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8 - Life beyond 1st January
It isn?t only children?s sticky fingers that will take the gloss off the shiny new MacBook you got for Christmas ? the new line-up of laptops announced at the annual MacWorld show every January will leave your cutting-edge gift looking so last year, almost immediately. Yes, consumer-friendly, cuddly-wuddly Apple decides to spring new products onto its customers just days after the peak buying period every single year, and there?s little point in trying to second-guess what the company is about to launch, because it cloaks its announcements with an iron curtain the USSR would have been proud of. Thankfully, there?s no such post-Christmas Microsoft jamboree.
9 - Superior search facilities
Our counterparts over at MacUser swear blind that the Macintosh Finder is just as good as Windows Explorer. Yet even after five major releases of Mac OS X, it lacks many features that Windows power users take for granted, such as resizing windows from any corner or edge, using cut and paste to move files around, and renaming files from within a file requester. It doesn?t even offer a working ?maximise window? button. If you just want a computer that looks pretty then the Finder might suit you, but if you actually want to manipulate files then Windows Explorer wins hands down.
10 - Safety in numbers
While having one company controlling both the hardware and operating system undoubtedly has its advantages, it also leaves Mac fans with all their eggs in one titanium-clad basket. Apple could, for example, decide to drop Mac OS X at any time ? not entirely out of the question now that Intel-based Macs are perfectly capable of running Windows. What would happen to Mac OS devotees and developers then? It also leaves Apple remarkably vulnerable when innovations go wrong ? the ill-fated Cube placed the company in deep trouble, for example, whereas international giants such as HP and Sony can tinker with experimental form factors such as smart displays and UMPCs, without worrying that commercial failure could potentially cripple the company.
11 - Sensible support costs
Macs never crash or go wrong, obviously. Which is just as well, because the standard Apple technical support offering is nothing short of scandalous. You could pay $25,664 for an absolute top-of-the-range Mac Pro or $949 for a Mac mini, and you?re still lumbered with Apple?s standard warranty, which comprises a pitiful 90-days, telephone support and just one year?s return-to-base hardware warranty. You can, naturally, pay extra for Apple?s three-year protection plan, which costs $229 for Mac minis, right through to a ridiculous $419 for the MacBook Pro. By comparison, our A-Listed Dell Latitude ultraportable laptop and Dell Optiplex desktop PC both include three-year, on-site warranties as standard.
It isn?t only manufacturer repairs you have to worry about. Take your PC down to your local computer shop and, chances are, they could replace the hard disk or slot in extra RAM without batting an eyelid, with little in the way of labour costs. That same repair shop may well blanche at the prospect of prizing open the sealed iMac casing, however.
12 - Microsoft?s on your team
Microsoft may be the company everyone loves to hate, and it doesn?t always play by the Queensbury Rules, but if there?s going to be a domineering, cash-rich mega-corporation in the industry, you definitely want it to be on your team. The PC is, of course, Microsoft?s platform of choice, and so the Windows market is the first to benefit from ground-breaking new products such as Office 2007. Mac owners will have to wait until later this year for a new version of Office, and even then it will be largely devoid of the well-received Ribbon interface that Microsoft first introduced into the PC version in January.
Similarly, PC owners with an Xbox 360 nestled under their television can turn their console into a Media Center Extender, allowing them to play music, video or photos stored on their computer through their television ? all because Microsoft has its fat fingers in so many pies.
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