Go Mac and you'll never go back.

As the only Mac user in a 65 PC company, I've never had an issue with hardware failure, virus attacks or software errors the past 11 years compared to 20 of the PCs with such problems the past 5 years.

I recently added an iPad as an accessory to my MacBook and it integrates seamlessly, even taking over the PCs for remote support, which they seem to need a lot.

 

All 3 of our computers are Dells. The desktop is now 10 yrs old. I've upgraded the Ram and and added an external hard drive (mostly for backup). It works fine and is surprisingly fast considering its age. I guess the "if it ain't broke" theory is at play. My laptop is a 2003 model. It is slow and I hate waiting for it to load, but I use it mostly for recipes and popping off a quick e-mail here and there. When we traveled a great deal, that laptop served us well. Jim's laptop was just purchased this spring and he loves it. It is fast, easy for him to use and he uses it a great deal. We enjoy being able to access the internet from different areas of the house and Jim even takes his outside on the patio from time to time. We had a "geek" come in and hook up the router when we moved. It was money well spent. He tuned up my desktop when he was here and even hooked up my stereo components in the den. He charged less than $100.

 

After 20+ years living in the often frustrating PC world, I am packing my bags for the Apple world. I just bought a 24" iMac for the office and plan to supplement it with either a MacBook Pro or Air by year-end. Too many random crashes, too much bloated code, to much wasted time waiting for boot up or reboot or programs to open - I'm done. Two downsides for me - cost (Apple is amazing at holding their prices high and never going on sale) and co-existing in a PC-dominated corporate world. But I've reached my breaking point.

In the PC world, I have owned many brands and types over the years - Dell, IBM, Lenova, Acer, Sharp, Toshiba, Sony, Compaq and HP come immediately to mind. The best was Dell, had a couple and they were near Honda-like in their performance. The best advice I can give is a tidbit that was given to me by an IT geek several years ago. When buying a computer, make sure to buy their business line and not their consumer line. Most manufacturers make one line for business/corporations and another for home/consumer. Although the consumer line are less expensive and have more bells & whistlers, the business line are more durable and have a longer life. Good luck.

 

As far as MAC's go, they did have a black friday sale with discounts of up to $100.

Not sure if you are academically involved or know someone that is a student or a faculty/staff member at a college, but with an Academic ID you can always purchase one for yourself.

I used my Faculty/Staff card to help my Father-In-Law buy his MAC book as he did not have his Faculty ID on him at that point. This was at the Apple Store. This may not work online as I think they validate academic credentials on the site.

 

OMG

I honestly do not know how you went that long. Myself I get a new computer usually a laptop every year and I am still amazed at the progress they make with CPU's etc in just 12 months.

 

I did not read this thread so I don't know what advice you have been given.

My brother is a programmer and had many desktops, usually high end one or ones that he built himself, he is the family tech guy. He tells us, "if you buy anything other than a Dell I will not do any tech support for you." He believes in them over any other.

A year ago I bought myself a big bulky Dell inspiron core two dou, 350 meg hard drive, 2 gig of ram and Vista, dvd burner and 23 inch widescreen for $400 delivered to my door.

I am not a high end home user. I do some work on a spreadsheet or word proccessor but mostly home stuff like video editing, photos, net surfing, and itunes.

I have not had one problem except for a small bit of easily removed mallware and could not be happier.

 

When the Best Buy guy heard I wasn't interested in Dell he said their issues, from his perspective, was heat caused by craming in so many hardware/software applications.

Computers are like cars, if you have one that you are happy with that is all that matters - no matter what make.

In addition to many poor current reviews, what surprised me was the ranking in Consumers Reports. As I recall it was based on the time frame of 2006 to 2010 with reports from 39,000 people. Here's the percentage of users with problems, this is for desktops only:

Apple, 12%
eMach, 17%
Compaq, 18%
Dell, 19%
HP, 20%
Gateway, 23%

As my wife will tell you I generally over research stuff. Usually it is worth it but not always. I pissed away $2k on mattress I hate.

 

Unless something changes my mind I'm going with this one.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370315,00.asp

I have no desire to do anything with a computer outside or in another room. The only exception would be in my MG garage. But like Jay Leno says "How lazy have we become that I can't walk to the house to look something up."

Now I have to figure out the steps to transfer everything. That's the only problem with doing this once every decade. Best Buy wants $100-150 to do it.

 

Just back all the files on your current PC to an external hard drive OR USB drive (may have to do multiple times) and copy them onto your new PC.

Once done, reformat the old PC in case you plan to donate it to someone or some organization.

Best Buy makes their money off of such services. You dont need that, you have the Vintage community to help you

 

Dave, all of us computer geeks have been weighing in on this to amuse ourselves, mostly. If you're satisfied with a system whose review begins with the word "compromise," you're in a different world from ours.

In this context, the previous comment about "Just back all the files..." and so on to do the transfer is irrelevant. At the same time, the Best Buy transfer does seem a tad excessive.

Win7 has a transfer utility included (for free), but it is a bit awkward (as I recall) if transferring from an older operating system. So read up on the Microsoft Win7 site on this and see if it might meet your needs. It involves running a program on the old computer (to off-load all the relevant stuff) and running it again on the new system (to on-load it and incorporate it into the new system). To do this you need a portable storage device -- like a floppy (or a hundred), or a zip-drive (or a lot), or a CD or DVD burner (on the old system); or -- here's the punch line -- one of those USB external drives. Get a big one. Do it. They're worth it as a back-up system for the future. HPH