Why shouldn't I get a PC?

I'm a long time (since the beginning, or, post Amiga!) Mac user and will be replacing my Pismo/500 later this Fall/Winter with a new laptop. I’d like to wait until the next revision (MacWorld SF?) – whatever they might be – of the PowerBooks to see what becomes available, but at this point, I’m on the fence and leaning toward a PC as I believe them to be faster and they also appear to have many more tools available (Yarc, breezbrowser, etc.).

I'm not too disappointed by the Apple hardware (though, again, I believe the PC’s to be much faster, have bigger screens, etc.) but by the software (RAW conversion, print tools, etc.) that's not there for the Mac.

Is it just not there yet ? Should I be optimistic that I'll be able to stay Apple, or should I keep myself up to date about the PC world, as it appears now that that's where I'm headed?

BTW: I use a PC and a Mac at my company, so it's not like I'd be into something completely new, and I would not have to make any software investments either.

Thanks for any general advice, comments.

-Larry

I cannot think of one compelling reason to go PC from Mac.

Speed and larger screens are non-issues. Since I have been using OSX, I have to say that it is the most stable operating system I have ever used, and I go also go back to the Amigas and I also used Macs and PeeCees at work.

I hope you don't abandon ship, but if you do, good luck to you.

...but for me speed is most definitely an issue! (Speed a non-issue?) Also - for me - screen real estate is an issue, and I doubt there will be another increase in the next TiBooks. The screen would not be a deal-breaker though.

I agree that OSX is stable, but it's pokey, and I'm still (after 9 months use) not nearly used to the interface oddities. I can switch back to OS9 and get things done much more quickly (even factoring in the re-boots .

XP has certainly gone a long way toward making the GUI acceptable (copying Apple), and it has been relatively crash free for me with the same apps that I use on the Mac.

Leo Salais said:

I cannot think of one compelling reason to go PC from Mac.

Speed and larger screens are non-issues. Since I have been using
OSX, I have to say that it is the most stable operating system I
have ever used, and I go also go back to the Amigas and I also used
Macs and PeeCees at work.

I hope you don't abandon ship, but if you do, good luck to you.

Click to expand...

I do think Mac notebooks are on the lower end (800mhz max). that is realy slow for a high end notebook.

Dell has some nice xga notebooks at 1.8ghz for about 1200usd.

If you are thinking desktop then the dual 1Ghz G4 are realy appealing. and powerfull.

The speed difference between the dual 1ghz g4 and the 800mhz g4 notebook is way to big Appla has to come with a brand new notebook if they want to keep seling.

NOTE: If you use OS X. Dual proc is the way to go. since the kernel in OSX distributes processor usage.

Leo Salais said:

I cannot think of one compelling reason to go PC from Mac.

Speed and larger screens are non-issues. Since I have been using
OSX, I have to say that it is the most stable operating system I
have ever used, and I go also go back to the Amigas and I also used
Macs and PeeCees at work.

I hope you don't abandon ship, but if you do, good luck to you.

Click to expand...

--
E-20, C-3030 and E-100rs happy owner

a laptop.

I have very nice dual 800 desktop with Cinema display for my desktop (and it still doesn't feel as quick as my Dell 2.4 desktop :-(

Thanks.

Luis E Limon said:

Dell has some nice xga notebooks at 1.8ghz for about 1200usd.

If you are thinking desktop then the dual 1Ghz G4 are realy
appealing. and powerfull.

The speed difference between the dual 1ghz g4 and the 800mhz g4
notebook is way to big Appla has to come with a brand new notebook
if they want to keep seling.

NOTE: If you use OS X. Dual proc is the way to go. since the kernel
in OSX distributes processor usage.

Leo Salais said:

I cannot think of one compelling reason to go PC from Mac.

Speed and larger screens are non-issues. Since I have been using
OSX, I have to say that it is the most stable operating system I
have ever used, and I go also go back to the Amigas and I also used
Macs and PeeCees at work.

I hope you don't abandon ship, but if you do, good luck to you.

Click to expand...

--
E-20, C-3030 and E-100rs happy owner

Click to expand...

Larry Gottschalk said:

...but for me speed is most definitely an issue! (Speed a
non-issue?) Also - for me - screen real estate is an issue, and I
doubt there will be another increase in the next TiBooks. The
screen would not be a deal-breaker though.

