All-In-One PC or All-In-One Apple Mac

[Tarquin Farquhar]

Unless it's VERY obscure, it will be downloaded for you when you first switch on (if the printer is attached).

They used to ship with every printer driver (ever), but they stopped that from Snow Leopard.

Not quite. I got a Mac last year with Leopard, and it didn't have a driver for my Samsung ML2251N, which is still quite a common printer and which I had bought earlier in the same year. Worse, there isn't a driver for it! But there is advice all over the web, and many another Samsung printer driver works fine on it. But it was an unpleasant sensation reminiscent of the earlier days of PCs, when the OS wouldn't provide a driver for your printer, and the manufacturer wouldn't provide a driver for your OS.

Don't let it put you off, though: result in a few words: sorted rapidly.

And BTW if it really hadn't worked, even after 2 days with the Mac there was no question that it would be the printer that would be going. I resisted Apple for many years because of distaste for twee look and ridiculously OTT fan base, but when I actually used it, it just felt right, immediately.

[realityhack]

Ah, the age old debate of Mac v PC. It used to be about Chipset/OS/Build Quality... now more like OS/Build quality.

I'm not overly loyal to computer brands/specifications - I mostly just want something that will do the job, quickly, and with the least amount of frustration/impediment between my goals, the actions needed to fulfill them, and the confirmation/feedback from the system involved.

I also quite like these systems to be reliable and robust - as I use demanding software that tends to cripple the average laptop.

I've used Macs from about 1986, a ZX speccy, BEEB Micro, Windows PCs from 1990ish, Acorn (lovely machines), Amiga, Commodore, various embedded OSes for CNC milling, plotting, then the world of DEC stations/SUN Solaris/X-Windows... and more recently, lots of flavours of 'NIX distros, Win XP, Vista, Mac OSX...

And I have to say, in terms of user interface design standards, internal/external consistency, visibility, forgiveness, mapping, resilience and integrity - Macs are in the lead at the moment.

I like LINUX GUIs, but you really have to be an expert-high level user to make the most of them. There is too much reliance on help & documentation. Windows is a constant source of frustration for me, I have to use them for business but sometimes get the urge to firebomb MS HQ. Macs seem to have a lot of the benefits of a LINUX distro - but the UI is in a different league altogether from the likes of Ubuntu.

It. Just. Works.

And that's without considering the product design, and the build quality, which has clearly been given much thought.

Yes, I'm a designer - but I'm not what I would consider to be a Mac fanboi. Like I said above - I'm not overly loyal to the brands either way. But as a designer who knows a thing or two about usability - I think they're the only sensible option.

And if you get a decent VM running Windows + whatever you like in the background - then why not?

Re the support issue - absolutely agree with buying from a good reseller - not amazon or direct. I've had no problems with support when things have gone wrong. Macs aren't perfect by any stretch - but they're halfway there.

[Sysman]

I have been buying Mac for a good 15 years or so now and I would say buy from a local Apple reseller. Do not buy from the Apple Store!

What think you of Apple Care on a product like this? I know a few folks who swear by it for laptops (if the screen goes wonky, it's already paid for itself), but don't know about the iMac range.

[Moscow Mule]

Re the support issue - absolutely agree with buying from a good reseller - not amazon or direct. I've had no problems with support when things have gone wrong. Macs aren't perfect by any stretch - but they're halfway there.

Really? I've had nothing but good service from the apple store (where I've bought all of my macs). Had a hard drive fail on my imac, took it into the shop about noon (which is admittedly very handy for me) and it was replaced the same day.
I did a Time Machine restore and was back running by 9pm the same day.

I don't know about buying a new one from a reseller - what benefit does it give?

[gingerjedi]

why buy brand spankers?

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/hom...co=MTM3NTA4Mzk

£1500 for a second hand laptop...

[sasguru]

You gits! I'm going to have get a 27 " IMac now.
However the only reason I've resisted so far is that the software I use most (SAS) only works on Vista Ultimate or Business.
What's the best software to emulate this on the Mac OS?

[Moscow Mule]

£1500 for a second hand laptop...

Similarly specced machine...

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/busi...bsd&cs=ukbsdt1

[Moscow Mule]

You gits! I'm going to have get a 27 " IMac now.
However the only reason I've resisted so far is that the software I use most (SAS) only works on Vista Ultimate or Business.
What's the best software to emulate this on the Mac OS?

I've used parallels & VM Fusion (admittedly not the latest version of either).

They are much of a muchness, but I only use them for browser compatibility checking - nothing meaty.

[Durbs]

I've used parallels & VM Fusion (admittedly not the latest version of either).

They are much of a muchness, but I only use them for browser compatibility checking - nothing meaty.

As far as i am aware, Parallels will handle pretty much anything Windows wise?

I've been looking to get it to run Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008 on the Mac for development as i'm interested in the iPhone MonoTouch thing.

Had looked into whether VS and SQL will run within Parallels and it seems they do beautifully so guess if it can run these, it'll do pretty much 'owt.

[Sysman]

I don't know about buying a new one from a reseller - what benefit does it give?

The advantage of a reseller for me is that I can pick someone local, making it less hassle if I need to take something back.

As it happens a new Apple dealer has opened nearby, so close that I wouldn't even bother getting the car out.