Mac vs. PC

[mike_kelly]

The bottom line is that Apple is just a marketing arm for Foxcon. The stuff is over priced and more fashionable than technical. But it does have a closed hardware system which is easier to control the drivers and make sure cowboys don't do anything stupid. The desktop is designed to be user friendly. But the price you pay for that is increased cost and limited software.


Windows gives you a much wider software choice but it is a lousy operating system design and tries to be a gaming machine as well as a desktop/laptop computer at the same time and that just does not work. Too many cowboys writing drivers that don't work well. Every hardware option in the world at very competitive prices.



Linux is a great efficient free operating system but run by an anarchy committee. It's biggest virtue is it's biggest liability- choices. You get any desktop style you like but you get so many choices the average user gets confused. You get a great library of free software that is dead simple to install but it won't run things written for the mac or windows that might be popular. (please don't mention Wine or virtual boxes) You get open source projects that are really valuable but developers don't care too much about user friendly installs and you might have to have to delve into the bowels of the operating system to get them to work.


There is no free lunch and you pays your money(or your time) and makes your choices. The more you are willing to learn the less it costs.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by mike_kelly

and most people are not willing to pay extra for an X86 running unix made in china when they can get the same thing for half the price.

True. But not all consumers are that well-informed or savvy about computers. The multitude of options in the PC world can be dizzying, and Apple's more limited/simpler menu can be appealing.

Speaking of, some cite Apple's solid state hard drives as being more reliable/robust for the marine environment. Anything to that and, if so, are they more expensive to produce?

[mike_kelly]

Originally Posted by Exile

True. But not all consumers are that well-informed or savvy about computers. The multitude of options in the PC world can be dizzying, and Apple's more limited/simpler menu can be appealing.

Speaking of, some cite Apple's solid state hard drives as being more reliable/robust for the marine environment. Anything to that and, if so, are they more expensive to produce?

Remember that Apple does not actually make anything which is true of many name brands. My IBM blade servers are made by ASUS. They certainly don't make solid state hard drives. Everything these days is made in China or Taiwan.

[B23iL23]

Apple don't make SSD's. They buy from Samsung and others, just like Dell , HP and all the rest. No difference whatsoever. Apple just add on 100% to the price and tell you "It's the best and most beautiful SSD ever made".

Originally Posted by Exile

True. But not all consumers are that well-informed or savvy about computers. The multitude of options in the PC world can be dizzying, and Apple's more limited/simpler menu can be appealing.

Speaking of, some cite Apple's solid state hard drives as being more reliable/robust for the marine environment. Anything to that and, if so, are they more expensive to produce?

[Chotu]

I hate Apple and all, and I agree it is overpriced garbage. However, the operating system is not as limited as most people think it is. It’s not just a fancy GUI. You have the power to run all of UNIX underneath it.

I spend about half the time on my Mac using the terminal window. They are very powerful software development machines.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Exile

Speaking of, some cite Apple's solid state hard drives as being more reliable/robust for the marine environment. Anything to that and, if so, are they more expensive to produce?

As others have said, apple don't make them and SSD is an easy thing to change out giving an old laptop a new lease of life.
Fitted one in our our old Compaq laptop with increased ram while in there.
Cost about $100
Installed Linux and its speed increased dramatically.

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by Exile

True. But not all consumers are that well-informed or savvy about computers. The multitude of options in the PC world can be dizzying, and Apple's more limited/simpler menu can be appealing.

Speaking of, some cite Apple's solid state hard drives as being more reliable/robust for the marine environment. Anything to that and, if so, are they more expensive to produce?

No particular reason why one manufacturer should be more or less robust for the marine environment, but a significant factor is that many (not all) Apple laptops have soldered components (processor, memory, solid state storage) rather than these being separate components plugged into sockets. Some complain that this means the device is not upgradeable, which is true. However, the flip side is that problems related to the connections are almost completely removed. As someone who used to provide hardware support for tens of thousands of PCs, I can tell you that the vast majority of issues caused by hardware are related to the connections of the processor, memory, expansion cards, disks and so on.

Having everything soldered together is a logical extension of Apple's drive away from a hobbyist/tinkerer model to a black-box model and unquestionably results in a more reliable device. The more components are soldered directly on to a single motherboard the more reliable it's going to be.

I'm typing this on to a MacBook (not a MacBook Pro), which takes it to the extreme in that every component of the computer itself is contained on one tiny board smaller than a phone. You get what you originally order online, and you can't change it ever. There isn't even a fan. In a marine environment considerations over corrosion on connectors is certainly a factor.

That's not to say that there's something special about Apple. Other manufacturers could do the same, and some do although generally only at the bottom end of market.

Pick and compare your hardware carefully -- remember that any Apple computer can run Windows (and MacBook Pros are often rated as the "best Windows laptop"). Compare specifications carefully and you might find that the best price isn't where you expect it to be.