I agree that OSX is stable, but it's pokey, and I'm still (after 9
months use) not nearly used to the interface oddities. I can switch
back to OS9 and get things done much more quickly (even factoring
in the re-boots .

XP has certainly gone a long way toward making the GUI acceptable
(copying Apple), and it has been relatively crash free for me with
the same apps that I use on the Mac.

Click to expand...

See this post re speed: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1017&message=3169670

I also had some problems learning OSX, but I now I would never go back to OS9.

I manipulate large PS files on a G4 desktop and TiBook (both 400 Mz) and the rare time I use plug-ins, the speed is not an issue for me. I suspect that rendering would be much, much better at higher Mac speeds.

Larry,

About a year and a half ago, my company switched from powerbooks to IBM T-20s. It has been a nightmare. Even if you get a faster laptop, it does you no good if you keep getting "program not responding messages 5 times a day.

The T-20 hard drive crashed after just over a year.

Tech support? With the Mac, if we ever had a problem, we could get right through to the help desk and have it corrected immediately. With the PC, we are put on a 7 to 8 hour call back which means I am sitting around waiting for a call instead of working. I am in sales, and don't have time to sit around when I should be out in the field. When they finally do call back, most of the techs don't have a clue either. The Mac techs knew their stuff.

Just some of my personal experience, but I would never buy a Windows OS.
Macs just work better.
--
Doug D.
'Promise a rainbow, and someone will look to the sky.'
http://www.pbase.com/doug_d
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumList?u=1681338

It looks like you already made a decision, why ask the question then? You think that Macs are slower, and other people can try to change your mind, but you will still think they are slower every time you work on a Mac.

The real things to take into account are:

Do you really need higher res. on a laptop screen? TiBook has a good ratio between the resolution and the screen size. Othe laptops can have higher res, but it becomes harder to discern the details when they get this small.

How do you find the quality of the displays on the models you are looking at? Last weekend I had to work on a PC laptop, and the colors kept shifting if I moved my head even a little bit. I couldn't figure out what my image looked like! If you are planning to do image processing on a laptop it will be an important issue.

Really, how much of a difference do you get for YOUR everyday tasks? Does it only take a second longer, or does it really make you wait for your Mac as your PC coworkers zip ahead?

What about weight/size? My boss switched to TiBook mainly because it was much lighter than the competition with similar processing abilities within the price range (well, the fact that he couldn't figure out how to make an LCD projector work right with a PC also played a role

P.S. Btw, do you know that you can put a 500 MHz G4 in Pismo for only $300? http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4728&Item=NWTNPG4P500 Then may be you can wait a little longer to see if the later versions of Apple laptops become faster. or more software becomes available...

Torte

Larry Gottschalk said:

I have very nice dual 800 desktop with Cinema display for my
desktop (and it still doesn't feel as quick as my Dell 2.4 desktop
:-(

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Very good points - particularly regarding weight. I tote my laptop around a lot.

The TiBook screens are excellent, even from slight angles, and in general Apple does seem to have the LCD screens down over all of the competition. Each time I sit down to my Cinema display I'm happy, happy, happy. It's excellent to the point that I don't forget it every time. I do wish Apple would squeeze a little more real estate out of the display (without resorting to more density/smaller pixels).

I've thought about the G4 upagrade, but I want the added benefit of a new graphics system to take advantage of 10.2. As well, a new machine will have faster memory, HD, etc.

I do feel that the 2.4GHz Dell on my desk is much more responsive in general tasks (as well as processor-intensive tasks) than my Quicksilver dual 800 (w/ GeForce3 card).

Ah well, there are a few months to go, and I'll likely end up with an Apple, but here's to hoping for more software choices and faster machines in general.

Thanks for your feedback!

-Larry

Tortellino said:

The real things to take into account are:
Do you really need higher res. on a laptop screen? TiBook has a
good ratio between the resolution and the screen size. Othe laptops
can have higher res, but it becomes harder to discern the details
when they get this small.

How do you find the quality of the displays on the models you are
looking at? Last weekend I had to work on a PC laptop, and the
colors kept shifting if I moved my head even a little bit. I
couldn't figure out what my image looked like! If you are planning
to do image processing on a laptop it will be an important issue.

