A couple more REAL differences between systems. Until system 8 (or
whatever Apple is going to call it) appears--where are all the Win95,96,97
jokes now ;-) --you can't get true multitasking on the Mac. For most
people this is not important, but if you want to be printing a long
document while surfing the web with a major calculation going in the
background--PC.
Also, because of its much stronger ties to the business world, office
suites (word-processor, speadsheet, data base, and presentation software)
are more sophisticated, more tightly integrated, and more functional in the
PC world. There are three major players--Micro$oft, Lotus(IBM), and
Borland(Corel). There is also great support for customizing these
applications for individual company use--Visual Basic is primarily for
doing such. This is probably not important to most physicists, although
the newest suites integrate web authoring tools as well.
Software bundling is another factor that needs to be considered when
comparing prices. The direct marketers (Gateway, Dell, Micron, etc.)
bundle a surprising amount of current and useful software for little or no
additional money. Office 97 professional version runs over $500 retail but
can be had bundled 'free' or for an extra $100 with many PC purchases. How
about the Mac world--I don't keep up, but I don't think the offers are so
good (especially since the office software is at least a generation
behind--although M$ promises to keep supporting the Mac).