Where Windows is better...

The Mac is superior to Windows in most ways especially since the introduction (March 2001) of its "modern" operating system - OSX. There are still however a few areas where Windows is better:

see X vs XP - the final score

Special Paul Thurrott Column

My Wife Is Switching to the Mac

Windows "Longhorn" FAQ Paul Thurrott
http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/longhorn.asp

Rebuttal to Paul Thurrott author of WinSuperSite.com
had some not-too-nice things to say about Apple's Mac OS
http://www.xvsxp.com/articles/031124-thurott.shtml

http://www.xvsxp.com/final-score/

and this new site PC versus Mac

General

Processors used in PCs are being improved more quickly and than the Power PC chips that Apple uses (from Motorola). Apple (and Motorola) have some catching up to do at the high end of the market. Speed differences, however, won't be a significant factor for ordinary users who won't need anything faster than a 1Ghz Mac or 1.5ghz PC for email, Internet, office productivity and basic image editing. With the release of the G5 (with different chips made by IBM) the Mac has regained much of the speed gap with Wintel and this will increase with the move to Intel chips in 2006.

Apple Power Mac G5: Neck-and-Neck with Intel PCs by Troy Dreier of PC Magazine
September 19, 2003
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1274182,00.asp
" ...the G5 is generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available "
- Dual Opteron toasts G5 (June 2005)
  " ... this drubbing that the Mac took on these benchmarks should lay to rest, for now, the question of which platform is faster for content creation. In fact, here at the Midwest Test Facility the fastest Mac has never beaten the fastest PC in any of our overall head-to-head testing. Could the G5’s consistently slower performance have anything to do with Apple’s decision to abandon its “incredible” G5 platform? It doesn’t look so incredible any more, at least not when you’re looking at the truth, with its cold, hard numbers. But when you factor in religion, emotion, adept marketing, persuasiveness and sheer hype, perhaps the equation gets fuzzy, even for the sane and sober. Of course, this isn’t taking into account the outstanding software applications available on the Mac such as Final Cut Pro , and the gorgeous operating system OS X that is some consolation for those of us who have no choice but to use the inferior Mac hardware."
- Mac vs. PC 5: Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz (digitalvideoediting tests dual 2.7 Mac and a dual 3.6 Xeon - May 2005)
  " ...the performance of both computers is just about the same. And, if you look at the prices, you get much more for your money with the dual-processor Mac these days than you do with a dual-processor Xeon PC. Even more significant is the fact that the price of this test Mac is unusually high, because Apple chose to include 4 GB of RAM, and added numerous other extras to the mix. With a comparable 2GB of RAM and without any extras, this machine would cost $1300 less than the current price of our Dell dual Xeon 3.6GHz PC that we used for comparison. As configured, for forty bucks less you get speed that’s statistically just about the same as a PC, Bluetooth connectivity, FireWire 800 on the motherboard , and then there’s that striking industrial design and cachet that only goes with owning a Mac" (emphasis added)
- The Real Megahertz Myth: Is Apple The Real Slim Shady? May 9th, 2003
- In pro digital photography, megahertz matters ( If Raw photo and Photoshop batch processing are important in your workflow, then speed is what you need by Rob Galbraith Tuesday, January 7, 2003). Contains a flame-free discussion.
  - January 2004 Update: " while the PC is still quicker overall, the Mac is at least back in the race."
- Mac vs. PC III: Mac Slaughtered Again Dell's $2964 3.06 GHz P4 Trounces Fastest Mac on the Market
  November 2002
  http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/cgi-bin/getframeletter.cgi?/2002/11_nov/reviews/cw_macvspciii.htm
  and http://www.adobe.com/motion/pcpreferred.html
  with response from CreativeMac
  Performance Preferred Software efficiency in hardware benchmarks by David Nagel
  http://www.creativemac.com/cgi-bin/getframeletter.cgi?/2003/03_mar/editorials/smack105030326.htm
- In an August 2001 bench mark testing TechTV Labs set out to benchmark the newest from Apple and Intel. They tested Apple's 867MHz Macintosh G4 against Intel's latest processor, the 2.0-GHz Pentium 4 paired with their new 850 chip set and found that the Mac was faster in a few tests.
  ( Benchmark Showdown -- Mac vs. PC
  http://www.techtv.com/products/hardware/story/0,23008,3339307,00.html - August 2001
  see also
  Benchmarks demolish Apple speed boasts
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/24358.html
Hard drives on PCs can be partitioned without having to wipe all the data on them
PC manufacturers have added dual-layer DVD burners to most of their offerings; only on top of the range Macs will you find dual-layer DVD burners.
PCs usually have more expansion options : more empty slots to add memory and peripherals. The iMac has limited upgrade options, although if you want more hard disk space or want to add a CD burner you can plug in such peripherals via USB or Firewire and they will work. They are often more expensive than the internal CD burners and hard drives for PCs, however the latter are not easy for the ordinary user to install and will probably necessitate professional (read 'expensive') intervention. Many people believe that the all-in-one iMacs are not upgradable: this author, in his first attempt, replaced the hard disk of an iMac, taking only 45 minutes! G3 and G4 towers are also upgradeable.
software: while there are thousands of applications available for the Mac (http://guide.apple.com/auindex.html)- all the commonly used ones - there are still some areas where titles are many available for the PC but few for the Mac eg.
- some educational CD-ROMs
- databases for work on literary texts
- some electronic books
- map reading software
- project management software
web browsing is faster on PCs using Internet Explorer except if using Apple's new browser Safari or Mozilla's Camino
(Mac users still on OS9 should use a RAM disk to improve browsing speed when using third party browsers)
Why Do New iMacs Surf So Slowly? By Paul Boutin . April 19, 2002
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,51926,00.html
and view the response from MacObserver (http://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/04/19.7.shtml)
some anecdotal evidence suggests that PCs render Flash movies(.swf) faster than Macs
modern PCs use less electricity in hibernation mode http://yosemite.epa.gov/estar/consumers.nsf/attachments/CompFeb01.pdf/$File/CompFeb01.pdf?OpenElement
but iMacs use much less electricity in full power mode.
"Macintosh processors (made by IBM and Motorola) use substantially lower electricity than their PC counterparts. G3's use from 4 1/2 to 6 watts of power and, G4's, 5-14 watts while PC processors range from 30-100 watts/hour."
http://www.uh.edu/infotech/news/story.php?story_id=130
Apple does not offer right-to-left language support in the operating system.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/26046.html
flawed attempt by Apple to make OpenType fonts and features more accessible to Macintosh users

