Buy a Mac
About 7 years ago, Russell persuaded me to buy a Macbook. It was a refurbished white Macbook bought from Apple directly. After 2 weeks of adjusting to it, I became a Mac fan. 7 years on I'm typing this article on a Macbook Pro (my 5th Mac computer) and I am still a Mac fan.
The things that drew me to the Mac:
- The combination of hardware and software just works
- The applications are easy to use and there is usually no need to use a manual
- It is possible to be very creative - out of the box you get a suite of creativity applications - back in 2007 this was iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband.
- The application development environment, Xcode, was free.
- The Genius bar is great. If you have a problem, Apple will help you in their store.
I have had a few problems with the Mac but nothing major:
- The plastic case cracked near the trackpad. This was a known issue and Apple just fixed it for me.
- On upgrading to a new release of Mac OS X, Apple completely changed the printing subsystem which meant that I could not print on my HP from my Mac for 40 days. Here is a very good reason not to upgrade early.
The creativity aspect made it fun to own a computer again. Since having a Mac I have taken better photographs and made videos. Windows is catching up particularly with the newer releases but I think that the Mac environment is more conducive for creativity. I still use a Windows machine at work because of the applications but I'm far more creative on my Mac.