MyTechVision

There area number of people who ask me why I use a Mac. Now to those readers who use a Mac and who are Stateside or possibly residing in some countries in North Europe this may be something that they don’t hear very often anymore. However here in Portugal, Mac is only just beginning to be noticed by a few savvy users (beyond the hardcore user base).

I am writing this post for those people who ask me the dreaded question. So let’s begin:

Sony have just released a beautiful machine. It’s called the VAIO Living System or less science-fictiony and less appealingly LS or All-in-one (like the cheap printers you can get your hands on nowadays).

This is what it looks like.

Pretty nice. In fact– Very nice. I would buy this if had the cash spare ($1,799 or approx. €1320)…

Even the Keyboard looks quite innovative and is fairly thin.

The mouse is nothing to write home about (regular slightly “designed” mouse).

All this looks very good until you compare it with Apple’s latest desktop consumer offering:

The iMac.

Granted, from the front there isn’t much in it. They both look pretty sleek.

The problems for the VAIO appear when you start looking in 3D and looking closer:

This is the VAIO’s profile.

This is the iMac’s.

Enough said.

Incredibly this is what the profile of the iMac’s wired keyboard looks like:

Now that is impressive design.

I could go on and do lots of other comparisons, chipset, size of hard-drive, blu-ray (this is all but completely irrelevant in Portugal as things stand), but there are plenty of sites that have reviewed both machines (or there will be soon enough) and as I said earlier, I like the Sony. But it is no match for Apple.

Unfortunately Apple don’t make TV’s, though the screens they make on their iMacs are larger and higher definition than this.

Sony’s plus point is the fact that you can plug in your antenna and other TV peripherals:

Which makes it a nice sitting room TV screen…

I have come to find myself watching less and less TV as more of my time is taken up with my family and hobbies, so the TV side doesn’t grab me either.

The worst sales point has got to be Windows Vista.

I use both Windows and OS X at home and was a Windows only user for many years (DOS to Windows Me(that was a disastrous OS that I quickly uninstalled)), I now have XP on a partition on my Mac and don’t like using any virtual system as I feel it ruins the Mac OS to have it there. (In MY mind it feels like running an Opel Corsa Engine when my Bentley doesn’t like the road, only I can’t switch the Corsa off, whereas a separate boot switches off the Mac and lets Windows work for a while). Anyway back to point in hand…

I find OS X cleaner and easier to use. Everything is where it should be. If you change the way the machine connects to the Internet, that’s it, all you have to do. From my Windows experience, there is always some bloody checkbox that is hidden in the advanced features of IE that you have to tick or a properties box that you need to find and change something in after you’ve done what you believe to be the hard work.

I used to enjoy doing those things as I got a sense of achievement. “Aren’t I clever I know how to do x y or z and it took 45 minutes?”

Computers should not be like that for the user. You should be able to make a great piece of work and show it to someone and say look at this, I did this (and quietly add on my Mac) hoping that not too many hear and say

“But that’s easy on a Mac!”

To make this point clear I have two more quick screen grabs from the competing hardware manufacturers’ sites:

And the Mac…

The main difference… simplicity.