Everyone's Switching to Mac's


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I think Nate1 was misread on his intent of his post, and at the same time, I believe he wrote it from a position of anger whether misplaced or not. He doesn't see the problem with Windows as he hasn't experienced it. What he has seen is that when you couple good products with sound skill you can get windows to almost make breakfast. On the other hand, when you get your computer built by "Fred's Computers" of Podunkville, and Fred has no conscience about selling these to older people or those that are not computer savvy, this is where the problems begin. I used to build computers from the ground up, using many different PC components and I would do my best to choose only the ones that I knew to be compatible. Very rarely did I have problems, but that is when the OS was much simpler. Heck, I can't even plug in my USB Video Capture device I bought 3 years ago to the vista machine without it crashing the computer. Go to the vendor site, "we're sorry, we are not producing drivers for this product on the Vista line of OS. Please feel free to browse (or waste in my book) our other vista capable/compatible/ready devices that will be obsolete as well when "Windows 7 comes out."

In Nates view, all is well, and that is fine. If it is, it certainly wouldn't justify spending extra money for things that are working. I on the other hand will spend the money as I enjoy trying new things and from what I have already tried, it is a good OS that apple has created.

When someone says that OS X does things the Steve way, or only the way SJ wants you to do it, then that is somewhat of a fair analogy as he wants you to have a good experience. If MS took some of the same tactics, I wouldn't have a $199 paper weight sitting on my desk that I have to dual boot to XP to get working. SJ is thinking about interoperability and by keeping the system closed you get a working system that , well, just works! Someone else said "30 drivers," and if you restate that, you are surely not one that has used a Mac as they have drivers in there for things that I have never even heard of, let alone would use, but apparently someone does use it as they have them.

Pft... Ignored.

Have you ever used a Mac.... No? Didn't think so. If you've ever used one, you'd understand.

I owned a G3 Powerbook, but I will never go back. Being a gamer, it doesn't make sense for me to convert when the Mac doesn't have 90 percent of what I'm playing now (mostly strategy games).

I'm happy that Apple is selling more as I love competition :D

For me, the mac just isn't my type of machine... It lingers between the one button mouse to the insane price markups on the hardware...

Yes I know you can hook up a 2 button mouse and it will work, but I'm thinking about a laptop where I don't have a table for an external mouse on the train ;)

I'm thinking about a laptop where I don't have a table for an external mouse on the train ;)

In which case (atleast on the MacBook Pro's) you tap the pad with two fingers - feels a bit wierd at first but eventually you do it naturally and it feels comfortable.

On the point of the high prices - let's look at the following spec laptop (if any differences then listed in brackets)

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

1GB memory

80GB hard drive

Apple: ?699.00Samsung: (Has 20GB more HDD)> ?829.9HP:b> ?1004.36

Although you probably can get a better deal that was a quick search and I think the Apple prices are very good from that.

(Note: I am currently using a MBP but am not a fanboy!)

I've used Mac's quite a lot and prefer Windows over it, easily. You know what they say about making assumptions...
Never mind. His horrible capitalization aggravated me so I came up with something quick witted.

I personally hate Windows. Plus, all of the things I need to do seem to work like a dream on a Mac. Just my input.

Edited by Cormier6083

I did a little bit of research on Macintosh... and it's not that good. http://www.the4cs.com/~cathy/Apples/variety.html It didn't rate excellent on any one of the criteria.

I tried to do research on Windows, and didn't come up with any coherent information.

Maybe that's because there are a lot of Windows, and not a lot of Apples?

In which case (atleast on the MacBook Pro's) you tap the pad with two fingers - feels a bit wierd at first but eventually you do it naturally and it feels comfortable.

On the point of the high prices - let's look at the following spec laptop (if any differences then listed in brackets)

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

1GB memory

80GB hard drive

Apple: ?699.00Samsung: (Has 20GB more HDD)> ?829.9HP:b> ?1004.36

Although you probably can get a better deal that was a quick search and I think the Apple prices are very good from that.

