Is it time for a Mac?

[David Masters]

I performed the ultimate boneheaded stunt — I dumped an entire cup of coffee on my MacBook Air. The laptop was powered on at the time, and although I immediately powered it off, you cannot remove the battery. I drained and sopped up the worst and flushed with distilled water. Waited two days for everything to dry out and powered it on. Still in use today. I've taken many Windows based laptops apart to repair and don't find them any better sealed (even Thinkpads). In full disclosure, I haven't performed the cup of coffee test on a Windows laptop yet.

As to iMacs, we have to remember that we are buying a single processor/monitor unit and aesthetics aside, are designed to tightly control heat and noise. Although I haven't worked with the Lenovo, HP, Acer, and Dell single processor/monitor clones that were introduced after the iMac, I suspect changing components in these are somewhat difficult as well. If you really want to test your skill in replacing a hard drive, try upgrading one of those Acer desktops like the Revo, and Veriton. (but I love these guys for single application use)

But when I choose a computer, I consider productivity first, and I have found Apple and OS X to be better over Windows (XP, 7, and 8.1) and Linux (Ubuntu). It's not that the others can't perform the tasks I need to accomplish, but Apple has a lot of little things that make me more productive.

Dave