After many years of thinking about it, I finally bought my first Mac in February.  Below are my thoughts about it.

First, the details.  My Mac is a MacBook with 2 GB of RAM, a 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo processor, a 120 GB hard drive, and a SuperDrive (CD/DVD player-burner).  I bought it from Apple’s refurbished store online.  The operating system is Leopard (10.5.3).  I’m comparing it to a variety of Dell PCs that I use at work and at home - mostly desktops and one laptop - all running Windows XP (SP2).

So here’s what I think…

Overall, the differences are not astounding. My computer use is increasingly about the web (decreasingly about the desktop) so the machine matters less than it might have five years ago. Oh, and I use the same browser - Firefox 3 (RC3) on all my computers - and I actually find Firefox to be slightly better on the PC in terms of handling bookmarks.  I occasionally use Mac’s own browser (Safari) but I prefer Firefox.

Apple gets the details right.  The fit and finish of my MacBook is impressive.  Just as no other music player is quite as pretty as an iPod, so too with the MacBook.  Things just look and feel right.  The MacBook is thinner than the notebook PCs I have used.

Apple includes some nifty, but not terribly useful (to me) programs.  Photobooth, for example, takes pictures (using the built-in camera) and adds lots of cool effects.  GarageBand lets you combine pre-recorded loops to build your own songs.  We played with these a lot the first couple of weeks, but not much since.

Apple includes some very good applications that ARE useful to me.  The mail and calendar programs sync easily with Google’s Gmail and Gcal, which is where my life is currently stored.  Since I prefer to work online, I use the Mac programs mostly to back up my stuff.  But they are both very good.  Note that all four applications I just mentioned come with Leopard and are standard on any Mac.

There is a small learning curve.  Delete on the Mac = Backspace on the PC.  Macs don’t have right-mouse-buttons so you have to CTRL-Click to mimic the PC’s right-click.  Installing new applications is very easy on the Mac, but it took awhile before I realized that all you have to do is drag the new program to your applications folder.  So the Mac gets points for simplicity, but my PC habits can get in the way.

Compatibility is almost a non-issue.  If I put a bunch of photos, text, Word, Excel or Powerpoint documents on a thumb drive, I can open them on any PC or Mac that has the appropriate software installed.  I bought both MS Office 2008 and iWork ‘08 (both have a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation app.)  Documents created in one do pretty well in the other, or in Office 2003 at work.  iTunes is essentially the same on any computer.

There are a few things the Mac won’t do.  It won’t stream movies from Netflix, for example (though Netflix says it might someday). It won’t run the super-cool new Microsoft WorldWide telescope.

Overall, I like the Mac.  A lot.  The thing that kept me from buying them over the years was that when you count dollars, gigabytes and gigahertz, you can usually find a comparable PC for less money or a better-equipped PC for the same money.  Now that I have lived with the MacBook for four months, I still wonder if it was worth the extra money.  Are the intangibles worth it?  I could have bought a PC similarly equipped for several hundred dollars less.  But here’s the thing…

I’m glad I didn’t.