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curiouswebsterFlag for United States of America

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Windows laptop versus MacBook?

Windows laptop versus MacBook?

I am a Mac user and love certain features of the Mac. But I also love the incredibly low prices of a Windows Acer laptop.

There is one KEY FEATURE of the Mac that would make the high cost worth me staying on the Mac platform. Key Word Search!

When I try to search on Windows, you better hurry up and wait. When I use Finder, I nearly instantly get a list of files with the search word found in the filename or inside the file (GREP).

I consider this a life-saving feature that lets me find long-lost files, often when I have no idea (or interest in knowing) the physical location of the file.

Can Windows match this awesome power the Mac OS gives me to peruse my files?

Thanks.
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John
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I am not a big fan of Acer and Asus. Their cheap computers are consumer computers and not designed to last.

If you are happy with your MacBook, keep it.

In Windows I make sure indexing covers my documents and searching is very fast, but don't switch for that.

A good quality ThinkPad will compare in price to a MacBook.
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I agree with John. If you are happy with your MacBook you should stick with it. You can make Windows searching snappy like using Finder, but it takes a bit more maintenance and work.

You mentioned the low price of the Acer laptop as being attractive, but be aware you get what you pay for with computer hardware. Its pretty difficult to get a high quality build in a laptop with good specs at a low price. If you're really interested in switching, I'd say go to a local computer store if you can and try to spend some time with a computer you're considering. See if there's flex in the frame, the feel of hinges, how the keyboard feels, how responsive the trackpad is, etc. Most Windows laptops I've seen that are close to my old MacBook Air are equivalent in price.

Cheers,
Martin
if you see the difference in price - you also know ther'es a difference in quality
i would say - if you want to compare windows vs Mac, take at least a business model to compare with, not a consumer model of 500+600$
as for searching, i'm sure you can find good software for windows too
Windows laptop versus MacBook?
I have both, but I recently purchased a MacBook Air and am loving it. It's turning out to be a great little no-nonsense workhorse.

I've been a Windows user for most of my life. My son has a pretty a high-end Dell laptop as well that I recently did some work on for him and it has comparable specs to my MacBook Air. SSD drive, 8GB Ram etc, but when it comes to performance, there's just no comparison - my MacBook outperforms his ( and every other Windows laptop) that I've ever used.

If its speed you want, stick with the MAC would be my recommendation. The only reason I can see to opt for a Windows laptop would have to do with software availability and advanced configuration options.
I also use both.
Really it comes down to you and your experience of using windows os vs Mac OS and if you feel it's advantageous to have a windows laptop  to use seriously (that is you have a windows requirement) otherwise it may well wind up being something that gets shelved as an extravagant toy.
In my experience with hardened mac users, they have a hard time switching because the Mac appears to offer small nuances that aren't present in windows (this was also the experience of a good friend of mine who had used a Mac for many years and was forced to change to windows because the software their company needed to use wasn't available as a Mac version, and he went "kicking and screaming" -it took a fair few months before he was comfortable but he still pined for his mac).
I am very happy with my top quality ThinkPad and Windows 10. It has become an excellent operating system and all the functions including search are very fast.

I am a big believer in using what suits you. Windows suits me and works great. If you like your MAC and it is doing everything you need, stay with it. Some of my family use MAC laptops and they are happy with them.
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ASKER

As far as the speed of the search, the Mac clearly is building indexes in the background, and this makes all searches near instant. In Windows, it can take ages for a single search, at which point I would want to dump the PC into the harbor.

Is there a way (in Windows) to turn indexing on? Otherwise, I could never use Windows as my workhorse as I would never have time to wait for search results.
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John
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thanks
You are very welcome and (truly) good luck with your Mac Book.
Hi newbieweb,

Is there a way (in Windows) to turn indexing on?
Yes, just press your Windows key, type "Indexing options" and hit your enter key.

User generated image
Change what Windows 10 will Index from there.

I hope that's helpful.

Regards, Andrew
There are two ways of comparing the two types of computers (hardware and software)
On a hardware engineering level Apple lags behind the other business level laptops by a significant margin. Especially when it comes to liquid damage resistance. The apple products have none others have liquid diversion and drain holes. Their repair costs are rather excessive.

And now there is the software AKA the Operating System.  Here you stress the search tool (finder) vs windows search, there are 3rd party seach tools and windows search can be configured to search and index more items.