11 reasons Macs are better than Windows PCs

1. Reliable sleep mode

• The killer feature of every Mac which can't be underestimated  is OS X's 100% reliable, near-instant suspend and resume.
• Windows PCs have just never had this. Reliability on Windows is hit and miss, and it's nowhere near instant. As a result most people are in the habit of shutting down their PC totally -- or worse, leaving them on 24/7, chewing up power.
• The difference between Mac and Windows in this respect is the difference between broadband and dialup internet. Back in the 90s, many people couldn't see the point of paying extra for an always-on internet service, as "it only takes a minute to connect using the dialup…"

2. Extremely fast boot times

• Rebooting a Windows PC can be such a painful experience that you really procrastinate doing it. Unless you're running on the highest spec hardware, Vista can take minutes to start up.
• Mac OS X starts up from a cold boot in about 25 seconds on a current-gen MacBook Pro. As another journalist contributing to the discussion observed, this is not a faked boot speed, where the operating system maker has rushed to get the login window on screen, but delayed loading the rest of the OS. It's a genuine boot-to-usable-desktop time.

3. Apple uses good quality parts.

• Aside from the operating system, Mac hardware is usually good quality.
•  Apple's fit and finish doesn't generally bend and creak like the plastic panels on many PC laptops.
•  Apple's keyboards are high quality.
•  Apple selects good quality parts like very good LCD panels for its screens.

4. Less blinking lights.

Apple doesn't festoon its hardware with blinking lights and inconveniently placed wireless on/off buttons, headphone jacks, etc.

5. OS X + Windows is better than just Windows

• Ignoring Linux for a second, on a Mac I can legitimately run OS X and Windows (natively, or under virtualisation). On a PC I can only legitimately run Windows.
• It means I can use OS X for everything, but if there's the occasional application for Windows I need to use (specialised company application; MS Access; mobile phone firmware upgrader utilities) I can easily do use Windows.

6. Easier to troubleshoot Macs.

It's usually pretty easy to figure out what's going wrong with a Mac. There are three applications that help you and are all in one place and easy to find in the Applications/Utilities folder: 

• Activity Monitor (a more powerful version of Windows Task Manager)
  
• Console (which shows all system logs in one place)
  
• Disk Utility (which helps you identify disk integrity issues).
  

It's very rare that you can't get a decent hint of where a system problem lies from those three apps. On Windows, similar apps are available in the system, but they're more scattered and immeasurably more difficult for the average user to find.

7. Neat and contained system settings.

Apple is very neat with its OS config settings. In Windows, there's many, many places you can change system-wide settings -- the registry, add/remove programs, the hardware manager, the services manager, network connections, control panel, etc.

On a Mac, the OS config settings are basically all in the control panel (with a few exceptions -- notably, the default browser can only be changed through Apple's own Safari browser -- evil.)

8. Apple doesn't load the system up with crap.

Oh sure, Apple festoons its OS with hooks into online services designed to get you to spend money. But on the whole, Apple's festooning with vendor-specific services is much less intrusive than on Windows. -image-

Just about every (brand name) PC sold comes loaded up with junk that keeps popping up at you reminding you your six month trial is about to run out, and some apps are deliberately difficult to uninstall. 

9. Tonnes of small reasons make Mac OS X better.

There are a large number of very small reasons a Mac is great to work on:

• every version of OS X has sophisticated screenshot capability built in. CMD+4 provides a selector marquee. CMD+4+Spacebar takes just one window. CMD+3 takes the whole screen. You can set the format of the screenshot file and where Mac OS saves it.
• The inbuilt image viewing app is powerful -- it can view PDF and open/export to most other image formats; you can crop, resize, rotate, adjust colour balance, etc.
• Expose lets you quickly see all your open windows, or your desktop, or just the windows of your current app. Way better than ALT+Tab (which Macs also have) or Flip 3D (which Macs thankfully don't have.)
• The Dock is much more efficient to use than the Windows start menu and taskbar -- the icon opens an app or returns to it if it's already open. It doesn't become crowded when you have lots of windows open.
• Target disk mode allows you to boot a Mac into a mode where the whole machine acts like an external hard drive. Plug it to another Mac using Firewire and you have the easiest way in the world to do a system-to-system drive mirror. (Though, disappointingly, Apple didn't include this feature in its latest MacBook.)
• Quick look lets you view pretty much all major file formats by clicking on the file and pressing the space bar -- no need to wait for an app to launch. Windows simply doesn’t have this.

10. Still no need for additional security software.

• On a Mac, you don't have to run additional security software, which therefore doesn't slow down the computer, doesn't cause problems, and you don't have to shell out for an annual subscription for it.
• This is an enormously contentious point. Some people will argue black and blue that you need to be a good citizen in the world and make sure you're scanning for Windows viruses on your Mac email in case you accidentally forward on a virus sent from one Windows user, to you, to another Windows user.

11. File sharing is much easier

• Sharing files between computers has always been something that feels like it should be a lot easier than it is. Of course, one of the reasons for this is the need for security, which is opposed to ease of use, because security is about putting up barriers.
• But it's also about user interface design. Mac OS hasn't always been easy for sharing between computers; in fact I'd say it's only 10.5 which has got it mostly right. But in 10.5 it actually is easy enough for ordinary users to use -- if you want to share the files on your computer, you switch on file sharing in control panel.
• Shared computers on the local network appear in any file management window in OS X like a disk drive -- and when you try to open them, you'll be prompted for a system username and password.
• It's the first form of computer file sharing that really puts it in front of the average user's eyes without them having to do anything to get to it.