Mac versu PC,{snicker,snicker}

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by Slick Fork

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.

I think you're right there. I have been an Apple guy since my Apple II days. But I have used them all including various flavours of Windows and Unix workstations (back before even Linux when it was a command prompt interface). I actually have a slightly older XP box that has been used for the odd game and playing some videos on our TV but I would never use it for real work It has given me more problems then the Mac and I don't do anything crazy with it. No matter what I do I can't get the ATI drivers etc. to work properly.

Also, iPhoto does do more then just adjust white balance now. It isn't photoshop but you can do some basic retouching and alot of colour, contrast and sharpness adjustments along with some cool built in effects as well. So depending on what image editing you need to do iPhoto could very well be enough to do the job. The one really cool feature is that you can easily create photo books and then order them from Apple. They make great gifts of family shots or you can make your own coffee table books or books with photos from trips with your friends etc.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

found one for ya

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



Steve

Oh ya right. My son would like it however. I believe his next desktop is going to be liquid cooled.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ron99

I think you're right there. I have been an Apple guy since my Apple II days. But I have used them all including various flavours of Windows and Unix workstations (back before even Linux when it was a command prompt interface). I actually have a slightly older XP box that has been used for the odd game and playing some videos on our TV but I would never use it for real work It has given me more problems then the Mac and I don't do anything crazy with it. No matter what I do I can't get the ATI drivers etc. to work properly.

Also, iPhoto does do more then just adjust white balance now. It isn't photoshop but you can do some basic retouching and alot of colour, contrast and sharpness adjustments along with some cool built in effects as well. So depending on what image editing you need to do iPhoto could very well be enough to do the job. The one really cool feature is that you can easily create photo books and then order them from Apple. They make great gifts of family shots or you can make your own coffee table books or books with photos from trips with your friends etc.

my first one was the apple IIE, I should have kept it as it would be a nice paperweight now. its funny cuz when I got that I was 14, had to build it my self and you pretty much had to write the code to all your games. or coppy them out of a mag. 11 years later the IBM DX2-66 was out and was the hotest thing on the market with 512K of ram and a 40meg hard drive. 2 years later I upgraded to a P166, 2 years later an AMD 900, 2 years after that a P4 1.2 laptop, then 6 years later a p2.2 quadcore desktop, and a year after that replaced the laptop with a 2.53 core 2 duo.

its amazing the progress of computers over the years.

as for Iphoto, it is the same thing as the free photo software that comes with vista, win7, ect.. lets normal people do some neat crafts and basic retouching of photos. I put up with it for quite a while as my old photo shop wouldn't run on vista.. I finaly broke down and upgraded my photoshop.

Steve

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Slick Fork

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.

Or turning Steve to T-5,s.

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

I have been doing that for sure. Perhaps one reason the iMac appeals, besides its clean look, is the 3.06GHz processor, 4GB ram and 500GB hard drive for close to the same price as their lap tops. As mobility is not the major reason for my purchase, it may be the best buy in that price range.

I leaning towards the HP I listed, if going down to the lesser price range. But not going to add all the additional warrenty, as it then brings me back to the iMac price, well close anyways.

So I,m thinking the Mac Books are now out of the equasion and down to the iMac or the HP or a comparable PC laptop, based on price. If the Mac Books that are a fair bit more money had at least 4g ram and little larger hard drives, then they would be favored. But even adding 2g more ram brings them up another $200 and over the price of the iMac.

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.

Checked them out yesterday. Although the way they tied up at Staples not much to check out. Nothing listed on the boxes as to photo editing, so guess its a secret until open. Plus great for a desktop, looks kind of like a pain for laptops, unless they sitting on a desk, which then makes them desk tops. My wife, who uses her IBM laptop strickly on a table, wants one though. She,s not to fond of her mouse and never uses the touch pad.

[Slick Fork]

If portability is not a factor for you I would absolutely hands-down go with a PC desk top for a couple of reasons:
1) You pay a fair sized premium for the portability of a laptop and could get a much higher end desktop for the same money
2) Upgradeability. You can upgrade almost everything in a desktop machine thus extending the useful life of the same basic system and spreading the cost of upgrades out over a longer time.

And the clutter isn't really that much more significant over a laptop, especially if you're plugging a mouse, keyboard, bamboo pad, monitor, printer, etc. in.

[Slick Fork]

Check This one out

http://www2.dell.com/ca/en/home/desk...xps8100_en_1~~

Blows the laptops out of the water

Edit: Went through the customization process and at the final page it informs you that as a bonus you get Bon Jovi's newest Album... How do you say no to a system with free bon jovi?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Doug

Or turning Steve to T-5,s.

Um.. I have two T5 setups Ill have you know! and there both used as T5's should be, one of a fresh water tank and one still waiting to be put togeather for actinics on a tank.

but now I am thinking I need some undercabnet lighting for the shop, so maybe I should use T5. lord knows it will work better for that than it would in a fish tank

Steve

[mr.wilson]

Originally Posted by Slick Fork

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

These are true if you are comparing PC's, but do not come into play in a Mac vs. PC comparison. The two operating systems process information at different speeds and efficiency. Just like the varying speeds at which the languages we speak can convey the same information, operating system languages process information at varying speeds. A processor on a Mac would be equal to a larger processor on a PC. This is just one comparison that shows the speed difference done by Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...25.html?page=1

You get more bang for your buck with external memory, so buy a computer with the features you need (built in video camera, mat screen or whatever suits your purpose) and go with relatively low RAM to save some money. With Mac, you can use Time Machine to automatically save everything to an external hard drive.

