A Month with a Mac: A Die-Hard PC User's Perspective
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 8, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
The Hardware
Despite the fact that I started this lengthy article talking about how difficult it is to write because I'm not evaluating a piece of hardware, I have saved discussion about the Apple hardware until the end. Now that we're almost there, it is time to talk about the G5 hardware itself.The machine itself is quite heavy thanks to massive processor heatsinks and a generally heavy case. As with most Apples in recent history, the G5 tower is easily accessible - flip a lever at the back and pull off one of the side panels. The motherboard is obviously a low production custom design, but the board and the internals of the box seem much more like what you'd find inside an x86 server rather than a desktop PC.
There are a total of 8 DIMM sockets on the motherboard, requiring 1GB modules to meet the 8GB memory limit the system supports. The memory, as I've mentioned before, is the same DDR400 that you use in PCs, but the motherboard is quite picky about the SPD programming on the modules. The modules that the board supports are also quite slow, with very conservative memory timings (3-3-3-8). I don't believe that I've ever tested anything that slow on a PC before. Luckily, you can get G5-compatible DDR400 from more sources than just Apple; OCZ was the first to send me some compatible sticks, both 512MB and 1GB versions that worked perfectly. Other manufacturers also have Mac-lines of their memory.
The system is incredibly quiet. I'd say that it's definitely on par with the quietest PCs I've ever used. You do notice it when the fans spin up and yes, upgrading to a Radeon 9800 Pro did make the system noticeably louder - courtesy of the 9800 Pro's fan. The 9600 that ships with the system is passively cooled, so it managed to spoil me.
As I mentioned before, the 2GHz G5 processors that were in the system didn't "feel" slow, but they definitely didn't feel like the fastest things out there. The system itself could use a little kick in the pants. I'm hoping that the new 2.5GHz system will alleviate some of that feeling, but at another $3000, it's difficult to justify the upgrade. That being said, it's not a system with which I find myself complaining about speed - mostly due to the performance of a couple of key applications as well as OS X's excellent job of caching.
The keyboard and mouse both look great but fall flat on their face when it comes to functionality. For a company that has seemingly done a good job of allowing form and function to go hand in hand, and for a company that has developed some of the best human interfaces to digital technology, the input devices are a strange enigma.
The Apple displays are impressive, I started using them with a PC well before I ever thought about buying and using a Mac. The problem again comes down to cost. At $3000 for a top of the line system, adding a pair of Apple displays onto the bottom line is a tough pill to swallow. Luckily, you can use any DVI monitor with the machine, which cuts down the barrier to entry by a little bit.
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addragyn - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
RE: Safari's SpeedThere is a delay built into the browser.
You can reduce it - http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4924
David Hyatt is a Safari developer @ Apple, he covered this on his blog - http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004...
Zak - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
The biggest problem with the article I sa so far is overlooking the iApps. Also, the apps equivalents are not correct. Entourage is Outlook counterpart and there is Acrobat Reader for OSX as well. Other than that it's a good article, but it's clear that Anand missed some things and got some others wrong, like the mentioned mouse cable, etc.Zak
azkman - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
This was a very good editorial/experience piece. Compared to other articles by Windows-users trying Macs, it was very open-minded. However, I have to agree with some of the earlier posters. The hardware used was dated, and the reviewer did not mention some of the key strengths of the Mac platform.It seems to me that Windows-users are fixated on certain characteristics and define a computer by MHz, framerate, etc, and this came out to a certain degree in the review. The author readily admits that he is used to writing hardware pieces for this type of audience, and again, I applaud him for his open-mindedness.
Here is some information for posters and readers who want to learn more about Apple's computers and understand the overall value equation:
price - http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/36120.html
performance - http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/36964.html
proof - http://www.tcf.vt.edu/systemX.html
http://www.colsa.com/cover_page/news_front/news_de...
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke%5C6133.html
http://www.pcmag.com/review/0%2C2491%2Cs%3D1564&am...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1369037,00.as...
Applications & tools included in the price (beyond normal MS Windows offerings):
video conferencing (high quality, easy to set-up, easy to use)
music creation
jukebox / music management / cd burning
photo management
movie editing
dvd authoring & burning
all-purpose search tool
PDF export from any printable page
font management
full development environment (c, c++, objective c, java, scripting...)
full unix shell, w/ x11
Yes, I know a few of these applications are included with Windows, but I work in a tech-savvy Windows-dominant company and none of my co-workers use the bundled programs. In fact, most of them don't video conference or edit videos.
