This is a technological debate that has been raging on since the distinction was made between the two types of hardware. If you were to stumble into a technology conference and to shout out “Microsoft is a rubbish company compared to Apple” or “PCs are much better than MACs” then you would end up in an outright verbal war with many fanatics.

In this article, I am going to be distinguishing the 3 major variations between the aforementioned types of hardware so that you can decide what brand best suits you.

Design

If you happen to have grown up in the 1980s then the concept of design may appear to be a trivial aspect of a computer, although this is one of the more recognisable factors that has caused the differentiation between MACs and PCs. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs spent a good three decades focusing on the outward appearance of his companies’ products. His enthusiasm and attention to detail was unmatched by competitors and many claim that Apple still hold the crown today for having unique design and generally just a “cool” image.

Microsoft on the other hand, have always been known to produce products with ‘substance over style’ in mind although in recent years they have strived to make their PCs more design orientated but despite best endevours, they have not yet managed to reach Apple’s level of ingenuity. That being said, PCs don’t come from a single manufacturer and there are hundreds of different designs on the market ranging from the pragmatic design of everyday business PCs to the futuristic styled Alienware gaming PCs.

Price

This factor is entirely dependent on what you intend to use your computer for. There are few Mac products which will sell for less than £700 whilst reasonably powerful custom built PCs can cost as little as £200 – £300. This isn’t a case of Apple over charging for computers with similar specifications, they have simply chosen to build their MAC line around higher-end computers with much improved and more costly components.

Even if the computer you’ve chosen to buy has the same amount of USB ports, RAM, hard-drive capacity, graphics and so forth; each of them are bound to have different pre-installed software which also greatly influences the price.

If you’re just going to be using your computer for basic functions such as: word processing and web browsing then buying a MAC would be unnecessary. Whereas if you had plans to use it for video editing and processing on a weekly basis then it may be worth the price tag.

Operating Systems

This has been a long standing difference between PC and MAC. Currently you can upgrade your Mac computer to OS X Mavericks whereas PCs come pre-installed with Windows 8. There have been years where certain Microsoft operating systems have been regarded as the worse of the two. One instance would be Windows Vista – many users claimed that it was often sluggish, prone to crashing and was infested with dozens of dialogue boxes. Despite this, Microsoft have made continuous improvements and stability updates since then with the addition of Windows 7. And then they have further increased functionality, layout and personalisation with Windows 8 although this could be criticised for its worsened user interface.

In 2006 Apple introduced its Boot Camp software which enables users to install Windows on intel-based Macs. Nowadays, there are many programs which facilitate this operation, for example: VMware Fusion, Virtualbox, Parallels Desktop. On the other hand, you aren’t supposed to install Mac operating systems on any Windows PC. The process of getting it to work can be tricky and if accomplished, can perform badly. These types of machines are termed Hackintoshes and if you try to sell them you can get on bad terms with Apple to put it lightly.

Thanks for reading my article. In the end, the decision to purchase a Mac or PC should be determined by personal preference.

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