A family computer for home

I would buy an iMac.

It does everything on your list nicely.

Another vote for an imac.

Should help your son in the long run to be able to use both.

worm

Should be great until he wants to play a game on it!

Plenty of games for mac, if he wants to go mad then instal XP and play all them games too.

Best of both worlds.

SONY VAIO -

I have had 4 of these, no problems at all.

My brother has one that is nearly 4 years old, he's never once had any problems, never wiped it etc and its still as fast as it was when he bought it - he uses it all day 5 - 7 days a week.

Thanx for replies so far. Regarding games I would get a dedicated box when funds allow.I am more concerned with quality of the applications. He is happy with an old ps1 at the moment. The money I would like to spend on a digital camera to use with the computer (eyes on the other thread).

Because it needs to double up as a tv the sony VAIO does appeal. You can get the older sony VA1 for £750 although it is not up to spec. The newer one looks good and I see sony do their own video software if its any good. I did see idvd on the imac and it looks quite easy and impressive.

Hint.

Get at least two. The 'family' PC becomes theirs and you'll never get a look in. They'll then fill it full of crap and you'll spend half your life debugging it, cleaning the drive, defragging and all that sh*t but never actually get any use yourself. Get a desktop for them, a wireless connection and a lap top for yourself. You won't regret it.

Yet another vote for the iMac. I'm using a MacBook Pro at the moment and it can run almost any programme you care to mention. Not sure if would boot MS Vista - never tried it, but it'll certainly run all Windoze applications; though I think you'll prefer the Apple applications and Mac OS X in most cases.

Get a mac if you want decent applications, it would be worth it for garage band alone if you want to learn.

Also it makes Jamies bit on debugging and defragging moot, you don't do this on a mac.

Blimey! I've had a pc at work for 2 years and never defragged. What does it do?

Is it true that you don't need anti virus software for macs?

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:
Hint.

Get at least two. The 'family' PC becomes theirs and you'll never get a look in. They'll then fill it full of crap and you'll spend half your life debugging it, cleaning the drive, defragging and all that sh*t but never actually get any use yourself. Get a desktop for them, a wireless connection and a lap top for yourself. You won't regret it.

That just sounds so familiar........!! Good advice.

Mark

If you want to stick with a PC, just got one of these looks like a DVD player but a full on PC with every output you can think off and 2 tuners.

Only had it for a month but so far it's brilliant.
Simiple enough so HWMBO is happy but complex enough for me to config it as I want.

The Wintel PC is my rice bowl, but I suspect a Mac is a lot easier to use.

First, Apple does great job getting Macs into schools, so your son may start on a Mac.

Second, reliable rumors have it that the current Macs can emulate PCs and run PC software. Some of them se Intel chips, after all.

Here's another vote for at least 2 machines - one for adults, one for kids. Otherwise, be prepared to become a computer expert or get an onsite service guy on retainer.

And be prepared to train your kids to troubleshoot computers, too. Otherwise, be prepared to hire a full-time PC nanny. :-0

Regards.

Phil

Sorry but its just not so on a mac, I have 'sold' around 13 macs to family and friends and the only time ever there has been issues is when their internet goes down which is not the mac.

Macs are in schools.
There is anti virus software available but no know viruses, worms or trojans so no one bothers.
A mac can boot into OSX or XP natively, so basically if needs be for certain software its like having a PC in front of you.

Other considerations are the iMac is an all in one unit, that 2 inch screen is the computer. There is nothing else on the market that will fit into a household so easily. If you go for wireless internet, keyboard and mouse it only needs a power lead.

I can see where your comming from with advice for two computers. All I have left at home I can call mine!mine!mine! is 190cm x 50cm on the now FAMILY bed with a 2yr old as a permanent resident and it gets less when we get a 6yr old squatter move in through the night.

This is another good reason that I am looking into mac as it is said they are more stable and can maybe take the odd key pressed at the wrong time.

The only reason that PC's are cheaper than MACS is that most are built with poor quality hardware .

You then have poorly written device drivers with this substandard hardware.

No matter how good the MS OS used with these cr-ap PC's you are then onto a loosing battle with stability.

