VincentCuclair Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 It's soon time to buy a new 15" notebook (i travel a lot), i would really like to move to Mac, just wanted to hear from those people that have experience with both PC and Mac, any thoughts or tips? I've browsed quite a lot of forums, and it seems Mac is as prone to crash as PC however Lenovo/IBM seem to be the most stable?! Appreciate any advice! Quote Link to comment
monkey Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I work with both Mac and PC with VW in our offices, they both suffer from bugs and crashes, but the PC's are worse than the macs in my opinion (this may be different now VW2009 is out, but with 2008 its still the case) i prefer the mac to the PC, it flows better, looks better, has fewer problems exporting PDFs, Anti-aliasing/quartz imaging etc etc. I was a true PC worshiper until i ventured onto a mac for more than the odd session, and am now a mac convert. PCs are far better for the web, gaming etc etc, but when it comes to using VW, photoshop, etc etc i have to be on a mac or i get frustrated!! just my opinion Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 I've had only little experience with Mac but what you say is what i was inclined to believe plus considering these programs, VW, PS (which i use most) were both initially Mac programs this doesn't surprise me, thats why i would like to make the move to Mac. Thanks for the input, it kinda confirms my opinion. Quote Link to comment
islandmon Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Having participated fully in the PC revolution from day uno , the strengths & weaknesses of both have ebbed & flowed over the years. PC used to offer greater flexibility & compatibility at the expense of persistent viral infestations of one sort or other. The hardware was also a major consideration ... cheap & accessible vs expensive & reliable. Now it appears that overall the quality of the User experience and OS security have come to dominate the discussion. Nobody wants to live in fear of the next take-down. I'm totally comfortable using either PC or Mac ... but much prefer the Mac experience ... as being generally more refined and predictable. Furthermore, our servers are all PC boxes, and OSX makes working with them a joy. To complete my analysis ... OSX + VW = world class ! Quote Link to comment
Jodyb17 Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 If you're committed to VW I would say it doesn't matter much one way or the other. Mac tends to limit your cad program choices though. I think if traveling is your thing, you might want to consider things like battery life and weight rather than one operating system or the other. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 Well....VW, Photoshop and ArchiCAD take up 98% of my working day so in that sense Mac is fine, i lied a little about traveling it's more that i take home my computer everyday....i travel but don't use it that much on the way so weight and size are the most important in this case... Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 If you have windows versions of all three programs, then you can run the on a Mac under windows...though I'm not sure what the actual benefit would be (sartorial considerations and impressing fellow travellers with your hipness aside). You could purchase Mac versions of all three applications. All it would take is money to move from poser to purist. For a laptop that spends most of its time on A/C or in a bag (as many do), there's a low return for premium battery life...not to mention that for the price of a 15" macbook, you could have a pair of quad core windows desktops and save the trouble of toting anything (at least in the US). Quote Link to comment
Jodyb17 Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Ha, very true brudgers. Price is always an issue. In terms of the original questions of stability, I think that has more to do with the hardware than necessarily the operating system. Mac products tend to use high quality components, hence the price. Not that you can't get good quality from a PC brand. Quote Link to comment
Miguel Barrera Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I believe the greatest advantage a mac has over a pc is the integration of hardware and the system software. I started on the Mac and just loved the fact that I seldom had any problems with it. If I ever had a problem with software or extensions, it was very easy to fix by booting up with another system folder I kept in another partition and then just trashing the incompatible software or extension. Now try troubleshooting a problem with the pc and it is a nightmare to the point where is just far better to just reinstall windows and all the software than spend countless hours trying to figure out what is wrong. I get windows updates almost every day and while they fix a specific problem, they seem to mess up other funtionality. I have a few programs including VW that were working great initially but now crash or some functionality does not work as before. So the time is coming for me to update backup documents, scrap everything from the computer and start all over again. I never had to do this with a mac. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Buy the Mac. If you don't like it you can load Windows onto it. You can't do that with a PC. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I have two windows laptops. A toshiba sattelite that I bought in 2001 for $995 and a 17" HP that I bought in 2004 for $1800. The Sattelite is used daily by my son, the HP daily by my wife. Both have been in nearly continuous use since new and neither has ever required repair. Apple tends to use high end components, not necessarily high quality. They tend to select the latest and fastest processors, not necessarily the most reliable. As for hard disks, they tend to use the cheapest...the top of the line 17" Macbook pro comes with a 5400 rpm hard drive. Available at newegg for $60. I think Apples one year depot warranty, says more about the actual reliability of Macs than consumer testimony. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Buy the Mac. If you don't like it you can load Windows onto it. You can't do that with a PC. So the Mac comes preconfigured with OSX as bloatware. Quote Link to comment
