My laptop has died and as I am enjoying my my IPad, was thinking of a MacBook. It will be used for Lightroom Photoshop and maybe the odd game, as well as the usual web and office duties. Not too fused about budget but don't know if I need an air or a pro. Pros and cons please or should I just get a Dell XPS.
Thanks in advance
Keith
If it's primarily Lightroom you'll use it for then consider how much storage you'll need as an iMac might make more sense. If it has to be portable then the fully loaded 15" Macbook Pro would be on my list to buy.
Consider fast,Lightning, external storage too if you plan to have your LR images and catalogue off the machine and to back them up.
Macs are good. Maybe a touch overpriced but they really last, and are a pleasure to use. Air are great, the convenience and lightness is just fabulous and the batterly life is pretty amazing.
As per lazgoat, we never replaced our last MacBook with a laptop, finding the ipad did all mobile/couch surfing duties
We've got a 2nd hand Cinema Display and a Mac mini for processing type stuff - as tech advances we intend keeping the display and just upgrading the Mac mini. The iMac route gives you an upgrade route that may be more expensive in the long term
I'm hovering on a new one at the moment, after 5 years of daily use on my 2009 unibody macbook.
very much torn between an air and a pro, though I think that for an extra £150 the extra power and retina screen on the pro tips the balance
however I'm waiting out to see what the announcement is on Thursday, in case they do come out with a proper 13" hybrid
I'm still using a 13" 2009 Macbook Pro. But I've upgraded the hard drive to an SSD, maxed out the memory to 8Gb and the OS to Mavericks. It doesn't miss a heartbeat and is used every day for over 8 hrs other than the battery is on the way out. I had a Dell XPS in 2010 when I bought the Macbook (secondhand) but sold it within weeks. The Macbook was so much nicer.
Unfortunately as the new units are pretty much non user upgradeable you've got to spec it out right away and pay Apple's hefty upgrade prices.
Have got a 2013 MacBook Pro and I love it. Had a Mini before. I went for non Retina as it was important for me to have a disc drive and from what I could see the Retina's don't. Not using it for Photoshop duties but my Mini was superb for that. Beats using my work PC laptop hands down.
Retina MacBook Pro, 250ssd 8gb ram then get an external drive for backup/data. I say Pro over Air based on Lightroom and whilst I love the Airs the weight differential vs new Pros isn't that great. Retina screen is they way to go too. Just FYI they don't come with optical discs any more, if you need one they are external. I would also say hang on till Thursday as there is a mac press conference, chance they announce a new 12 retina mac book air which might be worth considering.
Still running my Late 2008 Unibody MacBook, 2.4GHz core 2 duo, maxed out the memory to 8 GB and i fitted it with a 960 GB SSD - i've not upgraded to running Mavericks as i trust my set-up and numerous equipment running OS X 10.8.5, i use it to run Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Traktor pro, Komplete ultimate, Maschine and numerous music software plug-ins and hardware synths/equipment. It's been carted about in bags, left in sweaty clubs, dropped on more than one occasion and this year in the dance tents at our local festival it vibrated off the decks area due to 1500 folk and £100k of funktion1 sound system bouncing up and down in our dance tent, landed on the floor and still kept working, i only noticed it was missing when i went to browse for the next track. 😀
It's still on it's original battery but admittingly i only get an hr of heavy use before it needs charged, not bad going for a 5 year old machine - think i'll treat it to a genuine Apple battery soon as it deserves it.
I've been a mac user since 97/98 (fanboi) and if i have to use the PC at work for any reason then it just set's me up for a grouchy day.
Got myself the 17" pro last year with upgrades to 16gb ram and 500gb ssd best move I've made in years so much easier too use than windows for autocad and rhino lol and marrys up to my lathes with no problems.