32 Reasons why PCs are Better than Macs

[UPDATE! See our new list of "32 Reasons why PCs are better than Macs" here. Three years after we posted the list below, we've decided to revisit each argument.]

"Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.” So claimed Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, long before Steve Jobs was even an Apple in his mother’s eye. But Santayana’s prophetic sound bite perfectly describes Apple’s omnipresent “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” campaign.

For the benefit of those readers who’ve been droving in the Dandenongs for the last few months, the campaign portrays the PC as a crash-prone, virus-ridden, boring, office workhorse. A stereotype that’s so 1995, we’re amazed. How has the victim of these laughable slurs reacted? Aside from a few catty comments from Bill Gates, the world’s richest company – a corporation renowned for bullying its competitors – has meekly rolled with the punches. So, in light of Microsoft’s total lack of response, PC Authority has stepped in to defend the Windows corner. We’ve got 32 solid reasons why the PC is better than the Mac, ranging from the over-inflated price tag on Apple’s hardware to the under-valued ability to build your own PC from scratch. And we demolish the vast majority of the spurious claims made by Apple’s ad gurus in the process.

Of course, PC Authority isn’t immune to the Mac’s charms. Recently, we found that an Apple computer was one of the fastest systems we’d ever tested. So to prove we’re not PC bigots, we’ve invited our colleagues from MacUser magazine to offer ten reasons why the Mac is superior. Following this feature, we’ve also provided an in-depth guide to running Windows on a Mac, allowing you to reap the benefits of both platforms.

1 - Service packs don’t cost $199
Since Mac OS X was launched in 2001, there have been four “new versions” of the operating system – Puma, Jaguar, Panther and Tiger – with a fifth, Leopard, due imminently. That’s almost one a year, each costing a princely $199 – racking up a total bill of close to $1000 for anyone who’s bought every version. And they say Windows is expensive.

Apple has effectively introduced the first subscription operating system, and has somehow gotten away with it. If Microsoft had done likewise, Bill Gates would have been before the anti-competition courts quicker than you could say, “isn’t $199 a bit steep for a service pack?”. The Mac zealots claim that each new cat really is a new operating system, but that argument doesn’t bear scrutiny. Take Panther (Mac OS X 10.3): the Apple press release hails “more than 150 breakthrough new features”, the pick of which are a new “Finder”, a way to see all your open windows at once, and bundled video-messaging software. God knows how insignificant the other 147 were.

2 - No price premium for flashy design
There still isn’t a PC maker on the planet that can hold a candle to Apple when it comes to product design. But not everyone wants or needs a computer that looks like it fell off the back of a Bang & Olufsen lorry. Macs routinely cost more than their PC equivalents. The cheapest Mac you can buy, the Mac mini, costs $949 and comes with a piddling 60GB hard disk, a meagre 512MB of RAM and no screen. Pop over to Dell, and that same $949 will buy you a Dimension E520 Vista PC with a 160GB hard disk, 1GB of RAM and a 19in flat panel display. Dell’s cheapest system costs just $898 at the time of writing. We’re not expecting Dell’s bargain-basement models to trouble our A List anytime soon, and Kate Moss wouldn’t be seen dead near one, but they’ll suffice for a cheap office PC that sits under a desk all day or a computer for the kids’ homework. Mac buyers simply don’t have that choice.

3 - Thousands of decent games
“I was designed for the home,” scream the Mac ads. You were? Then how come you’ve got such a poor bunch of games? At the time of writing, the top-selling Mac games on Amazon.com were World of Warcraft (yawn), Crazy Machines: The Wacky Contraptions Game (What the?!) and The Sims II – a two-year-old title designed for loners who need imaginary friends to compensate for the lack of actual people in their pitiful lives. Want the adrenaline-filled 3D action and spectacular graphics of Rainbow Six: Vegas? Or, a spin round the track at high-velocity in a beautifully rendered Porsche in Test Drive Unlimited? Want to revisit a seminal classic such as Half-Life 2? Sorry, you can’t. Computer says no. That’s not to mention the fact that the PC has a near-monopoly on all the decent graphics hardware. And even if you did want to upgrade your Mac’s graphics, you probably couldn’t anyway. “Nvidia graphics options for Apple desktops and notebooks can only be purchased through Apple or as Apple update kits,” warns Nvidia’s website. If you’re even halfway serious about gaming, you need a PC.

4 - Two mouse buttons
Yes, we know Macs are meant to be so simple your Grandma could partition the hard disk while solving the Countdown conundrum, but do they really need to be dumbed down to use only one mouse button? A monkey with Attention Deficit Disorder could master two buttons, but Apple’s (seemingly not ironically named) Mighty Mouse resorts to a single mouse click by default. Yes, you can easily tweak the driver for two buttons or simply plug in a normal mouse, but a firing squad is too lenient for the imbecile who decided that pressing Ctrl and left-click was a better out-of-the-box solution than a single press of the right button.

5 - Broadband just works
It’s hardly their fault, but our poor Mac friends aren’t always well served by the ISPs. Broadband modems can fail to work properly on Macs (especially with Bigpond cable), and when customers attempt to phone the tech-support lines for assistance, they’re none too amused when the script-reading person at the other end tells them to “click on the Start button and select Control Panel”. Finding a reliable ISP is hard enough; finding one that also supports Macs is a headache you really don’t need.

6 - Custom-made systems
Gaming PCs, video workstations, media centres, digital photo PCs, build-your-own, mini-chassis, midi-towers, business PCs… need we go on? There are dozens of different desktop PC configurations that can be fine-tailored with thousands of specialist components to meet a buyer’s requirements. How many flavours do Mac desktops come in? Three. Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro. If none of those meets your needs, take a hike.

The open architecture of the PC platform, on the other hand, gives you access to an immense range of configurations, enabling you to tailor a PC to your needs without wasting money on capabilities you won’t use. It also means you can make modular upgrades, such as fitting a new CPU and motherboard without having to replace your existing graphics card and hard drives. Try that with an iMac.

7 - Macs are months behind
If you want cutting-edge hardware, you need a PC. Remember when the Intel Core CPU was released? Apple finally jumped ship from IBM processors, even though PC processors had been outstripping the PowerPC G5 CPU for years. But even though the agreement was trumpeted from the rooftops by Intel and Apple, it still took months for the complete Mac range to go fully Intel. Core 2 was even worse, with almost the whole PC market having them before Apple shipped a single Core 2 Mac. The same is true of almost all new technology. Not only is there no option to buy a desktop or laptop Mac with an internal HD DVD or Blu-ray drive, you can’t buy an internal Mac-compatible one at all. The same is again true of graphics: while the PC has up-to-the-minute 3D video hardware, Macs are an entire generation behind. And while PC users have had super-fast draft 802.11n wireless for nearly two years, Apple users have only just acquired it.

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.