Laptop magazine gives Lion the thumbs-up over Windows 7

So yeah.. my wife got Lion and installed it, couldn't tell a difference from prior OS aside from extra bugs. Windows 7 on the other hand is the most stable and best OS M$ has ever produced. Also lets be honest. Lion is just a service update to OS X not a completely new OS like Windows 7 was over Vista. Apple releases a service pack every year or so and calls it a new OS, shameful.

I have used every OS form Apple since 9.1 and every Windows version since 3.1 (except Vista). While it was always a fact that Mac OS had a functional edge over its competing Windows product, this is no longer true since Win7 came out. For the first time, MS has managed to create a decent and functional OS that is also perfectly capable of running even on older machines, yet incorporates more useful features and without the hardware lock-in. IMHO comparing the naked price of an OS (and don't forget: Lion, whe purchased sparately, is a MANDATORY UPGRADE to Snow Leopard!) is childish and stupid, because it does not take into account the cost of buying the hardware that runs it, for which apple, of course, charges you a very large premium.
As of now I am running Win7 exclusively on my late 2006 15" MacBook Pro for about 1.5 years and never felt the need to switch back to OS X. Thanks to the expresscard slot I can use USB3 devices like external hard drives at a fraction of the cost of (yet-to-be-released) thunderbolt products.
Except for their shiny finish, apple computers have close to nothing left to appeal to users. And it's most certainly not the price of the OS!

First of all, I'm a Mac user and I upgraded to Lion on my primary computer at home and I use Windows. And, I'm not a fanboy of either OSes.

I read the original article and it's ridiculous. It compared 11 categories and each having the same value or importance. C'mon man, searching for files has the same value as multitasking or security. iLife is a suite and you have to upgrade to iLife 11 for $49 or $14 per app. The article compared Multimedia and said iLife 09 remained untouched in Lion, but upgrading to iLfe 11 adds new features - well it has been touched. This could be a questionable comparison to apps vs OS.

As I commented earlier, you really can't compare the "cost" of Windows and OS X. Apple controls OS X and the hardware, while Microsoft just sales Windows and no computer hardware. Apple does subsidize OS X with the hardware. Just think of this - if Apple just sold OS X and no hardware, do you think it would cost $30 to upgrade - I say no. Also, Apple contracts Asian companies to make their Macs, which are the same Asia companies that make hardware for the PC makers, and Apple charges a premium for their hardware parts.

If you purchased a Mac (early 2006 - CPU 32bit) you cannot upgrade to Lion. Now, it's going to cost you another $1000+ to purchase a new Mac if you want to upgrade. I can upgrade to Windows 7 on 2006 computers with little to no hardware upgrades. I realize you can purchased an used Mac, but it's still going to cost you.

Also, the original article listed the $1799 Mac with the 2.2GHz Intel Core i7, which is the $2199 one. The Dell XPS 15z ($1499) was compared, but the XPS 15 (non "z" version) has a better comparison because the CPUs are matched head to head, despite the thinnest war.

Don't ask me about proofing "Apple subsidizing OS X cost with hardware" because the information isn't available to the public. Here's some common sense - I compared the Dell XPS 15 and MacBook Pro 15" with no upgrades (order as is). Now, you tell me why there's a $800 gap with the similar hardware comparison.

Model: Dell XPS 15
Price: $999.99
CPU: i7-2630QM - 2.00GHz
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB
Memory: 6GB , DDR3
Hard Drive: 750GB, 7200 RPM
LED Screen: 15.6 (1920x1080), 1080P
DVD: Tray Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo
Wireless N: Yes
Gigabit Ethernet: Yes
USB: USB 3.0
Firewire 800: NA
eSATA: Yes
Thunderbolt: NA
External Display: HDMI 1.4 and Mini DisplayPort
Bluetooth: NA
Weight: 6.14 lbs
Height: 1.3"
Warranty: 2 Year

Model: MacBook Pro 15"
Price: $1,799.00
CPU: i7-2635QM - 2.00GHz
OS: OS X 10.7
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256 MB
Memory: 4GB , DDR3
Hard Drive: 500GB, 5400 RPM
LED Screen: 15 (1440x900), 720P
DVD: SuperDrive
Wireless N: Yes
Gigabit Ethernet: Yes
USB: USB 2.0
Firewire 800: Yes
eSATA: NA
Thunderbolt: Yes
External Display: see Thunderbolt
Bluetooth: Yes
Weight: 5.6 lbs
Height: 0.95"
Warranty: 1 Year

The value argument is tough to debate but easy to answer.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. You could buy a Honda at a "great value" and get to work, the theater, the grocery store, the mall, etc. You could also buy a Mercedes and do all those things but obviously in more style and comfort.

You could buy a Windows PC and get to the web, manage your photos, make a home movie, etc. Or you could buy a Mac and do those same things but in a way not possible on a Windows machine.

I like the matrix showing the different levels of Windows and their pricing. I still consider Win7 to be Vista 2.0 in the same way Lion is Snow Leopard 2.0. But I like that Apple only charged $30 for their upgrade versus paying upwards of $200 for Microsoft's upgrade.

And let's not forget that you can reinstall Lion on all your Macs. Obviously Windows requires separate licenses.

Till, you're cherry picking various issues. It also doesn't matter if previous versions of OS X had security weaknesses, because this is a discussion of *LION* not apple products in general. I recommend you read the ars technica full report on OS X Lion instead of picking apart wording in a wikipedia article - Lion is at least on par with windows 7 for security, and better in other areas. Not to mention the UNIX-based security model is still worlds ahead of UAC.

Also, I think Chrome was the only browser to stop taking DigiNotar certificates with any reasonable speed - which can run on either windows or lion.

"and Lion was also hailed as a more secure OS than Windows" ... pffft! Really? Sorry, but that's simply nonsense! Apple introduced ASLR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization#Mac_OS_X) in late 2007 only, and barely catched up with Lion: "Apple explains that "address space layout randomization (ASLR) has been improved for all applications." READ: "Improved" - "We are still not there where other OSes are right now!"

And how long did it take Apple to finally remove the corrupted DigiNotar certificates? Oh, and was Apple not the LAST one - with a delay of *weeks* to do so?

And I am not even mentioning the LDAP passwort disaster introduced with Lion, which renders OS X Lion completely *useless* in enterprise environments! Oh and yes, STILL not fixed!

Ever wondered why Apple is not running their own servers in the App Store?

As always, someone from a big magazine or website writes a 1on1 using Microsoft and Apple Operating Systems but don't really know how to use them enough.
You can tell that when he says that Windows is better when un-cluttering the desktop. He obviously didn't press cmd+F3 or, like in my case, setup the F6 key on the wireless keyboard to just wipe away and back again everything on the desktop.
Windows, I believe, does just that with Win+D but you have to manually bring up every single window you've minimized. That's not better, its worse!

Why don't they just really TRY the things they are writing about?!?

So, technically, your infographic is wrong. You need to multiply all the Lions by 10, because each purchase of Lion in the app store actually allows for 10 licensed installations.

So, one copy of Windows 7 Ultimate is equivalent to 73 Lion installations.

Geez. some of the comments here are showing the old flame wars were only slumbering, waiting to be reignited. As to the linked article, it's obviously been posted as link-bait. Some users will prefer the Mac way of doing things, some will prefer Windows, others will prefer Linux or some other OS. IMHO, there is no "best" OS, there is only the best OS for what you personally prefer and want to do.

I am personally Mac and a PC user so I don't really care :)