Usability

Image Previews, One More Place Where Windows Trumps Macs
http://www.lowendmac.com/archive/04/1015.html
The right mouse button on Windows PCs (used to access contextual menus) - can accomplish a few more tasks more efficiently and quickly than the Control-click, Option-click or Command-click on a Mac with the originally supplied single button mouse. This variety of combination clicking can be a little confusing to newcomers to the Mac OS. Many Windows users value the scrolling mouse which allows for quick navigation of documents. This author has two mice connected to his iMac at the same time and swaps from one to the other at will. One is a standard mouse, the other is a cordless programmable three button scrolling optical. Most multi-button mice work straight out of the box with MacOS X.
Windows has underlined letters in Menu Commands which is a very practical way of pointing out keyboard shortcuts. They also provide shortcuts for ALL menu commands (though not consistently in all applications) unlike the Mac. This may be a dubious benefit however because of its inconsistency and because users will find it hard to remember more than perhaps 10-12 keyboard shortcuts and remember when to use them. In a laptop situation this can make for much faster working practices when on the move and it is useful for experienced computer users who rely more on the keyboard than on the mouse
Windows Media Player has more features than Apple's QuickTime, though many would say that WMP has a very unfriendly (ugly!?) user interface which reduces usability

Specific Applications

Video: applications like Vegas Video (for PC) is better in some ways than Final Cut Express (on Mac)
(a) preview editing of effects like transitions is much faster
(b) far superior titling and credit tools.
(from XvsXP) "QuickTime Basic doesn't have a full screen command, making it one of very few free video players to lack this feature. The lack of a full screen feature is an artificial limitation; Apple simply disables it in the free player to create incentive for you to buy QuickTime Pro for $30 (which includes full screen amongst many other higher-end features). Fortunately, there are workarounds, and iTunes will play QuickTime movies full screen, although it doesn't support as many video formats as QuickTime does."

Why I Might Switch Back… September 22nd, 2005

A Flameless Response to Russell Beattie's 33 Criticisms of Mac OS X Charles W Moore

Brad Wardell's site (11/24/02) - highlights some of the advantages of the PC in a fairly rational way (although this author disagrees with some of what he says - have never had his networking or disk burning problems, for example)

Everything Is Not Easier on a Mac
http://lowendmac.com/archive/02/0405.html