mac vs pc (6 months review)

i’ve switched to an apple / mac (leopard) 6 months ago & i absolutely love it. i’ve been a PC / Windows geek for the rest of my life (over 16 years now), so i’m not one of those “got to go with the coolest thing out there”. but, after fighting with Windows for most of my professional life, i just got simply fed up with all the annoyances & shorcomming of … 16 year old based operating system.

it took me a while to convince myself to switch … it started with iPod like for most of us – best mp3 player with the simplest UI. then i convinced my dad to buy a motorolla based PowerBook. i liked the new mac OS – tiger, but the laptop still seemed too slow for the price.

then apple announced intel based laptops & soon after my wife got 2gh macbook (best laptop i’ve worked with to date).

so what exactly are the differences between mac & windows laptops (today’s desktops pretty much)?
I’ve decided to write up a little comparison for my friends, who ask me this question those days.

	mac	win
battery life	4-6h	2-4h (depending on the laptop)
hibernate / sleep	just close the lid and don’t worry about it! (it actually goes to sleep by default, then when it runs out of battery, puts it to hybernate) – haven’t failed on me yet …	- hibernate breaks after a month or so you’ll get an error message & it won’t restore - sleep works well, but drains the battery faster you’ll loose your work when battery runs out (hard re-boot often required)
desktop search	- spotlight will find it all, including your outlook (entourage) mail messages - it will even search your networked (windows) / removable drives in less then 1-5 minutes	- no built in search (i guess vista has something right now), google desktop IS a nice alternative - network search is …. sloooooooow any windows “find” search is slow
bluetooth	works out of the box - with my cell phone – i can browse internet over it, transfer files - 1.0 logitech headset: not only can i talk on skype with it, i can listen / record to any audio via the headset	imposible to get it to work: - tried with 3 laptops - numerous driver re-installs, updates, firmwares gave up …
sound	amazing, intuitive setup: - remembers volume levels for each audio out: laptop speakers, headphones, bluetooth - easy to separate volume control of different applications - bonus: with $200 apple TV or $100 eithernet adapter you can stream _any_ audio to any hifi in your household … wirelesly	… one volume level for all - if you savy enough, you’ll figure out different output levels (mic, speakers, etc) - couldn’t get the airTunes to work on windows … but then again, i refused to spend more then 1/2 h to get it working nowadays
backup	built into the OS … enough said. all you need is an external drive & it will automatically back it up for you. bonus – time capsule – one of the best inventions of the 2000s – it will make automatic backups for you …. wirelessly!	3 words: pain in the a** – i’ve tried different solutions … and they are _different_ – not compatible with each other. you have to install additional programs, it slows down your system …. a mess.
wireless	not sure why, but mac just connects better … to weak singnals and faster (with an exception for macbook pro … sometimes it acts up, maybe new firmware will fix that)	a mess: built-in windows “wireless manager” is imposible to connect to a network with a password without going to 10 level deep setup. depending what wifi card your laptop comes you, you have to constantly update your drivers and re-install firmwares …
crashing	ok, some apps to crash, especially wine based emulators (as expected), but that happens …. twise a month. entire computer freeze – once in 6 months on macbook & twise of so in macbook pro.	constant application crashes (especially if you run too many , freeze … seems like every week or 2 you have to re-boot.
dashboard	ok … in all honesty, i didn’t get it at first … but after a while, it is nice to have weather, calculator, different time zones, etc – available at a touch of one button at all times	…. vista has something like this – haven’t tried it, but i’m assuming MS managed to f*ck this up somehow
build in media box	front row is sweet & macbook comes w/ a remote control – watch all movies (you’ll need perian), llisten to music, see your photos – all in a nice, simple interface – out of a box bonus – stream all to your HDTV via apple TV – $200!	.. not!