How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

I'd like to do a "Should you buy a Mac?" speech for my Toastmasters club. I'd like your help on this: what are the best selling points and also the biggest drawbacks to using a Mac over a Windows PC?

My audience is 'normal' folks--people who use computers at home and work but don't become emotionally involved in them, like (ahem) some of us :b So I could use ideas geared toward the mainstream user.

Thanks!

Re: How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

Thanks for the helpful comments. (and I agree, the lit keyboard is great. I miss it when using my external keyboard.)

I'll clarify: I'm not going for a "sales" pitch. I want to give a 10 min presentation on how a Mac is great choice today, but be fair to its drawbacks, like price or limited software. I'll use the comments here to help find the best talking points for a broad audience.

Re: How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

I've compared prices. I'm convinced high-end is competively priced, mid- and low-end is expensive, but it's hard to quantify "cool" and "style".

I actively use Parallels and BootCamp, and I don't view them as a good good long-term solution. If your essential computing needs require a Windows-only app, go with a Windows machine. (And I really want a good finance program to quit Parallels / MS Money.) Gaming is limited with BootCamp: Mac video cards are mediocre (at best).

This limitation also also includes creative software (ironically), as such as hobbyist image editing and possibly web-design. And, alas, hardware like mice and keyboards.

I agree, though, that the converse partially holds: I don't know of a Windows creative suite equal in price and quality to iLife. And for a developer, I believe the Mac gives XCode free compared to buying Visual Whatever from MS.

I don't want to be unduly negative, but a Mac recommendation (from me) must be balanced by an overview of its faults. It's not all sweetness and light. It's a complex system like any OS, and it crashes with the best (worst?) of them. And there are other real drawbacks that should be explained, unless I just want to be an ignorant / sleazy salesman.

Re: How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

Macs come with video cards that are middling for gaming. For a casual gamer like me, this is fine. But for an avid gamer, a hobbyist gamer, there are much better and cheaper options in the Windows world.

There is a software gap in mid-range image editors; this is evidenced by the recent launch of Acorn, Pixelmator and some third app I've heard of. There's a lack of a good, robust, well-supported, ~$50 image editor akin to PhotoImpact or PaintShopPro. PhotoImpact was a robust pixel-based image editor that managed all graphics as individual objects; text could be edited after initial creation. (No demo of Elements to try. Seashore inadequate. Gimp is torture. Haven't tried Acorn. Pixelmator is yet unavailable.)

There is also niche professional software that is CPU-intensive and Windows only. I won't bother listing apps, but there are programs I and coworkers use that are Windows only, or whose Mac versions are inferior. I also include people who use MS Office with complex Excel macros or VBA-created programs. If your job relies on these, going Mac could be less satisfying.

From your and others' comments, I'm working with this approach:

* No better time to switch to a Mac with mature OS X, Windows compatibility, and great hardware options

* Don't bother if you're a cheapskate (<$400 for a PC) or hardcore gamer. Think carefully if you do niche engineering or financial work.

* Security! So much easier on a Mac

* Price is good for high-end, reasonable for mid-range

* Ease and pleasure of use: Expose, iLife creative suite, Dock, approach to use data organization, multiple user accounts for the family, .Mac

* Aesthetics: attractive hardware. clear product lines make shopping easier. good stores with reasonably informed salespeople.

* Downsides: some limitations in choice of peripherals (e.g. Logitech mice) and some software options are more limited (low-end graphics software).

Re: How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

Eric, thanks for the comment. I want to play up the aesthetics in part of my presentation.

Sam, not to belabor the point, but Half Life 2 is 3 years old. I know Macs, especially intel Macs, can play games. But for the serious gamer -- the friend I had in high school who bought high-end systems from Falcon NW or Alienware solely to play the newest games at highest resolutions -- Mac is not a good choice. They simply don't have upper-mid and high-end graphics cards.

For casual gamers like you and me playing older games or newer ones at reduced quality settings, it's fine. But for the person who buys a PC to game, Mac is probably not the right choice.



Is security an issue for people? Was that a selling point for the Mac, the lack of viruses, etc? I'm not sure if "normal" people really think about that or view it as selling point.

Re: How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

Here's the presentation I created using Keynote for my Toastmasters club. I gave the presentation live in the club. Here, I exported the slideshow as video and merged my audio into it.

(Should you) Buy a Mac?

Alas, Keynote replaces some of the cooler transitions with simple "appear" when exporting to video.

Also, anyone know if GarageBand can help reduce audio noise? I don't know audio tools, so didn't try to filter out the background hiss from the audio.

Re: How would you sell a friend on a Mac?

I'll check out the noise removal features

I don't think I can use the narrative recording for this specific purpose: I gave this presentation live with Keynote two weeks ago and video recorded my presentation; I extracted the audio track from the movie clip. I then exported a new Keynote video of the slide show, based on the timings from my live performance, and merged in the audio from that live presentation. (Does that make sense? Original Audio + New Keynote Video == final result).

I could have recorded a new audio track and been done super easy. But I wanted to use my original speech.