Anyone switched from windows to a mac ?

[paul1966]

I'm looking for a new laptop, Just had a bonus from work so have just over £1000 to spend, I've always had windows machines in the past apart from a short spell with an old Imac that eventually packed up due to PCA problems, i did enjoy using it whilst it worked. So after looking around I quite fancy a macbook air M2, looking for something built to last, the Lenovo i'm typing this on has got cracked hinges and a cracked chassis after 5 years. Anyone else switched across and come to regret it?

[moondoggy]

I have and my son did as well.

All I can say is do it, you won’t go back.

[Scully]

Made the move to iMac many moons ago. I just couldn’t go back now. 

[discobob]

You could try a Mac Mini as well if you don’t need portability 

[Miserableolgit]

After many, many years of Windows in its various iterations I jumped to a MacBook Pro a year or so ago. Wouldn't want to go back.

[Munzy]

20 years ago. Every now and again I go back to a Windows machine for car diagnostics or some other reason and I cannot believe how slow and clunky it feels. I’ve never used virus protection on the two MacBooks I’ve had (one Pro and one Air) and never had an issue.

Apple has nailed the backup and recovery thing too. My MacBook Air (10 years old) had a complete failure of the internal hard drive on Thursday. Ordered a new drive on Amazon (£45) which came the next day. Took the back off and removed the dead drive and slotted the new one in, formatted it, reinstalled the operating system and then it found my most recent backup of my old drive from our NAS and when I woke up this morning it was done. All my files back just as they were on Thursday as if nothing had happened.

Would never go back to Windows.

[udderlyoffroad]

Bought a Macbook air with the M2 chip back in September.

So far it's had very light use.  Appears to cope well with the occasional bit of 3d CAD (Fusion) and video editing.

No issues given I use a Windows Laptop for work.  If you use keyboard shortcuts a lot, you may struggle a bit at first as some are different.  Other than that, most applications are exactly the same as on Windows.

Out of the box, far less unecessary cruft and nonsense than a windows machine.

[JohnfromUK]

Changed to Mac around 15 years ago.  I wouldn't go back.  Have an M2 MacBook Air at present with a very old iMac as a backup.

Easy to change and I still have some "Microsoft" as I do use "Office for Mac" as I find Mac's own word processor (Pages) and spreadsheet (Numbers) to be VERY poor compared to Word and Excel, but to be fair I never tried that hard with them.  If you have iPhone/iPad (i.e. iOS operating system devices) a Mac will integrate very easily and many iOS apps will have Mac OS versions.

[markm]

Mac all the way. 
 

It just works (well)

[johnphilip]

I got a macbook about 4 years. Ago was a 2015 recon model do a lot of photo editing,  treat my self a new macbook. M1 air just before christmas. The only thing I don't like is you can't. Upgrade the ram , as its soldered into the board. The M1 and M2 a lot faster processing  but you have to decide on how much Ram you. Want when you. Order one 

I hate. Sitting at a desk these days. .

[Scully]

10 hours ago, Munzy said:

20 years ago. Every now and again I go back to a Windows machine for car diagnostics or some other reason and I cannot believe how slow and clunky it feels. I’ve never used virus protection on the two MacBooks I’ve had (one Pro and one Air) and never had an issue.

Apple has nailed the backup and recovery thing too. My MacBook Air (10 years old) had a complete failure of the internal hard drive on Thursday. Ordered a new drive on Amazon (£45) which came the next day. Took the back off and removed the dead drive and slotted the new one in, formatted it, reinstalled the operating system and then it found my most recent backup of my old drive from our NAS and when I woke up this morning it was done. All my files back just as they were on Thursday as if nothing had happened.

Would never go back to Windows.

