So what are these downsides of a Mac? The only things that come to mind is price and limitations on gaming and customization in general. However, it's not hard to get a Hackintosh where the specs can easily be beefed up for a reasonable price.
Windows Vista was definitely a dark time for Microsoft. My old XP laptop finally fave out after 5 years, and because I didn't want to deal with Vista, I got a Mac instead. Love it, enjoy it, and have found plenty of uses for it.
And torrenting Windows 7 is not a justification for cheapness, because that's not what the majority go by when upgrading.
- You act as if a system that costs 1.5x as much as its counterparts (not to mention more rigid as well) isn't really that big of a deal. Granted, a Hackintosh avoids the issues somewhat but the fact remains that Apple computers are expensive and their parts are expensive.
- Vista was super bad. Won't see me denying that (then again I'm no MS fanboy so I call it like it is). Thing is, though, XP (and now Win 7) are very solid operating systems. They are both fast (enough) and are (in the case of Win7) very pleasant to look at.
- Just because the majority doesn't take a route doesn't mean it isn't a valid route to take. See: Hackintosh example. While I'm on the subject of torrents I'd like to add that the torrent clients for the Mac suck. Trust me, I spent hours trying to find a good one on my old MacBook.
A good anti-virus costs more money that you need to add to the price tag of your Windows computer. And it's more like somewhere between 75% and 80% of people use Windows as their OS, not 90%. 90% was a while ago.
While there are less video games for Mac (and as already pointed out: easy to get around), Macs tend to be the preferred platform for arts based stuff, such as music and movie making, though I don't know why seeing as I don't look for those types of programs. >_> I do know that the default media stuff on Mac > default media stuff on Windows however.
You can also get a Mac for quite cheap actually, if you already have a keyboard, monitor, and mouse you like: just buy one of those Mini-Mac things...forget the exact name. IIRC, they cost about $500. Not comparing apples to apples here (lol stealth pun), but it does prove that not every option to get a new Mac is an expensive one.
A slightly different, funny note: apparently, according to Best Buy, they have lost 1/3 of their PC sales to the iPad. And I thought that thing was going to flop.
- The best anti-virus programs are the ones with an MSRP of zero. Microsoft's official anti-malware program is actually NOT a steaming pile, much to my surprise. And most of them are lightweight, to be honest. They don't require many resources.
- The default stuff on Windows blows. Again, I don't deny this sort of thing. Windows has many more programs that you can download and use to customize the computer thanks to the larger user base, naturally. And I guess the 'arts and music' image is sort of due to Macs being 'more liberal' than other computers, as if one metallic case can be more liberal than another, haha.
- If you already have a keyboard, monitor and mouse you can build a PC for like 300 dollars, lol. Won't be a GOOD PC but it'll still have better specs than the Mac Mini. My sister had one of those (before it broke randomly) and it was ridiculously underpowered. But it looked nice, so I guess I can see why she liked it.
- As far as the iPad goes, it had no chance of flopping. Mac fanatics wouldn't permit that sort of thing. That said, I used an iPad a while ago and was impressed by it. Still too expensive for my tastes but I may look into it later.
Just to reiterate my take on this: I don't think Macs are a bad choice if you don't mind shelling out extra cash for the sake of simplicity (and if all you're going to do is listen to iTunes, go ahead!) but I figure that the rigidity of the Mac platform makes it look less appealing than Windows and much less appealing than Linux. I've tried to use Linux several times, however, and it lacks that 'It just works!' feel that PCs and Macs have, so I'm sort of bummed out. Even the mainstream Linux stuff like Fedora or Ubuntu needs a ton of customization that you wouldn't even think twice about on a more mainstream platform.
