Kamikuza said..slammin said..
+1. If you need to ask then Mac.
That's... actually the most sensible advice I've seen. I'm assuming you mean that if you're so computer illiterate that you need to ask between 2 different OSes then you should go with the dumb-ass option - Mac.
I see this answer a lot. Why are Macs "dumb"? What, exactly, is dumbed down about them?
A couple of examples might illustrate your point better and help educate the inquisitive consumer.
...I mean Mac OS X gained UNIX 03 certification with the release of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
It is actually as Unix as it actually is possible to actually be. This means that everything a software engineer or system administrator uses in a Unix system is there in Mac OS X.
It is a POSIX compliant operating system that happens to use an XNU kernel, which can trace its roots to BSD. And that was released as an open-source project; Darwin. Being POSIX compliant lets software packages written for Linux or BSD be ported to Mac OS X. Yay.
The whole "dumbed down for the masses" is only skin deep. And it's a very, very nice skin I might add. Beautiful even.
I don't think it is much easier to use than Windows, just a little nicer. For most users in the populace I mean. Mums and Dads. It's certainly cheaper. Mavericks is $0 and comes with most of what you'll need. Except Office.
/coffee.