My husband and I are having an argument about the virtues of PC vs Mac in the world of scientific research. I'd like to know what platforms y'all use and what you think are the relative strengths and weaknesses of each.

Thanks for helping me win this fight!

It definitely depends on your field. I'd say macs are more stable and powerful for your money ( and no one seems to write many viruses for mac). But because I do a lot of electrophysiology, I am chained to PC's because all the good software for data acquisition and analysis is written for PC's. So I add a disclaimer to my vote for PC's because I HAVE to use them.

Come on Molecular Devices....now you've taken over Axon, it's time to make the sofware in Mac versions too!

Maybe the question should be MAC OS 10 vs Windows XP, vs Linux, Vs Unix?

What, your prenuptial agreement didn't cover Mac vs. PC? What were you thinking?


I'm a rabid Mac fan but agree with frasermoss that the most important thing is that you can get your work done.

Generally, most software you'll ever need is available for the Mac, but there are exceptions. Virtual PC is an option if it comes down to a single piece of software that you only need occasionally. I would ask the software firm if they have used the software with virtual PC before. An issue that comes to mind is the move by the NIH towards electronic submissions of grants. Appartently the NIH picked software that only works on PC, and the company's solution for us Mac users is to use virtual PC (somebody hold me back...).

Cost of the computers I think only slightly favors the PC, the difference is not that great and can be argued based on many subjective criteria. I have to spend many hours a day working on my computer and the beauty of the Mac and its OS makes that easier for more. That is worth a little extra money to me. However, there are PC users that never take the stickers off of their computer and couldn't care less about how the thing looks. They just don't get the whole aesthetic arguement and never will.

One issue with cost that can tip things in favor of one plateform or the other is how much software yo may already own. A couple of hundred dollars more or less for the computer is nothing if you have to shell out $2-3,000 for new software to migrate platforms.

On the virus side, Mac wins hands down. There are no - zero - nada viruses that are in the wild that affect OSX at this time. The UNIX base that it is built on is also beleived to be much more robust with fewer security issues than windows. So even if the Mac gains enough market share to become a tempting target, it is less likely to as badly affected as Windows. Alas, you still get those darn e-mails from Nigeria and from that bank account you have never had on the Mac.

I stick with the Mac mostly because I know it so well and feel like a complete idiot when sitting in front of a Windows machine. Any windows users will likley say the same thing the other way around. For me the strength of the Mac has always been in elagance and ease of use. Sure windows has made great leaps forward from 15 years ago when we were having these same discussions. However, use software like Keynote for presentations and you will never go back to Powerpoint again.

If you can give us a more detailed account of the applications that you need, then I might be able to at least tell you what is availabe on the Mac side.

How is it that in a bioinformatics forum nobody has mentioned Linux in this discussion? I know OS X is based on a *nix platform but it really is not a fully functional unix-OS. Waiving all the nice animations and other functions that OSX has packaged into it to make the GUI friendly, Linux on a home-built PC seems a better solution for me. Yes, I still personally have to resort to Windows when I encounter something I need that has not been built (or rewritten) for Linux, but these situations are becoming less frequent as time progresses. For those of you who are spending 90% of your time in the X terminal anyway, why not use the free open source solution?

Ahem.. perhaps you could elaborate on why you say that OSX is not a fully functional unix-OS ??

I basically agree though. If as you say, you spend most of your time in the terminal there isn't really any reason to buy the Mac hardware. (though some hardcore types would argue even that..). However, I personally find that I have no choice but to interact frequently with the outside (PC/MS Office) world and Mac Office still interacts MUCH better with PC Office documents then Open Office does.

(And I love all of the cool animations - once you use Expose for a week you can never go back!)

Though I "grew up" on PCs, I've been using Macs for the last 9+yrs now - and i agree - Macs are fab!
Thats not to say that the machine/OS combo is without its foibles and irritations - i'm sure you've all experienced the spinning beachball of death! The difference is: Macs recover - almost all the time - with no effect on other applications, and minimal effect on the app that caused the hang-up. With pcs, the blue screen of death is literally that - goodbye to *everything* you were doing! Linux (some 5 flavors I've tasted) is somewhat better, and of course, XP has improved dramatically over its predecessors, but nothing tops X.4.
Also, my Apple 17 Intel iMac runs all three kinds of OS - and incidentally, runs XP faster than a pc of the same vintage (~2 months, with a similar chip) - so i guess Apple machines are just built in a more optimized manner - for BOTH OS X and Windows.