Relationship With Mac Still Rocky

When it comes right down to it, I’m still not in love with this Mac. Everyone talks about how great they are, but there are a few AMAZING things you can do on a PC that make it, at least to me, easier to use.

1. Right-Click – Sure I can control and click to get the same feature, but now it requires two hands instead of one.
2. Clear the Desktop – there is a button for this too, but I miss my little icon by my start menu filled with programs.
3. I miss the start programs option. Now if I want to access all of my programs I have to go to the hard drive and it requires multiple clicks to get to items I don’t use frequently.
4. I liked how all of the programs I had open in Microsoft would stack neatly on the task bar when I minimized them. Sure I can hit a key to show all of the windows at once, but they are still hidden from my view and so I don’t remember sometimes that I already have 16 windows of Safari already open.
5. To close anything the icons are all super small circles. Sure it’s artsy, but I want my close button to be bigger and on the right side of the screen.
6. I don’t like Keynote, Pages, or Numbers. They are not a substitute for Microsoft Office. Office 2007 is awesome. It takes some time getting used to, but once you know how everything works it is the bomb. Office 2008 for Mac is a turd. Microsoft tried to make Office work more like iWork with it’s look and feel and tiny icons and minimal design and it’s a pile of crap. The functionality is the same, but the ease of use is all messed up.

I’ve got about $2300 invested in this machine and I could have spent $1000 and had a really nice PC with all the bells and whistles. I wouldn’t have had to go out and buy new versions of Photoshop and Dreamweaver and Office. And there wouldn’t be this learning curve that everyone said I would acclimate to in time. What they might not realize is that I was/am a Power User when it came to PC’s. I could make those babies sing and although sometimes they would sing off key, I knew how to get them back in tune.

My review: Unless you just want to pay more for something that works only 10% better than a PC and looks a little prettier, then don’t buy into the hype and just go out and buy a Dell.