Advice needed for new laptop!

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AJones

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Happy Friday everyone!! :)

I’m new to the forum today and after some help! (Already!!) I’m looking to buy a new laptop and I’m unsure whether to convert over to the MAC side…. I’ve heard pros and cons for both sides, but as your all experts I’d thought I’d ask you guys! I’m currently using photoshop and lightroom on my Acer laptop but am hoping to become a bit more professional with my photography next year and would like a laptop which helps me to do so. I’ll be using the laptop to edit photos, design graphics etc…. Any advice is hugely appreciated!
 
I personally don't use a mac, but if they made one with the features i need i'd buy one in a heartbeat, simply because my windows based machine have some sort of temper tantrum on a regular basis. Having said that there is no competition in the mac market, so you can often get more for your money buying a PC. I'd suggest you write a list of all the features you need and then look and see if there is a mac that can do what you want. I was dead set on getting one, but really neeeded a touch screen, so i've got a fujitsu.
 
If you are unsure as to whether you need one, you don't need one in my opinion. Have you used one ever before? You might be in for a surprise if you think it will be like using a PC?
 
I've used both and as you say there are pros and cons to each. I actually found the Mac to be much more unstable compared to Windows. Certainly for Leopard, it wasn't able to handle drives or network shares disappearing on it like Windows can. I've never had to reboot a computer as many times!

Photoshop and Lightroom is available on both platforms.

In the Mac's favour, iPhoto and iVideo are superb. I would buy a Mac again just for these.
I prefer Windows Explorer to Finder. Moving files around in Finder is hard work. So for general work, its a PC for me. But Mac has the edge for multimedia, easily. Picasa tries to be like iPhoto but its nowhere near, for me.
 
If you were to buy a new Mac, with an Intel Core2Duo processor, then you could have the best of both worlds by installing Boot Camp. With this you could partition your harddrive into a Mac partition and a Windows partition. Yipee :)

The downside? Well put bluntly, you could get a similar spec windows PC for over half the price of a mac. I'm sure a lot of people would use a Mac if it was financially feaseable, but with the economy as it currently is it seems ridiculous to spend all that extra money just for a different OS. You could install Linux if you really fancied playing with something Mac-esc.

For reference I've used both Mac and Windows.
 
It depends on what else you need the laptop for. For all their good points, there is simply not the same range of software available for MAC's as there is for Windows PC's where tere is a very good choice of freeware let alone paid for apps. However, if y justwant to stick to the apps you mentioned and then just simple web browsing and email stuff, the MAC is a damn good machine.

I prefer Windows though :)
 
Andiio said:
If you were to buy a new Mac, with an Intel Core2Duo processor, then you could have the best of both worlds by installing Boot Camp. With this you could partition your harddrive into a Mac partition and a Windows partition. Yipee :)
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Yeah I tried that and Windows was slower than a slow thing. Also, it wouldn't rip a DVD for love nor money. I think there are big driver issues running Windows on a Mac. Perhaps I wasn't doing it right :bonk:
 
It's Mac all the way for me, i currently use a MacBook Pro but have worked on Macs for the past 14 years. I had 12 months last year working back on a PC and really didn't enjoy it one bit. The amount of times i did a full system restore on my last PC was ridiculous.

I currently have XP installed on my Mac and run it through VM fusion, this is basically for testing websites under IE6 (why won't people update their browsers!!) and have to do a bit of work on an Access DB.

For things like Word and Excel i use the Mac version of Office with now problems.
 
Never used Boot Camp as i need to flick between OSX and XP so don't want to have to keep booting up but from what i've read it's meant to be very quick and run without problems.
 
at the end of the day its all personal preference with what youre comfortable with.

there is no real advantage with one over the other, they are the same hardware, they both have operating systems that do the same thing albeit in slightly different ways/layouts, they BOTH crash etc etc.
 
chrisgeary said:
Yeah I tried that and Windows was slower than a slow thing. Also, it wouldn't rip a DVD for love nor money. I think there are big driver issues running Windows on a Mac. Perhaps I wasn't doing it right :bonk:
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Heh, sounds like you were doing it wrong :nuts: Did you grab your Mac drivers from your Mac partition before hand? Then install them as soon as you got into Windows?

I should imagine you did, but that's the first thing that comes to mind. For me it ran just as fast as a Windows system in all fairness. :thumbs:
 
Cheers everyone! Very useful indeed!! :) Its very difficult to choose when there is soo much choice!! Sounds like the change over to a MAC would be difficult so perhaps i'm better off with a HP or sony laptop.
 
macs cost more but they seem to last alot longer, my dad had his for 7! years and just recently he couldnt update to 10.5 (which is the latest operating system). Now I can't imagine a pc laasting that long, it's unheard of. It functioned fine and still does. My sister uses it now for web browsing. Oh yeah no virus ever and never a need for clean install in over 7 years!
Just get a new mac book pro with the led backlight display and aluminium casing. Well worth it. Plus the macs have a higher resale value. You will thank me if you buy a mac.
I don't work for apple or anything I'm just a keen photographer that is happy he has a mac now. I just want to share with you.
(you won't get any computer that won't crash from time to time, but macs on the whole are alot less weird)
Hope this helps
 
When comparing the two look at the exact hardware, especially the quality of the screen. The higher quality PCs (Sony etc) tend to be nearer the Apple price (in fact when looking for a 13.3" C2D laptop for my Mum, with her education discount a Macbook was cheaper than a Sony Vaio and within £20 of the Dell model).

It also depends on how set in the "Windows way" you are, if you expect a Mac to behave like Windows, it won't and you will be disappointed, if you try one with an open mind you will probably get on with it more, it is probably the same for Mac users switching to PCs. Book an appointment with a Genius at an Apple store (take some photos along with you too) and have a play, see what you think.
 
A Windows machine is more than capable of living as long as a Mac. Mac's aren't magic. They are pretty though. Sure there are more viruses out there for Windows but with sensible web browsing, care with email and a firewall, Windows can operate just fine without AV.
 
sanatan said:
macs cost more but they seem to last alot longer, my dad had his for 7! years and just recently he couldnt update to 10.5 (which is the latest operating system). Now I can't imagine a pc laasting that long, it's unheard of
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ive got a dell inspiron 3200 under my desk which i still use from time to time..

Dell System Information Page said:
Ship Date: 14/08/1998
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still going strong.. :clap:

regarding macs not being magic, we have 5 MBP's that have gone/been back to apple with dead graphics cards/screens. known issue apparently.
 
I haven't read all the above comments, but would whole heartedly recommend a Macbook Pro. I just got one (base model 13" I think it is) and was worried about the screen, but it is superb. I would go so far as to say it's better than one of our desktop iMacs!
 
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