[Thunderchicken]

I have been thinking of making the switch to Mac. I have been with the PC realm for over 15 years now. I guess my question is, is the switch easy or am I going to get lost and not want to use it?
I played around with the 20" at CompUSA and I like what I saw, I was able to play the trailer to Batman Begins in 1080p and it ran it at 24 fps which is cool.
I'm just tossing up the idea between a 20" iMac with 2Gb of ram the 500Gb hard drive and the 256Mb video, if I'm going to do this I'm going all out. Or the other option is something comp. to that is in a AMD chip in the PC world.
I wouldn't be playing much games on the system it's mostly for photos and videos.
I have 1 question; does the 500Gb hard drive have a 8mb cache like the 256?
I guess I'm looking for a reason to switch over to the Mac side, I also know that their are not alot of universal codes out yet, should I wait a little while and just continue to use my P4 laptop till more software comes availible like photoshop, and office?

[maflynn]

Depends on the software your looking to run. I think the OS is more stable, better designed and has less security issues.
You mentioned photos and video, I cannot speak about the video short of mentioned iMovie, iDVD and Final Cut Pro.
The photo side you have Apple's iPhoto which can handle a large library of images,then for their pro software there is aperture which was just released. There are also third party applications as alternatives, such as iView Pro.
All of these handle the DAM (digita Asset Management) very well. Aperture and shortly Adobe's Lightroom also handle the digital work flow, in that it allows you to edit the images as you categorize and assign keywords.
All in all, I think the Mac is superior to what it brings over the PC.

[rmeister0]

As a consumer level machine, what the Mac brings to the table is a set of media applications that work fairly well and are bundled in the box at no charge. You can't assemble something similar in the PC world without spending some bread, and the quality of that software is not terribly good.
If you think you'd get by with iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto right out of the gate, I'd consider making the move now. If you want to use something like Final Cut Express, I'd wait until March when the Universal Binaries come outl.
If you currently use Photoshop and are heavy in it, I'd wait and continue to use what you have. While I'm sure a Universal Binary for that is coming, there is no official word on 'when', and it seems doubtful that it will be a free update based on the whispers we've heard so far.

[kjacobsen]

I work in a PC environment at work and I use a Mac iBook at home. I would never give up my mac, and am currently considering getting a Mac mini for the stuff I do at work because I own the software I need. I don't have the issues with viruses or system lockups that i do with the PCs. If you buy a machine now that still uses the Power PC chip, you will be fine with the apps as they convert to Universal binary because they are designed to run on both platforms. Photoshop, I believe, is many months away from the universal binary, so if that's your app you'll want to get a PowerPC and not the new Intel based.

[Jabjabs]

Well I have been working on Mac for the last 2 1/2 years and so far I have never missed the Windows enviroment. The transistion is actually very easy, about the hardest thing is learning to use the 'option' key and even then you can just use a two button mouse if you need to. For about the first few weeks I found still tring to use the Windows key shortcuts, but eventually you do get very used to the macs functions and trust me there are alot of them and most of them are very useful.
In terms of programs the only thing I have actually missed form the PC is the games, but if you arn't really into that, then there is practically nothing that they can't do and trust me they are easily the most stable machines and operating system you will ever use.
As kjacobsen said, they will never lock up, mine never has and I simply don't have to worry about viruses. There is nothing more satifying seeing an email in my inbox that I know contains a virus and knowing that it is harmless and powerless in the mac enviroment.
My advice is go for it, you will NEVER regret it.

[Nobody]

If games are your paramount interest, you would miss the ability to upgrade your PC box every 6 months or so with a new video/sound card so you can run the ever increasingly complex games (image and sound contents and not to mention the ability to vibrate your seat and hands periodically, if you are so inclined). And then there are those neon lights that some call cool... they are not present in iMacs! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Other than that, you are not likely to miss much at all.... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Thunderchicken]

I've been really interested in the Macs since I was in Highschool when I had to use them. They were very easy to use. I'm planning on getting one of the new iMacs but it's just a matter of time.