Sunday, April 20, 2008

Apple versus PC: a comparison

If you are a Mac fan you already know how better the Macs are compared to similar PCs. What many people think, however, is that this is just an exaggeration by Apple users.

In the past it was difficult to do any direct comparisons between Macs and PC, mainly because the processors used were so different. People always complained about comparisons that would show processors with the same speed, and not accounting for the differences in architecture between PCs and Macs.

Now that Apple has moved to use Intel processors on its whole line, it has become much easier to draw more meaningful comparisons. And they are starting to appear. For example, see this one from popular mechanics:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4258725.html?page=1

After matching two pairs of Macs and PCs, they reached the not-so-difficul-to-draw conclusion that Macs are much faster to start up and shut down, and perform much better in a set of stardard tasks.

Moreover, their tests show that Apple machines run Windows faster then similar PCs.

Still, this is not the ultimate test that is going to convince the hard-core PC followers. However, it shows that is becomming easier to make this kind of comparison, and the reality will eventually become clearer for everyone.