ionw Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 So the Mac comes preconfigured with OSX as bloatware. and refuge from the conficker virus... Funny that Microsoft had to hire an actor to perform the "unscripted" purchasing decision. Lauren's home page Ion always have been cool enough for a mac, always will be. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) and refuge from the conficker virus... Funny that Microsoft had to hire an actor to perform the "unscripted" purchasing decision. Lauren's home page Ion always have been cool enough for a mac, always will be. I too am shocked!...shocked to find that actors appear in commercials! Or that they respond to ads on Craigslist. At least in regards to Microsoft. Apple on the other hand has acknowledged that "the alleged deceptive statements were such that no reasonable person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact" [ http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/files/apples_answer_in_gillis.pdf ] And of course the computer she bought doesn't really compare to the 13" Mac...why you'ld have to spend at least $30 for a USB wireless N adaptor! I couldn't think of better antivirus protection than this: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9122359 Edited March 31, 2009 by brudgers Quote Link to comment
Miguel Barrera Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I never had to send a mac for repair and the one I have is still functioning after 10 years. My windows HP I had to send to the factory before a year due to a malfunction of the hardware so that says a lot about the quality of the components used. As for hard drives, it is a piece of cake to swap or add another to the mac without the use of utility programs to configure it. Before, you had to buy specifically for the mac and had to pay the price for it but nowadays, you can use the same hard disks that are installed on pc's. Quote Link to comment
HP Sauce Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 It's soon time to buy a new 15" notebook (i travel a lot), i would really like to move to Mac, just wanted to hear from those people that have experience with both PC and Mac, any thoughts or tips? I've browsed quite a lot of forums, and it seems Mac is as prone to crash as PC however Lenovo/IBM seem to be the most stable?! Appreciate any advice! I've overseen various workgroups over the years that have consisted of both MacOS and Win-based computers. More time, effort, and money is wasted on the Windows computers without a shadow of a doubt, and they don't last half as long. Of all the people I made the suggestion to of trying MacOS, not one has looked back. Not that I condone the Apple Tax (which is, to be fair, much better than in previous years) but you do get a much better product from them. Forgetting the shiny box and LED-lit logo, the OS is ten times more productive, stable, and generally pleasurable to use. This day and age, the only things stopping you from switching are games and some 3D applications. Other than that, you're better off giving Windows the cold shoulder. Just don't get your RAM from Apple, and buy the computer refurbished! Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Here's an interesting story on supporting Mac's in a corporate environment: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10200296-92.html Quote Link to comment
HP Sauce Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Here's an interesting story on supporting Mac's in a corporate environment: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10200296-92.html That story is oddly similar to my own experience. When I joined my last office in 2001 it was almost entirely Windows-based, yet when I left in '07 the only Windows computer left was the server. There is no way this would have happened if they didn't scrap OS9. Despite OSX 10.1-10.3 being terribly buggy, ever since its inception the switch became more appealling. Quote Link to comment
Linicks Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 Hi Vincent, I'm new to Vectorworks, but I've been in the technology industry for many years. I write software, have built motherboards from scratch, assembled thousands of PC's, and the list goes on and on. With so many years and technology related experiences, I feel as qualified as anyone to address this question for you. I know you are asking this question because there is allot of money involved and you want good advice. When asking this type of question it's easy to get caught up in metrics like hardware specs, money, etc. But I can say with confidence that you can get good results from the newest versions of either product. I use Windows, OSX, Linux, FreeBSD, and others extensively, and the lines between them are really starting to blur. Each have their strengths and weaknesses of course, but in the end you can get good results out of all of them. Unfortunately, there isn't a version of VW for Linux With that said, I