So where did it all start:
I would not dare to tell Bart what to buy or what is best....but just what I think about it. Although it's always discussed "together", ther are two main aspects: Hardware and Software/Operating System.
Hardware: If you do serious/professional work like video editing, than we talk about a Mac Pro (on the Apple side) Just checked the Apple web-page and the Quad Core is listed at $ 2.499 and the 12-Core is listed at $ 3.799. For not so serious work/prosumer level, if you look at the 27-inch / 3.2 GhZ iMac they are asking $ 1.999. For that money you get what
Apple thinks is best for you...your choices in hardware are very limited and servicing/repairing can become a nightmare....ask me how I know.
If you
invest the same money in PC hardware - assuming you know a bit about hardware and choose your components for what you need yourself - you just get a more powerfull machine. If the hardware in your Mac is outdated, you are very limited to upgrade for better hardware, in the PC world you just plug the old part out and slam the new one in.
The funny thing in the Mac vs. Windows discussion is that people tend to spend a lot of cash on Mac's and than compare the performance with Windows running on budget PC machines....obviously the PC will give you head-ache, but invest the same money you would spend on a Mac and buy/build a PC, you will start laughing. Other funny thing is that all Mac's are Intel wardware based these days, but with a much higher component-per-kilo price than PC hardware. So the argument that the Mac architecture is much superior to the PC architecture is off the table.
Software/Operating System: Both have their pro's and con's and it is merly a personal choice / preference / mental condition. I did try it several times to switch from PC to Mac....no way
for me . It's little things...like having the minimize/close buttons on the left side of windows/browsers. I am grown up with Windows having these buttons on the right side, and moving the mouse to the left to reach those buttons is just unnatural for me. I guess it's just the same with Mac grown-ups the other way arround. Windows is much more open for third-party software, so your choice is much bigger, but so are the chances that a poorly programmed piece of software is screwing with your OS is obviously bigger. Apple is a closed circuit world and the choice for software is much less, hence the chances for freaked-out OSX is smaller.....although the "Spinning Pizza of Death" is a very well known acronym in the Mac world.
Lifestyle: Not so long ago Apple used to be almost dead until the return of Steven Jobs....funny enough that was the time when Mac's were really superior to PC's. What made Apple a success recently was that Jobs created a live-style component to Apples products (there was not one movie in the cinemas without any Apple products), invented a few (at that time) cool products like iPhone or iPad, sharpend the designs around Apple products and created a myth around his person. The main target group was jung, urban people with a higher education and an eye for design.....and it payed off big time. So in most discussions Mac vs. PC it was not only about the technical facts, it was more and more a statment to what group (target audience) you confess yourself.
What I do:
At home I have a 27" iMac (for the Design, which is absolutely great) and run Windows via Bootcamp. Some will start like...ouhhhh, how dare you....but it's an Intel machine anyways. iPhones and iPads found their way to ebay, only Android stuff in my home
At work I have a PC (own built with indivual components) on Win 7 (Win 8 is a piece of crap), actually I have 2x Win 7 on dual boot, one for fun and trying all sorts of stupid things, and one for serious work with only necessary software. Guess what: I don't have any problems at all.
To sum it up...I made my choice and had my fair share of experimenting.....Winows works great for my personal taste and I won't change that. If my neighbor shows up with his brand new MacBook Pro and tells me how great it is and this and that, I am happy for him. He found the right thing for him (regardless of the reason) and so we happily sit together on the terace and enjoy our beer.....At the end of the day Apple and Windows are just two huge industry players who try to get your money.
PS:
Built my first hackintosh around four years ago. It's a stand-alone music server running Amarra, the thing has been on and connected since I built it. It has never crashed or required much in the way of maintenance. Set up a pc based music server running IRiver software for a friend(die hard pc guy), and we have had to wipe the drive and do a clean install twice in a year and a half.
Today that is done this way:
http://www.sonos.com/system
Chris