Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by Chris Brennan
Can Windows 7 convert a Mac user?
So PC Pro has set me a challenge. As a Mac user since system 6, as someone who’s stuck by Apple through two major architecture shifts, does Windows 7 have what it takes to lure me into the land of the IBM-compatible PC?
For the next month I’m putting away my Macs to use Microsoft Windows 7. For the record, I do use Windows XP on a monthly basis, but it’s never tempted me to sell on my MacBook. I’ve used Vista fleetingly, and have to say I’m surprised at the bad press it’s received, but again it wouldn’t encourage me to drop the Mac OS.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not your stereotypical frenzied Mac nutcase who takes every opportunity to argue the toss over who invented what and which OS in more intuitive than the other. I’m just a Mac user because that’s the computer I learnt on. I have flirted with Mac evangelism in my time, but I’m no fanboy. You won’t find me criticising XP as difficult to use, for example, as I know it’s only because I don’t use it all that regularly that it feels unnatural to me.
Obviously, I’ll need a PC and I’ve gone for a HP Pavilion DV3-2055EA. Not quite as snappily named as the MacBook Pro, but I can live with that. I’ve never really looked at PC hardware as it’s not been on my shopping list, but I tried to guess how much the laptop was before I found out the price.
Much like my MacBook this PC has a 13.3in LCD screen, 2 USB ports, built-in webcam, remote control and DVD burner. Unlike my MacBook it has a HDMI connector, an eSATA connection and a digital memory card reader, oh and a D-SUB connection. The HP also has a 500GB hard disk and 4GB of RAM.
I guessed that this laptop was probably in the region of £1,000 to £1,200. Turns out I was very wrong. The HP Pavilion DV3-2055EA is available for about £800. However, I’ve always known that PCs are cheaper than Macs and if at the end of this month I’ve used the HDMI, D-SUB or eSATA connections I’ll be surprised.
Design wise it’s very nice, but do computers really need stickers to proclaim that they have Intel Inside and GeForce with CUDA? What’s CUDA anyhow? Am I supposed to know?
I’m not going to cheat and ask my many learned friend who do use PCs to help me out when I’m stuck. I’m going to try and work things out for myself. If this leads me to make some elementary mistakes I hope you’ll forgive me and perhaps point me in the right direction in the comments section.
I’m really hoping to have as open a mind as possible with this month-long experiment and if at the end of that time I’ve decided to switch you can be sure it’s not a decision that’s been taken lightly.
Tags: Mac OS, MacBook, Windows 7
Posted in: Windows 7
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22 Responses to “ Can Windows 7 convert a Mac user? ”
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- Barry Collins
- Chris Brennan
- Christine Horton
- Darien Graham-Smith
- Dave Stevenson
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October 21st, 2009 at 9:29 am
Couldn’t agree more about the stickers. They really annoy me. I don’t need advertising on a computer I’ve already bought!
October 21st, 2009 at 9:47 am
Open mind? We demand blinkered, unquestioning Microsoft hatred or alternatively abundant praise allowing for subsequent accusations of payola!
October 21st, 2009 at 10:05 am
The stickers are indeed annoying, and I’ll normally take them off any laptops I have. I offered to take them off a laptop I set up for a family member, but they declined – they said they wouldn’t know what was inside the machine unless they were there!
October 21st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I always find alternative uses for ‘Intel inside’ stickers. For example, here on my office there’s one on the WC cistern.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Okay, Alan B, here goes:
PC suckz. Mac rulez. Da end.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I started with the Apple IIe, never mind your parvenu System 6… and I’ve not yet had a reason to switch back to my MacBook from the T60 with Win7 RC1 on it.
Oh, and car upholstery cleaner (the squirty foam stuff) does a brilliant job of getting the glue residue off from those stickers. Though I have been hunting for the underlying supplier of pre-cut sticky-back-plastic fake leather tops for Thinkpads which I see, occasionally, on the echoing desert which is the remains of the ebay we all used to love…
October 21st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Intel inside, idiot outside
October 21st, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I bet your MacBook Pro has a better CPU and a better graphics chip than the HP… it would be interesting to compare, as that would account for some of the price difference.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I bought a 13″ MBP for my girlfriend’s daughter a couple of weeks back. The same week, I had to install a 17″ HP notebook for a manager… The 13″ MBP cost €1349, the 17″ HP cost €669.
You know what? You could tell, the HP’s build quality was dreadful! That said, my laptop is a Toshiba Tecra with 15″ 1680×1050 display, cost about the same as the 13″ MBP and you can feel the quality, not quite the same as the MBP, but it is good enough.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:23 am
@hs…. er… you have a mac then?!
