"In our speed trials ... Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple's platform-switching Boot Camp software -- and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did."
PM clocked and noted that the 2.0 GHz core 2 Duo Gateway desktop took a full 1 minute and 13 seconds to start up, and a whopping 44.3 seconds to shut down. In comparison, the comparably equipped iMac, started up in a mere 28.7 seconds and only took in an incredible short 4 seconds flat to shut down!
These benchmarks prove, once again, that Macs are a lot more than just a pretty face. Since both machines share basically the very same hardware and components, it mostly comes down to the operating system - Vista vs OS X Leopard.
In the end, Popular Mechanic has reinforced the fact that both the Mac's hardware and Apple's award winning OS X, can beat similar offerings on the PC side, and not just in speed, but also in style and price. In fact, I might add that, when it comes to style and class, the Mac offerings are in a class all of their own. Of course, the PC's have been doing their best to emulate Apple's style and ease of use. However, none of them have quite equalled Apple yet, but they are certainly improving, even beating Apple in a few areas, but over all, Apple still comes out on top. Way to go..... Apple!
PM's Official Verdict:
"Mac: In both the laptop and desktop showdowns, Apple’s computers were the winners. Oddly, the big difference didn’t come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Our respondents liked the look and feel of both operating systems but had a slight preference toward OS X. In our speed trials, however, Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple’s platform-switching Boot Camp software—and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did.
The PC: Simply put, Vista proved to be a more sluggish operating system than Leopard. Our PCs installed some software faster, but in general they were slower in our time trials. Plus, both PCs showed weaker performance on third-party benchmarks than the Macs. Our biggest surprise, however, was that PCs were not the relative bargains we expected them to be. The Asus M51sr costs the same as a MacBook, while the Gateway One actually costs $300 more than an iMac. That means for the price of the Gateway you could buy an iMac, boost its hard drive to match the Gateway’s, purchase a copy of Vista to boot—and still save $100. " (Emphasis mine throughout)
In conclusion, let me say that all four machines are great products and should serve their owners well. For more information you can read Popular Mechanic's findings and benchmarks by clicking on the link above or here.
And that's my 2 cents 4 this, Thursday, April 17, 2008.
4 comments:
Hi Don: Glad to see that my choice of computer (iMac) was a very good one. Also wanted you to know that I have started my own blog (I'm Paul G. from Flickr), called The Vital Muse -- and am about to add you under my Friends section as a link... drop by sometime and let me know what you think.
Regards,
Paul
The Gateway One is beautiful in my humble opinion.
I think the new iMacs are rather ugly.
The Gateway One is however, underpowered dramatically.
Philip I will agree with you that the Gateway One is underpowered, but as beautiful as it is, I still think that the iMac is the more beautiful one, but not by much.
Thanks for the comment; much appreciated.
Paul, so great to hear that you have a new blog; I will certainly check it out and add you as a friend too.
Just glancing over Vital Muse, I can say that I like what I see!
www.blogcatalogue.com is a site that you might want to check out as place to help promote it?
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