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What would I gain or lose by moving from PC to Mac

Sloop John B

And any old music will do…
I’ve always used PCs never macs.

But I’ve also have iPhone and iPad (and soon an Apple Watch).

I’ve an old Surface Pro 4 that might need replacing sometime soon and I see there at new MBP released.

Sloop Jnr has an MBP bought here for him for his music production and hasn’t turned on a PC in years.

Apart from the Apple ecosystem which I understand, what might I gain and lose from moving from Win 11 to the latest MBP?

.sjb
 
You loose money over the PC equivalent, you gain reliable software and hardware that lasts between 5 and 10 years.

The new processors are reputed to be very fast.

In my experience there is also the more "solid" feel in the Mac OS I guess that is because the engineers know all the configurations will be working on.
 
Lose nothing and gain everything! :D Plenty of really good open source software for Mac, very little to no viruses to worry about, everything just works, no weird crashes or blue screens of death! Use Bootcamp to run Windows as well if desired, I could go on, and on, and on… :p :)
 
I run a MacBook Air M1 2020, an iPad Pro M1 2020 and also an iPhone Mini 13 and basically they all just work together.

I also have an HP Spectre X360 13 ap0000na touchscreen convertible laptop running windows 10 and I can't stand windows, the laptop is good, probably as good or nearly as good as the MacBook Air but macOS is in another league as is IOS and iPadOS.

The main thing about Apple stuff is that it holds its value second hand, windows stuff you can't give it away.

I used windows for years before going over to Apple and with the Apple stuff it's just intuitive to use, a two year old or an 80 yr old can use it however windows is another kettle of fish.

Buy a new MacBook Air/MacBook Pro and copy over everything from your old MacBook Pro using the migration assistant and it's done in an hour with no faff and no big deal, you have a completely new machine that works like your old machine as everything is just there, same with the phones buy a new iPhone and the process to set up your new phone as a clone of your old phone is as simple as it gets the only thing that doesn't move over is credit card/debit card info and email accounts except the apple email account.

I remember moving laptops in windows and losing a day trying to get everything working properly.

I use two windows programmes for business which is why I have a windows laptop but even then I can use numbers for one of the programmes which is an Excel spreadsheet the other one is exclusively windows but I can move to a web based version of that program so I can use the iPad or the MacBook Air rather than windows however I'm still considering whether to do that though.

You can run windows on a Mac but the new ARM processors mean that you have to have an ARM version of windows to be able to run it on a Mac and at the moment you can only use parallels version 16 or something, bootcamp on an M1 Mac doesn't work with windows at the moment as far as I'm aware so it's difficult but not impossible to run windows on the newer Macs.

Personally I hated switching between windows and OS on my old MacBook Pro running windows on a Mac just wasn't right to me, didn't really provide the same experience as using macOS on a MacBook Pro.

BTW OP if you do go for a new MacBook Pro have a look at the base MacBook Air M1 2020 it's all the MacBook Pro you'll ever need unless your are into seriously intensive graphic stuff, Amazon are currently selling it for £890 or thereabouts I bought mine last week from Apple for £999 but they've offered me £320 trade in on my mid 2015 MBPr and I managed to buy a £400 apple gift voucher for £355 making the price £633 which is roughly the current second hand price for one plus I get an Apple invoice for £999 for business use.

The new MBPs are supposed to be going to be around the £1700 mark which makes the M1 MBA a complete bargain.



 
Another apple convert here. Went from PC to Mac a few years ago, then followed up by going to android to iPhone. Now have iPad and Apple Watch too.

I’m not a techie, but the Mac just ‘feels’ better, it’s a pleasure to use rather being a means to an end. But even as a mere tool, I can’t remember my Mac ever crashing whereas I constantly had to be fiddling with a PC. Forever doing the Control/Alt/delete thing on a PC, not on Mac.

Also, as others have said, laptop, phone, tablet and Watch all work together seamlessly.
 
I procure several 100 laptops per year and have stopped procuring Apple products as they fail more frequently (average time 2 to 3 years) than traditional PCs (4 to 5 years).

My wife uses both platforms, and prefers Windows.

Apple provides a closed environment.

Choose the tool that best meets your needs, not by brand
 
If you're comparing Apple kit to PC kit them make sure you at least compare similar priced stuff on the PC side. My laptops are all either Lenovo's or Alienware and both of those are very well made and last ages. My Alienware laptop must be getting close to 10 years old now and is still a very decent machine (despite not being all that expensive) and some of our i7 based Lenovo's must be getting on for that sort of age as well. PC desktops I tend to build and update myself (using quality components) so they can be a bit like Trigger's broom, but bits of that also must be getting on for 10 years old as well - but it still runs even the most modern games very well. If anything Windows 10 seemed to be easier to run, and even pretty old kit runs that well.

Of course the downside is that I don't think any of my machines fit the bill for Windows 11 - maybe Microsoft have been taking lessons from Apple.
 
Your mind...I had an enforced spell on a mac a few months ago.
Of course, if you like updates that leave your compuer slower, or changes your settings, dislike ongoing support for peripherals and a generally accelerated march towards landfill, go mac!
 
Unless you have any obscure software to run that only has a PC option, I wouldn't hesitate.
 
You loose money over the PC equivalent, you gain reliable software and hardware that lasts between 5 and 10 years.

I would dispute this as a) Macs seem to have a very long usable life (you’ll find plenty of working Apple II, LC, Classics etc out there, though some suffer from battery leaks), and b) they retain a resale value forever (i.e. past a certain age they become a vintage collectable). I’m an ex-IT manager so think of IT in terms of ‘total cost of ownership’, not purchase price, and viewed as an annual IT cost even the expensive ones aren’t too bad if you factor a ten year lifespan plus resale. Just keep the box and keep the item in good condition!

PS As an example I’ve got a near-mint boxed Mk 1 G4 Mac Mini upstairs, it is pretty much useless as a computer now, but I bet I could get £100+ for it as a collectable. It only cost about £400 new and was usable for about 5-6 years (shorter than usual as Apple migrated to Intel a year later), so not a bad TCO. I actually fired it up a year or two ago and it still works fine. My current 13” mid-2012 MacBook Pro is also cosmetically near mint (I do 95% of my work with it docked to an IBM Model M keyboard and a mouse), it still works perfectly at present and when I do retire it I’ll just box and store it as it is a classic laptop now. The last fully serviceable and upgradable Apple laptop.
 
...the M1 chip, it's a game changer in terms of processing power/efficiency — meaning quiet operation and much better battery life. Other than that, the Mac's advantage is a better all round user experience.
 
..the M1 chip, it's a game changer in terms of processing power/efficiency

it is an incremental improvement in IMO - all the chip designers are heading in the same direction (greater performance, efficiency and lower power). It is designed to sit in Apples closed and curated infrastructure which means the Apply eco-system will be closely supported - at what cost i ask?
 
I use both regularly, for work and not. I would never again buy an Apple machine for personal use. Underspecified hardware given the price, and an eco-system that gets more insular with each passing year, terrible ongoing support for "legacy" devices (which means any device Apple decides is legacy). Nice to use, but not nearly as nice as the fans make out.
 
For me it's not a question of Mac hardware versus PC, it's how you want to use it.
If you're just going to plug it in and run basic software then yes Macs are good. on the other hand Apple severely limit the amount of 'tweaking' - i.e you have to do everything Apple's way or not at all. A Windows PC lets you do a lot more to tailor the software to your own preferences.
 


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