You may as well be talking a foreign language as far as I’m concerned! 😄

Well done. I admire those who know their way around a laptop or PC. I’m not techi at all, but would love to be. I don’t need to be a nerd but would love to learn more as I need it for my artwork at times, and finding out how to do things can just eat into my day, time I would rather spend painting. 
I have a MacBook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone. I know I’m not using even a tenth of what they’re capable of, but learning how to use them also eats into my day, again, time better spent elsewhere. 
Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in a day. 🙂

A mate in the village creates security systems and multi technical IT services, so is a handy lad to know; the entire village knocks on his door at times! 😂

[paul1966]

Thanks all, a macbook air M2 being delivered by amazon today.

[Minky]

I went Imac about 5 years ago.  Not a cough or blink or splutter. The  main thing that I found difficult was that it was different to Windows..... but the same or similar.  It's like coming home and everything has been moved somewhere else and you call it a tea pot and now your not sure if you're looking for a teapot or a liquid recepticle.  If you've got an iPhone or an Iwatch they all link up so if you enter data on one it seamlessly transfers over to the others.  The  one bit of advice is if you go mac,  don't try to use Windows programs because at some stage there will be a clash and it will be like riding a pushbike with rubber handlebars  which will end in a massive gutser which you won't like.

Ps.  When I got it I thought... you've made a big mistake here.  Take it back.   But I persevered and soon got to drive it.

Edited February 11 by Minky

[Jim Gunner]

For me it's not the machines themselves that are better, it's the MacOS operating system. Even with all its bugs it still offers a better, cohesive user experience than anything after Windows XP. There are a few things about the operating system however that have crept in over the years that you may find yourself up against after using it for a while. 'Gatekeeper' is a prime example of Apple trying to discourage the average computer user from being able to install software that's NOT from their App Store. A search for 'disabling gatekeeper on MacOS' will show you how to get around such unwanted obstructions, but don't go down that rabbit hole until you're comfortable using your new computer. I've used MacOS for 20+ years both personally and professionally and anything I've ever been stuck on was usually solved by watching someone on youtube who had a video about the exact same problem. Neither OS is without its problems but MacOS is much more pleasant on a day to day basis.

Edited February 11 by Jim Gunner

[Agriv8]

Yes every day argue with windows servers for the day job. At home use a Mac mini m1 for 90 % of stuff it’s fine odd 10 % is annoying but google has the answer!

if you have other Apple products like a phone it makes life even better. 
 

Agriv8

[discobob]

10 hours ago, Agriv8 said:

Yes every day argue with windows servers for the day job. At home use a Mac mini m1 for 90 % of stuff it’s fine odd 10 % is annoying but google has the answer!

if you have other Apple products like a phone it makes life even better. 
 

Agriv8

Similar type of stuff to you - but with SQL Server as well

I have a Mac Mini 1 I picked up end of last year and stuck that in the office but it hasn't had much use as of yet - I tend to do most stuff on my iPhone....

However, I do support two gaming/workstations PC's with my lads, and I have my test rig for when doing stuff for other people - I also have a windows Surface Pro that I have had for years (v4) that is exceedingly limited.

Regarding Upgrades for the later Macs where everything is soldered in - there are some places that can upgrade the storage up to 2TB

Regarding windows - my work laptop is on Windows 11 - I absolutely hate it - detest it - oh for the days of Windows XP (but I do like the multi tab notepad and terminal/CMD)

[udderlyoffroad]

1 hour ago, discobob said:

Regarding windows - my work laptop is on Windows 11 - I absolutely hate it - detest it - oh for the days of Windows XP (but I do like the multi tab notepad and terminal/CMD)

Might just be what our IT dept. does, but I've found W11 quite restrained recently.  The UX can still be gawd awful, a retro-grade step from XP (though it's still mostly there if you look: start, run, 'msconfig').

16 hours ago, Minky said:

The  one bit of advice is if you go mac,  don't try to use Windows programs

Presumably, you mean try to run windows programs under an emulator?  Certainly would agree with that; fortunately there are many alternatives these days for most tasks.  Unless it's special bit of hardware to talk to some obsolete software, you shouldn't need to emulate?

 

On 11/02/2024 at 09:42, paul1966 said:

Thanks all, a macbook air M2 being delivered by amazon today.

Excellent.  Am sure you'll like it.

