Actually, I have to disagree. Macs can usually run the latest software and operating systems for many years. I have only upgraded machines every 4 to 6 years. And most of my older Macs have seen service for years after that with other people who didn't need to do anything fancy with them. Apple made the transition to intel processors almost 5 years ago and only over the last 6 months has software and the new version of the operating system been released that only supports the intel processor Macs. And with intel processors in all new macs you probably won't have to deal with that kind of transition for the foreseeable future.

Any Mac you buy today will happily run anything you need to for years to come. The only reason to upgrade a machine every year or two is if you are a hardcore gamer and need the latest greatest top speed components or you are an imaging pro who needs the fastest speed you can get for work efficiency.

hmm my toshiba a10 has been around ther world 6 times in the last 8 years and still works fine. just to slow for new games that need huge graphic cards. oh I did replace a hard drive in it 3 years ago..

Steve

Just as a point of fact. I,m no gamer. I surf, e-mail and do lots of photo stuff, {one reason the Mac appealed to me.

Thanks for the info Slick Fork. And Ron also. Will consider it.

I was factoring costs today. Looked at the HP, pretty fast and with a 17in. screen. But figured on adding the 3yr. warrenty, price comes out the same as the mac, which I figure can get by on its 1yr. warrenty because of its reliability. So if I went Toshiba, I wonder if this would be similar and an extended warrenty required.

Also as mentioned in regards to photo editing, Mac has a very good one. With the pc I would just use the crappy one I have now or purchase a decent one, which now again adds to the price.

hey that holds true for PCs also. I upgraded my desktop after 8 years, my laptop after 7 or 8, the previous desktop was 6 years old.. hmm every upgrade was for a game.... I actualy still use my old laptop in the shop for my referance material, and to run my auto diagnostic program.. and surfing the net, e-mail, ect.. got the new laptop so I could play big time games when I was at sea.

Plus another $100 for set up on the pc,s because they have so much crap on them and being the computer dufus I am, I cant do it. Its my belief thats not really needed on the Mac?

I think that's sort of what I was trying to say. You can browse the web, look at pictures and type letters on any 10 year old PC running windows 98se or Windows XP.

If you're gaming or doing heavy photo editing you need something more current, be it mac or PC. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Mac but I don't see them having this magical edge over a PC... certainly not to the tune of double the price

Correct. No need to remove bloatware on the Mac :biggrin:

Something else to consider when we are talking longevity. Upgrading RAM is usually the only thing you can do on a notebook other than the hard drive. If you look here at the apple store

http://store.apple.com/ca/memorymodel/ME_15_306_MBP

You'll see that the 8gig upgrade is almost $900

Check out memory express for PC RAM

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...)/Default.aspx

And voila half price RAM! as far as the crappy windows photo editing software goes, you're right on that one... however if you are planning on getting the bamboo pad anyways it comes with Photoshop Elements which I use and am VERY happy with it.

But really only a dumba$$ buys RAM upgrades from Apple :lol: They have been overpriced forever. Macs use standard memory just like PCs and upgrading is pretty staraightforward so it shouldn't cost any more than a RAM upgrade for a PC. I have done all my own RAM upgrades for as long as I can remember. Upgrading the HD is a bit more work but I also just put a 500GB 7200 RPM drive in my Macbook Pro and it was pretty straightforward either then being delicate when opening the computer up to do it. Start by putting the new drive in an external enclosure, connect to the Mac, use disk utility to clone the drive, swap the new drive into the Macbook and the old into the enclosure, reboot the Mac that starts up flawlessly with the new drive and reformat the old drive in the enclosure for a nice portable 200GB drive.

Upgrading RAM is as simple as removing the bottom plate with a screwdriver and installing RAM modules. It's really easy.

Also, if you are interested in photo editing go Mac. iPhoto is pretty good out off the box unless you want to do really advanced digital editing. Then the cost of software is the same whether you are on the Mac or PC.

been a pc guy forever, and have probably gone through 5-6 labtops in 10 years.. damn motherboards.
anyways the girlfriend is in Australia for a few months and left me her mac book...because my hp..is broked.
this thing is amazing, gonna have to buy one when she gets back. havent had it that long, but all my friends are using macs and havent had any problems at all. the built in firewall keeps everything out.
take it from a guy that destroys computers.. i dont dont think i could hurt this thing

Oh yeah, just wanted to comment on this. The whole thing about Macs costing twice as much is really a myth. When you do price comparisons of apples to apples (sorry for the pun) comparing equally equipped Macs and PCs the prices are fairly competitive. the Macs sometimes may come out slightly more expensive but you then have to consider the included software as well as fewer headaches with the OS.

