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Windows Vs. Mac Laptops: A Head-On Comparison

Ed. Note: This article was written by guest writer Todd Kelly (toddk@home.com). Todd is currently a creative director for one of the world's largest software companies.

A proud PowerBook G3 266 owner since March of '99, I was skeptical of the usefulness I would get out of a new 400MHz Dell laptop that my company decided to buy me. I was not being forced to use it, but all members of my division were being sent these laptops for field usage. I could still use my PowerBook if I wanted to...thank god. The following is my experience after receiving the Dell.

When it first arrived, I was actually excited - after all, it was a new toy! My excitement quickly turned to disappointment, however, as I began to realize the shortcomings of a Windows laptop.

It was a decent machine on paper, with a 400Mhz Pentium II processor and 256 MB of RAM. There was a 24x CD-ROM module and a floppy drive module. The screen was 14.1" like my PowerBook, and so far I was looking at an equal match to my sleek Wallstreet. And then turned it on...

There were problems right away. First, the PC card slots were full; the machine was sent with a Xircom modem/Ethernet combo card that took up both PC card slots. Hmmm. I assumed that I could just remove that card if I ever needed to use the slots for other cards. Nope. NT doesn't allow that, you need to shut the machine down, remove the cards, and then reboot.

"Are you kidding me?" I thought to myself. The Mac OS allows removal of PC cards on the fly. Not to mention that the PowerBook has a built in modem and Ethernet pre-configured, leaving both slots open by default. Plus, configuring this PC card under NT took another half an hour of work, as there were multiple IRQ conflicts. Mac 3, PC 0.

As I was trying to configure the PC card, I needed to use the installation CD that came with the card. The floppy drive was installed in the front module area, and I attempted to swap it for the CD Drive module. No dice: modules aren't swappable under NT either. The sounds of my expletive-filled screams were heard all over the building as I rebooted yet again. Mac 4, PC 0.

Once everything was installed, I decided to plug in a mouse and a keyboard, as my PowerBook is set up this way at work. Well, the Dell has only one PS/2 port, so I could only use a mouse OR a keyboard, not both. My PowerBook has only one ADB port, but my keyboard allows the mouse to be plugged into it, giving me essentially two ports. There was a USB port on the Dell, but a) I didn't have a USB keyboard, and b) NT doesn't support USB anyway! More screaming, then I settled on having a mouse and using the built in keyboard. Of course, once the mouse is installed, the track pad becomes inactive. On the PowerBook, both the mouse and track pad are active at the same time. I'm still not sure if the Windows behavior is a feature or not. Mac 5, PC 0.

As for speed, the machine did well. There is a decent amount of video RAM installed, and it ran my graphics applications well. My PowerBook was already doing this, however. Mac 6, PC 1.

When I asked our MIS staff about taking the machine home, I was interested in seeing if the PC had a control panel like Location Manager. This is one of my favorite features of the Mac OS, and I use it daily.

"Yeah, you can do that on a PC," I was told. "But you have to restart after you make the switch."

"Are you KIDDING ME?" I said. "On a Mac, all I do is make a selection from a pop-up menu and I'm switched between various TCP/IP setups. Look," and I showed this particular PC person the ease of Location Manager.

"Hey, that's cool!" Yes, it is. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Bill Gates. Mac 7, PC 1.

At this point, I handed the machine to the MIS staff and told them to keep it. If I ever needed the machine (and was in a particularly masochistic mood), I knew where it would be.

Two days later, the MIS staff showed me the same Dell running a pre-release of Windows 2000. Some of the problems above were solved, some were only half-fixed. For example, 2000 supports USB (and FireWire, I am told). Under 2000, I can hot-swap CD and floppy modules after I tell the machine that I am going to do so. Not quite good enough, as on the PowerBook, I can pull modules out at will (provided it isn't a spinning CD drive...then I'd simply need to wait for it to stop). Of course, Windows 2000 is not shipping yet, and no one knows when it will be.

The Mac emerged as the victor by a long shot. And of course, I didn't even get into the aesthetics of both machines - but why kick the Dell even harder when it is already down on the mat, gasping for air? The Dell PC is no longer allowed in my office. It will need to evolve quite a bit before that happens, and that should be a long time indeed.

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