On top of this you then have the situation that there are many more progs/apps/games available for the PC with MS OS(plus points) than the MAC that have to cope with an almost impossible number of combinations of PC hardware (most unreliable).

MACs now have a perception of reliablity because of the above and the very tight control APPLE has on the hardware (limited) and software (also limited).

Now you can avoid PC trauma by simply building with quality components, it will cost you more money (still cheaper than MACs) but your stability will now not be a problem and the true lifespan will be longer.

I have always built using quality components, mainly server spec motherboards and expansion cards. I still have my dual p3 500 running since 2000, apart from reboots for software updates I have had no down time in seven years for problems and I run a lot of different software still on it.

As MACs expand into the PC teritory with their new found MS OS compatability and also the use of other OS aprt from MS ones increase(LINUX UNBUTU etc) they will face the same problems as PC's have had to dealwith for many yars and their stability will suffer.

Is there much difference between 1.83ghz and 2.0ghz?

Would someone at my level notice if there is.

quote:

I have always built using quality components, mainly server spec motherboards and expansion cards. I still have my dual p3 500 running since 2000, apart from reboots for software updates I have had no down time in seven years for problems and I run a lot of different software still on it.

In this world you often get exactly what you pay for and that goes for computers where a small amount saved per computer soon mounts up when you sell a million and a few extra pounds spent when building a one off can lead to a much better machine. You pays your money and makes your choice.

The IT industry is moving so fast at the moment that whatever you buy will be out of date pretty soon.

However, there is a good argument for not buying the absolute fastest CPU, but perhaps the one that's just below it. Usually the second best CPU is a lot cheaper and you may not even notice the performance difference in practice. It really depends on what you want the system for. If it's "office" tasks then you won't be stressing it much at all. If you're playing the latest and greatest games then you'll probably never have a system that's fast enough. Games writers are continually driving current hardware the hardest.

From experience I recommend getting as much memory as you can. Memory DIMMS are so much cheaper than they've ever been. If you start running a few apps at the same time a bigger memory system will generally give you better performance than a faster CPU.

It's all about having a balanced system

Graham.

Thanx for your replies.

The application I imagine will be driving it hardest with would be creating and burning home video to dvd.
Games we are not really concerned about a future dedicated console will take care of that part.

iMac comes with iMovie and iDVD, make your movie edit it then make a DVD from it. all part of the package, all tightly integrated with the OS and other apps to make it seamless.

Yes the iLife applications are excellent - excluding iWeb which needs a bit more (a lot more) work (anybody care to suggest a better web authoring tool?). I also like iWork, but I don't think it's free: though there's a lot to be said for using NeoOffice (Aqua version of Open Office), which is free and a very nice application and more compatible with Microsoft Office for Windoze than MS Office for Mac (100% compatible says the big M for its PC and Mac versions, but I don't think so).

The Automator is pretty good too, once you get the hang of it. AppleScript is great if you want to do a little of programming to work around repetitive tasks - there are included tools that you let you generate scripts and its easy to find lots of scripts.

I think the iMac would suit you very well - you may want to shop around for a guarantee. I have 3 years AppleCare through my work, but it can be a bit steep for home user. A famous department store gives a good guarantee for free.

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:

I think the iMac would suit you very well - you may want to shop around for a guarantee. I have 3 years AppleCare through my work, but it can be a bit steep for home user. A famous department store gives a good guarantee for free.

I thought Apple computers were supposed to be famously reliable?

I have nearly made a decision to go for the iMac. I see that on their web site Apple are to launch a new OS (leopard) in spring 2007. Thats about now, is it worth hanging on? Could it be a long wait? Or would it be wise to stay with what has already been tried and tested?

Leopard is earmarked for a June 2007 release. It is likely to be circa £90 if you were to buy now, and upgrade later.

The current OS 10.4.9 is rock solid, but 10.5.0 will bring with it some nice new features, such as the 'Time Machine' backup system. Steve Jobs also stated that there was to be a list of new features kept secret to hinder the Redmond photocopiers

Either way, you'll love your iMac, I have two at home, and a Powerbook G4 for out and about. Bring on the 8 core Mac Pro as then I'll get rid of my final PC.