Riches Corner |Tech and Money Talk

Money Matters

A Mac is not the cheapest piece of hardware out there on the market. In fact, it could very well be one of the most expensive, but this should not be the main factor that influences your decision when you come to buying a new home computer.

For years I fought losing battles with an assortment of PCs that all came in well below the price of a Mac, but along with the cash saving I was forced to endure hours after hours of frustration and anger at my computer’s inability to do what I needed to do, and that was never anything too advanced.

It is this point that is perhaps the most pertinent, as a person who is not rolling in money or especially aware of all of the technical jargon that defines exactly what a computer can and cant’t do, will often lump for the cheapest option when it comes to buying a new machine. This is a big mistake that I took too long to learn, and here are just a few of the reasons why.

The Speed

When my patience finally snapped with my old PC, my morning routine would be: wake up, turn computer on, have a shower, make a coffee, continue to wait for PC to fully come to life. This is not an exaggeration. The difference I now have with my Mac is just absolutely incomparable. I hit a switch and it’s on. I power it down and it’s off. Everything moves like lightning. I want to open a new web page, it’s done. I want to switch between a document and an email, boom, i’m there. Everything on the Mac just makes my life that little bit easier. Or even if that is not true, then at least it certainly never makes it more difficult.

The Sound and Light

Not only does my MacBook Air shift like the wind, but it also allows me to watch all of my favourite TV programmes and movies with such a level of quality that I never wish I actually had a TV in my apartment. The software I use to watch these programmes, VLC Player, is fully compatible and sits waiting patiently in my dock, ready to be opened in the flash of an eye at one click. All of my photos were also easily transferable onto my Mac and the programmes that come along with even the most basic edition are more than enough to let me edit and store my literally thousands of snaps.

The Flexibility

Before investing in a Mac I was put off by the unusual mouse pad system which was unlike any I had ever used on a PC. I was convinced that I would never be able to master it and I even arrogantly thought that it was all just a useless gimmick designed for show offs rather than usability. I could not have been more wrong, and now I don’t know where I would be without the nifty little navigational pad. I jump in and out of screens with ease as though I really know what I am doing, but inside I know that I am still useless with these things and that the reality is that the design is just so good that even somebody like me can take advantage of it. The only problem is that I now sometimes feel guilty that I am not taking full advantage of the literally hundreds of things this machine can do that I know I will ever understand, but this is just my silly problem.

The Mac may have forced me to stretch a little further financially than I wanted to go, but everyday I am shown exactly what it was that I paid that little bit more for and I am thankful that I did.

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By Alisha Webb. Alisha is a British writer working out of Barcelona and a content developer for Conosco – IT provider in London. In her free time Alisha loves to travel, try out new gadgets and new recipies.