My wife (we're both mac users) bought a MSI Wind laptop for ultraportable work use (shame mac don't do an equivalent) and apart from the fact that we can't get the wifi to operate the interface is shite.

It's got Win 7 which is so far off mac it's depressing.

I have to put up with Windows at work, but it's their time it wastes due to it's crapness, but so
sad to see their newest product lose out on interface issues-it's quick though.

I have to put up with Windows at work, but it's their time it wastes due to it's crapness,

Ditto but with Macs at college. Problem is it was my time.

Macs are worth they're money. It's like buying a car for £300 that takes forever to start and often breaks down, or saving up and spending £800 on a reliable run around that looks loads nicer as well!

Anyone who uses the operating system on their computer to gain some kind of air of superiority over others must be so devoid of personality they probably even forget to take notice of their own reflections in mirrors.

To the question earlier, yes, windows 7 is pretty good for the most part, as good as XP if not slightly better.

Macs are worth they're money. It's like buying a car for £300 that takes forever to start and often breaks down, or saving up and spending £800 on a reliable run around that looks loads nicer as well!

I'd liken it to buying an Alfa. You go round *thinking* you've got something much better than a BMW and it certainly looks nicer than a normal car, the price tag tells you it must be superior so you have to wander around with a smug grin on your face by default, but a focus would have done the job and they're not really that much better are they? Admit it. Be a man, own up to the fact that they're not that much better.

Windows = Halfords Apollo. Mac = Singular Swift. They both do the exact same job, but I know which I'd prefer to own on a long-term basis.

if we're doing bike analogies:

— from http://www.mactard.co.uk/

To all the mac users: I'd buy a mac, but I'm worried I'd become one of you

(Stolen from Bill Hicks)

This is a PC. In fact it's an example of a PC, customized by the user.

My Dad's bigger than your dad, and he was in the SAS and everthing, he say's macs are for sissys.

Macs are worth they're money. It's like…saving up and spending £800 on a reliable run around that looks loads nicer as well!

You think buying a £1000 + Mac is like buying an £800 car in terms of reliability and style.

I agree with you 😆

I would love a mac, but I was brought up on a series of obscure, overpriced consoles & computers that whilst good, were poorly supported in the range of programs available.
I got a PC 10 years ago and the joy of being mainstream and knowing everything will work on my machine was great. The novelty still hasn't worn off, so I continue to enjoy the widest range of software available.

Well, I don't care about all the various opinions, all I can say is that after 10 windows years I have just gone mac and it just does what I want, simply and quickly. It's just a tool that enables me to do my job, if windows was better I'd still be using it.

I just bought an iMac, 27" core i7. I can't find a similar spec PC for the same money. The closest I found was a Dell at about £500 more.

I think it is the screen. For a 2560×1440 screen Dell charge about £1000.

For true 'customisation' (as in the above image) though, Windows is sh!te. For that you use Linux. You can change just about everything!

I think it is the screen. For a 2560×1440 screen Dell charge about £1000.

Bloody hell that is absurdly large!

There's not many screens that big on the market, but in terms of size you could get a
28" (1920×1200) Viewsonic screen for £375.

How much did you pay for your iMac then?
Cheapest I can see it on Apple Store, with no extras, is £1800! 😯

oooh, the i7. tnat's the one that comes with the pre-broken screen, isn't it?

No, screen OK. No black screen of death either! 😛

So can you elaborate AdamW, how much did you pay and what was the spec?

You said:

I just bought an iMac, 27" core i7. I can't find a similar spec PC for the same money. The closest I found was a Dell at about £500 more.

That system seems to be £1800 on the Apple Store, so are you seriously saying you couldn't find a similar spec PC for less than £2300?? 😯

GrahamS,

I think what he means is you need to spend £1300 on a decent i7 base unit and then £1000 for a Dell monitor that would top the 27" screen in terms of size,resolution & quality.

