I do a lot of recording on my Mac using Garageband, and needed a new mic (I was tired of carrying around an old XLR style mic and a usb converter), and so after having a look at this and the Samson C01U, I bought this one because of the added features, for example, you can flick a switch on the mic to cut out low-frequency buzzing, and another switch adjusts whether the mic is unidirectional, bidirectional or multidirectional). The things that stand-out about it are: the sound quality (excellent), the build quality (nice metal finish and it feels solid), and the ease of use (I just plugged it in and it was ready to use). I've also tried it out on a Windows 7 computer with Audacity, and again there were no problems installing it and the sound quality was great. I haven't tried to use it for recording live gigs (so I don't know how it copes in these situations), but for studio recording and podcasting I can highly recommend it.