I get the feeling that many of the Mac Lovers commenting here, are comparing their latest, greatest Mac to an old 386 running Win 95. My Dell laptop with dule core processor and 4 g of ram runs great and does everything I ask it to do. And I’ve never had a virus.

I also noticed that nobody mentioned the main reason PC’s dominate the personal computer market. Price. I know Mac Lovers consistantly distpute the price difference, but comparably equipt, Macs are 50 to 100 % more money. This will likely never change due to the very fundamental differences between Apple and Microsoft and PC manufacturers. Lots of the software I have to use will not run on a Mac, and even if it did, I still could not afford the Mac.

It should also be noted that the fastest growing segment of the personal computer market is netbooks, and Mac does not even make one.

I live in Thailand in an expat community where the split is about 50/50 due to the fact that most personal computers are employer provided. So in a world where money is no object, Mac does much better. But in most of the world, money is an object. Here in Thailand the difference in price is even greater. A basic PC laptop will cost about $400 and the cheapest Mac is about $1000.

I have also observed in this Mac heavy community, that my friends with Macs have just as many or more problems with their computers. The most common problems being failed hard drives and network compatibility issues.

Perhaps part of the depth of peoples passion for their Mac’s is a subconscience rationalization of all that extra money they spent. I must say, I get pretty tired of listening to Mac Lovers blathering on about how superior their computers are to mine. I perfectly happy with my computer, and I paid about half of what a comparable Mac would have cost. I know, because I checked before I bought. And then realized that many essential programs were not available on the Mac.

And as for Safari vs. IE 7, I don’t like either one. I much prefer FireFox, however their are many websites that simply will not render properly in any browser other than IE (banks, webmail, ect.). Fortunately, FireFox has an addon that allows you to open individual tabs using the IE rendering engine.

So if you have really deep pockets or someone elses money, don’t need any of the programs that will only run on Windows, and looking cool is really important to you, then by all means, buy a Mac. Otherwise, save yourself a ton of money and buy a PC with Vista, then upgrade to 7 next year.

I strongly disagree with your conclusions from the review of Vista verses OS X, especially if you now compare Vista verses Leopard.

As a computer scientist, I give Vista a failing grade on all accounts, as this operating system is virtually unusable in the “out-of-the-box” state and requires more powerful harware than any other current OS. The market also seems to agree as those who use Windows remain with XP, knowing many flaws, perfomance issues and gimiky eye candy would await them in Vista.

On the other hand, a large portion of the global market continues to purchase Apple computers equipped with OS X Leopard.

Under the Hood…
Apple’s OS X model is a BSD derived UNIX based OS called Darwin with Apple’s Aqua Windows server on top. OS X Leopard runs natively on x86 32 bit and 64 bit processors, now allowing native running of Windows binaries: EXEs, etc through either virtual machine apps like Wine, within virtual environments like Parallels or vmWare, or natively under built-in Windows Bootcamp dual boot mode for Windows or OS X start up. However, most common software applications now run natively in OS X and most Windows users can transition to OS X in under a week finding similar or the same programs to open, create and edit their existing files. Gamers needing Windows Direct X support can dual-boot to Windows to play Direct X required games, if they have not yet been ported to OS X.

While superior in archectural design, OS X also includes the following features which which are either inferior or non-existent on Windows Vista or earlier Windows OS’s.

1. Real Time Index searching (Spotlight) designed into the OS X kernel
-> Real Time searching not possible in Windows OS’s including Vista due to NTFS legacy from XP, 2000 and searching must be manually re-indexed or scheduled

2. Superior UI Experience: look and feel of OS X Aqua desktop is superior to Windows Vista since it is vector-based graphical interface given high running priority even at resource-intensive system states. It’s responses are always faster than Vista which like XP starts to starve the Desktop to feed background processes as requested.

3. You mentioned OS X is better for security, which is right. OS X is derived from UNIX security models, which exceeds all Windows security models. This includes built-in OS X-based firewall, like Windows Firewall, but simpler to use.

4. Anti-virus threats minimal at present. OS X is less targeted at present comparing the hundreds of thousands of viruses, spyware, adware and trojans affecting Windows and a minimal count possibly in the hundreds for known OS X threats.
While this will change as OS X becomes more popular, the superior security model in OS X will make malicious attacks more difficult to achieve.

OS X anti-virus software is currently under utilized, however these products are becoming more popular and more heavily marketed.

5. Linux integration: running OS X, you automatically have many linux-like featues, such as SSH, GNU and Samba which provide building blocks for linux integration. Linux to OS X ports have been successfully occurring for years, which is why third-party programs have emerged so quickly on OS X.

6. Windows integration: OS X has Active Directory (OpenLDAP), Windows/SAMBA file sharing and Windows Domain Controller capabilities to integrate Windows clients and Mac clients together using OS X Server as a Windows Domain. Likely extensions for open-Exchange server will occur in the near future.

Trivial layout differences like the red, yellow and green buttons are only strange due to our conditioning of Microsoft desktops. With 1-2 weeks of use, OS X buttons, foreground top menu, Expose, dock, spotlight searching, better icon/symbols, color highlighting and other great features become instinctive, allowing OS X users to operate faster and more efficiently than under Windows hierarcial, menu driven operating systems.

