It depends what you use your comp for... D you play lots of games or other ram happy apps or do you just browse the internet, listen to music and use programs like photo shop. Also consider a laptop?

He said he didn't want to break the bank and Mac's are pretty expensive and Garry's mod won't really be of any use to him on a Mac considering they don't have any games whose source codes will be compatible... Fleshshapestheday you didn't answer my question have you considered a laptop?

You might want to wait until windows 7 comes out so you can skip the terrible (in my opinion) vista OS. Even if you decide to go with Vista the computers with it on should be cheaper when windows 7 is released. If you have to buy now, I recommend you build it yourself or if you not comfortable doing that some companies like Dell will let you pick which bits you want make a PC out of them and ship it to you once they've built it. I can't really tell what you need so you might just want to go into best buy and talk to one of their techies about it.

i'd go DELL if i were you. they have an online sale going right now on certain computers and you should check into their refurbished computers. They are guaranteed to work and cost 25% less then a new one. I've had my refurbished laptop for two years from them and never had a single problem.

Macs are pretty reliable, but they cost a fortune. Well over a thousand euro here in Ireland, and I'm betting it's over a thousand USD over in America. As well as that they don't have much software going for them. They are only good for people who do graphic design because of the way their screens are built. I believe that they don't have hot and cold sides to their screens like most computers do. However they don't get many viruses and they certainly don't have as many bugs affecting them as PC's do.

Neither does Linux. In fact, Linux has only four or so viruses designed for it that will do any kind of damage. Windows has millions. Linux does have the same software compatibility problems that mac faces, however unlike mac, it can be installed on a PC and is free.

I suggest that everyone who is buying a computer do the following: Buy a regular priced PC (circa 700$). Duel boot it with a Linux distro of your choice. I suggest Ubuntu for beginners. You can do all of your internet and e-mail related stuff on this. It comes with OpenOffice for all of your office needs. All Open Source software can be run on it as well.

If you want to play games, all you have to do is run the windows part of your machine.

In case you guys don't know, duel booting means partitioning your HD and running two separate OS's on it. I dedicate 20GB of my HD to Ubuntu and 80 to Vista, for example.

As my friend said in Web design class Thursday, the reason Macs don't have that many viruses is because not as many people have them as they do Windows computers (I really don't like it when people say PC because then you get some idiot that sits there and argues with out about Personal computers and you just want to punch them...) and I'd have to agree with them... not many people will pay 1300 dollars for a laptop when they can get something just as good for only 800 *shrug*

That is true. If I was a hacker programming viruses, I would want to infect as many computers as possible. Therefore I would choose to design it for PCs. No minority OS's like Mac and Linux.

However that said, I think that there are other benefits to choosing Unix based operating systems. For example the Boot up time for Ubuntu 9.04 on a PC with a 1.6 GHz processor and 256 MB RAM is just 19 seconds. That same PC of mine takes three minutes to boot up Windows XP. My newish laptop with 2GB RAM and a 2GHz processor takes one minute to boot up on Windows Vista...

I use my Vista powered laptop for games and my Ubuntu powered Desktop for everything else. Seeing as I'm out of the house now I have to use Vista for everything /despair.

Macs have a sort of unique "style" to them. People seem to be willing to fork out over one thousand for a Mac for bragging rights. It seems to be the designer brand of computers. If you want to pay for a computer that cannot run most software - Your choice.

Again: Windows for gaming software - Linux for security.

Mac: Overpriced OS that looks nice but does nothing.

DOGHOUSE SYSTEMS!!! nuff said will do anything ull ever ask of it

First of all, what's your budget? Macs are great and I have one but less programs are designed for it so if you want to run a lot of programs I would go with windows. Also try Linex, which is free to download and is pretty secure. Also have you heard of Parallels desktop? It lets you run two operating systems. Both my mom and dad use it to run windows and Mac. Are you looking for a laptop or desktop? Have you considered getting a laptop and hooking it up to a monitor? For security go with Mac or Linex but for compatibility go with windows. Some people (myself included) like Linex because it looks a bit like a Mac operating system. Also you can also get a used computer which won't break the bank and are pretty good. You will get a huge discount sometimes. You need to narrow down your field.