Happy New Year!
It’s a new year and that’s not the only new thing for me right now.
I got a new gaming setup for myself (not for gaming – LOL) 🤭
Warning 🚨
This will be a slightly technical and lengthy newsletter because I am documenting my experience.
I plan to share this content with anyone who plans to switch from Windows to MacOS 🍎
Unless you just love reading my experiences, feel free to skip reading this. No hard feelings, I promise 🙂
The Tech Dilemma 🤔
My laptop was on life support – obviously because it was getting old and I used it too heavily.
The entire system was powered by my HP laptop which connected – 2 monitors, keyboard, mouse, condenser microphone and webcam.
So I decided it was time for a serious upgrade.
I had 2 requirements –
👉 Performance and speed needs to be extremely high priority over other things and software needs to be reliable
👉 It should support my existing hardware
Apple Mac Mini Temptation 🍎
I started eyeing on Mac Mini because it is sexy 😛
(1) Performance is always top-notch for Apple products
(2) I already own a MacBook so I wanted to enter the Apple ecosystem
(3) Apple has some good tools for video creators as I plan for my video journey
Before finalizing, I threw myself into a 30-day video creation challenge to test my commitment 🎥
I couldn’t complete the challenge 🙊
I lost half of my motivation there because I didn’t want to spend so much if I was not being serious.
But I was still confused because I almost made up my mind to get a Mac Mini.
Researched a lot and decided to buy a Mac Mini 🤑
Reality Check ☝️
I went to websites and shops to compare prices.
Almost clicked ‘Buy’ a bunch of times but something held me back.
I decided to see if Mac life will be the right decision for me in my day to day work.
Connected my MacBook to my setup and bam!
❌ My mouse was working but it was not smooth
❌ Scroll works in reverse in MacOS. It simply gives the option to reverse it for Apple Trackpad but not any other mouse. Meaning? Get its own Trackpad.
❌ Keyboard was working fine but it messed up the configuration of my keys because keys on Mac speak a different language.
❌ MacOS allows us to customize 4 keys. Yeah, 4 keys! My keyboard laughed. That’s the level of customization Apple provides. I wanted to configure my whole keyboard instead.
❌ MacOS has very few keyboard shortcuts. I am so used to all keyboard shortcuts and I realized that this will eventually kill my productivity
❌ MacOS doesn’t completely kill any software even after you close it. It’s frustrating to see it there in taskbar
❌ There is no native support to open clipboard history. I use it all the time for my work. Copy pasting gets so easy!
❌ I had to literally beg for ports. I would need to pay 2k-10k extra to get all the USB ports. Even then, if I had to connect my pendrive, I would have to remove something.
Long story short, MacOS didn’t vibe with my workflow 👎
Plot Twist: Enter Windows Gaming PC 😎
Decision time.
I clearly didn’t need MacOS for now.
Ditched the Mac Mini dream.
Asked my close friend to help me build a gaming PC for my performance requirements.
Built a gaming PC for less than 60k. Not a gamer, but it might happen 🎮
Mac’s Bright Spots ✨
I won’t say Mac is bad. After all, I use a Macbook and I got attracted to it only after using it for so many months.
✅ Stellar Performance: It’s well-known. Even old MacBooks work with blazing speeds.
✅ Never Ending Battery Life: MacBooks can work for 12+ hours without breaking a sweat. Windows laptops don’t even survive for 4 hours.
✅ Speakers & Camera: A+ for all occasions. No Windows laptop can match the quality.
✅ Exclusive Mac Softwares: They all are superb and smooth!
But I realized it is not suitable for my system which has so many things connected at the same time.
Conclusion: Dual Life Setup 💻🖥️
🍎 For Mac-only softwares, I have my MacBook. Plus, I will be using it while travelling and to-quickly work on the go.
🪟 For my high productivity and creative work, my custom gaming PC will do the job.
✍ TODAY’S LEARNING FOR YOU
👉 Be it Apple or Windows, brands mean nothing. See what works out for your needs. That’s the best choice for you.
👉 2 big hacks to save money before making big purchase –
1️⃣Challenge yourself with something related to that purchase
2️⃣ If possible, get a free trial or rent it to use it for a while
In short, try to analyze how it will impact your daily life to save money from impulse buying.
✔ WHAT I DID THIS WEEK
I mostly spend my last week of the year reflecting on things 😇
Celebrated my 31st December with my family 😋
It’s way too crowded and overpriced everywhere outside. How do you celebrate, ?
Apart from that, I spent this week researching and assembling this PC. I got it on Wednesday 😍
At office, I spent most of my time in fetching out the analytics of the whole year, comparing with the previous year to see our growth 🚀
Just marketer things. I think that reflects on my personal life too. I track too many things 😅
Finally, I attended the monthly office town hall where all teams present their success stories and achievements 🫡
Year-end town halls are special because we get to see the overall progress of the year 📈\
🌐 AROUND THE WEB
My friend, Sandesh, created RestoreChitra AI as his side project.
It helps you restore your old and blurry face photos with AI Magic 🔥
I use so many old photos for presentations, birthday greetings and for other use cases. But blurry images don’t look good.
So I started using this tool to simply convert all those old blurry images into fine HD images. I love how I get to use so many tools from my own friends 🙂
It’s 100% free to use 🆓