My Computer – July 2014 Update

It’s clear that shopping for a new computer is much like shopping for a new motorcycle!

I was torn between getting a new Apple Mac or a Windows 8 computer. Specifications vary greatly between the two main types of computers but it is very clear that the Apple Macs of 2014 are overpriced, underspecified and under-performing!

Let’s get to basics: I have now directly compared my 12 months old Surface Pro tablet against the Macbook Air and was shocked at how slow the Air was to do anything. Even more disappointing was that it couldn’t even run Zynga’s Farmville at an acceptable speed or without the fans going crazy! Aside from that game performance – was just not playable. The Macbook Pros where a little better but still not acceptable. Note that the usual computer benchmarks are all well and good but they don’t reveal real world performance. So if you play Framville or any other FLASH based game it won’t be playable on a Mac. (Note that I’m using the game as a real world benchmark for a computer’s performance.)

Then I compared the 21 inch and 27 inch Apple iMac desktop of various specifications, I found performance better but still Farmville2 would not work properly. DO NOT even try to tell me that ‘Flash is resource hog or uses too much power’ because that is clearly not true. Why? my friend’s 3 year old Windows 7 desktop (i5 CPU of some sort and Geforce GT420 GPU) runs Farmville flawlessly and runs a TV tuner at the same without any drama. The FLASH resource excuse is merely PR rubbish and repeated by stupid people. You see Apple computers do not have a decent dedicated graphics card amongst other essential hardware!

The only thing in Apple’s favor these days is that they look great and feel solid and have official Apple Store if things go wrong. Why are Apple Macs so overpriced lately and have tech which is 2 years behind the rest of the pack? It’s clear that they need better CPUs and graphics cards to be vaguely competitive. Furthermore their latest OS upgrade  copies Windows 8 Start screen when presenting their copied idea of the ‘widgets’ screen – which is very annoying since it ALWAYS and often suddenly goes to that screen because of accidental swiping on the mouse.  The latest products are so disappointing. Retina display cutting edge? oh spare me you need a nice looking screen because you’ll be literally staring at it waiting for your programs to load up.

Which brings me to another point why are so many so called professional Tech bloggers clearly don’t have a clue on more effective technology like how to use a touch screen on a computer! No wonder user review sites are replacing them.

Windows Vista no doubt sent many people to Apple Macs (One of the many reasons why I did) but the tide has turned again. Anyway I will be leaving the Macs behind because I have a brain and want the latest tech, convenience of a touch screen computer and off course the ability to play Farmville should I want to without killing the computer. So now the difficult task of choosing the right Windows computer..,