Is it worth buying a Mac purely on the basis of reliability

londonman81

I'm probably going to open up an age-old can of worms, but here goes anyway....


My problem: I have two PC's from a well known manufacturer, around 3 years old each, one of which has seen minimal usage and yet they both still keep crashing and giving errors etc. Infact I had my first Blue screen within a few days of receiving one of them.

As a result, I am now wondering whether it is worth considering a Mac as my next purchase, simply to have something that works and does what it is supposed to do and which lasts in proportion to its usage.


It is certainly more expensive to purchase a Mac, and the software too, but for the sake of having something that actually does what it is supposed to do I am prepared to take the financial hit.

So shall I make the switch to Mac to avoid this PC grief??

n1ck75

Instead of wasting your money on a 'brand' name which has the same hardware you have in your pcs - why not try out linux on them first?
Mac's are based on BSD so you'll pretty much have to learn a whole new OS by switching over anyway.
And i'm afraid Mac's don't 'just work' - they're plagued faults just like all OS's

Blackpool_Saver

I would be interested to hear what you installed/didn't install on both of the computers which developed faults so early on, forgive me, I don't mean to be rude but it does seem odd.

londonman81

Blackpool_Saver wrote: »

I would be interested to hear what you installed/didn't install on both of the computers which developed faults so early on, forgive me, I don't mean to be rude but it does seem odd.

One of them has MS Office etc but nothing out of the ordinary, while the other is relatively 'clean'. The clean one is less problematic but still has a couple of issues.

I find it irritating that every 3 years I have to buy a new PC as I don't feel like I got full use out of the old one....

Richie-from-the-Boro

londonman81 wrote: »

I'm probably going to open up an age-old can of worms, but here goes anyway....


My problem: I have two PC's from a well known manufacturer, around 3 years old each, one of which has seen minimal usage and yet they both still keep crashing and giving errors etc. Infact I had my first Blue screen within a few days of receiving one of them.

As a result, I am now wondering whether it is worth considering a Mac as my next purchase, simply to have something that works and does what it is supposed to do and which lasts in proportion to its usage.


It is certainly more expensive to purchase a Mac, and the software too, but for the sake of having something that actually does what it is supposed to do I am prepared to take the financial hit.

So shall I make the switch to Mac to avoid this PC grief??

It's your money, your choice. Are you talking laptops or desktop, they will have different hardware hardware repair incidence / costs. In software terms I've no idea I'd have to look it up.

It's a few years since I saw any comparative figures but I suspect that the general repair / reliability between Apple & non-Apple builds will be more or less [ if properly maintained by the owner ] the same.

99% of problems come directly from the owner of the product, but in your case it sounds like you had a very unfortunate experience with your vendor. Machines I built 5 years ago are still going strong and are only just now being replaced with Win7 capable kit!

In conclusion, no I don't think it's worth it if your criteria is reliability over cost. You decide if it's an awful lot of - or a lot of awful, personally it's a lot of extra money on a speculative [ dependabilty ] maybe.

DatabaseError

I build my own PCs, the only times I have "issues" with them is if I overclock them a little too far (my own fault) or if one of my kids install crapware onto theirs...which is extremely rarely, at 11 yr old I have them pretty well trained, though I know in a year or 2 they're gonna be wanting to try pornsurfing..leading to a whole raft of extra security being implemented, none of which will guarantee success.
I believe that "PCs are unreliable" is a myth, undoubtedly there are millions of users with problems, but the vast majority, having taken extremely simple measures to generate security, are safe and reliable.
...but, macs are beautiful machines!

Marty_J

Macs are very reliable, but PCs can be very reliable too. It's just the cheap ones that aren't.

Your dilema isn't really Mac vs PC, it's premium computer vs budget computer. You can buy Dells that cost the same as Macs, and those Dells are very different beasts from the £300 ones they sell.

Macs certainly have their advantages over PCs though; the software that comes with them is generally much better (iLife is worth the price of admission alone), you don't really have to worry so much about viruses and what not, they are (IMHO) easier to use (though some adjustment will be required if you're moving from Windows), and the hardware is the best designed hardware you can buy, bar none.

It's up to you really. If you like the advantages a Mac offers, go for it.

DCFC79

Its a bit of an expensive outlay isnt it, if it was me(being a money saving forum) id look at why the faults are happening or even try out linux and see what happens,

DatabaseError

Marty_J wrote: »

Your dilema isn't really Mac vs PC, it's premium computer vs budget computer.

I couldn't have put it better myself (and didn't), it's like comparing mercedes, bmw and tata. The premium cars, like their computer counterparts (premium PC + Mac), have many similarities besides their differences, and you'd expect similar performance etc.. from each. The tata, on the other hand, is the same shape..and has 4 wheels.and performs many of the same functions, but there's a reason why it's so much less expensive.
Sadly, in the PC world, you can buy a case + PSU for under £30. I spend 2-3x that on each one alone as I see the initial outlay as an investment, other people just see "a bargain" and don't understand the potential problems it brings with it.

puppet1984

i don't quite understand why if you had a bsod after a few days of receiving a new pc you didn't send it back? if you built it yourself i could understand but you paid money for a pc that was working and configured properly it shouldnt of bsod

DVardysShadow

n1ck75 wrote: »

Instead of wasting your money on a 'brand' name which has the same hardware you have in your pcs - why not try out linux on them first?
Mac's are based on BSD so you'll pretty much have to learn a whole new OS by switching over anyway.
And i'm afraid Mac's don't 'just work' - they're plagued faults just like all OS's

I would encourage almost anyone to give Linux a go. But in this case, I suspect the hardware is not right, so although londonman could give it a try, I would suggest just trying a live CD and if there are similar problems, not to bother too much more.