I’m seriously considering not buying more Macs this season, as I usually do. Instead, I am thinking about buying PCs. I have a much longer post in my about why, but before I publish that rant, I want to ask a simple question of you all: Do you love or hate your PCs? Why?
PS – What I hear from my pals is that the machines are amazing these days, but the OS is really bad. True? False?
I have a love-hate relationship with my PC I do want a Mac only because of my love with emulating Macintosh on my PC I am with a software emulator called Bricopack XP
I do love my PC for it simplicity and my understanding of it. I do hate it because of Microsoft errors and blue screen I will probably have a PC until I get enough money to buy a Mac
I love my PCs and yes, I have used Macs in the past.
PCs have so much more software available, more information online on how to fix them, and many more people have them than Macs.
I don’t have a PC and there’s only one reason I’d buy one — to be able to see Netflix instant movies. There’s no support for Macs. PCs are so cheap now, it would be worth having one for that alone.
I’ve come to see the good (and bad) in both, vs. all this way, or all that. I won’t go into a laundry list (my inbox can’t bear the hate mail any time I say anything critical of the Mac, iPhone, or Apple); suffice to say, a Chevy or a Prius will get you from A to B, and I’ve stopped taking/judging personally whether I’m on this side of the fence or the other, depending on which platform I use. The word to reread there is use. Either is a tool that accomplishes the get-you-there part, but the dashboards, gizmos, zero-to-sixty on the one hand, yet not when compared to the other (manual vs. stick shift, fill in your own metaphor) all comes down to the same thing: You control and use it, to the best of your ability, and/or knowledge, and when all is said and done, either way gets the job don. It doesn’t have to be religion unless you want it to be. I choose the higher road: My own brain, and its ability to see the good, bad and ugly in either/or. -JH
I work on both a PC and a Mac every day. And though I do nothing more complicated than send email, work in Word, Excel and look at pdf files all day, the PC still locks up at least 5 or more times a day “Program is not responding.” I also think it sucks that Word is still so buggy after all these years. I spend hours reformatting documents as fonts and sizes seem to jump around at random. My mac isn’t perfect, but it rarely causes the swearing that my PC does.
Hi John,
Notebooks and Desktops are apples and oranges.
I love my 17″ macbook pro. I swear by AMD X2 Dual Holy Crap Its Fast PC. Here’s why:
My PC notebooks can’t handle the amount of programs I throw at it. The unpredictability of the road doesn’t seem to bother the Mac at all. The form factor of the apple is slick, it behaves when I need it to and doesn’t really hiccup that much. My mac excels at presentation, the screen is great when I’m showing things off to clients, and simply put, it just works. In scenarios where I have less than 30 seconds to recover from a bug/error because I’m presenting in front of a crowd of 200, I want to rely on OSX to save the day.
My desktop PC works well because I know how to handle it when it starts to bitch and whine. If i didn’t, i’d be screwed. I know how to install my own operating system, and I know how to interpret the occasional errors when I do get them. I know when it’s time to “wipe the slate clean” and re-install, and I basically don’t need to take it into a shop ever. If you don’t know how to do this, don’t bother.
@Simon Firth; Netflix Watch Instantly is now available for Macs, and the feature has also hit the big screen of your choosing by way of Roku player, months ago, and recently Xbox 360, and in the last few days, TiVo. I nearly watched Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain tonight (1966, Paul Newman and Julie Andrews) but decided to do one last mail check, and turn in with a short story collection (lit by LED helmet lamp instead of reading ebook on iPhone tonight, either/or is fine by me – which is to say Netflix on Xbox 360 or TiVo is fine by me when crashed on the sofa, and fine as well on a PC or a Mac; it’s the movie/story that count, same as a good book, whether on paper and lit be an LED lamp balanced on my chest, or brightened from behind and cradled in my palm, by way of iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia or other portable, camping-memories medium that does more than one thing yet takes up only as much space as…one thing). Night. JH
I’m a die hard Mac/Linux guys (the unix underpinnings are the important thing to me), but I’ve been seriously considering spending a few hundred bucks on one of the netbooks, the new subnotebooks by folks like HP, Asus, etc. The Windows XP-based Asus eeePC has been my favorite, though the HP Mini 1000 is also tempting.
For me, it’s about the size. I wish Apple would make a netbook.
Curious why you’re considering it. Judging from your words, it sounds like something has upset you about Macs?