I bought my first (recent) Mac because I was looking for an extremely powerful laptop to act as my main desktop computer back in 2012. The MacBook Pro of the time had some very high specs, and came in about NZ$6k when upgraded. I wasn't looking for a Mac, and kept investigating. The nearest alternative was a Sony Vaio, although it had a lower resolution screen, maxed out at half the memory and slightly lower solid state storage, and was missing some other elements such as the latest Wifi and Bluetooth standards. It was NZ$8k at this level. I bought the MacBook Pro because it was cheaper and better than any of the alternative Windows devices at the time. Seven years later it's still a very powerful laptop, which a friend of mine is very happy with.

I replaced it with an iMac, in 2014. Although it was expensive, at $6k again, the computer came free because it was the same price as the monitor alone for any other computer. I sold my almost three year old laptop for just short of $4k. Non-Apple hardware doesn't have anything like this second-hand value.

The world and his dog will tell you how cheap it is to order an SSD online and stuff it in a computer. They might not tell you its throughput is 800, or 1000, or 1500Mb/s. Getting an SSD to give a real-life throughput of 3000Mb/s or so is nowhere near as easy, particularly in a laptop. Make sure every part of the spec matches with what you'd get in an equivalent Apple device, before checking the prices.

[nwdiver]

I find Mac OS more stable, 10 years ago I left the PC world for the dark side, now every 3-4 years I buy the newest MacBook Pro with the top CPU and minimum everything else.....I then max out the RAM and put in a boot ssd drive, run it until I upgrade again, I've never had a problem.

I burned out a Dell gaming laptop (not gaming, video and photo editing) every year all replaced under full warranty but it was a hassle having to do it regularly, yes I could have used other high end Laptop PCs, but then it would have been harder dealing with the repairs.....never have this problem with Apple...

[mike_kelly]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

No particular reason why one manufacturer should be more or less robust for the marine environment, but a significant factor is that many (not all) Apple laptops have soldered components (processor, memory, solid state storage) rather than these being separate components plugged into sockets. .

This kind of simply wrong information is why the internet is a dubious source of informtaion. NOBODY has used socketed components for decades. All current PCB are wave soldered with SMB components, period. Unless it is a socket made for adding more memory after the purchase, which is a good thing.


People seem to have to justify their costly Apple purchases or they were given bogus information at the start.

[mike_kelly]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

I find Mac OS more stable, 10 years ago I left the PC world for the dark side, now every 3-4 years I buy the newest MacBook Pro with the top CPU and minimum everything else.....I then max out the RAM and put in a boot ssd drive, run it until I upgrade again, I've never had a problem.

I burned out a Dell gaming laptop (not gaming, video and photo editing) every year all replaced under full warranty but it was a hassle having to do it regularly, yes I could have used other high end Laptop PCs, but then it would have been harder dealing with the repairs.....never have this problem with Apple...

I guarantee this is not normal. I have PC laptops that are 10 years old and still running and still being used from many different manufacturers.

[jleeglenn]

Now that all the computer geeks have spoken, can anyone answer the original question about Mac (iPad or laptop) running PredictWind . OCENS Mail &/or Navionics vs. the same applications on. PC laptop.

[mike_kelly]

Depends on what you want:



Designed for usage on a cellular or Wifi network the PredictWind App displays the high resolution forecasts on your mobile or tablet.


PredictWind PWG and PWE global models in addition to the ECMWF and GFS models for your offshore passage. Available for Windows, Mac and iOS.


If you want PredictWind app it will only run on tablets, your choice of IOS or Android.


So you need to be specific to determine you answer if you don't want a general comparision.

[B23iL23]

No difference. Any reasonably recent (2013+) PC or Mac could handle this with ease. None of these apps are resource hungry or need big honking graphics cards.


For Predictwind you will need a tablet and I would go with an Ipad only due to the large number of other compatible apps (non sailing) that you can run on it.

Originally Posted by jleeglenn

Now that all the computer geeks have spoken, can anyone answer the original question about Mac (iPad or laptop) running PredictWind . OCENS Mail &/or Navionics vs. the same applications on. PC laptop.

[Stu Jackson]

My son and I got laptops at almost the same time, back at the end of the Ice Age, around 2010.


We've both had to change batteries.


He has to use a jeweler's screwdriver and a microscope, and then fiddle with a tiny ribbon cable.


I push a button and my battery pops out. Lots less expensive, too.


We use it for pretty much the same things: internet. I do a lot more word processing than he does.


Point being, regardless of software one runs, whatever device you purchase should be serviceable. If not easily, then at least reasonably.



I think this relates to boats...

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by jleeglenn

Now that all the computer geeks have spoken, can anyone answer the original question about Mac (iPad or laptop) running PredictWind . OCENS Mail &/or Navionics vs. the same applications on. PC laptop.

They will run on a $100 android tablet.
They will run on my $50 android phone.