Any Windows users here ?

Posted by dan7000
Sep 7, 2017 at 11:34 PM

A Windows v Mac thread - I love it! Feels like 1995 :)

I have 3 Windows laptops. One owned by my employer, the other 2 by me. Every time I consider getting a Mac I just can’t believe the ridiculous price difference. I basically do everything either on the web or MS Office so OS really doesn’t matter much to me. I refuse to buy single-platform software and the non-web software I do have is all cross-platform.

I’m using a Dell laptop right now that I bought new 8 months ago for $210. It has an SSD which is one key requirement for me since I’ve had many hard drives fail - probably because I travel constantly and treat laptops pretty roughly. It runs Windows 10 flawlessly. My other key requirement - also because of travel - is light weight. This machine weighs less than 3 lbs. I store everything in the cloud (Tresorit for secure stuff, Dropbox and Gmail for everything else) - another lesson learned after many failed hard drives.

A Mac that weighs this little and has an SSD would have cost me five times as much! I see Macs as luxury items. It’s like buying a top of the line Tesla. Sure it’s neat and it’s got some great features. But only rich people can afford them and even if you’re rich it’s just vanity to own one if all you do is drive to the supermarket a couple times a week. However, if you commute 60 miles a day *and* you have the money, then a Tesla makes sense. Personally, I can’t see spending $1,000 on a laptop. And when I think about what software will be around for a long time and be successful, I also have to imagine that the vast majority of people and businesses will always choose laptops based primarily on price, so if I stick with the economy choice, I will be using the OS that is most likely to capture most of the market.

My other 2 laptops are both Lenovo. Both a little heavier but both have SSDs too. I also have an iPad, 3 Android tablets, and an iPhone. Yeah, a little hypocritical to have an iphone and ipad after what I wrote above. But Android just really cannot compete with iOS yet on so many levels. As soon as it can, I’m getting a $50 LG phone and ditching my $600 luxury phone.

Main software tools:
- Focuster (web-based todo list)
- Scrivener
- Evernote
- Word
- Excel
- Outlook
- Opera/Chrome/Firefox
- Gmail / Google Calendar
- Foxit PDF editor