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Are you a PC or a Mac?
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Written by Daniel Stafford, Student Life Editor
You may have seen some commercials recently involving two guys, one proclaiming that he’s a PC, and the other saying he’s a Mac. Inevitably, PC (played by the inimitable John Hodgman) will be trumped by Mac’s (Justin Long) superior features and attractiveness. But is the real debate so straightforward? As you may guess, it’s not.
Statistically, you are more likely to be the proud owner of a Windows desktop or laptop computer than a Macintosh. For those of you who don’t know the difference between a PC and a Mac, the library and writing center computers are all PCs (another name for Windows). If you have never operated a Mac, you would immediately know the difference if you did. But the question remains: which is better? Fortunately, I have been the proud owner of both such computers (a PC desktop and a Macbook laptop) and I can tell you the difference.
You may notice that in the PC/Mac commercials that Mac often cites his immunity to viruses. This is, actually, very true. Because of the way a Mac uses programs, viruses normally programmed to destroy PCs have no effect on Macintoshes. In the commercials, they will also often talk about the Mac’s superior speed. This is a bit of an exaggeration on Mac’s part (of course; it’s a commercial, after all). The speed of both systems is determined by either the size of the program or the speed of the computer’s individual internet connection speed. Therefore, speed varies between computers Mac and PC alike. The biggest advantage, I would say, that a PC has over a Mac is that it is so much more common than its rival. So, often, if you want to find a file type that everyone can use, you would be using a PC. In fact, the PC is so ubiquitous that most games on CDs won’t run on Macs. That is the Mac’s biggest weakness: for the same reason that it can’t be affected by PC viruses, it can’t use Windows applications at all. This makes the Mac a more isolated operating system, whereas Windows is so common that… Well, just take a look at the writing center.
How about the corporate battle? How is the actual computer war faring? Well, last year Microsoft made 4 billion dollars in revenue off of Windows computers, while Apple had one of their best fiscal years in history, selling nearly 3 million Macs. It should be no surprise that Windows wins the monetary battle, given how common it is, but it should be noted that the Mac’s popularity is growing constantly. If Mac were to become the more popular system, it would most likely lose its immunity to viruses as hackers design Mac-specific bugs. But it would also mean more games and applications with Mac compatibility- which are being made even now, to satisfy both markets.
It is also worth noting that the new Mac operating system (OS X Snow Leopard) contains the feature “Boot Camp,” which allows you to, essentially, split your Mac into two computers: a Mac and a PC. This, in theory, gives you the best of both worlds, but the problem is this: you have to pre-designate how much of your Mac’s memory to dedicate to being a PC and you must turn off one “computer” before running the other. Still, this gives new Mac users the advantage of being able to use both systems.
So, bottom line: what computer best suits you? If you want to share your internet findings and games with your friends (and be able to use more applications), you should probably get a PC. If you would rather have a simple interface with inventive design and user-friendly processing, the Mac is for you.
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January 3rd, 2010 at 12:19 pm
There is life beyond commercial secrets, profit orientation and individualism. Why don’t you have a third character, preferably not a nerd, maybe even a lady, who ventures into the cooperative world of Linux and Free Software?
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