itunes or quicktime? (which you should as both are abysmal pieces of software). Well tough, Apple can and will deliberately break any alternative you might choose with the next upgrade.

The CPU in this machine cost about £80. It's 2 cores are running at 3.2GHz, it dual boots WinXP and SuSE Linux/KDE. The whole machine cost no more than £200 as it has the same aluminium case I bought in 2001, and the same optical drives I bought in 2005. the hard disk drive came from the previous machine as does the Graphics card, although sometimes it's swapped for a vintage Matrox G400 (2000 I think) as it does RGB out to a normal TV. To get even remotely close to this in performace you'd need a MacPro - and very probably a mortgage. Personally I'd rather not spend two grand on a type-writer internet thingy. As I spend most time on the net or skype anyway, the Os is becoming increasingly irrelevent. You can see the way things are going with web 2.0 as demostrated by youtube and google apps. Apple will be in deep doodoo, because there simply won't be any advantage in OSX, the apps are moving out of the OS. Why d'you think all the fuss is over ipods and phones and only the odd rather small update to Apple computers?

 

[davidwalton]

Sorry to burst your bubble Mac people but a Mac now IS simply a PC. they have exactly the same Intel CPUs and chipsets as a Dell. They are even assembled by various Taiwanese and Chinese sub-contractors who also make PCs (I think Asus is one of them). Apple also have quite a lot of quality issues currently too, from Macbook heat issues, to poor LCD screens and discolouring plastic (white models). Oh, and we won't mention the stability problems of the latest version of OSX shall we.....

All you are paying for is the OS and the design if that kinda thing floats your boat. Indeed, with a bit of effort to get around Apple's deliberate knobbling, OSX installs on A.N.Other PC.

However, in most cases hardwarewise you are actually buying somewhat outdated and slow hardware with limited options for customisation and upgrade. I can only marvel at the dumbness of their desktops permanently welding the most expensive component and otherwise re-useable item (the screen) to the actual (already obsolete) computer, ineffect creating a laptop without the convenience of being portable. Marketing idiocy 1, common sense 0.

I'm not sure what you mean by "doing" graphics but if photoshopping then that's nothing to even a bottom of the range system today.

Indeed the only reason whatsoever to buy anything other than a bottom of the range dual core with a couple of gigs memory is if you encode video (more CPU) or play games (better graphics).

For photoshop extra graphic won't buy you anything at all over even integrated graphics. although at the professional end (quadro pro, which cost £600 and I have at work) it does support hardware line anti-aliasing, which makes sod-all difference in the real world.

It often beats me why people say windows is unstable, other than some dodgy drivers (the pitfall of actually having a choice of what hardware you can use) and some ill-advised overclocking, Windows 2000 and XP has never, ever crashed on me in 8 years.

And David, your G4 was left behind by even a cheap PC somewhere around 2004, with the first die-shrink of the pentium IV (it's when Apple had to withdraw their adds for claiming they were faster, when they weren't).

Really, the only reasons to buy a Mac are if you like the style and the OS, the other reasons simple don't exist anymore, some people seem to be stuck in some kiond of weird Windows 95 timewarp. You can avoid viruses by not being an idiot and opening dodgy attachments or installing dubious freeware. anti-virus programs can be had for free. And if you think you are buying into some culture of the cool hippy little guy over big business MS, think again. Apple's restrictive practices on both their machines and their portables are far, far more fascist than anything to come out of Redmond. Don't like itunes or quicktime? (which you should as both are abysmal pieces of software). Well tough, Apple can and will deliberately break any alternative you might choose with the next upgrade.

The CPU in this machine cost about £80. It's 2 cores are running at 3.2GHz, it dual boots WinXP and SuSE Linux/KDE. The whole machine cost no more than £200 as it has the same aluminium case I bought in 2001, and the same optical drives I bought in 2005. the hard disk drive came from the previous machine as does the Graphics card, although sometimes it's swapped for a vintage Matrox G400 (2000 I think) as it does RGB out to a normal TV. To get even remotely close to this in performace you'd need a MacPro - and very probably a mortgage. Personally I'd rather not spend two grand on a type-writer internet thingy. As I spend most time on the net or skype anyway, the Os is becoming increasingly irrelevent. You can see the way things are going with web 2.0 as demostrated by youtube and google apps. Apple will be in deep doodoo, because there simply won't be any advantage in OSX, the apps are moving out of the OS. Why d'you think all the fuss is over ipods and phones and only the odd rather small update to Apple computers?

Just a few points.

1. No bubble burst here. On the whole, I think Apple Macs are more reliable.

2. My G4 has 2 processors in it. 90% plus of the time, what slows an application is the Motherboard, RAM, Display, or HardDrive. Rare that the Processor is responsible as throughput there is generally much faster.

3. a phone is just a phone to me. Will not buy an IPhone, or similar.

4. Yes, you can download a whole load of free applications off the Internet. Been there and done that as well. However, I soon moved back to paying for critical things like a decent Firewall and Antivirus Software. The old saying, you get and deserve what you pay for thing.

5. What things cost and what their value is are 2 different things. Houses cost much less than we pay for them as well.

6. You are aware that Windows was built based on Apples OS, not the other way round? However, being that you don't like OSX, you should stay with MS Windows and stay happy. I see no reason to knock OSX as an alternative though.

7. Yes, if you are prepared to build your own PC, you can get a much better deal, and something much faster. There aren't many willing or able to do that though.

8. Whether the OS becomes irrelevent is a different subject.

 

[davidwalton]

and?

Morality doesn't really enter the equation.