Really, how much of a difference do you get for YOUR everyday
tasks? Does it only take a second longer, or does it really make
you wait for your Mac as your PC coworkers zip ahead?

What about weight/size? My boss switched to TiBook mainly because
it was much lighter than the competition with similar processing
abilities within the price range (well, the fact that he couldn't
figure out how to make an LCD projector work right with a PC also
played a role

P.S. Btw, do you know that you can put a 500 MHz G4 in Pismo for
only $300?
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=4728&Item=NWTNPG4P500
Then may be you can wait a little longer to see if the later
versions of Apple laptops become faster. or more software becomes
available...

Torte

Larry Gottschalk said:

I have very nice dual 800 desktop with Cinema display for my
desktop (and it still doesn't feel as quick as my Dell 2.4 desktop
:-(

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

LMGotts said:

... at this point, I’m on the fence and leaning toward a
PC as I believe them to be faster and they also appear to have many
more tools available (Yarc, breezbrowser, etc.).

Click to expand...

First, if you're comparing numbers for MHz, you are already making a major mistake. The processor cycle count for G4, P4, AMD and even Intel's own new low-power processor are NOT measured using the same standard. An analogy: the processor cycle for a P4 measures in words while the G4 measures in sentences. They both make up a paragraph, but in different units. The G4's method of processing data carries more in fewer cycles. That in itself doesn't mean it is either faster or slower, only that you can't accurately compare the differing measuring units.

Instead, try measuring your productivity. Which computer do you enjoy working with, and how much work can you get done? Do you have to fight to do projects, or does the computer work with you to improve your skills?

With the release of OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), the underlying code of the OS has also been modified to make it easier for developers to write applications for the OS. That means more choices are available for the Mac. Many areas - like scanner drivers - were unavailable until 10.2 because of problems within previous versions making TWAIN support difficult. That is now "water under the bridge". Look at what is happening now on the new features front before you decide. Also note the Consumer Reports article covering customer satisfaction. Apple beat out everyone else (I guess that means all the Wintel makers...) There are some excellent reasons why that happened, starting with the product.
---
Rory Ivers
Ivers Photo & Imaging
http://www.iversimaging.com

Pentium chips are way too hot. In order to preserve battery power they are underclocked considerably. If not plugged in your new windose laptop will run considerably slower than your current laptop.

Buy the PC.

I have been a long time Apple user and through the years very satisfied with the product and company. Until now.

I bought a G4 powerbook a couple of months ago. I worked a week transferring old files and setting things up. Hd crashed and I could not recover it. I returned the PB for another new one. This book has crashed over 100 times in the past 2 months!!. OSX 10.1 has problems and with the new 10.2 Jaguar upgrade maybe it would address these. However Apple has chosen to charge full price to previous owners of OSX for this upgrade.
This policy is unacceptable and rediculous!!

I bought a computer with a defective OS 2 months ago and now they expect me to pay full price for an upgrade to fix it!! I don't know of any other company which would have such a greedy policy. Their customer service stinks.

I called them inquiring about the price of the new upgrade and they passed me off to the apple store. The person I spoke to there wanted to pass me off to customer service(where I should have been in the first place) and I told him they connected me to him! He said that he has received many many calls from owners protesting the pricing of Jaguar. He could not understand the Apple pricing either. 10.1 to 10.2 doesn't make sense. If it was going to version 11 then that's a different story. There was nothing he could do for me.
So if I had to do it all over again I would have crossed over to PC.

Any company that sells a defective product and them wants you to buy it all over again instead of charging just for the fix is a thief!!!

Get the Pc and you will have a lot more cheaper accessories to choose from. You won't have to buy your OS all over again when it is upgraded and just will pay the upgrade price. All other companies follow this policy except Apple.
My next computer will be a PC for sure.
Danny Doris

frederick nau said:

Pentium chips are way too hot. In order to preserve battery power
they are underclocked considerably. If not plugged in your new
windose laptop will run considerably slower than your current
laptop.

Click to expand...

IBM had a realy important problem with it's hard drives. They have a life expectancy of about 1 year if you are lucky!

This problem is present specialy in they deskstar line.

Doug D. said:

Larry,
About a year and a half ago, my company switched from powerbooks to
IBM T-20s. It has been a nightmare. Even if you get a faster
laptop, it does you no good if you keep getting "program not
responding messages 5 times a day.

