“Cheap” does not equal “Value”.
Yesterday, after realizing I was running out of drive space on my trusty MacBook Pro, and knowing that I’d need a Windows machine for certain upcoming school requirements, I decided to wipe my Windows XP Boot Camp partition from my MBP, and went out and bought an Acer Aspire X1200 desktop PC. I was attracted by its quietness, small form factor, decent specs, and great price.
Now, this computer looks fine on paper. Maybe everyone was right, I overpaid for both Macs that I’ve bought in the past 4 years. Looking at the specs, it’s hard to argue that for $450, this looks like a fantastic deal, and sure beats paying $600 for a new Mac Mini, right?
Wrong.
My short amount of time with this PC has done nothing but remind me why I will pay just a little extra (and sometimes a little less, depending on your research) for a Mac, rather than suffer through a PC hell again.
First off, setup of this little bugger took about 30 minutes. That includes unboxing, plugging everything in, and first boot-up, where Windows Vista ran some sort of “speed test” on the machine to check its performance, and install its bloated mess onto the machine. 30 minutes. I could have been actually USING my computer in 1/6 of the time had I bought an Apple computer. I know from experience.
And that doesn’t include the time I took uninstalling all the crap software that Acer decided to include with the machine.
Oh yeah, this computer didn’t even come with a recovery/restore disc. I had to burn my own.
My old Mac Mini (which I no longer have) took 5 minutes for me to set it up and be up and running. And that was in 2005. I paid about $600 for it.
“Cheap” does not equal “Value”.
Fitting that the embedded ethernet adapter died after only one day. From looking at the customer reviews on BestBuy.com, I’m not the only one that’s had that problem. I’m returning this machine tomorrow for a refund, rather than try to deal with Acer Tech support, who would only tell me to do everything I’ve already tried to troubleshoot the problem.
So, the next time someone tries to say things like “Macs are so expensive, why pay that much for a computer when you can pay so much less for a PC?”, I say again, “Cheap” does not equal “Value”.
Hey Man,
I’ve been getting into editing videos and stuff recently. I’m actually editing the videos for my brother that he makes everyday on the Walk For Liberty. He got a new camcorder and the M2TS files it makes are way to intensive for my Vostro 1500, Core 2 Duo Dell computer, so I have to reconvert the files 2 different times thus losing a lot of quality (thus it defeats the point of getting an HD camera).
If I got an Apple for high powered video editing, why would it be better? What specifically makes Apples better for video editing over PC’s? I always heard that was the case, but I don’t know why.
John
Honestly, these days, you could have a great PC OR a great Mac for video. It’s probably just a matter of preference, but I personally prefer a Mac due to its ease of use, attention to detail in the User Interface area, and overall stability factor. Windows (especially Vista) just seems to be too obtrusive for my tastes.
If you go with a Mac, iMovie comes on it, which makes movie editing an absolute BREEZE. You can take it a step further and get Final Cut, which is SUPER powerful and an industry standard.
Good to hear from you! Be safe! Hope to see you soon, dude!