I love these arguments there is so much BS floated about it is laughable. I use both OS', windows for work and gaming and Mac OS X on my home laptop. They both work and are very highly tunable. OSX is very similar to Linux/Unix.

I agree with the pay for what you get argument. My macbookpro is over 3 years old now and still looking good and working fine. My wifes £650 Lenovo laptop purchased at the same time slowly fell to bits and we only got £100 for it on ebay. I could probably sell the mac for £500 now to some smug ****. 😆

Oh, sorry, I paid £1653.70 in total.

Spec:

4GB/27"/1TB/core i7 with the wireless keyboard and mouse (the mouse is pretty good, I hated the 'Mighty Mouse').

This argument seems to be coming up with increased regularity for some reason…..

There's not many screens that big on the market, but in terms of size you could get a
28" (1920×1200) Viewsonic screen for £375.

First review I Google'd up:

In all, it seems like the affordable VX2835wm falls more into the "you get what you pay for" camp than the "what an incredible bargain" camp. It is somewhat challenged ergonomically with view adjustment other than tilt, a poorly placed HDMI input, and no accoutrements like USB hubs, side inputs, or card readers. Functionally, the color gamut isn't as wide as we'd like and the gamma curve is off. We've seen worse monitors, but we've seen plenty of better ones, too. If you just have to have something larger than 24-inch and you can't spend several hundred dollars more, you won't be totally disappointed with the VX2835wm. If you really care about quality, you're better off spending more (or at least settling for a same-priced 24-inch display).

Maybe it's a good enough monitor, who knows, but just because you can buy a cheaper monitor than an Apple, it doesn't make Apple expensive. If you see what I mean 🙂

I think what he means is you need to spend £1300 on a decent i7 base unit and then £1000 for a Dell monitor that would top the 27" screen in terms of size,resolution & quality.

Well only Dell and Apple seem to make readily available screens at that size and res, but I'd point out that the comparable 30" Apple Cinema HD Display is £1,173.

In terms of matching to a PC spec, this bad boy has twice the memory and a faster graphics card for £882.

Mesh XGS Ice 7 LE
• Intel® Core™ i7 860 Quad Core Processor (2.80GHz, 8MB Cache) – LGA1156
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium Edition – 64bit English
• Midi Tower XGS Gaming Chassis – Black / Black Mesh + 550W PSU
• ASUS P7P55D LE Mainboard – Intel Core™ i5 / i7 – LGA 1156 / ATX
• 8GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM – ( 4x2GB )
• 1TB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive with 32MB Buffer
• 22x Dual Layer DVD Writer Super Format +R/-R/RW/RAM
• 1GB ATI Radeon 5750 Graphics Accelerator GDDR5- ***DirectX 11***
• 7.1 High Definition onboard sound card – for 8 Channel Cinema sound

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=569782&APPS=447151

http://www.27bslash6.com/jason.html

(check "Simon's pie-charts" if you like that)

Maybe it's a good enough monitor, who knows, but just because you can buy a cheaper monitor than an Apple, it doesn't make Apple expensive. If you see what I mean

So why is the Dell monitor £200 cheaper?

In terms of matching to a PC spec, this bad boy has twice the memory and a faster graphics card for £882

.

Again, maybe it's fine, I don't know, the specs say nothing about the complexities of displaying colour and all that stuff – my point was just that comparing computer prices is not a simple matter if you want to look at like-for-like, and when you get behind the headline prices, the mantra of "Apple are expensive" is not so easy to support.

So why is the Dell monitor £200 cheaper?

No idea – maybe it's simply a crap monitor? I have no data to make a judgement, and apparently you don't either.

Again, maybe it's fine, I don't know, the specs say nothing about the complexities of displaying colour and all that stuff

I realise "hardware" and "specs" are a bit confusing and scary for non-technical Apple users, but "displaying colour and all that stuff" is a result of what we techy people call a "graphics card". 😉

The Apple and the Mesh both contain ATI graphics cards.
The Apple has an ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB.
The Mesh has an ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB.

