In an effort to get to know our readers better, we're kicking off a series of polls that will figure out just where you guys stand on certain technologies. We'll start it with a big one: which do you use, Macs or PCs? We'll round all these answers up into a big something-or-other that you guys will like. Maybe we'll even include bar graphs!
Question of the day: Do You Use a Mac or PC?
6:20 PM on Wed Dec 19 2007
By Jason Chen
23,399 views
147 comments












Comments
Perhaps Giz could just publish the metrics for the site by OS, no?
15.4" Macbook Pro wooo!
I run Vista on my personal MacBook Pro when needed. It runs as well as my Dell D620 I use for work.
work: Dude, I work on a Dell.
Home: Think Different.
Not fair. I use a PC but I wish I had a Mac. I had to vote honestly though.
Dell Crapitude laptop for work. MacBook Pro for home.
Macbook Pro.
Have three PCs and four Macs, currently.
I would say that based on early tallies, Giz readers are not you're typical PC users (read: a bunch of Apple fanboys)...
Mac or PC? but for what?. In this times of cross plataform and since mac adopted Intel processors, is a os question more than hardware. vista at work. xp and vista at home, and 10.5 and xp on laptop. what do I use?
I think mostly pc. even my mac runs as pc. I have an old thinkpad that i might get linux, but that will be my project when I brake a leg and have to stay in for a while.
33.5% Mac to 42.3% PC. I thought apple only had 3-4% market share. Just goes to show you commenters are fanboys.
Dell Inspirgay..but getting a MacBook Pro for Christmas. I can't stand xp anymore.
Last count I had about 8 PCs sitting around. My only apple is my phone.
Bet 80% Giz readers us macs.
I use Vista mostly, but i've been running Ubuntu on dual boot for a few weeks now (just reinstalled it).
MacPro at work, Win XP box at home. They're both computers, they both crash from time to time, neither is infallible. The Mac does give me a "cool" feeling, though...
interesting results seeing as the majority of comments on this site are obviously coming from Mac addicts. I guess it's true what they say that the loudest people are the most insecure.
@encyclia: Is it possible to use a mac and not be a fanboy? Who cares what OS people choose? Sheesh. And WTH is a "typical" PC user? Does he whine about fanboys all the time?
I run a dual 2.7 G5 and a Dell Optiplex at work, Macbook with Ubuntu/OS X at home.
I don't think it says they're fanboys...it just says that a disproportionate amount of Apple people seem to congregate here. And why not? Every iPhone story/firmware update gets a full spread.
There are fanboys on both sides on this site.
MacBook keeps my lap nice and sweaty.
Vista FTW!
Macbook 2.0 C2D Black!!! Switched over this past June after AAPL stock was good to me for the year. LOve Tiger and hoping for leopard for christmas!!!
I do use an IBM Thinkpad T43 for work though.
I use all platforms. There are benefits to all of the platforms, there isn't one that is leaps and bounds better. Fanboys certainly muddy otherwise interesting conversations it seems.
@honozooloo: You're looking at him.
My Mac is pretty good. But my 6 year-old Dell is pretty damn good too. I use whatever gets the job done the best for the least amount of money. I still prefer Office XP to Office Mac. And Firefox' glitchiness and instability on Mac has made me switch to Safari.
Soon I'll have even more choice. I'm getting a 6 month-old hand-me-down 12" Toshiba (running XP) from my mom, who I think is seriously considering having "eeePC" tattooed on her.
Unfortunately I can't vote, as I only have:
-1 OSX PC
-1 Windows PC
-2 Linux PCs
Maybe when Apple open a new category of computer I can get one of these non-PC 'Macs'...
Haha that was awesome.
@Lizard_King: I completely agree. My family used PC's for years, until we started using Macs. The most we switch off buying PC's and macs, each getting replaced by one of the opposite OS. The family laptop is a PC while the desktop it an iMac. The oldest computers are disassembled as science projects or turned into Linux boxes as backups if a computer dies and for experimentation.
Work: 5 PCs and a c2d iMac. MBP at home.
Given my luck with Apple hardware, my next machine will be a hackintosh.
I've used a PC since DOS 1.0 and still need to use a PC daily for work, but since switching to the Mac a year ago, I've wondered why anyone would choose to use a PC over the Mac. Windows is so badly designed and so hard to use that I swear I waste an hour a day just dealing with Windows design flaws.
I would expected the PC:Mac ratio would be 2:1 or so but I guess not.
Q6600-GTX Vista at home for games and Media Center.
HP P4-2.4 XP at work.
iBookG4 1.2 Leopard on the floor collecting dust as a torrent machine. At least it doesnt waste much energy, instead of keeping my main on all the time draining 800W. Azuerus absolutely destroys resources, but works properly.
At work we have a bit of everything. But Mac's are more of an end user type machine then admin machine, so we dont get alot of MAC time. From what I read the other day MAC has more Security problmes then Vista so if your a MAC fan boy you should cool your heels. And if your a PC fanboy Vista sucks so heels should be iced as well..
@distantbody: haha! very good one.
I use XP and Mac at work. At home I have 3 PCs running XP and one that's running nothing right now but will be running Kubuntu as soon as I get around to it.
Isn't it funny that you ask "Mac or PC" when Apple was the company that invented the PC?