In my professional opinion and as an in depth user of both Windows, OS X, and linux, I recommend:

a. Sticking with Windows XP, if it is working for you.

b. Upgrading to Apple OS X Leopard if you can afford a new or used Mac with an Intel Processor and enjoy using your computer. (This is the OS that Microsoft “wished” they created as Vista and attempted to copy features from…)

c. Download “Ubuntu” linux if you need a free solution and see if it can replace Windows for you with a free Windows-like Desktop operating system.

While it is clear I heavily favour OS X over Windows, I believe I do so since I can compare and know the differences under the hood and have experienced the differences using both systems exhaustively. I also favour linux over Windows in most cases as well.

For those that hate OS X, I challenge you to spend 1 week using OS X to get used to superficial changes. Learn the “real facts” before you make up your mind.

The latest rankings from the American Customer Satisfaction Index show that Apple (nasdaq: AAPL – news – people ) has dramatically outpaced its rival computer makers in the hearts of U.S. consumers. In fact, the gulf between Apple’s consumer satisfaction ranking and that of the industry’s No. 2 player is one of the widest margins ever seen in any industry studied by the University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center.

The American Consumer Satisfaction Index, developed by academics at the University of Michigan, tracks the happiness of U.S. households with everything from cars to Web sites. Five years ago, Apple earned itself an ACSI score of 77 for the second quarter of the year, second to Dell (nasdaq: DELL – news – people ), which got a 78 at the time. (The scale goes up to 100.)

Apple has since leapt to gold. The ACSI report for the second quarter of 2008 ranks Apple at 85, indisputably above second place Dell, at 75. Apple scored 11 points above the computer-maker industry average, which slipped 1% during the quarter to 74. Apple’s rating is also an all-time high for the computer industry.

Rivals continue to struggle with consumer dissatisfaction over the Microsoft Vista upgrade. But spurred by the popularity of its iPhone and iPod, Apple is winning over more users than ever before in its history.

Between fiscal years 1998 and 2002, Apple computer sales grew at an average annual rate of 1.6%. Between 2003 and 2007, that figure shot up to 23.6%.

“This is product extension at its best, where the new products, iPod and iPhone, are helping bring new customers to existing computer products,” writes Michigan professor Claes Fornell in the latest ACSI report. “The fact that Apple is not dependent on the Windows Vista operating system hasn’t hurt, either.”

Tech critics labeled the new Microsoft Windows operating system, released early last year, a major flop. Vista, widely lambasted for its sluggish operating speed, has been so unpopular with buyers that up until June, Dell allowed consumers who chose any of half a dozen of its most popular desktop and laptop models to opt for Vista’s predecessor, Windows XP. Windows Steve Ballimer has offered to swap Windows XP (even up) for Vista. (Nothing said about a refund for Vista seemed to be in the offering.)

Meanwhile, the dollar sales of Apple’s Macintosh line (desktop and portable personal computers) rose 48% during the nine months ending in June compared with the same period a year ago.

In my personal experience using Vista vs OS-X 10.5 in like equipped computers, I can do more faster; vary rarely crashing or locking up while using 1/4 the amount of expensive ram required by Vista. Actually, by the time you equip ANY Windows computer to do nearly what what a Mac with OS-X 10.5 will do out of the box, it is the more expensive computer. Plus, Windows still doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “intuitive,” or “logical progression”…

I can run my work computer from home, at full speed, and the work computer’s OS doesn’t matter. I can boot a server, reboot, etc. I have been doing this for years, for free.

That applies nicely to LARGE manufacturers (Your words) but does it apply to everyday John Doe? I’m not talking helpdesk, I’m talking conferencing with several peeps in small or large organizations being able to work on common projects. I’m also talking about simply sitting down in an motel or cafe and accessing your own desktop at home or the mainframe computer at work just like you are there, with full file exchanging, or ability to print out.

Besides which, It is totally absurd to compare Apples old operating system OSX 10.4 to Vista as this report has done. Apples Leopard OSX 10.5 has been out long enough.

I had difficulty in setting up several earthlink eMail addresses so I called Earthlink and was connected with a nice lady in India (whom I could hardly understand). Nonetheless when she found I had Apples® 10.5.3 Leopard, she happily asked me if i minded her taking over my computer for a few minutes. After turning over my computer to her I sat back amazed while she worked on my computer from India just like she was sitting at my desk.

TAKE THAT WINDOWS!

I sold my Dull last fall and by the looks of Windows® total lack of progress It will be a very long time before I own anything with that ailing logo again.

Meanwhile, Windows Steve Ballimer, has kindly offered to give back Windows 98 to those unfortunate Vista owners at no charge after they already paid for Vista. That’s real big of him to give them an antique system after they paid for Vista. Walk it off fatso…

Thanks for your coments

I recently started a job where we have over 200 PC’s through out the building. After about an hour of training, I was easily using the Vista machine with very little trouble.

So here we are 6 weeks later & I am going to bring in my 7 year old Power Mac G4 because it is a MUCH better machine. hands down.

Also, every person I meet that has an Apple personally agrees that Apple’s are a MUCH better machine, hands down.

So the real truth comes from those of us who do use both machines on a regular basis, & we agree, hands down, that Apple is a much better product.