mini vs pc – the weapon of choice..
20:06 Sunday 11 Feb 07
I’ve used a PC for years, I’ve used a Mac mini for a couple of months.
This is the last mac/pc post I’m writing and at the end is a decision of sorts.
The path to that choice starts here:
Browser: Firefox (win) / Optimised Firefox (mac)
The off the shelf FF on Windows works smooth and fast. The same on the mac is like pouring treacle on a frosty morning. Once I had the optimised build, no such problems, very nice indeed. This is a draw – albeit one that Windows should actually have won.
Email: Thunderbird for both
A draw (though Charamel does look nicer…..)
Feeds: FeedDemon (win) / Vienna or Netnewswire Lite or Netnewswire paid
NNW Lite is okay but lacks the feed display I like. Vienna similarly. NNW is good but FD beats them all. It has the featureset and the looks. I’ve bought NNW. [Windows+1]
FTP: Filezilla (win) / Transmit (mac)
Transmit just hammers every client I’ve ever used. It is excellent. Love it. Bought it. [OS X +1]
IM: Trillian (win) / Adium (mac)
Functionally not a lot of difference given how I use them. Draw.
IRC: X-Chat for both. Draw (I tried Colloquy, didn’t like it)
Text Editors: Jujuedit/UltraEdit (win) / Smultron (mac)
I like jujuedit because it’s fast and can handle huge files. I like UE because it can ftp edit and has (basic) shell all in 1 app. I like Smultron because of it’s highlighting and seamless integration with Transmit.
Smultron is slower to open though. I prefer quicker to open. I’m sure Textedit or BBedit or TextWrangler will be mentioned and I’ll probably take them for a long run soon. Right now though Windows wins this one [Windows +1]
Clipboard: Evernote (win) / nothing comes close (mac)
I have looked, Lifehacker has had posts on note taking (here is one), WWD had a thread, Slacker Manager too. I love Evernote. It is a superb piece of code for the PC and one I would happily buy – yet they give it away for free. The mac has nothing as good for free. Sure it might have things that do more but what I wanted was the functionality not the adornments. Windows wins. [Windows +1]
Music: Winamp (win) / iTunes (mac)
I’m not saying it all again. [Windows +1]
Images: I have not tried anything on the mac. That said I have found all the Win apps to be not that great and I don’t think iPhoto can fill the gap.
Video: VLC on both. Draw
So that’s Windows 4, OS X 1.
Maybe that score is unfair though. Maybe I have yet to discover the programs that work for me, after all, I’ve had a couple of years start at least.
Eyecandy
1 – Hardware. Anyone who buys a computer just because it looks nice wants their head felt. If it more than does the job AND it looks good then fine. And so far I’m talking about the actual machine. Small white box, large black box. Small white box has 2 games on it and various bits around it so I can’t see it. Sat where I am I can see some of the black box near my left knee. So machine beauty does not come into it.
2 – OS. OS X is designed for the one setup. It damn well should look good. XP is meant to work on many many setups so looking good is harder – but with the Zune theme it works for me.
3 – Apps. Again, OS X apps have a 100% guarantee of environment, Windows apps do not. While the icons look nice in OS X it’s what they actually do that matters (see above).
Uptime
My PC has been rebooted less than the mini in the last 2 weeks.
Windows NT Air
Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.
My XP is stable. It runs and runs well. No bloat, nothing unneeded going on. So the ‘Windows crashes’ stuff doesn’t apply here. XP also takes less time to boot from cold than the mini.
Money
I like freeware. Not just OSS but also real freeware. On my PC I have very little non-freeware. I have looked for Mac freeware and I find less. The costs involved are small but they are still costs, they still add up. This factor isn’t a huge one but it still needs to be considered.
But can I work with the mini?
Yes. I don’t feel I can work quite as fast in Firefox but once I get a few more shortcuts sorted my speed increase in other apps may help negate that.
Does it feel better? Yes and no. Yes in that the system feels more ‘joined up’ but again with one common spec it should. No in that I don’t feel there are places where I can tinker.
Mac Airline.
All the stewards, stewardesses, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look the same, act the same, and talk the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are told you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie.
I still find the launch speed of programs very slow (something that no-one has yet been able to explain) (see blockquote above).
It’s taken me quite some time to both get Windows working how I want, to know what the essential tools are and to get the programs which work and do not irritate. So when coming to the mac I was swapping an environment where I was good because of experience to one where I needed to learn. So I was bound to get annoyed and frustrated. This was accentuated by the ringing in my ears that Macs are intuitive, wonderful, bug-free, virus-free and are totally reliable. (When I went to Mexico I gave my girls complete freedom to the mini. I had nothing invested in it so said they could do what they wanted. They had root access. They disliked it.) I do not find it intuitive (click on item then click on it’s name to rename it? Weird) The blockquote above? I find that restricting. Whatever – this isn’t an anti-mac rant. The frustration continues but more because I can’t find the programs that I want. The puzzles I have yet to solve will be posted once I give up.
What would I buy?
This is the tricky bit and it’s one I’m still to an extent struggling with. I’m not assuming money is no object because we’d all have 2 machines then to get the best for apps and games. I’m thinking about what I would do if I could only get 1.
Desktop. It would be a PC. If I can only have one then I want to be able to play games and make the most of the freeware. It’s also the cheaper option.
Laptop. It would be a Mac. But it won’t – because of cost. D’s laptop (a good one too) was £600 ($1200) and that’s it – no more money needed. A (basic) Macbook is £750 ($1500) then add more (£60/$120) for the memory. There is a 30% cost increase for not necessarily a better lifespan. [Edit: I'm not saying the Macbook is not worth it. I'm referring to the handing over of more money. The act of parting with cash that could be spent elsewhere]
And ditch the pc and use Parallels? Why? Right now I have full-screen full-effect Dreamfall on the PC and a screen of work here. Two machines, two workloads at exactly the same time.
