Best computer for students: PC or Mac?
With what seems to be the eternal argument over which one is better, it can become a little confusing if one is on the fence about which one they want. The truth is, the PC and Mac are both excellent computer systems. When looking for a computer system as a student, however, it is not so much a question of which one is better as a system, but which one is the most practical.
The answer, in most cases, is the PC.
If we take a step back for a moment and look at some statistics, we see that Macs only make up a very tiny percentage of computer systems worldwide. As an interesting side-note, this is one of the main reasons we seldom hear about computer viruses for Mac systems. There just aren’t enough of them out there for the virus writers to take any more than a passing interest in them.
Everywhere we turn in modern society, we see PCs. They are in just about every office building and retail store we walk into every day. It is because of this fact that students should get to know as much as they can about PCs as soon as they can. This way, once out in the working world, they don’t fall behind the curve because they spent their school years using a Mac with a different operating system and now they have to get used to a PC operating system. Macs do have their place in the working world. They are quite useful and fairly common in the graphic design industry, movie industry, and photography industry. The only problem is that they only fill a niche market, so their use is quite limited. Ideally, Students should be exposed to both operating systems. That way, no matter which computer system they encounter in the working world, they will have the knowledge to hit the ground running.
When people hear the term PC, most minds almost instantly jump to the word Microsoft. With Microsoft Windows being the primary operating system on this planet, there is almost nowhere one can go without encountering it. Many of us have seen the video screens mounted over the metal detectors at the airports and probably just as many have seen those one or two screens that have some error message popped up with the oh-so-familiar Microsoft format titlebar above the error message. Speaking of Microsoft, another good point to make in support of PCs is the abundance of software available. Even though the Mac has been around for as long as the PC, the available software designed for the Mac is little more than a drop in the proverbial bucket. Because of this abundance, PCs are now, and have always been the primary tool in both schools and business. Many professors who accept papers and essays in their digital form actually request that they be in Microsoft Word format. They use Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to teach their classes. They may even use Microsoft Excel to calculate the grade curve for their classes. The PC has become the glue that holds most technological nations together.
Even the name says something about its popularity and availability. PC, which stands for Personal Computer, sets this idea in the heads of many that their options are to buy a Mac, or a computer. Although untrue, this gives many the impression that a Mac, on some level, is not a computer. It is a computer, just not the one a vast majority will encounter unless purchased for personal use.
So, with all that information now available, it brings us back to the title question. What is the best computer for students: PC or Mac? All of the evidence clearly shows that it was, is, and probably will be for some time, the PC.
Written by MEJohnson