Sujal
For PCs, the trick is to not go for the low-end OS version.
I have issues with the Mac walled-garden approach. The repeated attempts to install Safari qualify as mal-ware, IMHO.
I also have problems with companies that make money off open source – yet give back little to open-source communities. That would be Apple.
ThinkPad’s take a little getting used to (with the pointer) but once you get the hang of it, you won’t want to use anything else.
Why would you do that in the 21st century? Why would you want to go back to an unreliable OS? Why is it even debatable to say you want to go back to a PC? Is it money? Or like Simon says above “there is no support for Netflix” (Which there is since last week?)
Sorry, I find it crazy even to consider the thought. Take a deep breath have a glass of wine and remember why you left windozzzze in the first place. It hasn’t changed.
I used to use a PC, I got a new laptop with Vista and I hated it. I returned it and got a MacBook and even though it was a little expensive, I LOVE it.
I work in IT. We are a 100% Windows XP outfit. Almost all of our equipment is lenovo laptops/tablets and servers are Dell. I work on PCs everyday, all day long.
However, every night I CAN’T WAIT to go home to my Macs.
PCs have come a long way since the days of Windows 98 and the stability is very much improved. But supporting them can still be a pain.
In recent years there are much less problems with Mac compatibility. Especially as more services have moved to web 2.0 and Firefox compatibility.
In the end I like the integration between Mac products, common UI, power of UNIX under the hood, simple interface, stability, etc.
To answer your question, I don’t hate my PC. But the OS is its biggest minus. And now that Apple is using Intel hardware, the OS is really the only difference. I’d choose OS X any day of the week without a second thought.
Ever since switching to Macs, I felt like discovering serious filmmaking after spending years watching Hollywood crap. I don’t hate the PC, but I feel sorry about the people who still use one since they either a) didn’t have a chance to learn about Macs and give them a try (poor ignorance) or b) know about Macs but insist on not getting one (idiotic stubbornness).
It’s the OS of course, aesthetics is not really important, even though the Macs look sexy. But I don’t really think the quality of sexiness is important for nothing other than humans!
I use a Mac at work and PC at home — inverse of most people. While I prefer the Mac, my PC experience is fine.
While Vista is not nearly as good as MacOSX do not believe the extreme negativity about it. At this point, Vista OS is stable. Is Vista an delightful experience — no, but it is a suitable workhorse.
On the hardware side, ThinkPad’s are still the best hardware you can buy — if I were buying a new PC without a budget I would be on a ThinkPad.
You said it yourself, John. Windows are really bad software. Have heard anyone, even in these comments to say Windows are good or better than Mac OS X?
Hardware in my opinion does not matter so much. Still, macs got the best hardware. Especially in laptops, when they went with uni-body design.
Honestly, I can’t imagine reasons you go to Windows. I suggest you spill them out first.
John, get a Dell with Ubuntu.
Actually I think it is becoming less and less important what kind of OS do you use, because more and more applications are running in browsers.
So I dont think it is really that a big question. If you use well your computer you wont have problem with it too much. I have a desktop with XP (running for more than years without reinstallation), a cheap Acer Vista notebook running also without problems.
I do not think that Mac is worth the extra money you have to pay for it.
I used to use a PC, I got a new laptop with Vista and I hated it. I returned it and got a MacBook and even though it was a little expensive, I LOVE it.
The whole Mac vs PC thing is misleading and a little dull. What you’re really talking about is MacOS vs Windows vs Linux. For my money you want to build your own PC from scratch and run Linux on it, you’ll get far more control and better performance than MacOS or Windows.
Really wish folk would stop automatically assuming that PC = Microsoft!
I moved from XP to Vista few months ago and can’t tell you how much I love the new OS.
I use software (browsers, Office 2003 and 2007, Python, accounting products, etc.) on top of Windows XP and Vista. Network interally and externally. Everything works well. The operating system for each machine is “original” as it was when bought.
I have no experience with upgrading XP to Vista, but I suspect much of the “bad” you hear about Vista is when this upgrade didn’t work as well as expect.
Office 2007 has a fundamentally different user-interface than it’s predecesors, but if you start there probably is not an issue. I happen to like the new software better, and despite extensive use of most components haven’t noticed any bugs (other than Business Contact Manager optional add-in to Outlook is still buggy).
The Windows “eco-system” of vendors is widely more diverse than for Apple … so of course you’ll find things sold for Window that don’t work. For me, few and far between though. Statistically not significant.