Love the discussion guys. Thanks.

I did happen to see the photo shop with the bamboo pad I looked at yesterday. Was adding it into the equation. That again adds another $100 to the cost of the PC though. I think with the nice touch pad on the Mac,s I would be fine as is. Agreed its no bamboo pad though.

If the Toshiba could get away without additional warranty it be $899 with a pad and/or $999 with the crap cleaned out, unless I could do it myself. Once I get over that $1000 mark I head back to the Macs. :lol:

Of course the Toshiba has 4g ram and 500gb hard drive compared with the 2g and smaller hard drive on the Mac. Then again I need the 4g just to be able to run my F-Secure on the PC.

As for adding ram on a Mac, Future Shop charges just over $200 for 2 more on the Mac Book. The iMac, which is already a couple hundred more, has 4g already plus a 500gb hard drive.

If the costs come close, get the one you like. Simple as that!

I didn't realize you could get away with buying regular PC components for upgrades. I always thought apple forced proprietary hardware on people. That's good to know and a point in apples favour.

I will disagree with you Ron though, on the headaches with the OS. The people that have problems are typically the ones that don't know to use an anti-virus program or just plain old common sense. Or, they're the ones that try to put the latest OS on last decades hardware. I've run Win95,98se,XP,Vista and now 7 and have never had problems that weren't of my own creation.

Apples security "edge" is because it's typically not worth the time for hackers to write viruses for when there are 100x as many PC's to target as there are Mac's. Not because it's a more secure OS. The comparison I would use is a nice mercedes sitting beside an old beater. The mercedes is 10x as likely to have the window smashed and the glovebox looted through, while you could leave the doors unlocked on the beater and no-one would touch it... doesn't make the beater more secure.

Back to Doug:

If you are photo editing, after the processor the 2 things that are CRITICAL are hard drive space and RAM. The average size of even my JPEG's is about 10mb each (saving in highest quality) and my raw files are about 15mb.

4GB's of RAM on a win7 equipped PC is lots, that's what I have on my desktop. More is better but 4 is just fine.

A 500 gig hard drive should do you for a while! I've got 750 and sometimes think about just putting stuff on there so it doesn't look so empty :mrgreen:

Why is it still there, you need to buy it already! You seem to want to go that route but you keep hesitating due to cost. I say screw the cost and go for it, I guarantee you wont regret buying a Mac :mrgreen:

actualy I was looking at macs when I bought this also.. the price is more competitive, well better than a couple years ago when they were double the price. the equivalant mac was 500 to 700 more than the windows machine last year, not in the market for anything this year so they might be a little closer, but apple isn't going to have a 25+% price drop in 12 months. price reason was one of the reasons I stayed with PC. um included software.. not much different.. little more on the PC if you don't like it it is simple to remove.. come on guys this isn't win 95 anymore. vista is stable as hell, I had less crashes with vista on a 6 month trip than my buddys new mac notebook. he had a wack of problems I didn't have any.. so I wish people would stop using data from win95 98/ ME to compare there macs to.

um elements doesn't come with with the bamboo touch and pen.. you need to move up to there 3or 400 buck pen only pad to get that . mind you costco sells elements 8 for 99ish.

another pain in the but is if you have had PCs and you own all kinds of software for PC are you going to run out and rebuy it all? oh you could run a windows boot on a mack machine, but hell for that matter get the cheeper toshiba and run a apple partition on it. I did that for a while.. oh while you at it put a BEOS partition (best OS ever made, but it was killed by a lack of advertising) and heck how about a linex partition.. you can do it all on a PC machine now that apple used PC chips. you could befor anyways using VM (virtual machine) I just don't see the reason to spend the extra money on the same thing. apple software like Itunes, ect is the worst thing ever made.. it forces you to do everything its way.. I tried it and I liked some of the stuff but then I found out it automaticly converted my MP3s to the Mu4 or what ever the aple extension is and deleted my MP3s with out asking me as apple wants to push its compression platform and fade out mp3. windoes has there own also as we all know but at least when it converts it doesn't delete your originals.

anyways mac vs PC, might as well started a thread skimmer vs skimmer less (need skimmers) , or T5 vs MH (we all know we need MH and T5s are only good to add blue tinting to your tank)


oh there is something I love about apple.. the PC mac comercials I think that is very good markiting even if it is misleading

Steve

I do a tone of phot editing also. not a reason to get a mac. the photo editing is why i bought that pen pad and then spent a whopping 99 bucks on photoshop elements 8. years ago I would have had the suite for free but I can proudly say everything on my computer is legal now. well in canada anyways :mrgreen:

the money you save buying the toshiba will buy you the bigger pen pad, awsome software for editing photos and a few corals for your tank.

