Mac Vs Pc

[that NBR dude]

Rather than one 24" you could get two 22" though if you fancied?

I have thought about that. I'm currently running 2 19" widescreens, and I do kinda like having the 2. The thing for me is space, as the 2 19"s only just fit. One 24" would fit nicely and provide plenty of screen for the timelines and preview windows.

I've changed to mac a few years ago and I've never been unhappy ever since. It's th best decision I have ever made.

No viruses, simple interface, no accsess to sistem files(which is rather good than bad), a lot of usefull programms.....

It works really fast, 99% less crashes.

YOu really can play games on it. more than 400 most popular games have been developed fo mac and/or ported to mac from PC.

Nice design that actually saves a lot of space..

a lot of usefull functions.....

no VIRUSES>!!!!!

get a mac and free your head from all that compute stuff.

It's not gay to have a good working computer

I'm not fussed about games. I use my desktop 99% of the time for editing photos and HD video. It just seems like I'd be paying over the odds to have the badge and all the "fashion" and "lifestyle" applications and features. I had a play on one earlier in PC world, and the hideous flat keyboard and mouse alone pretty much put me off them.

[Dan S]

Then MAC is just for you. Don't bother buying Final cut Pro though.... there is another way of getting useful apps, you know. But that's th only thing you need for HD.

24" would be just enough for you I guess

[NicP]

I've changed to mac a few years ago and I've never been unhappy ever since. It's th best decision I have ever made.

No viruses, simple interface, no accsess to sistem files(which is rather good than bad), a lot of usefull programms.....

It works really fast, 99% less crashes.

YOu really can play games on it. more than 400 most popular games have been developed fo mac and/or ported to mac from PC.

Nice design that actually saves a lot of space..

a lot of usefull functions.....

no VIRUSES>!!!!!

get a mac and free your head from all that compute stuff.

It's not gay to have a good working computer

Wrong.

[that NBR dude]

But the factor is, its still around £300 more than the PC, and I can't work out any reasonable explanation as to why. Once I've spent £1200, I still need to buy Photoshop, Premier or FCP, whereas I already have what I need for the PC.

[Dan S]

GOSH, can't you just download that stuff?

In my oppinion, copying programm from one pc to another is just as illegal as downloading it.

And one more point, for a PC you need a screen, mouse, keyboard, etc etc.

Mac got all of those...

After 2-3 weeks you will never regret of getting a mac

Edited May 25, 2009 by Dan S

[MadManMike]

GOSH, can't you just download that stuff?

In my oppinion, copying programm from one pc to another is just as illegal as downloading it.

And one more point, for a PC you need a screen, mouse, keyboard, etc etc.

Mac got all of those...

After 2-3 weeks you will never regret of getting a mac

The Dell PC has the screen, keyboard etc...

[that NBR dude]

GOSH, can't you just download that stuff?

In my oppinion, copying programm from one pc to another is just as illegal as downloading it.

And one more point, for a PC you need a screen, mouse, keyboard, etc etc.

Mac got all of those...

After 2-3 weeks you will never regret of getting a mac

I don't download stuff anymore, I even buy my music. And how is moving stuff illegal? I've paid to own the rights to the program, to use on whatever PC I own.

The Dell PC I listed above has a 24" monitor, keyboard and mouse (and the keyboard is a lot more comfortable looking than the Mac one) and £300 cheaper...

[ZeroMatt]

Cheaper system with better hardware, can't go wrong with that.

Another vote for a custom pc though.

get a mac and free your head from all that compute stuff.

It's not gay to have a good working computer

But It's pretty queer being a fanboy.

[Dan S]

But It's pretty queer being a fanboy.

I just like stuff taht works for me, not the stuff I work for.

well, it's up to you. Ether owning a gay-porn oriented PC or media editing oriented MAC.

All you need is to use it for 2 or more weeks so you understand how sucky PC's are.

PS: I buy music too.!

Edited May 25, 2009 by Dan S

[MadManMike]

Ether owning a gay-porn oriented PC or media editing oriented MAC.

Seriously?

I've used both and prefer PC - there's nothing "gay porn" about it.

Explain what the extra £300 gets me...

And "no viruses" isn't good reason - if you've got any sense you can easily avoid viruses.