The T-20 hard drive crashed after just over a year.

Tech support? With the Mac, if we ever had a problem, we could get
right through to the help desk and have it corrected immediately.
With the PC, we are put on a 7 to 8 hour call back which means I am
sitting around waiting for a call instead of working. I am in
sales, and don't have time to sit around when I should be out in
the field. When they finally do call back, most of the techs don't
have a clue either. The Mac techs knew their stuff.

Just some of my personal experience, but I would never buy a
Windows OS.
Macs just work better.
--
Doug D.
'Promise a rainbow, and someone will look to the sky.'
http://www.pbase.com/doug_d
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumList?u=1681338

Click to expand...

--
E-20, C-3030 and E-100rs happy owner

I have a dual G4 450mhz with 2mb L2 cache with 510mb ram, gForce2mx.
and a 1G Pentium III 256ram and gForce2mx notebook from dell.

And I can tell you my Notebook is way faster than the mac.

PC processors have evolved a lot in the past years.

I'm just saying that if you are not to inlove of Mac OSX you will be better off with a good Dell Notebook.

Way I keep saying Dell... They include realy good video cards on they notebooks.

Don't even think HP, Compaq, Sony they use the cheapest video cards.

For Image processing and processor intensive tasks a Dell is a better option than a PowerBook. If you only need it for Word, Excel and general desktop work then a PowerBook, iBook will be a good choice.

I hope mac comes with faster cpu's in they porable line realy fast!

frederick nau said:

Pentium chips are way too hot. In order to preserve battery power
they are underclocked considerably. If not plugged in your new
windose laptop will run considerably slower than your current
laptop.

Click to expand...

--
E-20, C-3030 and E-100rs happy owner

However, I believe that the biggest marketing coup is that which Apple have pulled on the Apple faithful - that the PPC chips can hold a candle to the Intel chips is pure bunk. They're quite good when running optimized, and that means with the several functions that Photoshop supports, a few rendering apps, and frankly, not much else.

Mind you, I'm a huge Apple fan, and my business (I own a small design firm that's been in business for 17 years) relies on both platforms to operate. I can spot a zealot immediately, both Mac and PC. I don't favor either; but I do hold dear the facts, and could care less marketing buzz and useless jargons.

Our PC's have - unfortunately!!! - pretty well taken over the office, and I struggle to keep the Apple presence alive for any of our creative elements. Strangely, our Macs are running our accounting end, and we're actually delivering more creative things via the PC (Illustrator is Illustrator and Photoshop is Photoshop, etc.).

This is why I've been thinking of taking a PC for my next portable device. It's still not likely, but though I do - as you pointed out - enjoy using the Mac more, I can quite likely get more work done on a PC. I would also tend to make purchasing decisions based against Consumer Reports as I think they're off-base more often than on. What a lame group.

I do appreciate your feedback, and you've made several points that would tend to keep me in the Mac camp (though I was pretty much there already).

Thanks,

-Larry

Rory Ivers said:

Rory Ivers said:

... at this point, I’m on the fence and leaning toward a
PC as I believe them to be faster and they also appear to have many
more tools available (Yarc, breezbrowser, etc.).

Click to expand...

First, if you're comparing numbers for MHz, you are already making
a major mistake. The processor cycle count for G4, P4, AMD and even
Intel's own new low-power processor are NOT measured using the same
standard. An analogy: the processor cycle for a P4 measures in
words while the G4 measures in sentences. They both make up a
paragraph, but in different units. The G4's method of processing
data carries more in fewer cycles. That in itself doesn't mean it
is either faster or slower, only that you can't accurately compare
the differing measuring units.

Instead, try measuring your productivity. Which computer do you
enjoy working with, and how much work can you get done? Do you have
to fight to do projects, or does the computer work with you to
improve your skills?

With the release of OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), the underlying code of the
OS has also been modified to make it easier for developers to write
applications for the OS. That means more choices are available for
the Mac. Many areas - like scanner drivers - were unavailable until
10.2 because of problems within previous versions making TWAIN
support difficult. That is now "water under the bridge". Look at
what is happening now on the new features front before you decide.
Also note the Consumer Reports article covering customer
satisfaction. Apple beat out everyone else (I guess that means all
the Wintel makers...) There are some excellent reasons why that
happened, starting with the product.
---
Rory Ivers
Ivers Photo & Imaging
http://www.iversimaging.com

Click to expand...

representative of the average user, or a good piece of information to relay to someone who is looking to make a decision.