Steve

LOL Steve. This is a great thread with lots of info for others looking without great knowledge like me.

I disagree, the photo editing on the Mac is an important reason to look at them. Thats why I said if I could keep the Toshiba,s end cost well under the Mac, then it would be a shoo in but seems not to be the case.

What software. :lol: Dont think I have any extra but then could and dont know it. :lol:

Laurie, When I look at the pro, the price is close enough to the iMac, so I cross the isle to look at it again, with its large screen. :lol:

Anyone think the larger 17in. screen HP is a decent deal @ $700, but with 3 yr. warrenty added? It has the cheaper company processor, dont recall the name, but at least its their new model. Ot better to stick with Intel processor.

would need to see the modle numbers.

Apple used to be the choice for graphic design about 20 years ago. but now there is no differance in which computer to use. I just looked up the Iphoto to see what it was like. it is not a real photo editor, it is a organization/share/red eye fix up program like windows photo editor. so if you want to do more advanced photo editing you will still need to buy something on either computer. is it an AMD processor? I wouldn't realy call them the cheeper company.. prices are lower but chip is not cheeper, I personaly prefer AMD chips over Intell, but I would need to know which chip to know how good it is.. best thing to do is to go to FS again and write the modle numbers down for the two computers then post them so they can be compared.

Steve

Here is the Toshiba thats on this week. Regular is $799

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...c54377c962en02

Iphoto has a couple of features that I really like when compared to elements 7. However Stir Crazy is right as it doesn't have the editing power that elements does.

I run exclusively adobe on my PC, my Dad has iphoto on his mac, he absolutely loves the organizational features and uses that for organization, but has to edit all the photos with Elements on his PC first.

This bamboo pad from London Drugs
http://www.londondrugs.com/Cultures/...6&ProductTab=3

Has Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 bundled with it for $159

And yeah, don't be afraid of the AMD processor, they are quite good. Depending on the year and the chip they swing back and forth with intel for quality but usually win in price.

As far as the warranty goes... I've always thought that if these things are going to have a hardware failure, they'll fail in the first year. I've had failures on Hard Disks and power supplies ranging between the first time power hits them and about 9 or 10 boot ups but I don't think I've ever had a hardware failure after the first year of normal operation. That's just my personal experience though and may not be everyones experience. When I bought my LCD tv EVERY online review site said exactly the same thing. That if it's going to fail it will fail in the first year thus the extended warranties these stores like to push on you are really just cash grabs.

Out of those two I would pick the HP, Two BIG reasons are the ATI graphics, and the pre-loaded Paintshop Pro. I have an old version of PSP, and it is comparable to photoshop.

Interesting that with the bigger screen it still comes in almost a kilo lighter than the toshiba.

When I bought my 15" mackBook Pro nearly 3 years ago I think I paid about $2200 with tax. At the time similarly equipped non-mac machines were nearly as pricey.

I've upgraded the memory and the hard-drive through a mac dealer and I provided them with the parts which I bought at memory express and had them do it all for like $100.

I run Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and sometimes 3d Studio Max in Bootcamp and this machine still performs today and I can't see myself needing to upgrade anytime soon.

I still don't think people are considering quality of construction when shopping for these things. I took this machine to and from work for 2 years and it still looks, opens and types as if it were new.

I think the gamer argument is a touch silly as most hardcore gamers will be running a desktop rig which they have pimped to the 9s and not a laptop. I'm not a pc gamer anymore but I'd never have run a laptop period for my gaming.

One thing I will say though when it comes to TOTAL cost...you want the Apple Care warranty. Apple has plenty of its own issues (I have escaped all of them luckily) and this is worth it but a bit pricey. After factoring everything in just keep in mind that nearly everyone that's bought one of these machines will or has bought another. I will in a year or so =)

I agree the HP had a seperate vid card which is way better, and the backlit keyboard is nice for surfing canreef at night with no lights on. :mrgreen:
My dad bought a HP pavilion from costco and it is an impressive machine.

as for paint shop pro.. not a big deal, it is good for drawing stuff, not a great photo editor.

don't waist your time with the london drugs craft bundled bamboo, it is version 7 and we are on version 9 now.. lots of differance between 7 and 8, and not much between 8 and 9. you pay 50 bucks for 7 basicly with that bundle.. for 89.00 at costco you can buy v8 or v9 and get the new features. but if v7 has all the features you need then ya 50 bucks isn't a bad price.

