5 reasons I regret staying on Windows for so long

If you follow my articles closely, you may already know I'm a lifelong Windows user. At 29 years old, I got my first-ever Mac with the M4 Mac Mini late last year, and after some initial friction, it's safe to say I've fallen in love with it over the past six months or so.

Truth be told, that's not the outcome I expected. In fact, I was a bit reluctant to have to use macOS, but after using the Mac Mini for a while, I actually feel the opposite. I could have been using macOS instead of Windows all along and I probably would have been much better off. Here are a few reasons why I regret staying on Windows as long as I did.

5 All the ads

I can't go without mentioning it

It seems like I can't write about Windows these days without complaining about ads in some way, but I don't think I'm the one to blame for that. macOS does a very good job at just being an operating system and not getting in your way. Sure, some permission quirks can make it annoying at times, but it's nowhere near what Microsoft does with Windows.

It feels like Windows 11 can never shut up about something. The initial setup process is already one of the worst experiences you could expect, but if you disable or skip any of the features Microsoft tries to shove down your throat, you'll get reminded about them every now and then after a cumulative update. Whether it's prompting you to enable OneDrive backups, subscribe to Microsoft 365, or link your phone and PC, there's always something to get in the way of your workflow.

Plus, there are ads for Microsoft 365 and Game Pass in the Settings app, and the OneDrive icon on the taskbar will show an error if Microsoft thinks you're running out of space, which will then promote Microsoft 365 again. And that's still not all of it. Microsoft likes to give users "tips" while you're using your computer, with notifications popping up to task about your experience with this or that. These are things you can disable, but it's annoying they're there in the first place.

Again, macOS has its quirks, too, but it's so much less intrusive.

4 macOS helped me with video editing

An unexpected, but pleasant surprise

We go from one thing we can all agree on to something that's very specific to me, but it's still worth highlighting. I run a very small YouTube channel for fun, but my microphone is simply not good (in fact, I think it might be broken or something), and before I switched to Mac, I was using manual methods for trying to reduce the microphone's noise. Whether I was editing the EQ manually or using a noise reduction filter in OBS, it took a bit of work, and the end result wasn't always great as most of these filters tend to also filter out "S" sounds, which made my pronunciation sound weird.

However, after I started using DaVinci Resolve on my Mac Mini, I noticed an option that's not available on Windows. One of the audio effects I can apply, called AUSoundIsolation, offers the best noise removal experience I've ever seen in one of these programs. It makes my voice sound clearer than any other option I've tried, and it does so with next to no errors in terms of cutting out my actual speech. It's not 100% immune to faults, but I sound so much better in all of my videos now, even if it can't make up for a terrible microphone entirely. The fact that I can fix this major problem with a couple of clicks and that the solution works so well really makes me wish I had been using a Mac all along.

3 Windows PCs are loud

I love the silence of my Mac Mini

The noise a system makes is going to vary for each and every computer, but that doesn't change the fact that every Windows computer I've used is significantly louder than the Mac Mini. It's impossible to use a Windows PC without hearing the fan spin up, and it's not usually a quiet noise, especially with a mini PC or laptop.

The Mac Mini, on the other hand, is dead silent pretty much the entire time I use it. I've heard it spin up a couple of times when i try to run multiple intensive workloads at the same time (such as playing a demanding game and recording my screen), but that's about it. Just to paint the picture, I have a Thunderbolt dock that's always plugged in on a desk behind me while I work, and most of the time, I hear this very faint whirring noise in my office. Since I'm right in front of my Mac, I think that might be where it's coming from, but no, it usually turns out it's the dock's electronics. And if there's a Windows laptop in the room, that overpowers everything else.

I love how quiet the Mac Mini is, even under heavy loads like my video editing or using the Denoise filter in Adobe Lightroom. It's so nice to have some peace and quiet in my office as the default.

2 The Mac Mini is more responsive

I didn't think I would notice such a big difference

I sort of knew going in that the M4 Mac Mini would be faster than any Windows PC in the same class, and I've shown as much using benchmarks I ran myself. Apple has next to no competition in terms of balancing performance and efficiency, but one thing I didn't expect was how much more responsive it would be while doing the same tasks.

Here's the thing, the Mac Mini and my Asus Zenbook S 14 both take about 40-ish seconds to run the AI Denoise filter in Lightroom. In fact, the Zenbook can be ever so slightly faster sometimes. But many times, when I'm editing photos in Lightroom, I have a video open on the side just to keep my mind busy while things process. On the Mac Mini, the AI Denoise filter doesn't even make my video stutter — everything else keeps running smoothly. If I want to interact with other apps or do anything else, I can do it without any issues at all.

On every Windows PC I've used, that's unfathomable. If I'm playing a YouTube video while the Denoise filter runs, that video will be playing at one frame per second. Minimizing and interacting with other apps becomes very laggy, and overall it just feels like the computer is dragging its feet. If that equated to the filter being applied much faster, that would be one thing, but there's no tangible benefit in return here. Windows PCs just feel slow in comparison.

1 Switching to macOS was easier than I thought

Almost everything has alternatives on macOS

One of the biggest reasons I was skeptical to switch away from Windows was the thought that I'd have to relearn a lot or that some things I was used to doing just wouldn't work on macOS. Thankfully, while the first couple of weeks did pose some challenges, I've now realized that just about everything I could want to do is also available on macOS in some form.

Some things are better on macOS by default, such as widgets and search (seriously, Spotlight embarrasses Windows Search), but for many things, third-party alternatives make macOS just as good if not better than Windows. MacsyZones makes multi-tasking just as easy and customizable as I need it to be, Raycast is easily the best quick launcher on any platform, WPS Office is better on macOS thanks to fewer ads in the free version, and just about every major app that runs on Windows also exists for Mac. All the Adobe apps, DaVinci Resolve, my favorite browser (Vivaldi), it all works on Mac, so I really don't miss much from Windows.

The only notable exceptions are games, but I don't play games on PC anyway, so it makes no difference to me at all. Outside of testing apps specifically for work, I never find myself thinking I need a Windows PC for anything.

Windows is fine, but I'm happier on Mac

I'm not saying I hate using Windows or that macOS is necessarily better in every way, but I do believe Apple's operating system has turned out to work much better for me than Windows did. It's less annoying, it offers features I don't have on Windows, and everything that I did love on Windows can still be done on macOS just as well, if not better.

Your use case may very, but for me, macOS and the Mac Mini itself have been a blessing, so much so that I've been pondering getting a MacBook Air as well to go along with it.