PC vs. Mac 5 Paragraph Essay

Adrian 7A

Due February 10, 2011

PC vs. Mac

When someone sets out to buy a computer, he or she has to make a lot of choices.  Laptop or desktop?  How big of a screen?  However, the biggest choice they have to make is whether to buy a Mac, which is made by Apple, or a PC, which can be made by many different companies, but runs software from Microsoft, regardless of the manufacturer.   I believe that Macs are inferior to PCs because PCs are more affordable, have more variety and are better supported.

My first reason why PCs are better is that they are cheaper.  I went on hp.com and apple.com and configured two computers with very similar specifications.  The HP, which was a PC, was $780¹.  However, the Apple Mac was $2,500². (If you don’t believe me, the links for you to try this yourself are at the bottom.)  Also, when buying a Mac you can add upgrades, just like when buying a PC.  To upgrade to a 2 terabyte hard drive costs $300³.  A similar hard drive costs just $100⁴ when bought on newegg.com, a reliable PC parts retailer.  This shows that Apple charges more for the same components, and therefore offers worse value.

Another reason why PCs are better than Macs is that PCs offer more choices and flexibility.  One of the advantages of having multiple companies manufacturing PCs is that there are a variety of types and styles of PCs.  If you need a durable computer for rough conditions, you can buy one, such as the Panasonic Toughbook. If you need a computer with a screen that can swivel and turn into a tablet, you could purchase a computer like the Dell Inspiron Duo.  Both of these types of computers are not available from Apple.  Thanks to all this variety, you have many choices when buying a PC, which is good because you can buy a PC that does exactly what you need it to do. That is why having options and choices is beneficial, and is an advantage over Apple’s Macs.

One more reason why PCs are better than Macs is that PCs are better supported.  If you drop your PC and break it, you are in a much better position than if you drop your Mac and break it, because there are many more PC repair shops in the world than Mac repair shops.  Continuing with the theme of more support for PCs, there are more applications written for PCs than Mac.  Both of these things benefit the user.

To conclude, PCs are better than Macs because they are more economical, offer more choices and are more widely supported than Macs.  They are cheaper because the PC computers cost less that their Mac counterparts.  They offer more variety because there are many types of PCs, and they are more widely supported because of a larger user base, which results in more applications and service shops.

Footnotes

1http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=High+performance&series_name=HPE560z_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/desktops/High_performance/HPE560z_series

Based on configuration made in “Buy and Customize” to match Mac Specifications.

2 http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro

3 http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/configure/MC560LL/A?mco=MTg2OTUwMjQ

4 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514&cm_re=2tb_internal-_-22-136-514-_-Product

Sources:

Perry, Douglas. "Windows Drops Below 90-Percent Market Share." Tom's Guide: Your High-Tech Source of Information. 3 Feb. 2011. 09 Feb. 2011 <http://www.tomsguide.com/us/windows-market-share-ios-macosx,news-9953.html>.