AboutBobbert Expertise General purchasing questions, in areas regarding price to performance ratios and future expansion, drawing from roughly a decade of experience and numerous unique situations for customers and myself, I'm willing to help you get the best computer for your money.
Experience I have been an enthuiast of PC's for many years, and can answer most questions about purchase of a new computer from personal knowledge or experience through other online Q&A services in advising on the same topic.
Question It is time for a new computer in our household, but we are not agreeing. We currently run a desktop that my brother built. It runs on windows XP. It has been a great computer, but we have had it for close to 10 years now. (no joke). We have had it "cleaned" several times, which has helped in the speed, etc. But now it is just soooo sluggish. My husband wants Apple. I hesitate as all our software is windows based and repurchasing it would not be pretty. We run office, quicken, streets and trips, have a printer/scanner/fax, need to download from a camera and store pics, etc. Internet usage is premium - some storage of video, but don't actually view movies on it. We do burn and listen to CDs. We also have a significant number of saved items that would need to be transferred and I worry about the ease of that from windows to mac. Thanks for your insite.
Answer Generally there are a number of freeware applications for both Windows and Apple, such as OpenOffice for OS X, although a few applications are going to require repurchase, or will be unavailable for the OS X platform, HOWEVER, with an Apple machine, you have a few options for running your Windows applications, like Streets and Trips, you can run them from within Parallels Desktop for Mac, or you can install and run Boot Camp to boot the system into a Windows environment (I would only suggest the later to support DirectX applications, such as games).
Internet connectivity will not change with an Apple, although you'll more likely be using Safari or a 3rd party browser over Internet Explorer, this may require a bit of adjustment, but it doesn't mean the end of support for internet applications.
The only other thing I'd be curious about is the MFC, although drivers are very likely available for OS X, so I'm not too worried there.
Everything else is more or less a constant, regardless of what you buy, such as copying over important data, installing/connecting new devices (like your camera), and so on.
In short, I don't really see any issues with a switch to Apple and OS X, aside from a slight learning curve and the price. Personally, I'd probably suggest the iMac or Mac Mini, over the Mac Pro, unless you're heavily into DCC.
If you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask.
-bob