MacBook Pro at home, with Vista on the Bootcamp partition when I need a PC. Windows XP at work, but I have no choice there.
@jetexas:my only apple is an Ipod
2 desktops running xp
1 laptop with vista
1 laptop with xp
at work PC at home multi boot xp-ubuntu-knoppix
HAHA YES almost neck and neck, man... at my jr high and high school all they had were Mac (private school brat I am,) I've been using them since 1994 and have been in love since lol. PC will go the way of the dodo. I have never needed a PC and never will. The past 14-15 years since I have been using a computer (I am 24) I have never needed anything other then a Mac. Apple you did it and you always will. I would not give up my Mac Pro or G4 for anything else!
For my personal life I use a Mac. At work I use my personal Mac and a few dozen Windows workstations and a few JAVA based servers. At the end of the day, I really don't care what OS it runs, as long as it works.
For media editing I love my Mac. I yanked the optical drive and installed a second HD it works great.
As for security flaws, theoretical exploits vs. actual exploits. I would love for somebody to do the research and figure out what OS is more secure. I love how for ages people throw out that OS X is less secure, but I have had no security problems with it, on the other hand, at least one of my co-workers a year shuts down the entire network with a virus (network shutdown used as way to prevent further infections). That's with all of the required firewalls, AV, etc.. I would love a un-biased review of security showing the difference between the reality of security and the hypothetical flaws.
1 mac with tiger and 1 with leopard
1 with xp, 2 with vista, 1 with 2000
1 with ubuntu, 1 with gentoo
1 with solaris
They all have there faults, there made by humans I have had all of them crash on me before one time or another, it doesn't matter what company makes something it is never foolproof
1 Macbook Pro
1 iBook
1 dead Gateway
Right now: R52 ThinkPad with XP and Ubuntu.
By the end of Jan. 2008: Whatever Apple laptop I will buy :)
Well, this sure explains why every Apple-related story turns into a pitched battle in the comment section...because the forces are too evenly matched!
I have a PC at work and a 933MHz G4 (Leopard 10.5) tower at home. I'm starting to love Mac more and more, but I respect MS for expending the effort to get Windows working with so many hardware configurations. Seriously, the reason MS couldn't have a Boot Camp (even if Apple allowed it) is because OS X can only handle Apple's limited hardware configurations.
...and I also love games.
Black Macbook, just updated to Leopard!
Use to use XP pc at work.... and mac at home. Changed to mac at work and now only use Os X.... Ahhhhh much better!!!! By the one... what the heck is with the fanboy comments. What... are you eight! I'm fine with being called a fanboy... it's a product worth shouting about. Although I guess I would also try and make crappy comments about the competition if I was using a system as crappy as Vista. My brother-in-law just bought two vista machines. A laptop and a desktop. He's had them for about a month and is now ready to sell them and replace them for macs...Good man!
Why do we have to have a poll about this? Why can't you just post the visitor statistics from your hit counter?
Just for the record, I selected "Mac," when I should have selected "A combination."
So you know, if that throws the whole thing off...you know....sorry.....and stuff.
For all the people saying things like:
"I don't think it says they're fanboys...it just says that a disproportionate amount of Apple people seem to congregate here."
Actually, what it says is that Mac OS X has a higher market penetration with geeks than with your grandparents. Just because Mac has a 6% worldwide market share doesn't mean that this 6% share will show up in every demographic. The average person uses a PC, sure. But Mac users tend to be nerds or hipsters, and aren't those just the kinds of people who read and comment on tech blogs?
@Empire: It's not "funny" that they call it "PC." Apple does that in it's own PC v. Mac ads. What other way would you refer to the various brands of non-Mac personal computers? "IBM clones"?
Lets, see. One 10.5 laptop, a 10.4 server G5 tower. 1 freebsd machine, two linux desktops, one linux laptop, 2 Xp desktops, and a Xp laptop. Oh, and two linux handhelds. At work I have a 10.5 laptop, a 10.5 desktop and an Xp desktop. I pretty much use whatever gets the job done.
Combination: PCs with windows and a lappy with windows and linux.
I want a mac though.
Personal:Mac OS
Work: Windows XP and Linux
Fujitsu laptop at home, Mac Pro at work.
To be fair, PCs have a huge back catalog of legacy viruses, worms and trojans. It would take Mac decades to catch up to the security vulnerabilities of Microsoft's OS.
@Aldaron: I could say the same about Macs. Of course, I tweak my UI farther than OS X can do. (XP, might switch to Vista eventually)
Wow, so its about 50/50. This means war!
I use both; right next to each other. When the time came to replace my 4 year old HP Pavilion desktop, I went with a MacPro. But since some of the software I use is PC only, I just use both. I have them both set up on my desk with side-by-side monitors.
Of course the trouble comes in that I have two keyboards, and two mice...I should just partition the Mac HD and dual-boot but I'm lazy...
I'm actually surprised at the low turnout for linux users in the poll, given the target demographic for this site. Maybe a lot of them are falling under the 'Combination of the above" category?
Macbook running 10.5 here, interesting to see the near 50/50 split.
Got a PC, would love to learn to use a Mac but my bank account says otherwise, so i'll stick with the PC.
@trendspotter: They do. Check out the little bitty link to their sitemeter.com counter on the left.
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