Has anyone switched from a PC notebook to a MacBook Pro?

I made the switch last week. I have had 2 hp laptops in the past 3 years. They were good machines but fail in comparison to the macbook pro I bought last week. I can honestly say that after working with the macbook pro for this past week I do not see myself going back to a pc. In fact I am thinking of replacing my business computer to an imac. The mac is just so easy and intuitive to use.

The trasfer was extreamly easy. Easier than any migration from previous pc. I say go for it. I do not think you will be disapointed. The only conflict I am having is whether I want to trade the macbook pro for a macbook.

The pro is such a great system just don't know if I will use it to the fullest. Will probably stay with what I have.

While this doesn't apply specifically to switching from a PC laptop it's more general. Where I often see people who have switched having issues is when they lack two things…

1) The understanding that Mac OS X is not Windows in a different user interface "skin". While there are many similarities, even things the same, there are significant differences between the two, especially when it comes to the methodology of doing things. Failing this your expectations aer skewed and hence, your transitional experience will be far more difficult.

2) Patience… and the patience to find out the differences above and to find out what works for you.

Additionaly, I can highly recommend a book, Switching to the Mac : The Missing Manual by David Pogue. having a written resource you can turn to to help you get the most from your transistion is worth its weight in gold.

Finally, while you may not be instantly as productive, then again you might be, just remember to enjoy yourself.

I use both Mac and PC. I have yet to find a Mac program that's as versitle as ACDSee in terms of viewing and organizing photos. iPhoto is decent, but not the same. For Photoshop Elements, I don't think there's a Universal Binary for it, so it'll run rather slowly on an Intel Mac.

Aperture is way better than ACDSee anyday. at lease i thing so..:)

Hello,

I switched from a Pentium 4 2.2GHz Dell laptop to a Intel CD 2GHz MacBook Pro.

This what I found (the good):
- the spotlight search on a mac is soo much better and faster compared to a windows search.
- No need for all those extra programs that scan you PC for virusses, spyware, mallware,...
- No need to download additional drivers or programs before you can do anything.
- No third pary software that messes up the whole system. Apple software appears to be more reliable, even from third parties.
- Backlight keyboard with shaped keys
- You can do more with a mac trackpad than with a windows trackpad. It does not bother me when I forget the mouse on my desk. The trackpad scrolls and has a "right mouse button" as well.
- Multitasking without systemwide slow downs.
- I have an iPod, so iTunes is all I need/want.

What I also found (the bad):
- the screen resolution on my Dell was higher.
- Some apps still need Rosetta (office, photoshop,...). If pictures are your thing, iPhoto is no replacement for Adobe photoshop.
- I sometimes miss the picure viewer thing you have in windows XP. When you select picures and open them, they open in a window with nice back/forward controls,...
The Preview app in Mac just isn't the picture viewer I hoped it would be. But maybe that's just me...
- there is a lot more freeware for PC than for Mac. This can also be a good thing for Apple if you consider that most of these freeware things are crap anyway...
- iChat only works with specific accounts and other iChat programs. I hoped it would be a more "universal" chat program without these limitations. To chat to windows people you need a serious work-around (jabber) or just use MSN messenger.
- no good at games unless you have bootcamp and a windows CD.


Overall: I would not go back to windows. I really like the MacBookpro and OSX.

I have to say that I was not unsatisfied with windows, so I will not trash it. It always worked well for me and did't crash. Programs crashed, but windows did not. I believe a lot of these crashes are due too crappy third party software installed by the user at their own risk...
I'm saying this to let you know that I happely use the 2 systems, but the mac wins for me. OSX is nice to work with and nice to look at.

Hope this helps...

Bjorn

I used a Gateway laptop for 4 years and did a lot of picture editing with Photoshop, Corel, etc. It was an unstable pain in the rear.
My Macbook Pro is fantastic - it crashes almost never, I have never had a virus, and the interface is much better. It does sometimes get pretty warm, and mine has the buzzy sound, but I really don't care. It's a great machine.
The generic bundled programs are excellent. Except that I use the free suite called NeoOffice to replace MS office. It's quite good.
I haven't bought Photoshop, so I can't say. Currently I'm using GIMP and Inkscape, which are good, but run on the X11 program to 'translate' them for the new intel chip. So they're fairly slow. Still they're better than my old laptop. If you do picture editing all day, you would want a program that doesn't use X11, such as Aperture, I think.
The wireless has been flawless for me. I see others having problems sometimes, but mine is great.
I highly recommend the computer!

