I bought one of Apple’s top-of-the-line computers last month, the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. After owning the iPhone for several years, I was having a love affair with Apple products. The new Mac was gorgeous, light, and fast, and compared with my 11-pound, very sluggish laptop, I thought I was in heaven. But I soon found that I hadn’t thought through my purchase very well.

The Macs are great for what they do, and they are amazing machines. If you’re a photo or video enthusiast, a musician, a designer, or someone who’s new to computers, the Mac may be the way to go. But coming from a PC world, and having worked at Microsoft for many years, I didn’t really know what to do with the Mac. It might have been new and dreamy, but I couldn’t duplicate the PC programs and tasks I knew and loved. To be fair, the Mac has some wonderful apps that can’t be found on the PC.

One of my favorite PC tools is the Snipping Tool. It’s just a little native application. All it does is snip any part of the screen so you can paste it anywhere. After trying numerous Mac apps, this task wasn’t possible with the retina display. It might have been a case of the tools not catching up with technology, but I started to see a nightmare coming on.

My growing apprehension became real when I took the Mac to one of my clients so they could download the programs they wanted me to use. But two of them weren’t compatible with the Mac. I was hosed. The only thing I could do was to try and return it.

One of the things I do appreciate about Apple is its customer and technical support. The Apple store took the computer back after those three tough weeks and didn’t ask a lot of questions or even charge me a restocking fee. I instantly felt liberated. Instead of being upset or embarrassed by this whole ordeal, I was very happy to be reunited with my familiar, if clunky and slow, computer. Luckily, I hadn’t sold it yet.

Whenever I do venture out to buy another new laptop, I’ll make sure it’s what I really need. And fortunately, there are many more computer choices in the PC world.

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