About the only big difference I see in Apple vs Windows users is that Apple users always seem to be pround of themselves for using Apple and say so. Windows users, on average, don’t care and get on with it.
Lots of people use Windows, that doesn’t make it good (think VHS). If you feel like you need to get a PC, have fun. We’ll see you again when you write about switching back. Enjoy…
Yep, that’s heresy.
What does it mean to say that a machine is great but the OS isn’t? OS stands for Operating System, s’far as I recall.
I always considered myself computer operator, so am I missing something when I say that the OS counts?
Go figure..
Ha! I used to be a smug Mac person before I learned anything about computers.
First of all, Cannonball is right. PC does not equal Windows. Secondly, yes, Mac OS is good; but whether or not it’s superior to Windows is a moot point. The simple fact is, I could tweak Windows or Linux out to look and work as much like Mac OS (or whatever else, maybe I’ll make up my own interface!) as I want – on a system twice as powerful as one of those “art object” Macs – that I paid half the price for, because I built it myself.
Macs are for people who want a pretty computer with an OS that will not make them worry about how computers actually work, because the interface is like playing with galactic soap bubbles inside a MOMA exhibit. And that’s super. But those of us who actually want a degree of control over what our computers do (AND how the OS looks and behaves) will always come back to PC, because building a custom machine is what you do when you get sick of letting one brand control your computer experience.
Having demonstrated my brilliant theoretical understanding of the Internet and its ramifications, I’ll now give my wisdom on the technical end:
When computer works it’s GOOD!
When computer doens’t work its BAD!
Little portable one’s are nice!
I understand there are PC’s and MAC’s.
That’s nice too.
I love my new Dell (with Vista), which replaced the old Dell (XP).
I have looked at Macs several times, but no matter how many Mac champions tell you they are gettting cheaper, they just can’t keep up with special offers from Dell.
In my view, it’s not windows that’s the problem, it’s interoperability, with all the stuff we layer on top. So, after 2-3 years, the systems get more and more buggy and unpredictable. Even though this is a problem for PCs, it can be a problem for stale Macs too. (In theory, anyway, because most of the Mac owners I know tend to go for the latest and greatest pretty frequently.)
You’ve heard all the MAC perspective … here’s some on Windows / PC:
* Hardware flexibility – Windows can run on any hardware combination you can think of (unlike a mac where you have to depend on a single vendor for both your hardware / software needs).
* Price – PC’s are cheaper (because of point 1), especially if you assemble your own.
* Softwares – There are way more softwares for Windows then Mac. There are also way more free softwares for Windows then Mac.
* OS – Windows was a crappy OS uptil Windows 95 and to a certain extent so was windows 98 and ME. But windows XP blows – it is remarkably stable and a lot more friendlier in everything it does.
Note: Vista is an improvement but is really slow (I think it was designed to silence the nagging from Intel) – My dual core 2.3 Ghz laptop with 1 GB RAM and Vista Business runs at a speed equal to that of my desktop running Windows XP SP3 on a P3 800 Mhz with 512 MB ram (I kid you not!). I’d advice you to stick with Windows XP Service Pack 3 until the next version of Windows is released.
* Freedom of choice: With a PC you have a lot of choice and flexibility – with a carefully assembled system, you can even run Mac OS on it. Or go the free way with Linux. Or submit to Microsoft. Or run all 3 (yes on the same system)!
* Asia and middle east (and dare I say most of the world) run on Windows / PC platform because the total cost of ownership is lower then that of a Mac. It is easy to find a Windows tech anywhere in the world.
Want more? Listen to Bart Simpson – http://www.viralvideochart.com/dailymotion/mapple__the_simpsons?id=x7kr6e
(The comment didn’t appear the first time around – not sure if it is moderated, so reposting)
You’ve heard all the MAC perspective … here’s some on Windows / PC:
* Hardware flexibility – Windows can run on any hardware combination you can think of (unlike a mac where you have to depend on a single vendor for both your hardware / software needs).
* Price – PC’s are cheaper (because of point 1), especially if you assemble your own.
* Softwares – There are way more softwares for Windows then Mac. There are also way more free softwares for Windows then Mac.
* OS – Windows was a crappy OS uptil Windows 95 and to a certain extent so was windows 98 and ME. But windows XP blows – it is remarkably stable and a lot more friendlier in everything it does.