[Hendrix]

Get a Mac 'cause then you won't get any viruses, no matter how much gay porn you look at.

On a more serious note..

The only reason I went Mac is because the software I wanted to use was Mac only, else I would have saved a few bob and gone for a top of the range PC. The newer macs are nicer (in my opinion), so if you went and tried some out again you'd probably like them more.

[I-LikeMatchesDerFun]

I have been struggling with the Mac vs PC problem for a while now. I have a Dell laptop at the moment but it's three years old so I'm looking to upgrade as well. I tend to run very intensive programs at the same time. At anyone one time I could be running Vectorworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Sketchup. My Dell seems to handle it well. However, others in my class have newer Dells and they are having serious problems running even one intensive program at a time. Dells build quality does seem to be a little hit and miss. I think I was lucky to get a good build. It's not an amazing spec but seems to just be more stable than newer machines. I just don't think I would buy a Dell again after friends have had motherboards fry, harddrives stop working and have programs crash the whole time.

I have looked at Mac's and tried them. At first I loved Macs. They're more stable, easier to use (after getting used to the changeover from PC), less susceptible to viruses and look good. But I've come to the conclusion that you can get a lot better spec for the money by looking elsewhere. I know some people swear by their Mac's but I feel that you can get a much more powerful machine for your money.

The solution I have come up with for myself is, keep my Dell laptop and maybe just upgrade a few parts and get myself an Alienware Desktop

For example

*AMD Phenom™ II X4 925 2.8GHz Quad-Core (4x 512MB L2, 6MB L3 Cache)

*Single 2GB GDDR5 ATI® Radeon® HD 4870 X2

*4GB« Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 x 1024MB

*Alienware® Approved AMD® 790FX Motherboard

*Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1

*750GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache

*20X Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW) w/ LightScribe

*Single High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Port

*High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio - Standard

*23" Dell S2309W - 1920 x 1080 (5ms) Widescreen Flat Panel

* Standard Keyboard

*Standard Optical 3-Button Mouse with Scroll Wheel

*1-Year Warranty with AlienCare Onsite Service and 24/7 Toll-Free Phone Support

Price: $1,878.00 or 1,180.17 GBP

Hope this helps some bit anyway.

Steve

[Steve-A]

The only reason I'd buy a mac is for the software. Thats why I did buy a mac*.

For photo editing photoshop works well on both OS. In osx lots of the shortcuts tie in with the system shortcuts more, and I personally think adobe applications seem less 'clunky' in osx as thats what they were originally written for. In early versions of photoshop/premiere it was more evident than it is now.

Video editing wise, Final Cut Pro (osx only) is a good bit of software, much better than Premiere. See if you can have a good long play with a copy, and compare it to Premiere. If you don't feel Premiere is limiting what you can do/want to do then there's no reason to use FCP.

It sounds like for the differences in spec. you're looking at that if you can get the software you want on the PC then get the PC. It will work out much cheaper and if its not going to limit your photo/video editing abilities then its a no brainer.

* - Fanboy section:

After using macs at work and getting used to using Final Cut Pro daily I got very frustrated with Premieres limitations. When the time came for a new laptop, I bought a Macbook Pro 2.2Ghz 2Gbs ram. I only convinced myself that it was worth it because I could dual boot windows, and basically have a mac for making videos and a windows laptop for everything else. And for the first few months thats how it was. Slowly over time I started to use Windows less and less and spend more time in OSX. Now I practically never boot into windows, I just prefer using OSX.

The 2.2Ghz dual core 2Gb ram laptop handles editing and rendering HDV video very well, its worth noting that media editing doesn't need that much power by modern standards. Go bakc a few years when 1Ghz was super fast, and then yes every Hz counted, but now computers are so fast its not really an issue. The only time you'll see a difference is in render times, and I've never found them a problem at 2.2Ghz.

Once I was used to the OS I found that everything seemed to gel better. Pretty much all software seems to integrate with the OS very well, and also with all the other pieces of software. I like using lots of keyboard shortcuts and this seems to suit OSX more than Windows.

