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PAUL BOUTIN — Vista or OS X? The star reviewers at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both point out Microsoft's new operating system (a) requires a new, beefed-up PC to use its best features, and (b) seems like an inferior copy of Apple's Mac OS X. David Pogue and Walt Mossberg are both known Mac fans. Each spends a good chunk of his review praising OS X over Vista. It leaves a reader wondering: Should I buy a Vista PC or get one of those Macs, and why didn't they tell me which? Are Pogue and Mossberg appeasing Mac fanboys without actually advocating Apple? Were they ordered not to blurt out VISTA SUCKS GET A MAC? After the jump, Pogue takes the bait.

Skim Mossberg's WSJ review and Pogue's NYT piece. Count the number of times the words "Apple," "Macintosh" and "OS X" appear in each. To a reader who isn't a Mac user — the vast majority — it seems inconsistent to obsessively compare Vista features to another product in a definitive review, and then not say that one or the other is better.

A good national newspaper review isn't subtle. It spells out the takeaway clearly and quotably. No one misreads it. Mossberg in late 2005 was clear: "Every mainstream consumer doing typical tasks should consider the Mac." His new Vista review trails off with, "You may want to keep your older Windows XP box around awhile longer." If he means "until OS X Leopard ships this Spring," he should say so.

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Why did Mossberg and Pogue, masters of the gadget review, stop short of telling readers to hold off on a new Vista PC until they'd evaluated a comparable Mac instead? I emailed both writers and got one reply... [UPDATE: Mossberg's reply arrived the day after he sent it.]


From: David Pogue
To: Paul Boutin

Hey Paul!

Excellent questions all.

I think that if you're just starting out and have no vested interest in either platform (like a 3-D game available only for Windows), a Macintosh will offer a smoother, more consistent experience—if only because a single company has designed the hardware and software to work together.


But not everyone has that choice. Plenty of people are deeply invested in Windows stuff: printer, scanner, software collection, years of experience, etc. For them, the question isn't "Mac vs. PC," but rather, "upgrade to Vista or not"?

That's why I think it'd be sort of pointless to pit the two against each other in a review of Vista. It's be like declaring a victor in a match between a truck and a convertible coupe.

But actually, that's a really good topic for an unrelated column: all things being equal—and if you have no investment to think about—which one comes out on top?

Incendiary and fuel for much blogger bashing, but a good column topic nonetheless!

dp

A really good topic! For another column! He's too humble — a David Pogue cage match between Vista and OS X Leopard would be the most-dugg URL all year. I can hardly wait.