Steve

a desktop for gamming is nice, but when you got to sea for up to 6 months at a time its nice to have a laptop that can play them. my old laptop did 8 years of trip around the world shoved into a locker, subjected to constand vibration and jerking from the movment of the ship. plus various brownoiuts and power spikes. only replaced a hard drive in 8 years. I would say that is pretty well built. that was a toshiba. my new Dell is built with a all aluminum one piece frame I have had if for one year now and it still opens and runs like the day I got it. I know one year isn't a long time. I still have my old laptop. it is out in the shop now as I needed a laptop that could handle my referance software, take nots with, do design and run my auto diagnostic program, with out having to pull my new one out to the shop and being paranoid of getting grease or sawdust on the keyboard.

comparing apple vs PC is useless, it is a brand other than thet they are the same thing.. chev vs ford, and all the other brand wars. apple dell, toshiba, ect they are all the same thing and acomplish the same thing although the directions may get there in a different way.

To get a 17" screen size on a mac at London drugs you are spending 2600.00, so I check bestbuy the same thing.. for 800 your getting a 17" HP . I just looked up a comparable mac system to my new laptop. I can get mine for 1000.00 now, the mac book with the same speed processor, same ram, hard drive, ect is 2100.00 so ya. a mac is still double the price, and now that they are using intell chips you have the same problems. I do like the fact they are using the same hardware now, as it is easier to compar them.

Steve

I dont believe the link I posted had a back lit keyboard Steve, unless I missed it.

The Mac Book Pro had. Some of the other more expensive PC makes may have also.

my mistake, it has a LED backlit screen, mised the screen part LOL.

have you looked up dell at all? I got my last desktom from them 3 years ago and my new laptop about a year ago and have been totaly happy with both there systems and there service. I have a studio laptop, but I customized it and ended up spending 1200 on it. but it does everything except take the garbage out :mrgreen:

Steve

Please don't take this post seriously but why are we arguing about this still. If pc laptops were half as sexy as macs we'd see THEM in the movies.

COME ON GUYS!

And to refute the twice as expensive bit...we have to compare sexy to sexy. If i could actually *find* a comparable laptop that looked as good then I could make some comparisons.

I CAN'T =)

Oh and about going to sea...what kind of connection do you have out there? Can we classify you as a gamer WITHOUT high-speed?

Yes, looked at Dell Steve. I have a bunch of gift certificates for FS, so the first thought was them, not that I could not use them for other stuff.

I dont game and not going to sea, so those things not a consideration for me at least. :lol: :lol:

Actually Brett the HP I listed looks a lot nicer than the Mac Books. Of course dont mean they work better. IMO, the iMac is the nicest one I seen for looks at the store, overall.

Wish to say again, how much I appreciate the time you guys are taking to add input here. I know its not buying a car or anything but when one does not have a great knowledge on something its nice to have others in the know offer advice.

Thank-you. :D

What I don't like abut the HP:

1. Decent graphics processor but no discreet graphics memory. It shares systme RAM with the video processor.

2. No Bluetooth.

3. No firewire. May not be important to you but the Macbbok pro has it.



Toshiba:

1. Again, no discreet video RAM, it shares the system memory for that. and the graphics processor is inferior.

2. No Bluetooth

3. No Firewire.

So if you are going to com,pare to the Macbook pro you have to keep in mind it has discreet video memory for better graphics performance, built in Bluetooth, built in Firewire etc.

Possibly true for 17" screens as Apple only offers high end configurations there. But not true for 15" laptops. You can't look at Apple's cost for HD and RAM upgrades as that skews the price. the same upgrades can be had for far less from third parties. Futureshop's website is working right now but let's do some proper comparisons:

1. 15" Macbook Pro with a 2.53 GHZ processor, 250GB HD 4GB RAM. $1800 retail. If you want to buy a refurb unit from Apple (I have bought several Apple refurbs and they look and function as new and come with the same 1 year warranty) it is only $1500.

2. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=Acer Has same amount of RAM, slightly larger HD, no firewire but otherwise close in specs. $1530. So difference is $270 ($30 more when compared to the refurb) but also no included software such as iLife.

3. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...acture=Toshiba this has very similar specs to the MacBook Pro but is lacking Firewire. Price is $1600 so $200 more for the Mac (or $100 less for the refurb Mac).

4. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...lett%20PackardThis one has a slightly larger HD but only VGA graphics output? Price is $1650. $150 less than the Mac or $150 more then the refurb.

You have to look at similar specs. I can pretty much be sure that any Windows laptop of decent quality with similar specs will be close in price. Not anywhere near half the cost of a Mac.

