For me it's a no-brainer - get a mac. They rock.

Use whatever works for you though - if you are happy with the pc stuff and don't want to change get a pc. The migration is a piece of cake these days though, Apple have put a lot of effort into making the setup process as simple as possible.

To make it easier plug in a two-button mouse, you'll feel more at home.

At uni we used macs for putting out the weekly newspaper for our course (journalism) and PC's just couldn't do that sort of work at the time.

Having said that, I worked in the corporate world - IT - and there were only PC's so I've had PC's for myself for years. Now I'm so use to them I find Macs too hard to use (yes, I know all the cries about how easy they are, once you're use to them).

I do my graphics on my PC and they are easy - admittedly I only do web and print graphics, nothing fancy and I've stayed away from Flash because of the usability problems for visitors as visitors are more important to me than fancy pictures.

A friend has a mac and has been told she has to upgrade if she wants to run a fashion design application - her mac is only 3-4 years old so I think that is an extra expense that puts me off. Plus she's had quite a few application problems that have taken up a heap of time.

I'm all set up for PCs so I'll stay with them. I've only had one virus problem in 15 years so that hasn't caused me to change systems.

So will all the mac guys create a hue and cry about a PC girl?

No the mac guys will not create a hue and cry, we just sit back and watch, listen and go "ok..."

i m surprised ... mostly people go with Mac ... but i will go with PC ..

My mouse died an untimely death... bye mousey... so I got a two button one, GREAT! plug and play no biggy.

Very interesting article on reliability of Laptop hardware here: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/apple-laptops-fourth-in-reliability-study-20091118-im8t.html

The actual report can be found here:
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

I think I can vouch for this to some extent. We see mostly HP and Dell laptops on our customer sites. I'm sure I've had more issues with the HP's, but I could never tell if we were just dealling with a larger base or what.

Sony often frustrate me as their product range and support is very tilted at the retail market. They are nice machines but come out with new revisions too frequenltly for large organisations who want a model they can keep buying for six months or more.

A factor in reliability is also transportation. I have a laptop that moves around the house but rarely gets taken on the road.

Dell, HP and Toshiba have large corporate bases that get given their laptop as part of the job and treat it as another tool to be tossed on the back seat of the car when you need to go somewhere. That makes Toshiba's record all the more better in my opinion.

I'm guessing that MacBooks are treated with love and care buy their doting owners.

Funny story, I went to connect a macbook to a windows network a couple of weeks ago. I asked how long they have had the macbook and they said 2 or more years. I asked how they liked it. The answer blew me away: "Can't stand it"

Hi Alex,

Yes it depends on what you want it for. I am a C++ programmer and so only pc for me.

When I was doing my degree though, I did a student exchange to Canada, and had my first experience with mac.

The reason that they used mac for their graphics was that the Macromedia software applications that do the graphics and cartooning, such as Macromedia Director, were originally designed to be run on macs.

And you know that when software is written to run on a particular platform it runs really well. And then when it is adapted to the other platform it runs ok but not as well as the platform it was designed for?

Well that is the case with Macromedia products, although I think Adobe bought them out so they are now adobe producst.

So.. my belief is, check out the software you are running that is most important to your graphics and then choose the platform it runs on best.

But you still won't get me switching to a mac, i love my pc.

Tried a Mac the other night. I thought they were supposed to be user friendly. Yes they are more friendly than DOS 3.1 was, I have to give them that.

But after a while I managed to install a solution to all of my problems. Microsoft's Remote Desktop client for Mac + a two button mouse. Now I can remotely access my office PC using the Mac. Problem solved