(Note: I am currently using a MBP but am not a fanboy!)

I'd rather actually have a button myself since tapping on a touch pad is the first thing I disable. I've never liked it since owning my first laptop in 1998 and I'm still as ****ed off about it in 2007...

I don't know how prices are in the UK so I'm not saying your wrong, but here in the US the spread is a lot worse...

I recently purchased a Dell i1520 and the only thing comparable offered by Apple cost over $2400 and my machine was only $1400. A $1K price spread is quite a lot imho...

I can post my specs if desired, but I'm not trying to go too far with my criticism as most of my complaints are unique to me. Whatever works out best for you is what you should use, for su;) ;)

A year or so I was the only one with a Mac. With my brother getting one today, and most of my friends having purchased one recently most everyone I know has an Apple Computer now. Its funny how quickly things have changed, and I love the fact that I don't have to remove spy-ware on a monthly basis from peoples PC any-longer.

you may want to find a dictinary and look up the term 'everyone' i think you are justslightly off, i for one have never contemplated it, well thats a lie, i did think for a few seconds, it would be nice to get one just to stick windwos on it, but thenn realised my PC was better speced than any mac :)

not much has chnaged except some of your friends bought apples. there market share is still pretty much the same

Jesus, why does this debate still continue?

If you like OS X, use OS X. If you like Windows, use Windows.

Who gives a s**t about what other people use/think?

I agree. It's up to you to choose what OS you run. I'm tired of all the Windows and Mac fanboys running around trying to put each other down. People just need to realize that there are both ups and downs of each OS.

In which case (atleast on the MacBook Pro's) you tap the pad with two fingers - feels a bit wierd at first but eventually you do it naturally and it feels comfortable.

On the point of the high prices - let's look at the following spec laptop (if any differences then listed in brackets)

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

1GB memory

80GB hard drive

Apple: ?699.00Samsung: (Has 20GB more HDD)> ?829.9HP:b> ?1004.36

Although you probably can get a better deal that was a quick search and I think the Apple prices are very good from that.

(Note: I am currently using a MBP but am not a fanboy!)

the comparisons have been done many times and apple never wins, i can find websites with overpriced laptops too. but then again, if i go somehwer like dell http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/f...p;s=dhs#connect , it seems quite a few laptops beat it hands down in both price and spec than the mac http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/.../family/macbook.

I've been a professional in the IT business for a little more then a decade now. Back then Macs were these dull boxes with an OS that reminded me of the old atari days (i did miss a buzzing bee if i clicked on something though) but still it had a small bunch of people stating it was the best thing since man invented warm water.

In the beginning of those years the Mac started to stumble and almost fell until Stevie came along and started to tickle everybodies "i-want-gadget-button" with strong marketing campaigns. The Mac became stylish, trying to sell on looks. It performed pretty slow although ads proved otherwise. Then they secretly used the RDF they created to switch to a linux-kind of environment... placed a nice shell on that, pushed big dollars in marketing campaigns stating they reinvented the warm water.

A little later they take standard PC hardware, stuff it in a brushed aluminum, or shiny white plastic cover, put out all the bells and wistles that they again reinvented a new version of warm water.

After all these years the only things i've seen them do is create a user shell, some simple apps (easy to use ofcourse) you can find on snapfiles, and a nice box to hold standard PC hardware made by poor chinese children.

you make some very good points

I have a question. Would you recommend a Mini to a friend? I'm thinking of getting one, but I need a good monitor.

Depends what you want out of a computer really. Foremost forget about gaming as the GMA950 just is not going to make it happen. Otherwise it does everything else great. I've dual booted a mini with the same spec in the past with Windows Vista and it ran all the Aero effects great.. tasks wise its plenty fast enough, its whisper quiet, and it is very very unobtrusive on your desk. Takes a DVI monitor hook up but comes with a DVI-VGA convertor in case you don't have DVI. I'm powering an LG 20" TFT from it and the only time it stutters is scrolling down pages of full screen windows.. otherwise moving stuff round on the screen, video playback, and OSX 'effects' like genie and coverflow etc all seem to work great. Built in WiFi and Bluetooth is a big bonus too.

