bring mac or pc to china?

[justeraren]

I'm going to study in beijing and not sure which computer will be best for me to bring.

I prefer mac myself but was told I could run into problems, such as difficulties finding

spare parts, software or getting it serviced. Also trouble viewing certain webpages in China that supposedly use fonts designed for pc:s? (sounds very strange to me).

would be grateful for some info about possible trouble when using mac in china.

thanx,

Niklas

[盤古]

I believe what you heard are nothing more than misconceptions due to ignorance of the Mac platform by the general population.

I've been using Macs for at least 15 years. Of course, I've also used PCs during that time but mostly Macs. Out of the 5 Macs I've owned and at least 15 other that I've helped setup or maintain, only one that was ever so broken that it needed spare parts or to get serviced and it was because my butter fingers dropped the PowerBook and caused a dent which didn't even affect the system. Of course, since it was just a cosmetic damage, I didn't do anything with it.

In any case, in China you'll probably only find Macs in graphic / video design firms or art schools such as the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Most everyday people use PCs (and not premium PCs such as top of the line HP) simply because they can't afford Macs (thanks to the exchange rate and all...). However, as people in China get wealthier and Mac prices get lower, you'll probably find more and more Mac users in China and therefore more places to get "spare parts and service"...

Apple has a branch in China and it seems like it's just getting bigger. There are also several Apple Stores opening up around China, namely Beijing and Shanghai though. There is even a pretty big and very active Mac User Group based in Beijing called BeiMac. I'm sure if you ever run into any trouble they would be more than happy to help you out. It's the Mac spirit after all...

As for support for the Chinese language, I personally find Mac OS X to be FAR superior in the aspect when compared to Windows XP, especially when it comes to fonts. Chinese text simply look much nicer on Macs (right out of the box) than PCs... Here is a comparison...

http://www.wangweili.com/forums/cf/mac.jpg

http://www.wangweili.com/forums/cf/pc.jpg

[Gary Soup]

PC for sure. MacIntosh has almost no presence there, and you won't find much in the way of hardware or software support. Besides that, people will look at you funny.

[geraldc]

It's really personal preference. Which apps are you going to use most, are you planning to add a lot of software or peripherals when in China, or do you have everything you need now etc? If you're not sure what software you'll be using, and plan to buy lots of new peripherals in China, get a PC. If you're currently using a mac and really like it, take your mac.

Macs are definitely better at handling multi language set ups, Outlook express on the PC can't really do basic things like showing names in email titles in the correct language (esp if you use more than 2 languages).

If you're planning to surf a lot of Chinese websites, I'd get a Mac, or at least make sure that your virus protection is up to date. For some reason it all seems to be riddled with spyware and nefarious cookies etc.

[盤古]

Excessive Quoting Removed

When it comes to hardware or software support, you can easily visit the Apple Stores in Beijing, I believe there are two now but I'm not certain. I know for sure there is one in Wangfujing at the mall near Chang'an Road. I don't recall the name of the mall at the moment though. I visited the Apple Store there and the employees are quite helpful. You can also seek help from the BeiMac MUG as mentioned above.

As for getting funny looks, you'd probably get that almost anywhere in the world by using Macs even in the U.S. with the exception of probably Japan as that's the only country where Mac's market share is in double-digits. But of course, with Apple's new hardware, I generally get about 2 seconds of a funny look followed immediately by a look of awe and amazement, sometimes even a little envy.

It's really personal preference. Which apps are you going to use most, are you planning to add a lot of software or peripherals when in China, or do you have everything you need now etc? If you're not sure what software you'll be using, and plan to buy lots of new peripherals in China, get a PC. If you're currently using a mac and really like it, take your mac.

Many software can be downloaded online these days, and I mean legally. Both Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite have "try out" versions which are essentially FULL version software but you can only use them for 30 days unless you purchase a license. But then again, you can also purchase these softwares via the Apple Stores in Beijing or through the BeiMac MUG.

As for peripherals, most today use standard USB or FireWire, both pioneered by Apple and have been standard in Macs since 1998. Many devices such as keyboards, mice, scanners, printers, and cameras don't need special drivers to run on Macs but occasionally you might run into one or two that do. When that happens, there are third-party software that enables you to use those devices assuming the manufacturers of the devices don't offer Mac drivers.

[pandaxiongmao]

I've had no problems with my Mac in China. People are very curious about it when they see it. Many major cities have at least one Apple Centre.

I think the only real consideration for using a PC rather than a Mac would be if you want to do video conferencing with other people (on MSN or QQ). Using iChat with an iSight camera is nicer, but not many Chinese users have AIM accounts.

You can do webcam on MSN using Mercury Messenger , but the Mac can't send audio due to limitations of Java on the Mac. I suppose you could try using Skype at the same time, but my Mac is too ancient to handle both at a reasonable speed.

I have found isQ (the Mac implementation of QQ) to be quite unstable, and it can't do video either. It supposedly has the ability to send and receive files, but I've never gotten that feature to work on the Mac. It works well enough to do text chat.

[kevinjamessmith]

Since you prefer Mac, bring Mac. I have an iBook G4 in China. The only problem I have is getting cheap Chinese black market software for my Mac. I paid 600RMB for a certain 6000RMB software suite, which only would have cost about 6RMB if I were buying the black market PC version.

[Gary Soup]

I think the only real consideration for using a PC rather than a Mac would be if you want to do video conferencing with other people (on MSN or QQ). Using iChat with an iSight camera is nicer, but not many Chinese users have AIM accounts.

You can do webcam on MSN using Mercury Messenger , but the Mac can't send audio due to limitations of Java on the Mac. I suppose you could try using Skype at the same time, but my Mac is too ancient to handle both at a reasonable speed.

I have found isQ (the Mac implementation of QQ) to be quite unstable, and it can't do video either. It supposedly has the ability to send and receive files, but I've never gotten that feature to work on the Mac. It works well enough to do text chat.

I don't see how that translates to

I've had no problems with my Mac in China.

[pandaxiongmao]

Since you want to be such a pedantic, perhaps I should have said that except for video conferencing on MSN and QQ, my Mac works much better than my PC in China.

I prefer Chinese input on the Mac by far, and the Mac has much better Unicode support. A lot of the software problems I run into on Windows occur because Unicode support is incomplete and has been poorly thought out by software developers. A lot of the instances I would actually want to seek out support for Windows software simply don't occur on the Mac.

I usually find the quickest way to solve software issues is to search online for experiences of other users having the same problems. In person, it is almost always me helping people with their Windows problems rather than the other way around.

Also, if you go the black market software route, both Mac and PC software is available online. If you are not going to pay the original publisher of the software money anyway, you might as well not pay any money at all. It is not like somebody selling software of questionable origin for 6RMB can provide you with a high level of "support".

I generally don't have the time to video conference, but it seems like some people who do language exchanges do, which is why I noted the pros and cons of video conferencing on the Mac.

Since I don't often video conference, I don't consider it to be having a problem with my Mac.