MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
My laptop has died, I'd love to get a mac as I use them at work, but you do pay a premium for fruit based products, so what pc equivalent would anyone out there that does regular photoshop, indesign and basic video editing recommend?
vaio
macbook pro spec, half the price
simples
Why not get a regular Macbook or second hand MBP?
I know what you mean though, I have a '08 15" MBP and would like to update now the news ones are out....£1500+ start off price is just too spicy a meatball for me to swallow.
Get someone with student discount to buy you a MacBook pro 😉
People who work at unis can get it too.
Education discount or re-furbished MBP 🙂
MBP's are just standard Intel laptops, nowt special about them physically.
Get a hackintosh compatible laptop, and continue to use OSX...
Pretty much any powerful laptop will be up to the job...
keep an eye the the apple outlet for refurb stuff - some reasonable discounts in there.
MBP's are just standard Intel laptops, nowt special about them physically.
except for the unibody aluminium construction, lightpeak/thunderbolt connection, powered firewire 800. and most importantly the ability to run osx (hackintosh laptops all seem to be underpowered or have things that don't work) and the native software that people wish to use like final cut etc.
the thunderbolt interface is going to be a big thing for photo/video/music users, having in/out disk access that fast is going to increase productivity in a big way. it's not available on pc's for another year.
Thunderbolt? Hmmmm... [url= http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/24/thunderbolt_mac_threat/ ]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/24/thunderbolt_mac_threat/[/url]
Not sure it's necessary really, but it does give you a nice way to pwn someone's machine.
Just bite the bullet and buy a Mac. You know you want to.
not sure if you saw my post about my bro's MBP, to cut the story short he poured an entire cup of coffee into it. he took it back to the store they said it was borked and just gave him another.
that helps me justify the cost.
a bit anyway.
Thunderbolt? Hmmmm..
so many what iff's.
it's like saying "
i might not ride my bike today because a meteorite could hit me on the head."
i'll probably take the risk (thunderbolt) to get a superfast interface seeing as i don't go to conferences to plug my laptop into somebody's projector where they might possibly steal the contents of my hard drive.
i might not ride my bike today because a meteorite could hit me on the head.
Get a hackintosh compatible laptop, and continue to use OSX...
Not trolling but is there genuinely an install method to commodity hardware that works with all apps and updates without hassle? A fair chunk of the benefit with my Pro is that it is hassle free. Every install I've seen so far comes with caveats (ignoring it breaking the EULA for one moment) that make it a bit of a compromise too far.
Though I also agree a new one is going to be out of the question cost wise for me also.. looking at a second hand iMac myself, top end of the old Core2s probably.
Just bought myself a 2011 15" MBP. Upgraded to 8Gb ram 256Gb ssd and Hi-res antiglare screen.
I have experienced hackintosh and although a good introduction to the OS it just doesnt 'feel' the same (whatever feel means 🙂 )
Im about to venture into the world of freelance web design and the mac book pro seems to motivate and inspire me where no other machine does. (maybe im turning into an apple fan boy? 🙂 )
Yes I agree they are pricey. I got education discount as the wife is at uni. still cost me £2k though.
is there genuinely an install method to commodity hardware that works with all apps and updates without hassle
Don't think so - I believe this is because of the large variation of components available in PCs.
That said I have just installed OSX onto a couple of Dell Mini 10's and it was pretty easy once I had an image of the OSX installer DVD (not pirated, copied off a real retail DVD) - no additional drivers required, just a normal install.
I have recently got rid of my mbp in favour of a dell xps 15, why?
Programs I run are significantly quicker in windows than OSX (lightroom and DXO)
The dell screen is better (1080p full adobe gamut)
It was £700 on dell outlet (quad 1.86, 4gig, 500gig, 1080p RGBLED, 9 cell battery) - which is well over half the price of an equivalent mpb, even with nus discount!
Saying that am a huge fan of apple hardware - we have 2 apples and one dell + an acer server at home, yes it is expensive, but extremely high quality, and resale value is way better than anything else (thank you mac fanboys!)
I find Apple stuff looks a bit boring and clinical now days.
You could also get one at an airport "tax free" if you go for a MBP.
I've got a 13" MBP that I bought in September 2010 from John Lewis (so has 2 year warranty) you could have if you wanted to buy one cheaper than the RRP.
It's immaculate. Send me an email if you are interested 🙂
I want a 17" MBP now 😈
Does anyone understand graphics cards? I'm trying to see how my laptop compares to the current range of Macs.
Graphics Processor / Vendor NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Video Memory 256 MB
Total Available Graphics Memory 1023 MB
The macs only seems to state the 256mb and not the total graphics memory, can anyone shed some light? It's a different language to me!
It has 256MB dedicated memory, with access to the laptop RAM if needs be. Also known as 'shared memory' graphics.
the 15 and 17 have an on chip intel card and an extra ATI card for HD grot watching.
you can't really compare the current range as they have sataIII, faster memory and thunderbolt, the bottom spec model is as fast as the old spec model, you can't use clock speed of the processors as a comparison.
Any idea where my current one fits in the range, I was thinking I needed a high spec mac book pro, but based on the spec of my now dead laptop http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/laptops/hp-pavilion-dv6750ea-entertainment/details/ which was capable of what I needed, could I get away with a lower end macbook pro, or even a mac mini or mac book?
+1 Vaio
Any idea where my current one fits in the range,
at the very bottom, the lowest spec from the last model in the refurb store would still be an improvement*
*depending on what you want to use it for.
if you were happy with the HP why not just get it's equivalent replacement?
That's what i am trying to get at, it worked well enough for photoshop, indesign etc
so if you must have a mac get the lowest spec 13 or maybe the macbook. the pro's unibody construction is worth the extra imho plus the gap between macbook and pro is now greater because of the new generation processors.
The 13" pro does look good for not much more than the macbook.
having in/out disk access that fast is going to increase productivity in a big way
Or allow exactly the same amount of work to be done but more time on STW. 🙂
saving out 2gb+ photoshop files does give you a bit of 'forum time' 😆
thunderbolt and an external SSD would solve that problem
just installed OSX onto a couple of Dell Mini 10's
Yes, I was aware that model would do a drop in install, but I've not come across something more Pro-a-like - i5 or 7, discrete powerful graphics card etc. That'd interest me. Could always put 7 back on it if it was a pain in the future I suppose... but I'm trying to avoid migrating back to Windows more because of the hassle than any religious conviction 🙂
thunderbolt and an external SSD would solve that problem
Surely not. SSD is slower for outright speed - simply faster for seeks, no? So it's better for lots of small files and worse for one big one.
Surely not. SSD is slower for outright speed - simply faster for seeks, no? So it's better for lots of small files and worse for one big one.
Eh?