Apple VS Windows for on the road

[wagoneer]

When I started going on line in the early 80's it was "THE WELL" whole earth access dial up using pre windows dos/ an extremely stable and beautiful system Apple came around because people were too lazy to learn the language and ate into Microsoft who shot back with layering a PERFECT system with a dubious patch called "WINDOWS" FM. Linux is a contender but what would you choose as I have both at my disposal but would like to make a selection or "choice"

 

[lenny flank]

I have both a PC and a Mac. But that's because I have to--my job requires both (one cannot use a PC to upload ebooks to the iBook Store).

In general, the whole "Apple vs PC" argument sounds to me like a religious or ideological debate. Pointless.

 

[lenny flank]

PS---yes, I remember BBS dial-up. And FIDONet.

 

[tx2sturgis]

If you mainly browse and do some email, social websites, forums like this, and netflix or youtube, and you are not a 'power user' or gamer, then a tablet or chromebook will usually do what you need to do. 

Most power users will have settled on Apple, Windows, or Linux.

Just depends on what you want to do and are willing to spend.

 

[wagoneer]

I have both a PC and a Mac. But that's because I have to--my job requires both (one cannot use a PC to upload ebooks to the iBook Store).

In general, the whole "Apple vs PC" argument sounds to me like a religious or ideological debate. Pointless.

You are very correct I should have rethought this post or not hit the "new post Button"

 

[RVTravel]

Mac computers for me and both iOS and Android phones.

 

[mpruet]

I do windows, android, and IOS (iPad).  The app I use to pay bills and budget runs best on windows.  I have an android cell and an iPad. 

I also use my laptop to act as a hotspot.  I can hook my cell up to my laptop using USB and pdaNet.  My cell is sprint with true unlimited data.  While Sprint does not have as wide coverage, where it does have coverage it seems to perform better than the others - so I keep it.  (I also have a verizon jetPack as a backup)  I would like to just use the jetpack, but Verizon is so much more expensive than Sprint.  So I still take the laptop along - mainly because I'm so cheap....  ;-)

I would prefer to be able to leave my laptop at home when I'm on the road because it is rather power hungry and can only be charged via 120 AC while the other stuff can be charged through a DC USB port.  My RV doesn't have an inverter so when I charge the laptop I have to start up the generator. 

I can almost use my cell phone or iPad for my budget app, but some of the functionality is only available on the laptop version.  If all of the functionality was available on the iPad, I'd seriously consider leaving the laptop at home.  Then I'd be forced to use the jetPack more. 

Since I'm so frugal, I try to keep my internet costs down when on the road.  Guess I'll try to pick JimInDenver's brain at the RTR...   ;-)

 

[DLTooley]

I have a dual boot on my main computer, Linux and Windows. I use Ubuntu Linux for the vast majority of my work, but there are a few things that require windows. Theoretically the dual boot is very simple, however the new bios, the UEFI makes that difficult. I did get it to work, but it was a major pain. If I was shopping again I'd research if an AMD chip set avoids those problems.

I also have a refurbished Iphone 5 and an ASUS Android Tablet. The phone gets used the most.

 

[MrNoodly]

I use Apple because way back in ancient times, while PCs were doing business software almost exclusively, Apple had graphics software that was useful in my career. And it was a lot easier to use than DOS. So I just kept migrating down the Apple road. Whenever I used Windows stuff, it was like the logic behind the user interface came from Bizarro World. Similar, but frustratingly different.

 

[mpruet]

I have a dual boot on my main computer, Linux and Windows.  I use Ubuntu Linux for the vast majority of my work, but there are a few things that require windows.   Theoretically the dual boot is very simple, however the new bios, the UEFI makes that difficult.  I did get it to work, but it was a major pain.  If I was shopping again I'd research if an AMD chip set avoids those problems.

I also have a refurbished Iphone 5 and an ASUS Android Tablet.  The phone gets used the most.

I am retired from IBM.  I was in a similar situation in that I did most of my development in Linux (redhat).  For a while I did the dual boot bit, but found it to be messy because I had to reboot my system all the time to switch OS.  The last three years of my career, I switched to using VMWare Player and a virtual system inside of windows. It proved to be just fine and cut down on the equipment that I had to carry all around.

 

[MrNoodly]

Does being on the road present any compelling reasons to switch from whatever you prefer now?

 

[mpruet]

Does being on the road present any compelling reasons to switch from whatever you prefer now?

I'm not a full timer. 

I do my bill paying and manage my budget on the road.  If I were on the road full time, I would have switched to a budget tool that had all of the functionality available from my iPad. I currently use quicken and the ability to automatically consolidate all of my accounts online is currently only available from the windows tool.

When I'm on the road I want as much functionality as possible in as small a space as possible and do as much in DC current as possible.  That would mean using my iPad.  From there I can read my books, get my email, facetime with my family, take a lot of pictures, post a travel log, etc.  Also since the iPad can be charged using DC from an USB port, then it is much easier to charge than my laptop.  I have a bluetooth keyboard on my iPad which means that it is easy to compose documents.