One thing I did notice was that, coming from windows, I felt that OSX was awkward and didn't let me organise things how I wanted, didn't give me the choice in how I wanted to work. After some time I realised that you just have to approach things slightly differently, allowing the computer to organise itself how it wants to. Rather than meticulously organising my text documents, I just put them all in one folder and search for the one I want.

[Rob.]

mac`s seem to complicated , and there you have a normal windows pc/laptop easy to use!

[Krisboats]

Intel based multicore system and dual boot the pc with windows and iATKOS.

Save money and get both a pc and a mac.

[Muel]

That old "macs don't get viruses" argument is null and void now, there have been a lot more cases of people writing viruses to target macs recently.

http://theappleblog.com/2009/01/26/more-ma...-time-to-worry/

[that NBR dude]

The only reason I'd buy a mac is for the software. Thats why I did buy a mac*.

For photo editing photoshop works well on both OS. In osx lots of the shortcuts tie in with the system shortcuts more, and I personally think adobe applications seem less 'clunky' in osx as thats what they were originally written for. In early versions of photoshop/premiere it was more evident than it is now.

Video editing wise, Final Cut Pro (osx only) is a good bit of software, much better than Premiere. See if you can have a good long play with a copy, and compare it to Premiere. If you don't feel Premiere is limiting what you can do/want to do then there's no reason to use FCP.

It sounds like for the differences in spec. you're looking at that if you can get the software you want on the PC then get the PC. It will work out much cheaper and if its not going to limit your photo/video editing abilities then its a no brainer.

The problem I have is, I don't know any one locally to me who has a Mac with all the software to have a play with. I can only mess about with the one in PC world, which has no software on it. The style of the keyboard and mouse alone annoyed me so much I ended up walking away from it in a disgruntled fashion after only a few minutes. I like premier (although vastly prefer the old 6.5 compared to CS3) and it does mostly what I want it to do. I've heard great things about FCP and would love to give it a proper try, however without forking out what could be in excess of 2grand, its not possible.

From what I've been told, the Mac I can stretch to (the £1200 24" iMac) doesn't have a seperate graphics card therefore won't handle editing HD. I don't know whether this is true or not, but seems like a major limiting factor in spending that amount of money, compared to the equivilent PC. I also don't think I'm ready to be part of the "fashion and lifestyle" trend.

I think I'm 99.99% sure I've made my mind up, and will be going for the/a Dell system. I'm used to PCs, I know my way round them already, its a vastly better spec compared to the Mac, and I already own all the necessary software that I require. I'm not too concerned about ordering from Dell, as we order aproximately 1000 PCs and laptops from them each year with no issues, so I have a good level of trust with them.

[mr_malcolm]

I used to be a purely PC guy but one of my freinds has always been into macs so i started to have a play around with them and now i find them so much easier. If i use his macbook for 10 mins then jump on a pc i cant use it. I find macs just so much more user freindly and also windows vista is just trying to look like the Mac opperating system.

[Steve-A]

The problem I have is, I don't know any one locally to me who has a Mac with all the software to have a play with. I can only mess about with the one in PC world, which has no software on it. The style of the keyboard and mouse alone annoyed me so much I ended up walking away from it in a disgruntled fashion after only a few minutes. I like premier (although vastly prefer the old 6.5 compared to CS3) and it does mostly what I want it to do. I've heard great things about FCP and would love to give it a proper try, however without forking out what could be in excess of 2grand, its not possible.

From what I've been told, the Mac I can stretch to (the £1200 24" iMac) doesn't have a seperate graphics card therefore won't handle editing HD. I don't know whether this is true or not, but seems like a major limiting factor in spending that amount of money, compared to the equivilent PC. I also don't think I'm ready to be part of the "fashion and lifestyle" trend.

I think I'm 99.99% sure I've made my mind up, and will be going for the/a Dell system. I'm used to PCs, I know my way round them already, its a vastly better spec compared to the Mac, and I already own all the necessary software that I require. I'm not too concerned about ordering from Dell, as we order aproximately 1000 PCs and laptops from them each year with no issues, so I have a good level of trust with them.

