Features

"Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better." So claimed Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, long before Steve Jobs was even an Apple in his mother's eye. But Santayana's prophetic sound bite perfectly describes Apple's omnipresent "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" campaign.

For the benefit of those readers who've been pot-holing in the Pennines for the last few months, the campaign portrays the PC as a crash-prone, virus-ridden, boring, office workhorse. A stereotype that's so 1995, we're amazed they didn't ask Chris Evans and Gabby Roslin to front the ads, instead of Mitchell and Webb.

How has the victim of these laughable slurs reacted? Aside from a few catty comments from Bill Gates, the world's richest company - a corporation renowned for bullying its competitors - has meekly rolled with the punches. So, in light of Microsoft's total lack of response, PC Pro has stepped in to defend the Windows corner.

We've got 32 solid reasons why the PC is better than the Mac, ranging from the over-inflated price tag on Apple's hardware to the under-valued ability to build your own PC from scratch. And we demolish the vast majority of the spurious claims made by Apple's ad gurus in the process.

Of course, PC Pro isn't immune to the Mac's charms. As recently as four months ago, we gave an Apple MacBook one of our much-coveted Recommended awards. So to prove we're not PC bigots, we've invited our colleagues from MacUser magazine to offer ten reasons why the Mac is superior. We've also

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provided an in-depth guide to running Windows on a Mac, allowing you to reap the benefits of both platforms.

Click here to read "10 reasons why Macs are better than PCs".

Click here to read "Expert guide: Running Windows on a Mac".

1 Service pack don't cost £90

Since Mac OS X was launched in 2001, there have been four "new versions" of the operating system - Puma, Jaguar, Panther and Tiger - with a fifth, Leopard, due imminently. That's almost one a year, each costing a princely £90-£100 - racking up a total bill of nigh-on £500 for anyone who's bought every version. And they say Windows is expensive.

Apple has effectively introduced the first subscription operating system, and has somehow got away with it. If Microsoft had done likewise, Bill Gates would have been before the anti-competition courts quicker than you could say, "isn't £100 a bit steep for a service pack?". The Mac zealots claim that each new cat really is a new operating system, but that argument doesn't bear scrutiny. Take Panther (Mac OS X 10.3): the Apple press release hails "more than 150 breakthrough new features", the pick of which are a new "Finder", a way to see all your open windows at once, and bundled video-messaging software. God knows how insignificant the other 147 were.

2 No price premium for flashy design

There still isn't a PC maker on the planet that can hold a candle to Apple when it comes to product design. But not everyone wants or needs a computer that looks like it fell off the back of a Bang & Olufsen lorry. Macs routinely cost more than their PC equivalents. The cheapest Mac you can buy, the Mac mini, costs £400 and comes with a piddling 60GB hard disk, a meagre 512MB of RAM and no screen. Pop over to Dell, and that same £400 will buy you a Vista PC with a 160GB hard disk, 1GB of RAM and a 17in flat panel. Dell's cheapest system costs just £249.