I’m a switcher Rick Klau has a post out about recently making the jump from a PC to a Mac. What strikes me about his post is how such a deeply ingrained PC user could make the jump. In Rick’s case his last Apple Computer was an Apple ][+ from 1982. He’s been on PCs for *26 years* and on ThinkPads since 1999.
Why did he make the switch?
“The 11 minute reboot, increasingly sluggish resumes from standby, and overall slow system responsiveness convinced me that it was time to ditch Windows. (A few hours with Vista at the in-laws convinced me that I definitely didn’t want to stick with Windows any longer.) Yesterday I finally bit the bullet – and less than 24 hours, IT had a shiny new MacBook Pro waiting for me. It’s clear I have some learning to do – but already I can tell that this is a long-overdue switch. I will gladly put up with all the abuse that’s sure to follow from my co-workers who I’ve mercilessly teased over the years…”
Now Rick’s experience sounds a lot like mine from almost two years ago. Two years ago, after using PCs exclusively for 15 years, I moved my primary computer from a PC to a MacBook Pro. The same MacBook Pro I’m typing this on right now.
Overall for the past 2 years I’ve been very happy with my MacBook Pro. And my next primary laptop will probably continue to be a Mac. The MacBook Pro is a great machine. Most of all it “just works,” the phrase you continue to hear from Mac user after Mac user over and over again. I’m surprised actually that Apple hasn’t actually adopted this tagline and pumped it out on every single commercial/ad/billboard/etc. advertisement for the Mac.
I will say this though. I have been *incredibly* impressed with Vista. I know that there are a lot of naysayers out there when it comes to Vista, but I’ve found my Vista experience to be remarkably stable and in some ways much better even than my Mac experience.
I still run a Vista PC at home as my primary entertainment PC. This PC is connected via my home network to three XBox 360s and serves up all my TV, photos, music, etc. through Microsoft’s Media Center software.
I think the key with Vista is that you have to run it on a new PC built for Vista rather than an upgrade. My first experiences with Vista (and keep in mind that some of these were with beta Vista software) were not entirely good. I now believe that this was in large part due to the fact that I was upgrading to Vista on an older PC. When I ditched the older PC and bought a cheap new Dell (only about $1,300) with Vista installed I noticed a massive performance improvement.
For me, Vista on my home PC is 1000% better than XP was. It doesn’t crash. It gets very few errors. It’s faster than my 2 year old MacBook Pro. Now bear in mind that I’m not running Leopard on my MacBook Pro, but I *love* Vista for my photos much more than my Mac. All of the different size choices, etc. I also love how when I have a file name problem and am copying files from one folder to another it actually shows me the thumbnails of my photos to see if I want to replace the file or copy it with a (2) as the same name.
Best of all, for me in the home, my Vista PC comes with Microsoft’s Media Center software, including the ability to extend this software to my XBox 360s hooked up to the TVs in my home. My Media Center set up includes a dual HDTV OTA tuner (read, free HDTV), a DVR, a DVD player with all of my XBox 360s, a game player, and all of my music and photos, Flickr faves, etc. This beats AppleTV hands down.
I know a lot of people like to bash Vista, and I love my MacBook Pro as much as the best of them, but I personally think Vista on a new PC is a huge improvement for Microsoft and I think PCs still represent the better approach for home media.
Related: Jeremy Toeman, MacBooks will take 50% of notebook market share within a year
Thanks, Raoul!