Mac vs PC

qsjewl

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question...but I am in the market for a laptop and I wanted to get first hand opinions on what you think about Macs vs PCs in relation to photography stuff. Is one better at creative type stuff? Do some come with photoshop software? Any really good or really bad experiences? To be honest, I'm really thinking about getting a Mac (I did do some research), but I'm a little skeptical because I don't know anything about them. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.
Michele

Duckys54

You may want to take a look here

dlplumer

qsjewl wrote:

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question...but I am in the market for a laptop and I wanted to get first hand opinions on what you think about Macs vs PCs in relation to photography stuff. Is one better at creative type stuff? Do some come with photoshop software? Any really good or really bad experiences? To be honest, I'm really thinking about getting a Mac (I did do some research), but I'm a little skeptical because I don't know anything about them. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.
Michele

It's a no brainer. Get a Mac.

cmason

Just got a Mac myself. I can't say there is any significant difference, as I use the same apps both places. I think Mac OS X is much more stable and uses memory much better than Windows, meaning that you can do more with the same amount of memory. It also tends to startup and shutdown much better, though my mac is new.

For desktops, Macs are alot more expensive, in that you can buy a cheaper PC, trading off things you don't care about. With a Mac, you buy it the way it is and pay a premium,whether you value the premium features or not. However, I found that when including an expensive monitor in the deal, the price difference wasnt that big.

For laptops it is closer, since mac laptops and comparible windows laptops are priced similar.

The one benefit of the Mac is that you have options: you can run windows in bootcamp or VM. with windows, you do not have the option to run Mac OS X. I like options, and have been happy with the Mac.

Better? Not really. Different, yes. In the end, I check email, read posts, edit photos, the same things I did, with the same tools on my PC. If the idea of having a mac excites you, buy it. If you like having the option to run both Mac and Windows, buy it. if you arent sure what you would do with it, and don't know wny you would buy a mac, then don't. Either way, you can't make a mistake.

darkdragon

Oh goodie, another Mac V PC debate.


Personally, I have had both. I switched out my PC laptop for a Mac laptop simply so that I could install Final Cut Pro and work "on the road" because i do all my video editing on a Mac.

For photo and web stuff - they seem exactly the same for me.

The mac is more expensive - for the same price I paid for a PC laptop, I got a 2" smaller screen and a bit less processor power (2.0 instead of 2.16).

The mac is a LOT lighter and thinner than the comperable PC laptop in the same price.

Really, it depends on what you value for your money and if you need to match it to an existing desktop system at home.

If you are looking to edit with Photoshop - it is the same on both systems and will _probably_ not come installed on either one.

schmoo

Like Ducky said, doing a quick search in the forum brings up this question many many many times from every possible angle. Here's one. And another. And another.

Please take a peek through there, plug in more search terms to refine what you want and then get back to us.

Meanwhile I'm moving this to Digital Darkroom.

tgelston

Buy memory after buying the comp
I switched to Mac a few months back and have been very happy.

One tip - if you go Mac, actually either. Buy it with the barebones memory configured and add more yourself. You can save anywhere from $50 to a couple hundred dollars.

NikonsandVstroms

I have used G4 and G5 Power Macs as well as the new Mac pros and when I needed to buy a new tower in September. I got a Dell precision workstation. The main reason for this was a lot better parts for less money (10,000 rpm hard drives in a raid setup is great for running programs, as well as NVIDIA Quadro video cards) plus they threw in three years of next day on-site service.

First off, if you get a PC get XP. Microsoft will be supporting and possibly even selling it for a few months after Microsoft's Vista replacement comes out (so there really is no reason to get Vista) Dell and HP will send you the computer already loaded up with XP if you specify.

Now about Photoshop. It's exactly the same, I can't even think of any real difference is in how I work from when I would go on my Mac Pro at work. Back to the Dell at home. The only real change is you have to remember to press control instead of Apple or vice versa. You can drag and drop files onto the Photoshop icon with a Mac. But in a PC. You can just right click and open in Photoshop or if it's already open. Drag a file into the Photoshop window so that's about it.

Your best bet for the most bang for the buck is to look at the Dell or HP outlet (I have experience with Dell one and it's been great, but none with HP for their outlet but my brief customer support situation with HP for my old laptop was great). The big thing with this option is you just have to keep looking back on their website because, whatever they have in stock changes on an hourly basis. If you watch for about a week. I'm sure you can find some amazing deals. These computers are basically returned during the policy and completely overhauled, never even turned on and returned, or for the cheapest have a scratch on the case.

The key thing you want to find is that under the specifications of that system, that there is a warranty. I can tell you from experience that the Dell Gold service, and their business service are a lot better than the Apple care protection plan. I've had very quick turnarounds, and a lot of the time they send you an upgrade of the part that went bad. Plus on-site service is nice

I was just lookingat how much a laptop would be that can run my speech recognition softwareand for about $350 you can get a core 2 duo laptop with two gigs of RAM running XP,that set up alonec an do almost any Photoshop work you're likely to throw at it

claudermilk

In direct answer to the OP's posts: Is one better than the other for creative apps? No. Does either come with PS? In general no. You might find some oddball deal, but PS is an additional app & has nothing really to do with the OS; it is among the first apps to work virtually exactly the same on both.

I'll leave the rhetoric aside as this is one of the most balanced threads I've seen on this loaded question for quite a while (with the exception of the typical knee-jerk "no brainer" post).

evoryware

I've been looking through the new B&H catalog considering between a Macbook and a laptop myself.

I currently use PC's and Mac's (towers). I used to be an Authorized Apple Education reseller. There is really not that much difference between them other than the OS and price.
Keyboard commands may be slighly different in programs like Photoshop and InDesign, but they do the same thing.

I can open an HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony or Apple, and it's a mish-mosh of other companies parts.

Macs are no more stable than any XP based PC I've ever used. My XP machines are rock solid and on 24/7 unless the power goes out.

Last month I was working on a project in QuarkXpress on a Mac. I made save points till about an hour in. 2 hours of intense-zoned-out-work after that save and Quark just disappears. :cry
So I had to redo two hours of work. My fault for not saving, but also for going with the false belief that nothing on Macs crash. Command + S. It's crashed again a few times since, but I save much more frequently since that lol!
It's ingrained I think in my DNA to not trust Microsoft, so I save often regardless. Even while I'm typing this post, I'm afraid IE will crash (or I will hit a back button somehow) so I CTRL+A, CTRL+C so I don't lose everything I've typed. IE7 hasn't crashed on me in a long time, but I still take that precaution. This alone is reason enough to use Microsoft because it forces you to think about safety.
What I'm saying is that believing OSX will leave you virus or crash free is a recipe for destruction.
You have to be proactive in your virus security, document saving, and file backup, regardless of system.

I've never had a virus in my 11 years of Windows computing.
I've seen the "Black and White Panic Attack" and memory errors on Mac's that drove IT dept's bonkers.
I've seen incompatibility issues between two OSX versions that forced companies to dual boot two versions of OSX or even OSX and Windows XP.


I like them both, but in the end two things are driving me to Windows. I would LOVE to have a Tablet PC and I play games.