Mac Versus PC For Me

Many people have broached this subject innumerable times over the years so I figured I might as well put in my two cents worth. I am not what I would deem knowledgeable in the world of technology, I know enough, I understand the workings of computers enough to use them and I know enough about the hardware that I have helped build a few PC’s in my day. But I am know where near geekdom or a computer guru like my son. So this is just a plain jane novice assessment from someone who uses a Mac mini and a PC laptop on a daily basis. Part of my hand me down version of life that I don’t think many people know is the technological advantage of being the mother of a real geek. I have had more computers, cameras, DVD players, etc. passed down to me then a lot of people even own in a lifetime. Some people in my family really like to stay on the cutting edge of technology (me not so much) so they outgrow things almost as quickly as companies develop new products. That leaves me in a real sweet position.

I inherited my Mac a little over a year ago, my current desktop kept crashing, I had lost a bunch of pictures and files and we tried to upgrade the old girl and she still was having issues. My son had purchased the Mini when it was new but had really only used it for some photo and video editing he was doing otherwise it was just sitting on his desk gathering dust. I use the Mac every day, I surf the web on it, do some of my blogging but mostly it holds a ton of my photos and videos. It’s a small computer, not just literally, inside it needs more RAM so its a little poky but it does an excellent job with photos. The iphoto program as part of ilife in my opinion can’t be beat. It’s simple to use it cleans up your not so perfect pictures and makes them look really great with only a couple of clicks. And it has the ability to burn the photos right to a CD, so there are very few extra steps to take. I have to say it took a little getting used to the different look and feel of OS X when I have been a PC person since my first computer but after a week or so fiddling with things now its just a natural thing when I go to use it.

Then theres my laptop, now up until a week ago I was using my sons old Dell Inspiron 5100 but the battery quit taking a charge and it was kind of well clunky to carry around but it served its purpose, a week ago I bought the Acer Aspire 5610z that my son just purchased less than a year ago. (like I said benefits to being me!) Its lightweight, which is really important, and its a real workhorse, which I need because I do all my work on it. Everything from accounting software, financial statements, client information, taxes it all starts at my PC so it works hard and I need it to be fast because sometimes I am doing many different processes at once while taking calls working online and having four or more different programs running. My new PC does all this without missing a beat and that I love.

So I guess my comparison comes down to this, Mac has always been known for its graphics abilities and they still have the simplest and the most user friendly programs for anything visual you need to do, but when it comes to simple working power, speed and efficiency I will choose my PC every time. But to be fair I love both my computers for different reasons and like I said this was a novice assessment of my two systems, I know there are a lot of new Macs out there that can do everything both my systems do but I am just working from personal experience and with what I have.