If you are a shareholder and think that Microsoft's business practices bring disproportionate harm on the business by way of fines, then go and complain at the AGM.

I was only making a point based on something you wrote earlier

If I was a MS or Apple Shareholder, I would be very happy, especially if I bought the shares 10 plus years ago.

 

[Jaded]

twowheelsgood, I won't fill up the thread by quoting you post again. All I'll add is this question:

How much of what is in your thread goes through the mind of a normal person buying a computer?

PC fanboys* seem to forget that not every computer user wished to crack open the case and oggle at the "first die-shrink of the pentium IV" or some other techie nonsense.

*gratuitous insult included, as this seems to be de-rigeur on this thread.

 

[Jaded]

A thought whilst I was making a coffee...

Delicious irony. Posts made on here shocked that someone would pay £300 or so more for a computer than they have to. Posts made on a forum that has many who ride out on a pair of hubs that cost more than most people's entire bikes do.

 

[Slowgrind]

Just leave my bike and P.C. out of this debate! hank you!

 

[davidwalton]

Just leave my bike and P.C. out of this debate! hank you!

and my Bike, especially as it is going to cost me over £2,500 in total, after the upgrades and add-ons.. As for PC, that was dealt with in the SoapBox.

 

[twowheelsgood]

twowheelsgood, I won't fill up the thread by quoting you post again. All I'll add is this question:

How much of what is in your thread goes through the mind of a normal person buying a computer?

PC fanboys* seem to forget that not every computer user wished to crack open the case and oggle at the "first die-shrink of the pentium IV" or some other techie nonsense.

*gratuitous insult included, as this seems to be de-rigeur on this thread.

Well I don't understand what you mean by PC fanboy. The hardware whether you run OSX, Linux or Windows is identical and has been since Apple admitted defeat and went with Intel. I use windows and Linux at home and professionally. I also have professional experience on Mainframes (TPF/MVS and AS400). I've owned 2 Macs in the late 1990s and still have an old G4.

It simply depends by how far you wish to be tied into a particular business model. At the same time you must weigh that against how much restriction you are prepared to put up with. Every way you look at it Apple is a bad choice. It cost a lot and it is the most restrictive.

For the average Joe, an off the shelf PC will do everything Apple will do at half the price. So my point remains, unless you really like the OS and the style there simply is no point as you are buying the same box of tricks (or yesterdays box of tricks) at twice the price.

As I side note, I love my ipod, but I won't buy another because of all the restrictions and the tie in with itunes. I can do without it.

 

[twowheelsgood]

David, I think you are a bit stuck in the past.

I have a 18month old dual Xeon 2.8GHz workstation at work. 6 months ago I bought my girlfriend a near bottom of the range Toshiba laptop with a core duo 1.83Ghz for university, it cost about £380.

The Toshiba is faster.

That's how good core duo is, PIV is history, G4 is ancient history sunshine and you are deluded if you think your set up is as quick as even the cheapest biege box off the shelf nowadays. If you want a serious test find some HQ profile h264 high-definition video - perhaps the only thing that really taxes any modern machine in the home environment.

Apart from photoshop, basically all this machine is used for is the net, skype and itunes (curse that piece of sh*t). I could swap OS's and not notice the difference. This is a problem both Apple and MS have. Internally, Vista is referred to as the "last" Microsoft operating system for this very reason. Keep an eye on google. free online storage, free email, free office applications etc. etc. The future is pretty clear from this perspective.

 

[Gene Hunt]

David, I think you are a bit stuck in the past.

I have a 18month old dual Xeon 2.8GHz workstation at work. 6 months ago I bought my girlfriend a near bottom of the range Toshiba laptop with a core duo 1.83Ghz for university, it cost about £380.

The Toshiba is faster.

That's how good core duo is, PIV is history, G4 is ancient history sunshine and you are deluded if you think your set up is as quick as even the cheapest biege box off the shelf nowadays. If you want a serious test find some HQ profile h264 high-definition video - perhaps the only thing that really taxes any modern machine in the home environment.

Apart from photoshop, basically all this machine is used for is the net, skype and itunes (curse that piece of sh*t). I could swap OS's and not notice the difference. This is a problem both Apple and MS have. Internally, Vista is referred to as the "last" Microsoft operating system for this very reason. Keep an eye on google. free online storage, free email, free office applications etc. etc. The future is pretty clear from this perspective.

What he means, matey, is that his system runs faster due to the fact that he doesn't need to constantly upgrade his computer due to Microsoft making their OS more bloated with each release. (Windows Vista-15GB)
I have a 2 year old Mac Mini that can do all the things Windows Vista does, and its not even running the latest software.
Also, I don't think my old Windows 98 PC could run Vista at all, let alone install it, but there are Mac's from the same period which can run the latest software.

 

[Jaded]

Every way you look at it Apple is a bad choice. It cost a lot and it is the most restrictive.

It do do grammar good though.

With respect, your post is a bucket of dog fiddle.

What I mean by PC fanboy is you.

Ah, so you used Macs in the 1990s. You still have an old G4. This would be equivalent to me saying that I used Win 95 a lot. For goodness sake.

Apple did not 'admit defeat', they wanted faster processors and the PowerPC consortium couldn't produce what they wanted. The fact that using Intel processors allows switchers to run Windows as well as OSX seems to have passed you by.

"For the average Joe, an off the shelf PC will do everything Apple will do at half the price."

What, perhaps, you actually meant to say was:

"For the average PC Joe, an off the shelf PC appears do everything an Apple will do at half the price."

and there lies the rub.