Note: Vista is an improvement but is really slow (I think it was designed to silence the nagging from Intel) – My dual core 2.3 Ghz laptop with 1 GB RAM and Vista Business runs at a speed equal to that of my desktop running Windows XP SP3 on a P3 800 Mhz with 512 MB ram (I kid you not!). I’d advice you to stick with Windows XP Service Pack 3 until the next version of Windows is released.
* Freedom of choice: With a PC you have a lot of choice and flexibility – with a carefully assembled system, you can even run Mac OS on it. Or go the free way with Linux. Or submit to Microsoft. Or run all 3 (yes on the same system)!
* Asia and middle east (and dare I say most of the world) run on Windows / PC platform because the total cost of ownership is lower then that of a Mac. It is easy to find a Windows tech anywhere in the world.
Want more? Listen to Bart Simpson – http://www.viralvideochart.com/dailymotion/mapple__the_simpsons?id=x7kr6e
I don’t “love” my PC/laptop, running Vista. But it isn’t a source of pain/problems for me. I don’t have problems with it, its powerful and completely functional.
I don’t do games, I do work productivity. And my PC enables that completely, without getting in my way. I travel, and its got good battery-life, internet-access, and is a good size/weight ratio.
I haven’t had problems with drivers, config files, and my laptop doesn’t need to reboot; instead I do reboot it about every 3weeks, just as a good-practice.
Again, this isn’t something that I love/hate; it is a tool.
//William.
I only use a PC but I mainly stick to Linux as the OS. I use one VM with windows to do things like Visio for network drawings but besides that these days my life is Ubuntu. You should give it a test drive with their bootable CD and see what you think.
Every time I consider switching to Mac I end up staying with PC. I have many friends who use Mac, I cannot find one thing that they can do that I cannot. PC is far less expensive, much easier to upgrade or repair if necessary and does not have the issue Mac does with certain software not available.
Mac may have some fancier effects sometimes but Windows is catching up in that field. I feel the same way with the iphone.
There is nothing the iphone does that my HTC Windows Mobile cannot. In fact it is much easier for me to get software for Win Mobile than for iphone.
When I get the extra cash I would not mind having a Mac just to know the system a little better. But at this point I always have to stretch to find a reason to switch.
I’m a freelance copywriter- my work depends on connectivity, not horsepower, so I don’t see any real difference. IT depts in large orgs are run by paranoiacs who are constrained from using Macs, why I don’t know, because Macs are more stable, less prone to viruses etc. Instead IT types crap up otherwise useful PCs with LotusNotes, old OSs, etc. Nothing wrong with the computers, but they’re misused by techs who ought to know better. When I get home I fly on my iMac.
John, I have used both and both suck. My PCs (I currently have a dell desktop rocketship and lenovo netbook) are more buggy and crash more, but I have a small business running about 11 computers, so I went with PCs running XP and OpenOffice because they are cheap and run the software I need. Best tip I can give you: Reboot your PC every day whether it needs it or not. Rebooting will prevent many crashes later.
OMG. The lack of quality represented by these posts is reprehensible. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs should resign themselves to charity work in a mission in Belize or something. Certainly they have failed to deliver a decent product. PCs are complicated for sure, but these to jokers have made them about 10 times more complicated than they need to be. Our desktops are basically a piece of shit.
By the way John, your CAPTCHA program sucks marbles.
Start with a disclaimer: I work for Microsoft; however, everything here is my own opinion. I’m not in PR or IT. This is not tech-support info. Etc. But I’m a regular reader of your blog and wanted to chime in with a personal view.
My wife and my daughter are both running Vista, and they love it. I set them up (see below# but have done little to maintain the boxes other than occasionally check to be sure they haven’t done something dumb like turn off WindowsUpdate.
My daughter bought a low-end laptop a year ago with Vista Home. I spent 30 minutes removing some of the stuff that came pre-installed, putting on an anti-virus program, and doing some parental-controls stuff such as blocking/enabling various websites and games, setting hours at which she couldn’t use the computer #e.g., all night#, etc. Since then, it’s worked flawlessly, though she has convinced me to let her work past midnight on her homework. Once in a while I check to see which sites she’s visited or I enable the install of a new program, but that’s it. She has attached various mice, an iPod, a Zune, at least three cameras and three phones, and more; every one of them was instantly recognized. And it runs fast. Compared to a Mac? Don’t know, but our desks adjoin at home and I can’t recall the last time I saw her waiting for her computer to do something. It goes to sleep and wakes up in under five seconds; she rarely turns it completely off.