Only downer is the poor capacity (and speed) internal drive but I already picked up a 320GB Seagate Freeagent to supplement that. Planning to upgrade to a faster internal drive in the new year.

If you just do web surfing, occasional use of heavy apps, and that sort of stuff it'll do you fine. If you want to do professional grade design work or something like that look else where!

If I made more money.. I'd buy a mac just to quad boot OS X, VISTA, XP and Ubuntu. I love OS X. I just don't like the hardware lock-in that comes when you buy a Mac. That said, if OS X was released for a PC... I'd buy it in a heartbeat.... and quad boot a PC! :-)

Maybe next year I'll break down and buy one, who knows? I do think the whole OS war is ghey... just like Ford vs. Chevy, Repubs vs. Dems... etc. I could care less what car you drive.. why do people care so much about what computer you use? I envision (in the distant future) a OS that works with EVRYTHING, from your car, to you house.... down to your mobile communications device. It's just a matter of time before everything is "Universal".

If I made more money.. I'd buy a mac just to quad boot OS X, VISTA, XP and Ubuntu. I love OS X. I just don't like the hardware lock-in that comes when you buy a Mac. That said, if OS X was released for a PC... I'd buy it in a heartbeat.... and quad boot a PC! :-)

Maybe next year I'll break down and buy one, who knows? I do think the whole OS war is ghey... just like Ford vs. Chevy, Repubs vs. Dems... etc. I could care less what car you drive.. why do people care so much about what computer you use? I envision (in the distant future) a OS that works with EVRYTHING, from your car, to you house.... down to your mobile communications device. It's just a matter of time before everything is "Universal".

you can run OSX on virtual machine :), using vmware, havent actually done it yet but i am planning to at some point.

With Bootcamp and a copy of Vista or XP maybe?

I forgot bootcamp , thanks for reminding me mate. But it's a no brainer for me i'm staying with mai PC (at least i can do whatever the heck I want with it).

interesting point youre making.

unfortunately you dont seem to be that informed, although you worked in the it business as a professional for more than a decade now.

its not about the looks alone.

its about the, in the eyes of many people, also professionals, best OS out there plus the perfect interaction of fitting hardware in a very good designed case, while the last point is a matter of taste of course.

did you ever really try out mac os, while i must say mac osx, mac os9 cant be compared really? i guess you did.

what did you experience? a slowish, bloated, uneconomic operating system?

i would like to know which version you tried.

or you didnt try any. if thats the case you should stay out of this topic.

but then again that was just your 2 cents and thats of course absolutely okay and i appreciate that. =)

The thing is that i don't need to be informed, i try to find out my own things and try to judge them as realistic as possible. I worked on Mac OS 9 and OSX and i have to agree with you that OSX was a huge step forward, but if you look underneath it's shell it is just another UNIX based OS but this time with a closed and efficient user shell to get even the most inexperienced users to be able to work with it. Apple made a nice distro for the not so technical people and i have to give them credit for working out a nice shell.

The simplicity is the strong point of Apple, but also it's weak point. It's a good, maybe great system to use in a simple home environment, in a photography store or on an artists desk, and i'm not stating these are not professionals since i had my part as a professional photographer aswell...

I guess this is where i missed the point of discussion. You guys are talking about simple standalone consumer systems. For me a workstation is just a little part of a much bigger environment and in that department Mac doesn't have any efficient or simple solution. Sure it can ponyback on the functionality of other systems and plug in to a network, but it won't be a manageable situation.

This is where the big difference is between an OSX or a windows Xp-Vista OS. OSX is a nice standalone OS whereas XP-Vista are OS's made to blend in to a much bigger working environment and in that department it's Microsoft that holds the functionality/simplicity/efficiency crown.

But like you said, it's just my 2 cents and I only tried to keep my 2 feet on the ground and give a realistic transparent opinion.