The apple monitor uses in plane switching, a technology to ensure better colour reproduction over a wider viewing angle. I find that very useful for photo manipulation, both the sheer size and lack of discoloration if not set up perfectly is a bonus.

Dells 30" IPS monitor @ 2650 x 1600 pixels (their 27" isn't an IPS monitor) retails on their site for £1500 ex vat. Their 24" IPS panel by the time it ships to you is £520+…

It was the display that made me decide to get the imac, just the dual core version here though…

The apple monitor uses in plane switching…

As does the Dell.

Dells 30" IPS monitor @ 2650 x 1600 pixels (their 27" isn't an IPS monitor) retails on their site for £1500 ex vat.

😯 or (one quick trip to Google later) £998 ex vat from insight.com

Edit: Even buying direct from Dell I see it at £1,294 including VAT and delivery:
http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=142660

I realise "hardware" and "specs" are a bit confusing and scary for non-technical Apple users, but "displaying colour and all that stuff" is a result of what we techy people call a "graphics card".

Thanks for the help – always so useful to have a techy person to explain everything for us simple folk.

However, you will have to confess that the idea that a graphics card is all there is to accurate colour display is a heap of bollocks, n'est-ce pas?

Fantastic Graham. 998 + vat @15% = £1148

Thats the monitor sorted, now get me the rest of the computer for £120 and we're laughing.

I paid £1268 for mine as I get a 6% discount from work, so…

[edit 1]Just followed your link, thats not the IPS panel, the 3008 panel is the IPS equipped version. Sorry, cant do the fancy link by clicking on the writing so…

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1&sku=142660

[edit 2] Nice discount! Dell strikes again with two different prices for the same product on their site? Here's the page where I got the price,

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1&sku=142660

but I bow to your superior bargain hunting! 🙂

far from being hilarious this had degenerated into and argument about monitor prices 🙁 Laughing ? I wish I were 🙁

However, you will have to confess that the idea that a graphics card is all there is to accurate colour display is a heap of bollocks, n'est-ce pas?

Umm… so what other part in the base unit of the PC/Mac contributes to the accurate colour display then?

I paid £1268 for mine as I get a 6% discount from work, so…

That's a very good price, no doubt about it and very good value for money.
And I do agree that you'd be hard pressed to match that spec with a PC, mainly due to the cost of the display.

I'm contending AdamW's statement that an equivalent PC would cost £500 more.

Dell strikes again with two different prices for the same product on their site?

One thing we can all agree on: Dell are cheeky barstewards!

One thing we can all agree on: Dell are cheeky barstewards!

Amen!

However, you will have to confess that the idea that a graphics card is all there is to accurate colour display is a heap of bollocks, n'est-ce pas?

Umm… so what other part in the base unit of the PC/Mac contributes to the accurate colour display then?

Couldn't tell you, mate, but I'm pretty sure that making a monitor involves more than just ordering a graphics card from a factory in China.

far from being hilarious this had degenerated into and argument about monitor prices Laughing ? I wish I were

That's the life of a PC owner – fretting over which detail on which website is slightly different from another, trying to understand abstruse details. Instead of just Trusting In Steve.

Couldn't tell you, mate, but I'm pretty sure that making a monitor involves more than just ordering a graphics card from a factory in China.

Bless, you're confused again. 😀

I was comparing base units, detailing a superior i7 base unit for £882, in direct response to BigEaredBiker saying that I'd "need to spend £1300 on a decent i7 base unit and then £1000 for a Dell monitor"

The graphics card is part of the base unit. You can hook up your nice Apple monitor to that Mesh unit if you like.

Update:

I may regret dragging this thread up again, but I just wanted to mention that in the end Prevx admitted that the "Black Screen of Death" was NOT Microsoft's fault after all!

"Since more specifically narrowing down the cause we have been able to exonerate these patches from being a contributory factor."
"We apologise to Microsoft for any inconvenience our blog may have caused."

— Prevx Blog, Dec 1st 2009.