You're obviously experiencing exceptional circumstances, and I hope you get it sorted out.

I've been running OS X since last fall (November 2001) on a Pismo 500 (as well as my more "modern" dual processor desktop) without any problems whatsoever. I will not say that I've been completely happy with it, but it is remarkably stable and works as advertised. I further have no objections to the 10.2 upgrade policy. A heck of a lot less expensive than an XP upgrade, if you would care to investigate.

I was looking for balanced opinons and solid advice, but thank you nonetheless.

-Larry

danny doris said:

frederick nau said:

Pentium chips are way too hot. In order to preserve battery power
they are underclocked considerably. If not plugged in your new
windose laptop will run considerably slower than your current
laptop.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Larry,

you obviously have access to both PCs and Macs at work. Ask yourself which computer you actually sit down to do your work on when you have a choice? At the end of the day you have to do a task and need software tha allows you to do that- if the software's only available for a particular platform then that's what you need. But if you can do it on multiple systems, then see which one you choose to use- that's what you should buy.

Larry Gottschalk said:

I'm a long time (since the beginning, or, post Amiga!) Mac user and
will be replacing my Pismo/500 later this Fall/Winter with a new
laptop. I’d like to wait until the next revision (MacWorld SF?) –
whatever they might be – of the PowerBooks to see what becomes
available, but at this point, I’m on the fence and leaning toward a
PC as I believe them to be faster and they also appear to have many
more tools available (Yarc, breezbrowser, etc.).

I'm not too disappointed by the Apple hardware (though, again, I
believe the PC’s to be much faster, have bigger screens, etc.) but
by the software (RAW conversion, print tools, etc.) that's not
there for the Mac.

Is it just not there yet ? Should I be optimistic that I'll be
able to stay Apple, or should I keep myself up to date about the PC
world, as it appears now that that's where I'm headed?

BTW: I use a PC and a Mac at my company, so it's not like I'd be
into something completely new, and I would not have to make any
software investments either.

Thanks for any general advice, comments.

-Larry

Click to expand...

Larry Gottschalk said:

However, I believe that the biggest marketing coup is that which
Apple have pulled on the Apple faithful - that the PPC chips can
hold a candle to the Intel chips is pure bunk. They're quite good
when running optimized, and that means with the several functions
that Photoshop supports, a few rendering apps, and frankly, not
much else.

Click to expand...

I agree that in some applications, the Intel chips outperform Motorola's. However, to say that Apple's PPC's can't hold a candle to the Intel chips runs absolutely counter to the Mac's dominance in service bureaus, printing plants, video production and graphics departments in general. The only mitigating factor would be if the Apple OS used in those areas is so vastly superior (ease of use, stability, workflow, peripheral setup, printing consistency, color calibration, etc.) to that used on the Intel chips (Windows). That would bring up the possibility that the Intel chip is superior but so hampered by a poor OS and / or applications that the overall performance drags it down.

Try not to misunderstand me here. I am in full agreement that the PPC development can stand a major flamethrower up its backside. The pace of development has dragged on unforgivably, and I am very interested in seeing Apple seriously explore alternatives. But I disagree that the OVERALL difference is as radical as you suggest. I can document the inverse, with a regular cross-platform FileMaker database, with a G4-400 smoking PIII's with twice the MHz doing simple record sorting.

LMGotts said:

Mind you, I'm a huge Apple fan, and my business (I own a small
design firm that's been in business for 17 years) relies on both
platforms to operate. I can spot a zealot immediately, both Mac and
PC. I don't favor either; but I do hold dear the facts, and could
care less marketing buzz and useless jargons.

Click to expand...

Agreed, facts do help. So do our personal experiences and impressions of how the numbers play out in the real world. I also share some of your professional background, with previous stints as a magazine editor, personal photographer to a major recording artist, my own graphic design business, etc. I've based my comments, as you have, on personal experience. In some areas they agree, in some they don't, but neither is inherently better or more "zealous" than the other just because they might not agree. I respectfully appreciate your comments, especially since you seem to have tried to maintain a balanced perspective.

