SimpleSimon1

You are so right. My youngest son uses Macs and has done for years because of his work and has the iPhone and iPad, along with the iPod and he said to me they are good, and do essentially the same things that a Windows machine will do. My reason for moving was a problem I had with some idiot hacking in to a Hotmail account I only used occasionally and sent a bug through to everyone on my address book. This ended up costing money to people who thought it was from me and opened the missive. Bingo! they were infected. Eldest son paid a lot of money to PCWorld to get rid of it.

I still have the Windows laptop, but it doesn't get used very much these days, I try to keep the iMAC going but that is really an adventure with the constant niggly problems that are ever present. To give some idea of the problems I have encountered, during the first 4 months of ownership, I spent more time on the phone to Apple to get the thing functioning correctly, including erasing the HDD twice and reinstalling the operating system, including the update to Mountain Lion from Lion. Buying a Magic Mouse that had to be replaced because of failure to operate, a number pad was replaced because it couldn't be setup. I never did use the original in anger. The Magic Track Pad is so sensitive, it can operate if you swipe your fingers above but not even touching the plate, missing it by microns!! That makes for an interesting sequence particular regarding deletion!! All these were bought from Apple not some nefarious supplier. And the major problem now is the way the mouse, keyboard, number pad and Magic Track Pad constantly lose their connection. It is pointless having a Wi-Fi system because it fails to operate far more than it operates.

Like you, I believe a totally independent review is the real way to finding out how these machines operate, and to give a reasonable time scale for such a review and not use a couple of days and see it works OK, because as sure as eggs, there will be problems with it. I do not believe that I am the only person who has had so many problems with a piece of kit that is supposed to be so good and reliable.

Sorry to mump on, but these thing cost me £1,000:00 plus, and I honestly think it was a complete waste of money. It does work, but I have absolutely no confidence with it at all.

TonyV