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 am
One of the very few relatively sane Mac users I have seen/heard/come across. “Because that is the computer I learnt on” are the operative words. Thanks, I started with out a 4.77 MHz PC.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:26 am
Sounds like a fair trial. A complete computer illiterate would make a nice test as well – on both systems.
I was wondering, why does Leopard not work on a PC? Windows works on Macs. EU! Where’s the free competition here?
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:34 am
Namlish Ou: Snap on the 4.77MHz, although ours had a Turbo mode to take it to 8!
Ra: Have a look at the article about EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) on Wikipedia. Macs have an EFI rather than a BIOS. If there is no EFI, OS X says “aha this is not a Mac” and won’t install. That’s not to say that there are not ways around this issue.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 am
When comparing prices i think it would be fair to include the cost of the programs that you get with the computors. I mean full versions not trial versions.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 am
We price up PCs regularly at work, and in my experience the Apple markup is round 10-15% for the same spec compared with Dell.
£800 is still what we would classify as a high-end machine – you can get a usable laptop for about half that price, if all it is going to be used for is email and MS Office.
Looking at the Dell custom build pages, it’s clear that the main thing that changes the price is the CPU – and that’s poorly understood (people still focus on the Ghz number, when there is a low more to the performance / watt balance).
It’s also the real difference between the MacBook models – between the £800 quid MacBook and the £1000+ ones.
Ra – it’s definitely possible to install OS X on a standard PC – with variable results. But I don’t see where the EU and free competition comes into it – Apple develop their own operating system for their own hardware – and there is plenty of competition in the computer systems market.
There might be a good argument for splitting the software and hardware divisions if there was real evidence that competition was being adversely affected – say if consumers were forced to buy Macs in order to ‘be compatible’ with other people – if there was some Mac-only software as popular as MS Office or Internet Explorer.
But they are not – so it is little different argument from saying than Nintendo should be forced to sell any manufacturer the Gameboy firmware (like a PC you can buy the components and make your own Gameboy- there’s not any special sauce in there other than the software).
Firms do not have an obligation to meet a demand for their product. And free competition from OS X is what’s giving us Windows 7 (and Unix/Linux competition drives Windows Server).
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:48 am
I’m very interested in the outcome.
I don’t know whether you are allowed to install software to make win7 more “mac-like” but if you are:
Switcher adds exposé-ishness. KatMouse let’s you scroll whereever your mouse is (instead of where the focus is).
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:53 am
Speed reading this I misread “if consumers were forced to buy Macs in order to ‘be compatible’ with other people” as “consumers were forced to buy Macs in order to ‘be popular’ with other people” How ironic as that’s why people buy macs.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I had to make a transition from PC to mac (because of logic audio)… on top of that had to get a 17″ as I needed expresscard slot… which weighs a ton! I miss my pc… ical sucks, address book sucks, safari really sucks and the new blackberry sync really really sucks!!!… I miss office for windows, especially outlook (entourage sucks!)
So I’m buying a sony CW for my office work…
Now I see why most of the world uses pc…
October 27th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Any fair hardware / software comparison MUST also be worth around the same retail price.
If your laptop is 1/2 the price of a Mac, then its as useful a guide as a comparison as:-
Dell Precision M6400 Covet £4,715 inc VAT
Vs
MacBook Pro £1,949 inc VAT
(both prices are from PCPro own review listing).
October 30th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
The real difference between PCs and Macs is the software. If you want to do architecture, you need a Mac. Not because there isn’t software for the PC, but because nobody uses it. If you want to do engineering, or statistics, or business, then use a PC.
The Mac interface has improved the PC interface through competition. The PC hardware and price has done the same for the Mac.
October 31st, 2009 at 10:58 am
Well having waited for the new imac / mini i simply could not justify £1700 for a new 27″ imac with a quad core, nor £500 for the base line mac mini, so i built myself a hackintosh, similar spec to a mac pro, for the price of a new mac mini. apple only got my money for a copy of OSX snow leopard, very reasonable at £29, and microsft the cash for a student copy of win 7 pro, again £30. now i have best of both worlds being a graphic designer i have access to all the apps i need on the mac side… yes i know adobe do PC, just the mac versions are more efficient memory wise and feel snappier. But i must confess i also like win 7, and wil;l stick to that for the odd game and 3DS Max… macs still cant do 3D Max, well in boot camp, but i preffer to run native with no hardware abstraction layer. In short each OS has its merits, its downsides and a hell of a lot of commonality. I just wish apple would hurry up and put out a Generic version of OSX for base intel hardware, without us having to jump through hoops to fake an EFI (yes i can update direct from apple)… And i would still use win 7 as well, both have a deserved place on my hard drive
April 21st, 2010 at 4:02 am
The real difference between PCs and Macs is the software. If you want to do architecture, you need a Mac. Not because there isn’t software for the PC, but because nobody uses it.