LMGotts said:

Our PC's have - unfortunately!!! - pretty well taken over the
office, and I struggle to keep the Apple presence alive for any of
our creative elements. Strangely, our Macs are running our
accounting end, and we're actually delivering more creative things
via the PC (Illustrator is Illustrator and Photoshop is Photoshop,
etc.).

Click to expand...

Now that is a strange twist! I'm not even sure I want to know how that happened, but I'd really suggest rethinking that scenario! ;-) BTW, Intuit just announced that QuickBooks for OS X will be released in early 2003.

LMGotts said:

This is why I've been thinking of taking a PC for my next portable
device. It's still not likely, but though I do - as you pointed out

• enjoy using the Mac more, I can quite likely get more work done

on a PC.

Click to expand...

I find just the opposite. After working on clients' PC with 2000 and XP, dealing with significant OS issues and poor peripheral interaction, returning to my Macs is a major relief. Consistent with that, the Macs that my clients do have all run without notice. Maybe 10% of the maintenance or tech calls that I get from the PC users. (Maybe that is a comment about the users' skills on the PC side, but a few of the Mac users are serious novices also who somehow manage to get their work done without issues.)

LMGotts said:

I would also tend to make purchasing decisions based
against Consumer Reports as I think they're off-base more often
than on. What a lame group.

Click to expand...

I personally do enough research to not care about CR. However, this was a survey, not their own testing. I would tend to give more credence to a consumer survey than CR's in-house testing (which I have seen more than once to be seriously lacking and uninformed.)

LMGotts said:

I do appreciate your feedback, and you've made several points that
would tend to keep me in the Mac camp (though I was pretty much
there already).

Click to expand...

I do hope you stay (we do need level-headed Mac users!), and think that the future is much brighter on this side of the fence. Needing to work with others, it's important to not build walls, and keep the fences low enough to be able to co-exist productively. That doesn't mean a Wintel fan needs to like Macs or Linux, or vice-versa. Just that everyone remain civil and respectful of the others' opinions.

--
Rory Ivers
Ivers Photo & Imaging
http://www.iversimaging.com

IBM certainly had some good news this past week regarding PPC development ( http://news.com.com/2100-1001-949030.html?tag=cd_mh ; ). Could be what Apple's been looking for, but not getting (for so many years) from Motorola.

I think a lot of the dominance in service bureaus (my company for years was a heavy 35mm slide service bureau...and we still do it, but not for long I think) was due to the early software lead (publishing, design, and video software that in general that came out first on Mac) that the Macintosh had and subsequent investment in hardware that has just simply held on. I wonder about Filemaker as a fair example - has it really been optimized decently for a Pentium chip? Anyway, OS X should be good and getting better as more apps are ported (traditional heavyweight things like SQL etc) and developed. I hope that the print drivers make it to prime time with 10.2. Maybe Quark will finish it's port....

The Quickbooks announcement was a good one - my companies needs are simple and I'd drop our PC version in a second.

I do have an easier time maintaining our Macs, but have always attributed it to knowing them so well as compared to my PC knowledge which is only basic in comparison. Plus, I have no desire to learn the PC's inner workings, while I do have that desire for Apples software. I think that the general 2D operations (windows opening, closing, scrolling, opening/saving, etc.) all feel much snappier on a PC. I'm really disappointed by OS X in this regard, but again, 10.2 might go some good distance to making me happier!

I didn't read about the CR report being a survey until after I'd replied to your earlier post, that is good stuff.

A long time ago, far, far away I let a friend be influenced by some PC guy and my friend ended up buying a fancy PC (I think this was in the 80286 CPU days, he got an Everex, I think). It was installed and then just sat there, unused.... I vowed then to not sit idly by and let that happen again! For people who are buying for personal use, I always recommend Apple now (and still do so, in spite of my consideration of a PC laptop).

I do also hope that more software becomes available for the Mac to help in digital photography. I'm using iView Media Pro, but would much prefer the feature set of something like Breezebrowser, and the Mac seems to be losing out on the choice of packages in this area.

Again, thanks for your input, and sorry if I was rude in my earlier response!

-Larry

Larry,

I wish you the best whichever road you take. You seem like you're smart enough to get a handle on either platform. Of course, it would be nice for the consumer to not be faced with such decisions but for now, we just deal with it. On the up-side, it offers some interesting debates in the forums - hopefully no one takes anything personally and we all learn about different perspectives along the way.

Rory