To be honest, I'm finding the OS matters less and less, stuff these days is far better at 'just working', I would suggest installing your current browser of choice though, whether that's Chrome or Firefox.

[discobob]

19 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Might just be what our IT dept. does, but I've found W11 quite restrained recently.  The UX can still be gawd awful, a retro-grade step from XP (though it's still mostly there if you look: start, run, 'msconfig').

I have a bleedin hard job dealing with the stupid separate accounts that our infrastructure has set up - makes it impossible to do a good workflow. It may also be this carp Dell laptop that they have given me.. I have to keep killing explorer and launch it again as the windows menu freezes and won't let me do anything (even Windows-R)

[Minky]

35 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Presumably, you mean try to run windows programs under an emulator?  Certainly would agree with that; fortunately there are many alternatives these days for most tasks.  Unless it's special bit of hardware to talk to some obsolete software, you shouldn't need to emulate?

what I meant was .. use the programs which come with the Mac.  I loved XP but just didn't like later versions.  Years ago I used one drive for picture storage.  Apple have  cloud storage.  I had a msg from one drive advising me that I was getting near the limit and for £1.99p a month I could go up to 1Tb.  When I did this it deleted between 40 >>> to 60 thousand photos. !!! some I have managed to recover but I will probably have to pay for a specialist recovery of the drive to see if they can be recovered I doubt it.  A disaster.

Edited February 12 by Minky

[paul1966]

Ok day two of macbook ownership and Houston we have a problem, I downloaded chrome which seemed to install and run ok until you reboot, then the chrome Icon turns into a question mark, on clicking the icon chrome re-installs and all is good until a reboot. On the desktop there is a disk drive icon labeled chrome and clicking that you get a window with chrome at the top and the application icon underneath. I think I need to totally uninstall chrome and re install from scratch, just got to figure out how to do it.

[udderlyoffroad]

Per this 'ere reddit:

Quote

 

Just remove it from the Dock and launch it from the Applications folder. Once you have new icon in Dock, just pin that!

The disk drive icon is the install file.  Once you've done the above, delete the disk drive.

[paul1966]

48 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Per this 'ere reddit:

The disk drive icon is the install file.  Once you've done the above, delete the disk drive.

thanks all sorted

[Miserableolgit]

Much profanity this morning after I opened the lid of my two year old MacBook Pro to find the bottom of the screen has two small cracks that were not there yesterday. SWMBO thinks she remembers the young Lab jumping on it last night.....

[discobob]

18 hours ago, Miserableolgit said:

Much profanity this morning after I opened the lid of my two year old MacBook Pro to find the bottom of the screen has two small cracks that were not there yesterday. SWMBO thinks she remembers the young Lab jumping on it last night.....

Looks like a visit to the Genius bar which will be very expensive. Not sure - but I think even the screens on this model is tied to the laptop - that is the only trouble with Apple products...

[Minky]

On 11/02/2024 at 18:34, Minky said:

The  one bit of advice is if you go mac,  don't try to use Windows programs because at some stage there will be a clash and it will be like riding a pushbike with rubber handlebars  which will end in a massive gutser which you won't like.

Ps.  When I got it I thought... you've made a big mistake here.  Take it back.   But I persevered and soon got to drive it.

 

On 12/02/2024 at 15:04, paul1966 said:

Ok day two of macbook ownership and Houston we have a problem, I downloaded chrome which seemed to install and run ok until you reboot, then the chrome Icon turns into a question mark, on clicking the icon chrome re-installs and all is good until a reboot. On the desktop there is a disk drive icon labeled chrome and clicking that you get a window with chrome at the top and the application icon underneath. I think I need to totally uninstall chrome and re install from scratch, just got to figure out how to do it.

This was what I mentioned above..  Don't use chrome.  Use Safari that is in the Mac.  There are differences in the systems.  Same but different.  It's like buying a brand new car and deciding that you what to put two wheels off of a lorry on one side.!  why.?  you might be used to using chrome but don't .  don't try putting curry into your corn flakes .. it instant compatible.