I like the mac. Since switching I have spent less than a couple of hours on the PC working which when you consider the amount of time online I do then less than 120 minutes is nothing. Am I totally seduced by it? No. Do I think I could grow to like it a lot? Yes, certainly.
Is the mac better? No. I’ve said it before – it’s a computer. A means to an end. A tool. And a tool is only as good as the person using it. Microsoft are as good/bad as Apple.
But there.. that’s my last mini v pc post.
The mini is for all things work, the pc for gaming and music.
Note: Fanboy comments run the risk of being deleted or ridiculed.
1
I’ve really enjoyed these posts Mark. I think you are on point with a lot of your observations. I would like to get a mac and learn it myself to see what I would like better, but they are too expensive when they have the same lifespan as a PC (at almost double the cost, or more!). When I get some disposable income I may look into it again. Just a lot of money to spend for something I’m not sure I will enjoy as much as a pc.
22:32 Sunday 11 Feb 07
2
First off, I wanted to agree with shep. It’s been interesting to watch these posts fly through my NewsReader. It’s been a while since I’ve been a new Mac user (read: 13 years), so it’s interesting to see that POV. I’m a user of both Windows and MAc, though, and for equal amounts of time.
Moving on, though. I thought I’d pass on a couple recommendations.
For feeds, a lot of people (such as myself) use NewsFire. I personally love it. You should give it a shot if you haven’t already. For something to compete with Evernote, you may want to try Yojimbo (and possibly the widescreen hack). I’ve heard only good things about it. As far as text editors go, I have to recommend TextMate. It’s fast, it has FTP editing like UE, it’s got anything you’ll probably ever, ever need out of a text editor.
And that’s all I got. Just thought I’d lay a couple suggestions on you.
00:15 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
3
Newsfire – it’s limited in feeds during the trial so I’m not able to really test it. I did see good things though. I’ve been fiddling with font, colours and styles in NNW and it’s getting close to being just right.
For notes I’m now using Google Notebook as the Firefox extension. That’s as close to Evernote as I can get. Again I looked at several things including Journaler, Yojimbo and others but they came with too much. I really like apps that do one thing but do it well (which was my main liking of freeware). And Textmate – it’s £25 or $50. I don’t think I’ve paid that much for software before and a text editor isn’t going to get me there either :)
One thing that keeps striking me about the mac is the cost. It’s almost “Well if you could afford the mac you can afford this” which may well be true…….
00:29 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
4
True enough. But most of the Mac shareware apps (I cringe at calling them that after years of using Windows, but that’s what they are) are well beyond worth it (you’ve mentioned you’ve bought a few yourself :P). But I think that very well may be the mentality of these shareware developers, yes. I mean, when they cheapest computer Apple sells is, realistically, going to run $700-800, if not more, then you can’t blame them for thinking “what’s 20 or 30 bucks to them?”
00:59 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
5
I’ve bought 2 I think, maybe 3.
The mini here is the equivalent of $1000
The basic macbook is $1500
A Macbook Pro is $2700
For me, the above would leave no money :)
01:03 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
6
Ah, I guess it’s the VAT or whatever then. Because a macbook, the cheapest one, is only $1000 here in the US.
Question: “My pc rebooted less than the mini in the last 2 weeks”
Why? Is this because you feel like you should reboot? Is it because of updates or an app install that required a reboot for some reason?
I’d like to know why this is, as my iBook right now is on it’s 15th day of uptime, which includes about two full days of being asleep during travel, and tons of time in photoshop and such.
Simply put, no bullshit, my windows computer, which I only game and run Azureus on, I have to reboot it about once a week or it gets sluggish. But that may be azureus screwing windows up. That isn’t fanboyism, that’s just what I’m having happen.
07:54 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
7
Cam – yesterday I was doing something on the PC and the mac was doing nothing. An email arrived. Both cpu’s went to 50% and stayed there. Weird.
Two days before Shapeshifter would not let go. Refused to be moved despite the uninstaller being used. Restart killed it.
Firefox – the slow one – made me restart many times trying to see what I was doing to break it. When it wasn’t broken.
If a computer starts slowing or behaving unpredictably then I will restart – it works for any machine. It’s not a Win thing.
My windows machine? Hardly ever reboot. Doesn’t need to and I use it for lots of stuff. Since I started keeping the machine free of extra junk it works smoothly.
And it’s not VAT. It’s Apple doing what every other mftr does – screw us Brits.
12:32 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
8
Here’s the deal though: the shapeshifter or mail thing wasn’t really the OS’s fault. You probably coulda fixed those by opening up activity monitor and killing the processes. Therefore, you can really rule those out, I think…
Most everyone agrees the regular build of firefox for os x is trash, as they don’t spend the time because their core audience is windows.
Ironically enough, last night, just minutes after posting that, I decided to try DejaVu, a backup app. Well the thing totally killed os x, brought everything to a standstill, beachballed, everything. It may have recovered, but I yanked the firewire drive cable to see if it’d make the app auto-quit, or whatever, but it kept being frozen. Ended up having to kill the machine.
So, yeah, OS X has it’s faults…
21:22 Tuesday 13 Feb 07
9
For a good text editor on the mac, have you checked out Subethaedit? You can still get the free version, which is awesome, at: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11321
12:20 Friday 16 Feb 07
10
Check out http://www.koolim.com
17:03 Wednesday 4 Apr 07