I can speak from personal experience as I have been an exclusive PC user all my life until June when I bought a new MacBook Pro as a graduation gift to myself (with the help of a $5000 check from my grandfather). While I will never know the reverse, the principles of switching one way or the other are largely the same. I bought a MacBook Pro over a new PC laptop for three main reasons: I had money to spare, I was tired of dealing with viruses and Anti-virus programs, and I thought it would be a good idea to essentially increase my own human capital by familiarizing myself with Macs. I have to say that I've enjoyed the transition even with a few gripes. One pro is obviously not having to buy Norton, MacAfee, etc. (or deal with them slowing your computer), but a 7 hour battery life and fancy tools like Dashboard, Exposé, and a newly designed trackpad that senses the number of fingers you're using to perform different tasks makes my new toy follow Apple's status quo of creating user-friendly, fancy, trendy, hip (and expensive) technology.
The cons of Macs do however extend beyond the hefty price tag, though it does play a big part. You can get a comparable Hewlett Packard or Dell laptop for nearly half the price of a Mac, and desktops can be even cheaper. Macs also come with preset specs, so unless you buy from the online Apple store, you're stuck with 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, and other specs that PC nerds will scoff at. I bought mine online to have the option to bump it up a notch (and to save $100 through the education discount) and it still came at a premium of $1250 for a 13" screen. I personally didn't require a larger screen, so it was a non-issue. But if I had, you could have easily tacked on a couple hundred more wing-wangs to that price. With all the competition within the PC markets you get a much wider range of specs at a significantly smaller price, something Windows makes sure you know in their ads.
While PCs tend to seamlessly blend in with other technologies of the day, Macs are notorious for requiring all that is Apple to connect. Yes, there are some Windows software versions for Mac and vice-versa, but I have had my PC desktop hooked up to my LCD TV for the past year without having to do anything but plug it in (there is an RGB connection built in). I've looked into it, and for my Mac to do the same, I would have to buy a series of cords that total around $80, or I could buy Apple TV for well over $100. You can't even plug in an iPod into a wall socket anymore without spending an extra $30 for an adapter (something they used to include with iPods, and it even took Apple awhile to include a USB cord with one, as it was solely Firewire use). Apple (and its fuck-buddy AT&T) continue to piss off their own customers when it comes to applications and service on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Despite talks, I've had a relatively easy time with Dell Customer Service years after buying my PC and without having to pay, whereas you must spend over $100 to receive Apple Care Support beyond 1 year (which is also conveniently when many Apple products tend to being having problems). It's as if you buy Apple software products you're stuck with Apple products, and high prices on accessories continue to build. Even when Apple software shows up on PCs it takes up an insane amount of RAM to the point where most computers not built from scratch buy saavy computer geeks will slow down horrendously if iTunes and Quicktime are left running beyond 30 minutes.
It's amazing that what gets lost in the ad campaign wars between Macs and PCs is the fact that many people fear adjusting to different technology. They're comfortable with where they are, and would rather not change. It's easy to fear getting attacked by viruses if you've never dealt with them before, and it's easy to fear paying hundreds of dollars extra when you can deal with what you have. But I've witnessed many comments essentially concerning the structure of the operating system, and having to adjust to using Mac OSX or Windows. I would say that navigating through a Mac and through Windows is practically the same, and most differences are pretty negligible. They have tutorials on the Apple website tailored to converts like myself explaining the differences. I thought at first that these could prove helpful. How wrong I was. I watched one video and it didn't tell me anything I couldn't have figured out by myself within two minutes of turning on my Mac. Sure enough, anything and everything I've learned about a Mac has been learned through my experiences on a PC for the last 20 years, by 2-second trial and error processes, or my intuition. Incidentally, my intuition helped me navigate DOS when I was 2 (my mom has told me the story often. My dad freaked because he thought I would erase all his files, but I was merely observing my older sister enter in DOS commands earlier and I copied what she did in order to play this one game. I figured out DOS when I was 2 - born to be a nerd, was I).
The Mac's equivalent "Start" menu is called the "Finder," the Apple logo at the top right is like "My Computer" on PCs. Individual page menus (stuff like File, Edit, and View) are separate from the open applications and instead are at the top of the screen. Instead of MS Word, it's Pages, instead of Internet Explorer, it's Safari, Recycle Bin is instead Trash (oh snap, PCs are more green!), Windows Media Player is Quicktime. If you had locked someone in a room and along with life essentials only exposed him to PC/Windows products and nothing Apple, I just listed everything that guy would need to know to be competent working on a Mac. If that guy happened to have the IQ of a fifth grader, I would have just wasted my time telling him this information, because by the time I would have he would have figured it out. And you know what? Reverse everything I just said, and the same rules apply to someone who would not have previously known Windows if Bill Gates came up and grabbed him by the balls. It's just not that difficult to run a Mac OS or a Windows OS, despite what you've been exposed to.
There are many good reasons to switch from one type of computer to another, but if I had to offer only one piece of advice on shopping for a new computer, it is this: do some fucking research. Don't listen to Windows ads or the annoying-as-hell Mac ads on your television screen (obviously because a person rambling on the internet is much more qualified to tell you what to do). I would advise, unless you already have substantial knowledge of computers, to even go beyond reading those little cards in the stores that have the specs on them. Go to Cnet.com, which reviews electronics, or try reading a few Consumer Reports, and really pick a computer based on what you specifically need or want, not on names, ads, or operating systems. I have a PC desktop and a Mac laptop. Next time I buy a computer, I'm doing the really smart thing, and building my own computer and installing Linux, because it's way cheaper and safer than anything, as long as you know what you're doing ;)
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