Help Me Pick A New Pc/mac

[James]

Hello. I have finally grown a big enough amount of hatred for my current piece of shit pc and so am upgrading asap. Problem is, I am not very good at this kind of thing, as in I dont really know what Im looking for, so you guys can help.

First and foremost, it needs to be fast fast fast, I will be running Various creative software programs like photoshop, encore and premier etc and so want these to be super quick. I will also need it for creating word documents etc.

Secondly, I want it to be as space saving as poss.

And finally, it needs to be sexy looking.

Now at this point, I could be persuaded into a macintosh if someone could recommend me a good specced one. The new iMac looks cool. Will this be good for what i want? or is it more of an office computer rather than one for editing etc..

If people could just give me an idea of some jargon i need to look out for when buying that would be super duper.

Thanks. J

(btw, my price range is about £800 probs. maybe a bit more if its worth it. )

Edited November 8, 2007 by James

[future orange 660]

mac. ebay.

[Spikenipple]

With £800 you can get yourself the lowest model of iMac. If you're still in education, click 'Education Store' on the top-left and you'll get a 6% discount.

[James]

I've found a new iMac on ebay for £800. Are they worth all the money?

[Spikenipple]

They certainly are!

If you're gonna buy a brand new Mac, be sure to get it from Apple. You're guaranteed full customer support if you buy from them, and you have no idea what you're getting if you buy from an eBay seller!

[Danny]

If you cant afford a high end mac (£1500ish) then get a mid range pc for your £800. The cheap macs are just poop.

[JonMack]

I dunno, my 20" iMac was only a grand nearly 3 years ago and it's still going strong, using it as a media centre type thing but its still perfectly fine for playing games, editing photos, etc. and the new iMacs are a lot better than mine are!

2.0GHz Intel

Core 2 Duo

1GB memory

250GB hard drive1

8x double-layer SuperDrive

ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory

Ready to ship: 24hrs

Free Shipping

£750.83

That's on the edu store. Looks good to me!

[Spikenipple]

I'd say it's a bit of an exaggeration to say the cheaper Macs are poop. Apple have started competitively pricing their products, and hence their cheapest models are now still extremely capable machines for their time.

[Tomm]

I think it's true to an extent. However, I'm also sure that 1) You do pay a premium for Apple products. Some people would argue that the premium is worth it in return for a more reliable and (probably more importantly) a good looking system that's fun to use. 2) The market has changed more than Apple's pricing policy. PCs are now all capable of lots of things and you don't need the latest computer to go on the web or even edit video. So while a cheap mac may now be suitable for these things, so will a cheap PC.

Macs are reasonably priced if you want a smart, stylish, quiet computer with the spec Apple gives you. But there are literally hundreds of different PCs you could buy for the same amount - waaaay more choice for you to spec exactly what you want.

Errrr. That sounded like an answer to an essay question. Too much uni work in my brain

[ZeroMatt]

a mid range pc for 800 quid deffinately beats a low mac

Just an example of what you can get pre built on a site for you budget, ebay is the way forward though.

Edited November 8, 2007 by ZeroMatt

[Tomm]

a mid range pc for 800 quid deffinately beets a low mac

Just an example of what you can get pre built on a site for you budget, ebay is the way forward though.

You do get a 20" LCD screen with an iMac though. And keyboard/mouse/software. And it doesn't look like a 13 year old nerd's wet dream. That is all.

[James]

Ok, ive talked to my old man and we've decided the iMac is a good choice.

heres the spec:

20inch 2.4 GHz

2.4GHz Intel

Core 2 Duo

1GB memory

320GB hard drive1

8x double-layer SuperDrive

ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory

£891.83

sound good?

also, can I install programs on a mac like photoshop, premier and microsoft office that i have on cd's?

Does the mac have a default word'esque program and is it any good?

thanks J

[Spikenipple]

You won't be able to install Windows programs on there, you'll have to buy the Mac versions of them and use those.

I'm not sure about OSX Leopard, but I know ~Tiger only comes with TextEdit which is alright, but it's more or less Notepad on Windows.

[hugh_b]

hey, i have a new macbook and our home computer is an imac g5 both awesome. You can buy office for mac in the apple store and get a student deal if you are one. Mac does have a word type program but i prefer the office package. It has photo editing software. Could be a good idea to go to an apple shop and try one.

[ZeroMatt]

You do get a 20" LCD screen with an iMac though. And keyboard/mouse/software. And it doesn't look like a 13 year old nerd's wet dream. That is all.

Well i'm guessing he has all the peripherals allready. It's a lot quicker than the imac has more storage that's all, even though it does look silly.

On ebay will be able to get even better spec for the same price.

[James]

im torn now. dont wanna have to go out and buy all new versions of all my software. and i cant really do without office. hmm

[Boswell]

Go and have a look around at small local PC shops, you can get some really good deals and if your confident you can even barter on prices.

[Tomm]

QUOTE (hugh_b @ Nov 8 2007, 09:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

hey, i have a new macbook and our home computer is an imac g5 both awesome. You can buy office for mac in the apple store and get a student deal if you are one. Mac does have a word type program but i prefer the office package. It has photo editing software. Could be a good idea to go to an apple shop and try one.

Apple Pages is the word processor and it's OK, but it's not compatible with Word docs which makes it a bit pointless in my eyes. My mac came with a free 1 month trial of that, but you have to buy the full version. Microsoft Office:Mac is great though.

All new macs come with iPhoto which is a kind of photo editing program but it's very basic - certainly no photoshop.

[ZeroMatt]

This is really quick do you have ok peripherals ie mouse, keyboard etc?

Might be worth going dual screen if you want to be running multiple programs at once, doing that has helped me with my ps art stuff and also design work so can look up size specifications and have the modeling program up whichever one it may be.

Edited November 8, 2007 by ZeroMatt

[Spikenipple]

Quite importantly, don't forget that Mac OS is based on Unix, and is hence largely open to open-source software. You'll be able to find almost any type of application you want; sure, they won't be branded, 100% certified and tested etc but when you're paying nothing it really makes up for itself!

Edited November 8, 2007 by Tomm

[Tomm]

Shut up with the piracy, OK?

[James]

I do quite like the sound of that pc from ebay, although it does look rediculous. Yeh im not so fond of the macs anymore due to uncompatability with all the software ive accumulated over the years. could someone just give me a couple of keywords to look out for when buying a new tower then? would it be lots of ram and dual core processors?

[ZeroMatt]

lots of fast ram, fast multi core processor and better graphics card (with nvidia generally higher the number the better)

no need to go overboard on the graphics card really

Edited November 9, 2007 by ZeroMatt

[Janson]

you could just bosh windows on the mac and run all the software though....

check out software like parallells, boot camp, etc.

[poopipe]

for 800 quid you want a pc. no question.

I'd go with everything Tomm said but I'd add a bunch of swearing about how macs are gay and you might as well just run linux