Anyway, the Mac is really an "experience" in that the traditional concept of a computer disappears and the Mac becomes an extension of what the user wants to do. That is of course unless the user wants to work specifically with Windows issues. The value of a Mac comes from its ability to empower the user to do terrific things straight out of the box without thinking about things like viruses and security while also being a supercomputer-class piece of equipment.
rxmz - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Thanks, very good article.I agree with some earlier posts that the Unix aspect of Mac OS X is a big advantage over Windows. I have a company web server and mail server (with IMAP and web mail access) running on the same G4 tower that is used as a desktop (not an ideal setup, I know, but it has to suffice for now ;-). I have PostgreSQL, cvs, and Subversion installed on my PowerBook. I can ssh to the office to administer the mail or web server. The Unix foundation is a terrific aspect of the OS.
Anand, you might want to take a look at Camino for web browsing. And if you have a chance, check out the capabilities of AppleScript; it's cool now and only going to get more accessible to non-power users when Tiger comes out.
mjtomlin - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
oops one other point to make on the GUI responsiveness ...OS X GUI is timed. Things happen at a constant rate based on time not on CPU speed ... a lot of bench-markers like to use the scrolling test ... to see which system is faster. This is not a vaild test, because Mac OS X times the speed. This is actually a feature of the system. The whole point of scrolling was to quickly skim through a document. If the system scrolls through the document too fast, how do you know what you're missing?
A lot of the GUI is designed like this ... that is, someone actually thought about the purpose of the feature and made sure it remained useful.
To get to the end of a document, just drag the scroll bar down to the bottom or press the "end" key on the keyboard ... you'll be there in less than a second, that was those were designed for.
mjtomlin - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
A couple of points...#1 - i thought it was a fairly good article. You have to remember he was not writing a definitive guide to OS X/PowerMac. This was his take on the system from a Windows user perspective. There is obviously going to be a lot of details left out and many misunderstood "features"
#2 - poster #60 regarding patching security issues... Apple has been releasing security fixes for OS X ever since it was released. I believe we're up to a couple a month in fact. Most OS X users update their systems without incident and continue on... The biggest difference between OS X security patches and those for Windows is that all the security fixes for OS X are for issues that have NOT been exploited yet.
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SECURITY ISSUES IN ANY OPERATING SYSTEM.
But because of OS X's open source base (Darwin/BSD) most security issues are discovered before they're ever exploited. The opposite of this is true under Windows.
#3 Dual CP's are not necessarily faster than a single CPU ... You have to remember, this is only true if the application that you're running is multi-threaded. And the OS itself is highly tuned for multi-tasking.
The GPU in the PowerMac does the screen drawing, so it doesn't make a difference how many CPU's are in the system.
#4 GUI responsiveness ... OS X using buffering to draw the GUI, Windows does not. This is obvious as seen under slower systems when trying to move windows around... XP will leave screen "artifacts" (garbage) ... OS X windows appear to "jerk" and "jump"
the end.
shuste73 - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
I'm a Linux user (Slackware), and one of the biggest challenges to Linux continues to be the very people that are trying to promote it - poor, misguided zealots that reflect poorly on the entire community.Judging from the feedback to this article, I see that the Mac users are generally no different. It's a shame.
I thought the article was very good, personally, from the perspective of a long-time Microsoft user-turned-Slacker.
indd - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Although this is experiential writing I'm really surprised at the understatement of the difference between the OS's. The effort Apple has put into usability results in a very solid feel for the OS. Windows really feels very unsophisticated in comparison, especially in error handling.Which brings me to the fact that I'm disappointed to see the page on crashing so glossed over. Need examples of the Mac crashing to back it up! It really appeared like something was omitted here.
Reading the article leaves me with the feeling he really loves Windows, and still brought a lot of old anti-mac feelings into the experience. I don't want to sound harsh here, just relating my reactions to the article.
At least he tried :)
asimuth - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
One of the hardest things I have ever tried to do was explain to someone why I use a Mac and why it is a different experience. In the end the explanation always comes down to "it is the little things". Your article was the best review I have read. You had a clearly stated experiential bias and you refused to let past predjudices get in the way of a thgoughful review.As a softcore geek I am disappointed that my platform of choice did not knock it out of the ballpark for you. Having said that, I think your criticisms are very valid. I will certainly want to refer people to this article to give them some idea of why I'm a Mac user.
In my working life I am the development manager for a small software company - windows only. You cannot imagine how frustrating it is to be without the small thoughtful additions that make my OSX experience.
: )
BopTop - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Great article, I haven't touched an apple computer since the powerpc days.An article like this will always have detractors, that apple hardware and pc hardware weren't comparable, dual cpu or single, etc. All I can say is re-read the first page - this wasn't to compare hardware, or really software. It was to compare the "experience" of using a system that has a different work method.
That's exactly what the article did, and did it excellently.