On the other hand i just put my toe in the pool of neverending discussion, Xbox/playstation, Ipod/whateverpod, Vista/OSX ... i'm going to pull it out before i get cold feet.

now is see your point and i must agree to some points you made.

to use windows right you need to be experienced. you can definately get around virusses and malware and adware and whasoever if you use windows the right way. and thats what the majority cannot do. they just use it. no firewall, no paying attention, setting up an administraitor account without actually knowing what it is and all these things.

sometimes it can be hard to manage windows but then again very easy if you know where everythings stored. and because you can access everything without a big hassle, its good for powerusers that really get into the system.

then again you can do that with macs too. just open terminal and use commandline.

but thats something only the very experienced can do.

mac is easy to use, imho thats one if the advantages it has. you dont have to worry. mostly because there is hardly any virus because of the market share, that was pointed out many times.

things are where you expect them to be as an unexperienced user and as a user that somehow knows what to do its even better.

tbh since im back on mac i tried to find some things that i didnt find because i was used to the windows-way of working and lets face it, they are different as hell.

the unix kernel does a great job when it comes to multitasking and memory-management and that may be one thing that photographers, movie editors or whatever appreciate, while noone says you cant do the same tasks on windows too.

the problem is, with this discussion were running in circles. everytime its being started again. over and over and noone will be converted or say "okay, you are right, i was wrong" because noone is right.

its a decision of taste, of feeling and maybe of whatever i dont know.

---

i just figured its like with a car.

you are up to buy a car and want to show it to your friend but you just cant seem to see it drive by. its just not there.

as soon as you sit in your brand new automobile theres the same one coming from every corner.

;)

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The setup process is pretty straightforward, through a wizard, and in full below: TOS 7 Initialization As you can see, TOS 7 received a new coat of paint, and the initialization requires fewer interactions. Happily, TOS no longer decides to throw all disks into the same Storage Pool; 2.5-inch HDDs are allocated into Storage Pool 1. This is because two of the HDDs are allocated to hold system files. Previously (with TOS 5 and 6), if you pre-installed HDDs and SSDs, they were all placed into Storage Pool 1, even if you did not select the SSDs for inclusion during the onboarding. TOS 7 Setup On first boot, there is a tutorial and some steps to take to harden the TNAS (or not), which includes an immediate update from TOS 7.0.0616 to 7.0.0706, of which the changelog screenshot is also included in the above gallery. It must be noted that the Security Advisor still contains (in my opinion) a pretty major bug in that if you enable SPC and then do the required rebooting, the Security Advisor still says that SPC is disabled. TerraMaster provided the following statement about it: It is disappointing that TOS 7 has been in beta since December, and this OOBE issue is still there. Shutdown option has moved Instead of a Taskbar option to manage the NAS, all of these options have been moved to a "Start panel", initially I didn't see it and my contact had to show me how to power off the F4-425 Pro. To logout, reboot or power off you can find those controls at the top right of the Panel. It is also possible to power off through the TNAS mobile app beta. Storage setup Above, you can see the steps I took to create the Storage Pools and Volumes. I made a second Storage Pool using TRAID on two 4TB MP44Q SSDs (which, in this instance, is similar to RAID 5), and finally, I added the 250GB 970 Evo Plus drive as Hyper Cache on Storage Pool 1 in Balanced mode. Registering If you decide not to lock down the F4-425 Pro in Security Isolation Mode (blocking all external connections), then you could set up a TNAS device ID through the Remote Access setting in the Control Panel (which must be unique). This works in combination with an online TerraMaster account. TOS 7 TNAS Online Creating a TerraMaster account and linking the device online activates the warranty when you provide proof of purchase and the serial number, but it also gives you access through the TNAS mobile app, which allows you to complete certain operationsб including powering off and restarting the NAS remotely. A TNAS mobile update is required to gain access through TOS 7, and this is provided on the TerraMaster website, as it is not yet on Google Play. The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
    • well you can add a GPU for around $500, that's still around the price of Steam Machine but overall significantly better in performance.
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