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MacBook help


Duncy H

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Hey folks

I'm interested in getting a MacBook. Primarily it will be to edit photos on, only at a hobby sort of level nothing too extreme on something like Lightroom.

Does anyone have any advise about them? I like the fact they offer finance deals too.

Cheers

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My best advice would be to avoid finance deals, and debt in general. I know it's generally seen as the accepted way to buy things now, but being a slave to APR sucks.

I bought the MacBook Pro Retina, the mid-spec 13" one. Great piece of kit and really good for photo editing. You could look for a secondhand MacBook Pro, or look at the 13" MacBook Air, which doesn't have the Retina screen but which is cheaper. Unless you're doing a lot of heavy work you won't need the top spec.

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Cheers folks, was thinking middle specced one.

How do you find the 13" screen? I'm kinda thinking it'd be a bit small but it's a lot to pay for an extra few inches. (That's what she said.)

Think I'll have to drop into the apple shop tomorrow for a look.

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Photo editing on a 13" screen? You're gonna be doing a lot of zooming in and out.

If you are not taking the Macbook with you out and about, consider building yourself a PC if you're going to drop at least £900 (cheapest MBP on Apples site)? You can build yourself a complete rig that out performs the MBP in all ways, apart from looks. I'm talking a complete system, all the components, case, drives, including monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. You can also play some games if you're into that.

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I fancy the new dell XPS's screen. I don't really get the allure of Macs for graphic design though, as a freelance web and graphic designer... especially when they don't have a proper graphics unit. I'd build a desktop for sure and just use whatever you've got when you when you need to be mobile.

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I agree that you could go to somewhere like PC specialist and design a beasty PC with dedicated graphics, you do pay a whole lot of apple tax on a MBP..

Ultimately its a trade off between performance, portability and also how much of a fanboy you are. I know photography editors who would spend £2000+ on a Mac Pro before they even considered building a PC not because they are more powerful, but because in that industry it's the accepted thing to do.

Could software be a problem for you at all/ sway your choice to one or the other?

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I'm mainly a Unix-like user and just run Adobe stuff virtualized or under Wine anyways... I personally feel like the OSX workflow is pretty archaic though, and it makes a habit of taking over stuff to make it 'easier.' I suppose it's better than Windows 8 at this point but that's not saying much.

I've actually been looking for a new laptop as well. Main considerations have been the (15") ThinkPad W540 (2880x1620) and Dell XPS15 (3200 x 1800), but been looking at the (13") Aspire S7 (2560 x 1440) and Samsung Ativ 9+ (3200 x 1800). Preference is probably more towards 15" and I think most of these save for the Samsung which I don't know too much about will support GNU/Linux fairly well.... although I'd be buying used for any of these

Edited by saltine
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Search "Buy, trade, Sell anything Apple in UK." On Facebook.

I see loads of MBP's on there cheap. People seem to buy them and then randomly change there mind. You'll easily save a lot of cash.

Also, After using pc's for a long time I can say buying a MBP, you won't regret it. I churn through thousands of images a week in lightroom and everything runs smoothly. When the battery says it will last 9 hours, it actually will. Even running lightroom. I shot a wedding in Ascot last week, then culled it down for the 5 hour drive home without any issues. My old laptop would have last a few hours just.

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My 2010 MBP has been really unreliable and slow, so I was forced back to a 8 year old pc laptop which has been faultless. When it worked it was fantastic, such a pleasure to use. My girlfriends 2013 MBP on the other hand has been great, really fast and rarely ever comes up with the rainbow wheel of doom, restored some faith back into me considering another when the pc laptop dies.

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