I have been asked dozens of times why I have not made the switch to a Mac for years. So when I bought a Mac a couple months ago, I thought all those “benefits” one gets from using a Mac (and OS X for that matter) will be put to test.
No Viruses. It has not been a problem for me in the last few years while running on Windows (I no longer use any anti-virus) so I don’t think it will be a problem on the Mac.
No Computer Crashes. I have had more crashes and computer freeze on my Macbook Air in a month than I’ve had in my Windows 7 laptop in 12 months. And I’m not exaggerating. Good thing there’s no blue screen of death here though — the Mac just gracefully exits.
Mac Energy Saver. The Mac has one of the best power saving features I’ve seen. I very seldom shut down the machine and always rely on sleep mode. But it’s not always a walk in the park. Like my Windows PC, I experienced my Mac not going to sleep after closing the lid. A few hours later, after fishing it out of the sleeve, I discovered it’s still running with the internal fan humming like crazy and heating up like it could cook a pancake.
I originally thought mine’s an isolated case but two other people I convinced to get the same exact MacBook Air had similar problems, though much less frequent than mine.
I guess I was just expecting too much from an OSX machine (my previous machine is an Acer Timeline which has lower specs than the Air). I love the hardware of my Macbook Air (see full review here). I even recommended it to a lot of people and I will still recommend it. I think it’s OS X that I am having issues with. Maybe I should just reformat and install Windows 7 instead.
@Pepe
and yet for some reason linux is stuck at the lowest end of the consumer market in terms of market share. Imagine that.
The two benefits of Mac stated above are also benefits of using Linux; and Linux is free
…not running the latest MBA but my 2 year old first-gen MBA works just fine. No problem at all, except for the tendency to overheat when running videos (like youtube). Extremely rare crashes. It’s a solid platform and I see no reason why this experience will not carry over with the latest MBA. And, yes, I’m a proud user of Apple (member of Philmug)………..and Microsoft products. he he he…
Nice :) For me, I seldom experience crashes, actually YES on Firefox and Safari + Flash.
Not sure about the Mac laptops not sleeping when the lid’s closed, haven’t experienced them; after having 2 Macbooks, 2 Macbook Pros and 1 Macbook Air.
I really like the ‘sleep’ feature. The MBPs I’m currently using for work, I seriously doesn’t shut them down. On one case, it took about 6months before it had it’s first restart.
I’m also a recent switcher (Switched to an i7 4GB MBP with 500GB HDD) and aside from the hard disk problems (fixed by yours truly,) I’m enjoying the Mac. I dabble in the graphic arts and I find myself running Sims 3 and Photoshop together without a hiccup. Ditto too with StarCraft 2 and Photoshop on Windows. The jealous looks from my colleagues is just icing on the cake.
there are issues with the macbook air (newer model) diba?…
@abe hindi kaya dipende sa macbook yan, baka sa Air lang, have you tried the bigger brothers. hehe
Palagay ko FF issue yan. Ang FF sa Mac ko patay na talaga. Whatever I do, re-install, installing early version, doesn’t help.
Why you don’t get viruses… You probably don’t surf for pron too often.
Windows 7 has so far crashed on me on only one occasion, and that was because of some 10.1 Flash glitch. Also experienced an OSX problem because of Flash.
Both systems are excellent really. It all boils down to preference if you pick one.
As for me, the 13-inch MBP is still the king of notebooks. Top-notch hardware and construction, and great OS.
For my workstation at home, nothing beats my assembled rig running Windows 7.
i never had a mac although i would love to have one…regarding your trouble with putting your hardware to sleep…you should always wait for the process to complete going to sleep mode before closing the lid…closing it midway disrupts that process hence the freezing on startup…or just turning of only the lcd when you close the lid too early…and defragmenting your files is a major factor in easy startup coming from a hibernate mode…having an organized directory of files makes your pc find itself where it left off…
i have the same experience as you… sadly switching to OSX was not any different for me compared to win7.
regarding viruses – the reason i get viruses is through my own negligence, more specifically i get them from malicious torrents that i forcefully tell myself to down… viruses on any windows machine can easily be avoided even without an anti virus
regarding crashes – both OSX and Win7 crash at some point or another, but both are pretty stable IMO. if your win7 keeps on crashing… check your hardware and “bloatware”
regarding battery life – admittedly win7 is a resource hog compared to OSX. i wish win7 was more optimized to run on lesser resources
however i will make the switch in the coming months. not because i have problems with win7, but rather i have problems with the hardware that runs it (sub par LCD screen, lack of QC to name a few) however i have no plans on giving up on win7. i actually plan to run bootcamp on my future machine and use that as my main OS *hoping stability issues will be fixed by then*
been using macbook pro latest model since april 2010. i had 2 crashes so far. pretty decent for me. battery life is superb. i can surf the net and watch movie and still have 50% of my power after that. windows? you poop on that because by the time the liv tyler is removing her bra, your power is down to 1%!!!
I still use windows though that’s why i have a bootcamp!
using Windows for almost 10 years and my pc never crashes nor freezes. i’m a Computer Science professional so i know the work-about on how to tame Windows not to crash
There is this issue about the 11.6-inch Macbook Air’s hinge not being as durable as its 13-inch brother… but the lid issue is not your main problem.
I did not install flash in my MBA. Might be that.
@rom – I actually did not completely dropped it since I was able to catch midway. It banged against the side table though with minor scratches. My old Acer Timeline went thru worse with at least 2 major drops from my bed.
The issues started fresh out of the box and was also the same with 2 other people I convinced to get the MacAir.
@Abe after dropping it? I wonder what that kind of a drop would do to your beloved PC. :D
Anyway, this is an isolated case – would love to help you troubleshoot it. Haven’t experienced a crash on a Mac in a looooonnnngggg time. However, looking back, did you re-install the OS or simply used it straight out of the box? Basic troubleshooting should identify the real issue and I doubt if it is Mac OS X – I suspect that it is Adobe Flash! Hahaha. I kid, but the possibility is there, of course.
One more thing – kung di uukol, di bubukol. You might not be the target demographics of Mac OS X, nor, I believe, you will be Linux’s. :)
Happy New Year, good ole friend! :)
I think the benefits cited by many people come from higher=specced macbooks from the white macbook up to the 17 inch Pro models. But OSX should work as effectively with the Air as any of the other models, since after all Apple develops everything. Hmmm. The Air is so sexy though.
@Nick Sounds like a good idea, if you run a Mac, Ubuntu is not all that different (unless you run the Netbook Edition with the new Unity desktop), and it should run pretty fast on a netbook. The most RAM I have managed to get it to use with a dozen programs running is a bit under 700MB.
just to be clear guys, what’s crashing on your end? An application running on OS X/Windows? Or the OS itself?
@Beerboy
Lots of the newer games coming out for Windows have OSX ports. And now that Steam is on OSX, lots of existing Steam games are getting ported as well. Although yeah, very few MMOs apart from WoW and those already on the Steam network.
Well atleast when an app crashes on a mac other apps don’t get affected. Personally, after almost 2 years of prefering Mac OS X I only got a negligible number of app crashes (usually Safari). Several kernel panics, but of my own fault. Psychologically, I feel much more productive in OSX, especially with photoshop, indesign, and cinema 4D. Then again, I still use Windows 7 when I play SC2. When I’ll get a netbook, I’ll run it on Ubuntu :)