Originally Posted by Slick Fork

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.

I agree that Iphoto is not a professional photo editing program, nor is it intended to be. It's a photo storage and handling program that allows users to use simple editing tools while maintaining the original image. If you want to get rid of the effects you have added you can reverse the process at the click of a button. With Photoshop you need to save the original as a separate file. Most Mac users use Adobe Photoshop to edit photos, and Adobe Bridge to store them while editing between the other Adobe design programs (Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, In Design). Most photographers, film editors and design people use Mac machines for their speed, reliability, versatility, cost effectiveness and longevity.

If you are running inventory programs and building spread sheets, by all means buy a PC, but if you want to avoid hard disk crashes, slow processing due to viruses, and having to pay for software updates then buy a Mac.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by mr.wilson

This is just one comparison that shows the speed difference done by Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...25.html?page=1

.

um, yourt report you showed had results in the opposit. the desktop test the mac had the fastest cpu, the laptops they were all the same. but everyone know vista is speed limited so why would some one even compare program opening times. but in the context of that article I opened my adolb photoshop on my desktop with 8 other programs running. a good mix ie, word, exel, access, power point, outlook, windows media playing mp3's and a couple other hoile games of the wifes which I hate as they are huge processor power users and she always leaves them running.. took 15 seconds to open with a 8Mp RAW file so I realy don't know where they got there 40 seconds but who knows what MB they had or any of that.

I think that is one area I would agree that macs can be a little better than PC. because Mac controls all the parts for there computers, ie.. there is one mother board for this model, not the 15 different MB for a model of PC desktop they car more consistant. I can line up 15 desktops and get 15 different results in speed, reliability, ect.. depending on the combanation of parts. so I may have 2 that blow the mac away, but I will have 8 that suck compared to the mac, so you realy have to do your homework and such if you build a PC, where as for a mac... never mind you can't build your own mac

but you knwo what I am getting at. Mac vs. PC is realy no good unless you have the model numbers of the MB, CPU, RAM, Vid card, and on and on to make sure they are good ones not ones that are knowen not to play nice togeather.. this was a huge problem during the years of win95, Me, win98 as there were so many fly by night companies offering stuff that prommised great things but ended up causing conflicts with everything else. it took me a lot of reasearch to decide which parts to use when I owned my computer business a long time ago. I ended up shutting it down as I didn't have the time or capital to go bigger than a home based business and a couple other compainies in victoria were making the jump from home to storebased but they had the resoarses. but I also provided the highest quality systems for the price of the other companies base models and in 3 years only had 1 warenty issue and it was a keyboard that was warped when I got it.. so thee is a lot to be said about the quality of the parts inside and how they are put togeather and the reliability of the computer.

Steve

[Slick Fork]

Originally Posted by mr.wilson

These are true if you are comparing PC's, but do not come into play in a Mac vs. PC comparison. The two operating systems process information at different speeds and efficiency. Just like the varying speeds at which the languages we speak can convey the same information, operating system languages process information at varying speeds. A processor on a Mac would be equal to a larger processor on a PC. This is just one comparison that shows the speed difference done by Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...25.html?page=1

You get more bang for your buck with external memory, so buy a computer with the features you need (built in video camera, mat screen or whatever suits your purpose) and go with relatively low RAM to save some money. With Mac, you can use Time Machine to automatically save everything to an external hard drive.



I agree that Iphoto is not a professional photo editing program, nor is it intended to be. It's a photo storage and handling program that allows users to use simple editing tools while maintaining the original image. If you want to get rid of the effects you have added you can reverse the process at the click of a button. With Photoshop you need to save the original as a separate file. Most Mac users use Adobe Photoshop to edit photos, and Adobe Bridge to store them while editing between the other Adobe design programs (Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, In Design). Most photographers, film editors and design people use Mac machines for their speed, reliability, versatility, cost effectiveness and longevity.

If you are running inventory programs and building spread sheets, by all means buy a PC, but if you want to avoid hard disk crashes, slow processing due to viruses, and having to pay for software updates then buy a Mac.

That's horrible misinformation.

Hardware is hardware, and while different os's may be able to squeeze small performance increases out of the hardware I don't think you'll see night and day differences. Apple does have a bit of an edge as Stir Crazy pointed out because they standardize everything from the Mobo to the CPU. BUT talking nicely to a cavalier does NOT turn it into a ferrari.

"Relatively Low RAM"? I think you may mean Hard Drive Space? and I would agree if he goes with a desktop as it can ALWAYS be added on to.

"Hard disk crashes, Viruses and paid updates"? I have NEVER had a catastrophic failure on any of my windows machines and this has been discussed exhaustively in this thread already. Viruses, like I posted before... just because no one wants to make a virus that infects only 7% of the computers out there doesn't mean it's more secure. Paid updates? Correct me if I'm wrong but windows XP users are still getting their free updates. I've never paid for an OS update from Microsoft and I don't know anybody who has.


Is this the Imac you're looking at Doug?
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...baa8b63f96en02

If you compare it to the dell I posted you really can't beat the value on the PC.
2gbs more RAM
Processor was the same
500GB more HDD space
I don't know about the NVidia vs ATI video card
and most importantly $400 less which leaves you cash for Photoshop, the Bamboo pad and some nice coral!