Interesting question.

In a way I have done this. Up until 6 months ago I had TWO laptops - a powerbook G4 mac which I used for internet, multimedia & video editing (I'm a VT editor by profession) and a PC based laptop which I had to use for may business apps. The Beauty of the macbook Pro is that thanks to boot-camp it has the ability to be two laptops in one! It runs Mac OSX which is by FAR and away the best platform for creative work and for internet security - bit at a keystroke it can be re-started as a windows XP machine for business use. (for example SAGE) It runs XP very sweetly provided you stick to using boot camp 1.1.1 (1.2.1 is by all accounts a disaster so i won't be upgrading until 1.3 comes out). but overall I would say go for it!

You may want to wait until some of these crashing and shutdown bugs are worked out. Check through some of the posts about crashing macbooks.

I'm thinking of purchasing a MBP, but I will need to run some Windows apps because I am a Windows software developer. I'm leaning towards running Bootcamp, but I've installed and run Parallels on my PC laptop and it seems like a good solution.

I'm really a little nervous about buying a MBP to run Windows apps, but I've had lots of other laptops and I think most of them are lacking in features. I'm really interested in a lightweight 15.4" laptop and no one seems to make one in the PC world. I think Apple makes a very lightweight and robust 15.4" laptop.

This would also give me the opportunity to experiment with OS X; although I don't think I would ever completely abandon the Windows world.

You missed the point of iPhoto. It is not just about organizing pictures. It is about engaging in creative ways with the other iApps in iLife. Make a slide show, bring into iDVD with music from iTunes and burn it into a DVD for your friends, etc.

Also, among other things, make books from within iPhoto without having to go to silly sites, upload pictures, and deal with their ads and the other stuff they blast you with while there. U[load to .MAc, if you have an account, and share with your friends and relatives, again without ads and websites, just a personal thing between you and yours.

Nothing else can do all that.

It takes a while for PC people to realize how personal a computer a Mac is.

I did the exact switch earlier last year, at that time, there isn't any effective way of running windows on the Mac. (VirtualPC, GuestPC are simply too slow for me).

Now Mac is based on Intel processor, I bought a mini half a year ago (or something) to try out the bootcamp and Parallel desktop (VMWare like). It works great for general business purpose. I am able to run my company database in Parallel Desktop fast enough, and Using Bootcamp I can run at full speed.

To me the gap of office environment and Mac OSX is brought closer together then ever. I think even if you run in trouble with MacOSX application (lack some special window feature) you can easily fill the gap. This also made transition from PC to Mac much easier.

Converted my brother this year to use the MacBook (Blk) and he will never go back to windows again. With the Mactel working now I am waiting for my MBP C2D 17" to replace my PowerBook G4, the PowerBook will go to my mother.

I never thought this would happen but I haven't touch a PC for quite some time, I am sure I won't use PC at all when my MBP arrives due to my company is still using window based MIS system.

Depending on what you do, I think for normal business, Macbook will be the perfect notebook. You won't be sorry for the switch.

Regarding Virus, I am more reluctant to say that Mac is virus free. I've yet to encounter any virus in the past 2 years but I still don't understand why the Virus maker don't make virus for Apple system. Once they do, we will be in the same boat as Window PCs.

The virus has to be a lot smarter than it has to for Windows. The Mac is not easy to penetrate, and everything requires a password in order to run by default.

Plus, Unix and its underpinnings is much harder than Windows to grasp, and the Unix crowd is not the same as the Windows crowd either.

Those are some of the reasons why it will never happen.

For Photoshop Elements, I don't think there's a Universal Binary for it, so it'll run rather slowly on an Intel Mac.

Actually, it runs pretty well, although it does take ages to launch. But especially since 10.4.8 performance is pretty decent.

I've use both and find that the MBP and OSX is just simpler to use, XP makes you jump thru hoops to do a lot of simple things, for example I use CNC files (just a simple text file) and windows makes me tell it which file to use to open them each time, the little box that says use this file for all like files is grayed out. So I transfered all the files to my MBP with a flash drive and walla, just double click and they open, no questions asked. This is just one example and I find that most things are very straight forward on an Apple. I also use Bootcamp and XP for a couple of CAD and CAM programs and they run very well on my MBP.

Jerry