typically recommend Apple/"Mac" computers for a number of reasons: 1. One of the main benefits of the Mac is that it's an integrated and complete system. What I mean by this, is that one company focuses on a smaller number of models, and really focus on making them as polished as possible. This is allot easier when you control the hardware and the software/OS that the computer is built upon. In the "PC" world you have so many vendors and possible variations that you may or may not be getting a good value, and you rarely get a very polished system unless you spend allot of time researching very component in the system, and the results that others have gotten from them. When I was a PC builder, the company I worked for spent hundreds of hours trying to get a component stack that performed well and was reliable. This is not an easy task, and is why so many people get such varied results from their computers. Once again, Apple helps reduce this by having a streamlined product lineup. 2. Computer maintenance is another area where Mac/OSX has an advantage over windows based PC's. All computers require maintenance, but Windows based computers require the most at least up to Vista. This is something that I deal with on a regular basis because I consult/support many users of windows based PC's. Most of there problems could be avoided if they actually did the maintenance that they are supposed to do. However, I make good money fixing and maintaining there windows based systems, so I can't complain to much 3. Apple is typically more of an innovator rather than following the crowd. They are way ahead of other companies in battery design, chassis, and display technologies. This isn't to say they have the best of everything, but they have incorporated things like LED based displays through out there product line faster than any other company. There are other reasons why I recommend Mac's as well, but the above reasons should give you some good food for thought. There are also times when I recommend Windows and Linux based PC's, especially when budgets are tight, or when the computer really needs the underlying technologies to achieve a specific task. If you aren't familiar with using Macs/OSX, it's important to give yourself a little time to adjust. It's not that OSX is hard, quite the contrary, it's just different enough that you will need to time to find things that your used to looking for in other places. For example, rather than using "Windows Explorer" to view and manage files you will use the Finder to explore the "Macintosh HD". I have used Vectorworks on both Windows Vista, and OSX, and they seem to be about the same on both. I hope this helps! --Nick Pavlica Quote Link to comment
billtheia Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I have used both platforms (though not with VW) and I prefer the mac. It just works. Quote Link to comment
Bob Holtzmann Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I have Windows XP on a partition in my MacBook Pro for running AutoCad. Having Vectorworks Architect 2009 under the Leopard MacOS gives me very little incentive for booting up Windows. The new Vw has drag and drop import for Acad files. And that Conficker PC virus, which is supposed to take over 10 million PCs on April 1st, will definitely keep my computer from running Windows, at least for tomorrow. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted March 31, 2009 Share Posted March 31, 2009 I have Windows XP on a partition in my MacBook Pro for running AutoCad. Having Vectorworks Architect 2009 under the Leopard MacOS gives me very little incentive for booting up Windows. The new Vw has drag and drop import for Acad files. And that Conficker PC virus, which is supposed to take over 10 million PCs on April 1st, will definitely keep my computer from running Windows, at least for tomorrow. Who's worried about April 1st 2009? We all know the world ended on Y2k. Of course it makes for great hype anyway...and that would certainly explain why Mac users can't get enough of it. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted April 1, 2009 Author Share Posted April 1, 2009 Thanx Linicks (and everybody else) for the response, even though money is important, my experience is that having used many of the current CAD/BIM programs to the max of my computers capacity (visualization) that if rendering takes a minute longer every time you earn you're money back very quickly by having a computer that is a little faster or more stable, the same counts for bugginess. Also user friendliness and pleasure are very important, if you spend 99% of your working day behind a computer you want to keep frustrations to a minimum and you want be pleasantly surprised once in a while, in this i can say that Windows doesn't do it for me, and having read all the responses here i am inclined, as i was before, to go for the Mac. Quote Link to comment
cad@sggsa Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 Buy the Mac. If you don't like it you can load Windows onto it. You can't do that with a PC. So what you saying is a Mac is more clever than a PC and then you can make it dum aswell?....heehee Atleast you would have an option Quote Link to comment
Dieter @ DWorks Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 I have a pc with Windows Vista on it, and it works like a dream!For the record: VW 2009 is faster on a pc than on mac because it doesn't use multi-cores on mac. This was mentioned on one of the information pdfs on VW2009. There also was mentioned that multi-core usage for mac will be in VW2010. Quote Link to comment
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