My wife took over an old machine of mine with an Athlon 3300+ CPU. Seriously out of date. I put in 2GB of RAM and clean-installed Vista Home #didn’t format the disk but put on a fresh O/S#. This was a store-bought version of Vista that had no extra junk, so there was nothing to remove. Did the antivirus thing, but that was it. She is a web designer, and so she runs the whole Adobe suite – PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, PageMaker, and more. And multiple browsers. And Visual Studio Home for ASP.net work. And Live Mail and Word and usually an Excel spreadsheet keeping track of it all. All at once. And everything is fast; no response issues at all that I can see when I occasionally use her computer.
I don’t know how that compares to a Mac. I was one of the first third-party Mac devs beginning in 1983/84 but I haven’t used one in 20 years. What I do know is that Vista, properly installed, works far better than its rep. It does whatever my wife and daughter ask it to do, and seems to interact easily with everything they attach.
#I also use Vista at work, but that’s an IT-maintained machine and doesn’t map to your situation.)
Well I love my PC. I had it built to order by a white-box outfit a few years ago, dual-core AMD 64 bit, lots of Ram, etc. And I run Linux on it, so I get stability, performance, and the apps that I care about. If I had to run a toy OS like Windows again I would slit my wrists. Have they ever figured out how to do threads and real multi-processing? When one process can hang the entire machine while it’s waiting on something, well, that problem was solved many years ago. Why can’t Microsoft get with the program? Mac would be okay – my wife recently got an Air and it is pretty sweet. Light-years ahead of her old XP machine. Now when people ask me for help because their windows box is slow and unreliable, I tell them “get a Mac”.
BTW – you do know that Michael Dell runs Ubuntu on his personal laptop? 😎
Far as I’m concerned, Microsoft is the General Motors of computing. After years of producing crap, I’m really not interested in testing their waters ever again. I don’t drive an American car either.
Vista is an improvement but is really slow (I think it was designed to silence the nagging from Intel) – My dual core 2.3 Ghz laptop with 1 GB RAM and Vista Business runs at a speed equal to that of my desktop running Windows XP SP3 on a P3 800 Mhz with 512 MB ram (I kid you not!). I’d advice you to stick with Windows XP Service Pack 3 until the next version of Windows is released.
> PS – What I hear from my pals is that
> the machines are amazing these days,
> but the OS is really bad. True? False?
In the past, computer hardware had a hard time trying to keep pace with the demand the softwares made of it. So every time a new version of a software was released, you had to upgrade your machine – this was especially true with softwares from Adobe, Macromedia, AutoDesk and Windows OS and MS Office (infact many suspect that Intel had some secret understanding with these companies – especially microsoft – that every new version would make new hardware demands so that people would have to upgrade their hardware to faster processors and more ram. Perhaps there is some truth in this – linux OS still have very low hardware requirements compared to say Mac OS or Windows.)
However, in the past few years the trend has completely reversed – hardware now out paces software. It’s interesting to note that the makers of the PC, IBM, now focus more on software and services rather then hardware.
To come back to your question – are the OS’s on PC inferior? I suppose it comes down to user friendliness – after all, a Linux or Windows can do anything a Mac OS does. Despite its many graphical user interfaces, Linux interfaces are very unfriendly compared to Windows or Mac. I use Linux only to run web or mail servers, and would advice its use as a desktop only to someone I really hate.
Windows and Mac have different ways of doing the same thing – that’s why you’ll find new converts cribbing – an example: being a windows guy, it frustrated the hell out of me that Mac OS didn’t support right clicking – something very essential on windows!
While I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that you’re stoking the fires of religious conflict, I don’t know how much reliable feedback you’re going to get to your question. Apple does draw out the fundamentalist in many a user; and, I suppose, sometimes even Microsoft does the same.
Check out what Martin Lindstrom’s article in AdAge about the religious fervor of the brand-devout:
“I partnered with neuroscientists, who used MRI to compare the brain activity of devout Christians to that of brand fans. It turned out that brand iconography activated the same region in the brains of fans that was activated in the brains of Christians when they were exposed to faith-related triggers. But that was the case only with emotionally powerful brands such as Apple, Harley and Guinness. Brands not among that rarified group, such as BP and KFC, provoked less activity and engaged fewer regions of the brain than brands with dedicated fan bases. ”
http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=132996
I’m a former Windows kernel-mode developer, but for the last year I’ve been working on a Mac.
