PC user wanting to swap to Mac has some queries.

You have until 1 year from purchase to buy it. You can delay, but the cost still exists.

AppleCare will replace logic boards and displays that fail due to manufaturing defect ... both very expensive. Plus keyboard issues, speakers, USB ports, ...

Better graphics cards will hanlde more complex pictures faster. Tha is why several newer games cannot (not *maybe*, but *cannot*) run on graphics cards sold just 2 years ago.

snerkler1 wrote:

Is Applecare well worth it then? Is it something you have to take out at the time, or can you take it out at any time before the 12 month warranty expires?

Lets put it this way.

With most any PC computer, notebook or desktop, all the parts are plugged into the motherboard, CPU, Graphic card and all drives. With a Apple Macbook pro the CPU and graphic card is soldered onto to the motherboard, drives and memory are plugged in. If for some reason the CPU or graphic card fail, and that has happened on MBPs more then Apple would like to admit, the only way to fix it is to replace the complete motherboard, board with CPU and GC. That is very expensive. In the range of $800-$2000.

So if you have a $2000+ computer with the standard 1 year warranty and in 13 months something fails it will cost you big bucks to fix it.

In all honesty for notebooks the longest and best coverage warranty available should be purchased at time of buying or shortly there after. With Apple that can be up to the end of the 1 year normal warranty. With other makers it needs to be purchased at time of buying.

Hardware is ALWAYS faster than software. The reason DVR (digital vieo recorders) took so long to come out is because software could not keep up with 60 FPS video. It took until a fast viedo-conversion chip was available.

That being said ... my graphics card on my MBP, which is less powerful (slightly) than what you buy, works fine for my NetFlix viewing. Do not spend money on marginally-better graphics if you are already at your limits on money, in my humble opinion.

snerkler1 wrote:

Wow, applecare's a no brainer then.

I noramlly don't buy extended warranties for anything, if it comes with something for whatever the sale price is OK.

One of the first things I did once I knew I was keeping this current Mac I have was to buy the Applecare extended warranty.

I didn't do that with my new Dell notebook. I know I can buy parts for that in 1-2-3 year from leftover stock and or from aftermarket vendors that buy up Dell leftover stock and fix it myself (I build all my own desktop systems and have done some major work on my old Dell notebooks. CPU and GC swapouts). But with the Mac the only place to buy parts, unless they are for very old MB, is from Apple and they do not sell to the general public. So you have to take it someplace for someone to undo a few screws to replace a PART and pay them for the part and their time, including Profit on both.

One amazing thing about Macs versus PCs is the ability to perform a large data transfer via FireWire or Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode.

I don't know how any PC could compete with that?

Erica M31 wrote:

One amazing thing about Macs versus PCs is the ability to perform a large data transfer via FireWire or Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode.

Target Disk Mode is very nice. Perhaps many Mac users employ it daily. But I've been using Macs for donkey's years (long before TDM was ever introduced, in fact), and not once did I need to use it on my own Macs. (I think I may have used it once on someone else's.) OTOH, I do many searches daily, and, AFAIC, I'd give ten TDMs for a decent search utility (which Mac OS X used to have, once upon a time). And, no, Spotlight, that sorry, pathetic excuse for a search engine, doesn't even come close.

Have you tried Easy Find and Find Any File.

And Windows 7 built in search isn't any better then Spotlight

Fane: it's not part of OS X, but EasyFind is free and far better than Spotlight. This is not to say Apple shouldn't be providing something just as good or better, but as long as it doesn't, there are other options.

Search functionality seems to be something Apple just doesn't get, as the useless search engine for these forums demonstrates.

snerkler1 wrote:

I've always found that my PC's tend to slow with time and don't run as fast as when they were new. I've been informed that this doesn't happen with Macs. Why do PCs tend to slow and Macs don't?

PC only slow down because the user installs junk software and tons of it then removes the junk they down like or don't use and they don't do normal maintenance.

Do Mac's suffer the same thing, from what I read yes they do. There are plenty of reports of Slow Mac's on these forums.

RAM & HDD

Yes it is very easy. The hardest part about chnaging the RAM is having the right screw driver and taking the back off.

As for the HDD it is almost as easy. There is a cable you have to disconnect and reconnect and there are screws on the sides of the drive that nned to be removed and placed in the new drive. You need a second screw driver for that as those screws have Torx heads and you need a T6 bit or screw driver.

Shootist007 wrote:

Have you tried Easy Find and Find Any File.

eww wrote:

but EasyFind is free and far better than Spotlight

Thank you; I do appreciate your trying to help.

In other threads, I accompanied my usual condemnation of Spotlight with the addition that I use John R Chang's Find File, Thomas Tempelmann's Find Any File, and Christian Grünenberg's EasyFind. Each is very good in its own way; unfortunately, none is a complete replacement for the v10.3 Finder's Find command. For instance, in Panther I could find all .aiffs in folders A, B, and D, but not in C. Then I could apply any relevant AppleScript to the found items (eg, rename serially, or normalize, or resample stereo to mono using sox, etc). Since v1.7, FAF can find items in a similar manner, but the found items are not Finder items, and I cannot do what I could do in v10.3 (this is known as progress). Moreover, if the author wants to continue to distribute FAF through the App Store, due to the sandboxing requirement, he can't add such a facility.

I mention all this not to hijack the thread, but to temper a little the enthusiasm of those who seem to think that Mac OS X is the best thing since sliced bread. Yes, IMHO, in many respects, it is an OS superior to Win; but, that doesn't meant it's better in all respects, nor that it has improved in recent years, nor that the difference is huge. And especially it doesn't mean that all users will be happier or more productive if they switched to the Mac.