Doug I want you to buy the HP (and allow me a few min to cry like a BABY in the corner)

2, is a 2.66 processor, 4 is a 2.8 processer, the mack is a 2.5 big differance in price, about 200 or more to upgrade from a 2.5 to a 2.66 and 3 to 400 to go to the 2.8

#3 doesn't show any specs so I don't know what you are uasing for a comparason. also lets compare new to new.. you can probably find a refurbished version of any of these for 400 to 800 less.

as for firewire.. how many times have I needed it in the last 20 years I have had a computer.. hmmm oh none.. so realy firewire is a mute point. especialy with USB2 and serial ATA inputs. I have a HD camcorder and a new fancy DLSR and neither of them have firewire.. I couldn't even tell you what stilluses firewire except Apple.

bluetooth, I have to say big deal for that also.. realy what would you use it for? any bluetooth device I have that I would want to hook to my computer come with USB cords to do this. so I program them then unplug. now some one may want bluetooth, but for the average person...



Steve

Well, in the real world I don't think those small differences in processor speed would be noticeable. I was trying to find ones of mostly equal specs but it is difficult to find identical ones. I think the comparisons are pretty good.

I'm sure you can find refurbs of Windows machines too but do they come with full manufacturer backing and warranties as well?

Bluetooth is very useful for syncing to many devices and if you want to use a wireless mouse with it. Lot's of interesting gadgets are now incorporating bluetooth so i think it is a useful feature.

Firewire as well. File transfers to a firewire HD are way faster than USB2. I haven't done a comparison with eSATA but I suspect firewire is still faster. Mostly it is storage but I think plenty of cameras still have firewire as well.

Kind of had an idea what you guys were talking about but thought I better go check it out first. :lol:

Never purchased anything yet Brett. :smile:

yup they come with full warenties depending where you buy from.

as for speed differance in real world, I have a 2.53 (couldn't aford the 400.00 buck upgrade to the 2.66 last year :cry:) but in playing with the identical computers one with a 2.2 and the other with a 2.5 depending what you did there was actualy quite a differance.. actualy surprised me. I do a lot of photo work with 12Mp raw files so between the two there was a 1.5 second difference in opening one picture, and some times when I tag a bunch and open them there was a minuit or two differance. during the actual editing the previews were noticably faster also. now if you are working with 3mp pictures in jpg format I don't know if you would see much differance.

I also noticed that a few other bigger programs I have open faster and run a bit smother, but it is mostly the real intensive stuff.. if you are just surfing Canreef and checking e-mail no you wouldn't see anything.

Steve

found one for ya

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/...NAM17XARN_R_1E

:mrgreen:

Steve

If you really need bluetooth you can get a $1.98 usb/bluetooth dongle for your laptop from Dealextreme. I have one and it has worked flawlessly under XP, Vista and Windows 7 - however there are no Mac drivers.

I haven't really used the bluetooth more than once or twice and I haven't used firewire even though my external drive has firewire, USB 2.0 and eSATA II. I have hooked up the drive via firewire and eSATA is much faster. Theoretical speeds are 400 Mb/s and 800Mb/s for firewire 400 and 800 vs. 3Gb/s for SATA II

I don't believe there are any macs that come with eSATA.

That is the problem that I have with Apple in general. Apple gives you the experience that they believe you need - not necessarily what you need. Dell is the number one computer manufacturer at least partly because your machines are custom built to your specifications.

World wide market share for Mac OS vs. Windows vs. Linux which as of January 2010 including Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are 5.1%, 92.1% and 1.0% (don't ask me why it doesn't add up to 100 - I can give you the link)

If I had an unlimited budget I might buy a mac again. However, most people have a general idea of what they want to spend and don't buy on a comparison of specs. I would look at how much you want to spend and compare the windows and mac machines in that price range.

One machine that I have played with that is impressive is the HP tm2 touchsmart at 1099. It is a touchscreen notebook that is convertable into a tablet.
A co-worker of mine that is a mac person bought this at London Drugs.

I've never used anything with firewire either. Same goes for Card readers etc. Even on my DSLR I find it simpler just to plug the thing in with the USB cord they give you.

I think there's been some good discussion here Doug and you've gotten both sides of the story. Ron99 has about as much a chance at converting StirCrazy and I over to the Apple side as we have of turning him into a PC user.

At the end of the day, I think the things you should compare are
1) Processor
2) RAM
3) Hard Drive space.

Like Pinhead mentioned, pick a price point and call it your total budget and compare what you get.
Include Photoshop Elements and Include the bamboo pen and touch pad if it's something that interests you. Don't kid yourself about Iphoto being enough for more than adjusting white balance. The reason Adobe makes a Mac version of elements is because there is a demand for it.