The intergrated GFX cars on the iMacs/Macbook aren't upto the standard of separate GFX cads on the Macbook Pro/Mac Pro, that is true. It really does sound like the PC will be a better bet for what you want out of it

I've highlighted that sentence in bold because its a bit silly really. Just because you own a mac and use it, doesn't mean you have to go round telling everyone that you love it and your life wouldn't be complete without it. it doesn't mean you have to put apple stickers on everything you own. ITS A COMPUTER. People form 'tribes' around everything. Hell, you could even buy a mac put stickers on it making look like a Dell and tell your friends you're running vista with a skin if you really wanted to Its not gonna change how well, or poorly, it edits media!

[mr ailsbury]

You could travel to somewhere with an Apple store and have a play on the macs there? They've usually got all of the different software installed so you can have a proper play.

I personally prefer Mac's, used them at college all the time and I really liked them, even though the college ones are shit. literally the whole buildings worth of imacs/macbooks are controlled by 1 or 2 macbook pro's that are in the techies office in a different building.

Also, if you don't want to re-buy all your adobe stuff straight away you can install windows to your mac and run them from there until you can afford the mac versions?

Bought my own about a year and a half ago and haven't looked back since, I find them so much more user friendly and they take up a lot less space too.

[Orgun_Donor]

Coming from a tech support point of view...

A PC - You say you have used all the programs, your familiar with it and you'll find you get more enjoyment out of it quicker. Also with a PC there are more options for configuration without having to learn scripting. You'll also find that if you have an issue, you'll have a lot of previous knowledge to help you sort it.

A Mac - Never really used one and when you did you found it frustrating and counter-intuitive. This is probably going to be because of the amount of use of a PC you have had, you'll have to go through unlearning everything about PCs and relearning everything for a Mac, then you'll find you may have issues here or there, which due to your limited knowledge will become more frustrating and harder to solve.

From this I can see no advantage of buying the Mac for your needs, you have al the software you have all the knowledge you'll need for the PC and none of the frustration of learning the Mac OS.

Personally im a PC person, but i do love playing on a Mac...i highly doubt i would buy a Mac i just find them to limiting and over priced for what you get.

[that NBR dude]

I've highlighted that sentence in bold because its a bit silly really. Just because you own a mac and use it, doesn't mean you have to go round telling everyone that you love it and your life wouldn't be complete without it. it doesn't mean you have to put apple stickers on everything you own. ITS A COMPUTER. People form 'tribes' around everything. Hell, you could even buy a mac put stickers on it making look like a Dell and tell your friends you're running vista with a skin if you really wanted to Its not gonna change how well, or poorly, it edits media!

Ok yes, that line was a bit over the top, but you know what I mean. It does still seem like owning a Mac is more of an "experience" than just a computer. Anyway ignoring from that comment (that was just the PC in me screaming out I think).

Also, if you don't want to re-buy all your adobe stuff straight away you can install windows to your mac and run them from there until you can afford the mac versions?

Bought my own about a year and a half ago and haven't looked back since, I find them so much more user friendly and they take up a lot less space too.

But if I'm going to do that.... why don't I just buy the better specced PC? Seems rather foolish to buy a more expensive lower spec machine, then run windows on it anyway. I only use the desktop for photos and video, so if I have the windows software installed on it, I have no reason to boot into Mac mode. As for space... its not exactly taking up less space though. I' bed using the same sized monitor, with a keyboard and mouse. The only difference is I dont have a tower in my desk, but its hardly in my way.

[Thom]

Have you looked at the refurbished store for mac ? I just saved a bunch by buying a refurbished laptop, it looked brand new when it came.

It also might have the older model imac in the refurbished section which I think is much better value.

[that NBR dude]

Problem solved, bought the PC.

2.66ghz 64bit Quad core, 8gb ram, 2tb hard drive, Blu-ray/CD/DVD writer, HDMI Gfx card, Digital TV Tuner, 24" HD monitor, Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse and logitech 5.1 speakers. Comes with Vista Premium 64 (going straight away for XP 64)

All for £890, bargains.

Cheers for help and advice anyway guys

[Muel]

I wouldn't change to 64 XP straight away if I were you. From what I've heard it's really buggy and crashes a lot.

Thought about Windows 7? I've been testing it a bit and it's surprisingly good for an RC. I broke it though, it BSODs every time I try and load it up now.

Good choice! Sounds like a good spec.