Windows has always been reliable for me (note: spend for quality hardware and WHQL-certified drivers), and I know my way around it in my sleep.
I like most things about the Mac, except for the incredible inconsistency of the keyboard shortcuts for text navigation. They differ semi-randomly from app to app.
That said, my Air arrives in two days. The industrial design of the Mac laptops is lovely, and if you want you can always run XP or your Unix of choice.
I personally get excited and feel rewarded when using Linux on the PC. However, I’m sure the OS you are referring to (since you heard it sucks) is Vista. From an IT perspective, I’m not a big fan of Windows Vista and have kept Windows XP on our desktops at work. The Vista operating system is slow and a resource hog. I see no reason for the enterprise to upgrade from XP to Vista.
However, I have yet to really hear any complaints from non-IT home users of Vista. I use Vista Home Premium and my wife (who has a Macbook) and five year-old son have no problems with using Vista. I’m also quite pleased with Vista’s built-in Media Center that with a cheap $100 HD tuner allows me to also use the PC as a TV and DVR. The only real complaint you’re really likely to have with Vista…is it’s slow boot-up time.
I ran Mac OSX on my Mac Mini for 18 months, then reformatted the hard drive and turned it into a windows XP box when I realized I was spending all my time in VMWare running software such as Picasa, Quicken, and (now) Chrome. And all the cheap hardware (like Skype phones and printers) only seem to run on Windows XP.
Vista broke compatibility with all that cheap hardware too.
Vista is an improvement but is really slow (I think it was designed to silence the nagging from Intel) – My dual core 2.3 Ghz laptop with 1 GB RAM and Vista Business runs at a speed equal to that of my desktop running Windows XP SP3 on a P3 800 Mhz with 1GB ram (I kid you not!). I’d advice you to stick with Windows XP Service Pack 3 until the next version of Windows is released.
To come back to your question – are the OS’s on PC inferior? I suppose it comes down to user friendliness – after all, a Linux or Windows can do anything a Mac OS does. Despite its many graphical user interfaces, Linux interfaces are very unfriendly compared to Windows or Mac. I use Linux only to run web or mail servers, and would advice its use as a desktop only to someone I really hate.
In the past, computer hardware had a hard time trying to keep pace with the demand the softwares made of it. So every time a new version of a software was released, you had to upgrade your machine – this was especially true with softwares from Adobe, Macromedia, AutoDesk and Windows OS and MS Office (infact many suspect that Intel had some secret understanding with these companies – especially microsoft – that every new version would make new hardware demands so that people would have to upgrade their hardware to faster processors and more ram. Perhaps there is some truth in this – linux OS still have very low hardware requirements compared to say Mac OS or Windows.)
1) PCs are OK overall – inexpensive, flexible, lots of software, much lighter lock-in if you think about MS vs Apple. And you can always get Ubuntu.
2) Vista is a sloppily built product, that shows first and foremost in performance. Get XP if you can. (And at the outset change that crappy UI theme – to classic win2000 if you have to. I personally love this one: http://omart.deviantart.com/art/Foton-VS-15733908 )
3) From the aesthetical point of view: Macs are pretentious. There’s clearly a fashion for Macs – and that means you must have a poor taste to buy what others think is cool. Instead of following the cool-crowd, I’d suggest a ThinkPad (if we’re talking laptops). I own a T61p and it’s great – very sturdy, very efficient (running XP), very professionally looking. No luster, no bullshit.
Vista is an improvement but is really slow ..
Just trade your macbook for my Dell and I will believe you. It even has a FM sticker on it(-; Open offer!
That said, my Air arrives in two days. The industrial design of the Mac laptops is lovely, and if you want you can always run XP or your Unix of choice.
There’s a lot that’s cool about my PC, but overall, I don’t like it. It’s eye catching to have a tablet. That was cheap enough for a student like myself to afford. To have a fingerprint reader. To be able to swivel the display to turn it into tablet mode. To have pressure-sensitive reading of the pen. But there are little things that keep me from loving it. Just one example: if I am using my computer and it’s unplugged for a while, it will hibernate. Fine. But if I go to wake up the computer and it’s been too long it will start hibernating without giving me any user feedback. I just see my computer with a black screen and a bunch of disk activity and then about 30 seconds later it shuts off. Nothing on screen saying ‘hibernating’. Nothing. It’s just not a good user experience.