Mac vs PC

I appreciate that I am unable to slag off Apple without also applying vitriol in equal measures to microsoft, I also appreciate that linux is open source. That said:

#1 you can put together a PC and choose Windows Linux or both

#2 Linux is only good if you put the time in to learn it, people work and don't always have that time

#3 Apple put up enormous barriers to entry into the industry to tighten their monopoly to the point where they ban flash and make breathtakingly arrogant statements about personal computing such as the age of the pc is now over. They're relentlessly greedy, they nurture dependency relationships so if you've got an iThat and you don't have an iThis , you've got to hand over more dosh or if you've not got it you can kiss Mr Job's big hairy iAss - but on a serious note, bottom line is they're a dangerous monopoly, monopoly isn't "sometimes" good for development and creation of products, it is ALWAYS detrimental to everyone except the ridiculously rich fatties at the top of the tree. Apple have gone further than Microsoft, if only people could leave them to it - if they did you might see a new respect for their customers as yet unobserved once from the time the company was conceieved to present day.

i have had my standard macbook for about 4 years now. i have had no major problems besides the battery is on its last leg and i had to get the disc drive replaced but it was under applecare at the time. i absolutely love it and wouldnt dream of going back to a pc.

PC only. My grandmother uses a Mac and I feel like it's an insult to use it. Don't get me wrong, Mac's have sleek interfaces, look cool, but that is about it. They're expensive, I can't play games on them, I can't use my normal work programs, and like has already been said, would have to re-invest in all of my programs.

For example, I spent only 500$ and have:
Phenom X3 2.3ghz
EG GeForce 6100PM-M2
ATI Radeon 4650HD 1GB
2GB RAM

It's not the rig of champions, but this allows me to game, record music, run programs, and do basically anything I need to do with ease.

I've also looked into LINUX and am interested in it - but honestly can't be too bothered to learn it. (Plus, terrible online gaming support.)

Four years it's a great a lifetime for battery.

sorry cannot STAND apple, they're a greedy and dangerous monopoly, i this i bloody that, - I bet in 2 or 3 years time I won't be able to fart without it being an i fart, and good grief, so help me if I don't clear it with jobs first, as he owns the patent, as well as the right for me to live and breathe..... I think murdoch and jobs ought to be made to go back to school and learn the meaning of words such as freedom choice democracy and the hardest word of them all........"NO"

Good points, Andy.
I think this overzealous copyright business gets a little on the ridiculous side after a while. Never really liked Apple, anyway.

To each their own, I suppose!

Never really had anything against Macs except everytime I look at it there is something I can't do with it (lack of BluRay Playback, certain reference insert issues in Office for Mac, no native MT4 app for Mac [I think], certain video games either don't get transferred or there is a delay and then you pay extra and of course you can't write to NTFS volumes natively, big issue with that).

Additionally, I have come across more hostile Mac Users insisting I should buy one than hostile PC users saying I should buy PC. I respect people's right to choose but there is no need to harass those who disagree or can't use it for various reasons (I add that I have met other, more reasonable Mac users) .

I must say I am surprised that (so far) the number of Mac Users exceeds PC users in this poll, I wasn't aware there was that much Software for trading for Mac. Or is everyone using parallels?

I dislike apple as strongly as anyone - I think they're a nasty, monopolistic and silly, but I'd still not really consider a PC as anything other than a games machine. The era of 'no trojans on mac' is ending (not coincidentally, exactly at the moment when apple got too big to listen to bug reports from devs), but the basic architecture is still so so much sounder and safer that any sort of registry based model.