[Closed] What powerful Laptop Apple-Mesh-Dell

If it's power your looking for check out boxx systems. boxxtech.com. Their workstations are superb. Would imagine their laptops are of simialr quality.

If its performance your after as well, make sure you get a SSD drive in whatever unit you go for....or a 7200rpm SATA drive at least.

if you're doing photo and video work I'd discount anything with less than a 15" screen & look for quite a high resolution.

Depending on how serious you take your editing, then the software is more widely available as a 'trial' version on PC rather than mac. If you want photoshop and high spec video editor, that's a lot of mullah extra...

Also look at Dell's Precision workstation machines in the business bit of the website & on their outlet. Great machines.

I've got a Apple Mac book pro 15" for work and it's great. It's a year old so is a 2.4 processor but still super fast even with 7 or 8 things running at once. Don't do much video editing but iMovie has been more than enough for what I needed, and photoshop runs really nicely for photo stuff.

How much is your budget?

If money was no object, I'd go for the i7 version of the 15" Macbook Pro with the high-def screen.

I have the cheap version and it's pretty dam fast (three month old now), but throw in the faster CPU and the anti-glare screen does 1680x1050, so just short of full HD. As has been said before, go for a big SSD and you are away.

As a recent convert to Apple, I can't praise them enough - the ease of use is incredible eg I've just got the latest and greatest DELL laptop from work and it's just a joke - track pack barely works, screen contrast is pathetic - the PowerBooks are just in a league of their own.

Remember that Apple do fantastically good quality LCD screens. If you're a photographer that should matter. I have a 13" MBP at home and a 15" MBP with the hi-res screen at work - both fantastic.

Oh and Aperture (Apple's Prophoto software) is only £45 in the App Store right now...

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/aperture/id408981426?mt=12

Also check out Picelmator for £18 - I use it a lot and really couldn't see the point in PhotoShop if you don't need CMYK. Also offloads much of the processing to one of the MBP's graphics cards to keep it zippy. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12

Rachel

If your main use is manipulating images in any way shape of form then it has to be a Mac. For all the reasons stated above. The quality of the HD screen, the colour calibration, the lot.

Look long term though. You may not be using photoshop now but maybe you will be in a few months

And for some reason, in my personal experience, PC's just don't like big photoshop files. They keel over every five minutes. It gets bloody infuriating!! Macs just NEVER crash

Mac, no question.

I bought a 17inch MacBook Pro 2.6 in 2008 to replace an aged and decrepit Advent laptop. (Decrepit in that to do any video editing with Movie Maker I had to wait for a cold day, open the windows of the room which contained said laptop and construct an intricate network of desk fans to blow cold air into the cooling fan of the laptop in order to stop it crashing.)

This was not a happy time.

The MacBook, what can I say. Two and half years down the line its just as fast as the day I first switched it on, it will handle movie editing using Final Cut without breaking into a sweat. Whilst Final Cut is rendering / exporting movie files I can have Photoshop open at the same time and be editing large RAW / JPEG files.

Sure, I could probably have spent less money getting a Laptop with a similar performance to the MacBook for less money but I would imagine that this far down the line I would have to resurrect my fan apparatus to get it to work properly.

I don't use iMovie (which comes installed on the Mac) as I have managed to get to grips with Final Cut. However, iMovie is a very flexible and powerful editing package which caters for most needs.

To be honest fed up with viruses, Trojan etc.

Stop looking a porn then 😉

yeah, I have to agree, the screens on macs of any variety are lush.

If you do get a MBP, be warned: You'll start looking at Crumpler bags to carry them in. Then you'll start looking like you live somewhere hip and cool. Like Hackney or Camden.

Just try and avoid sitting in a cool coffee shop, sipping a mocha latte and using the wifi. Far too cliched.

If you do get a MBP, be warned: You'll start looking at Crumpler bags to carry them in. Then you'll start looking like you live somewhere hip and cool. Like Hackney or Camden.

Just try and avoid sitting in a cool coffee shop, sipping a mocha latte and using the wifi. Far too cliched.

willard earlier*:

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(*That isn't actually willard)

i use a 13 MBP 2.53 as a tethered capture machine. the screens are good but not 'that' good as they are still 6bit dithered to 8 so you will get artifacts along edges of strong colours, dunno what the hi-res on the 15's is like but it will not have the extended gamut of a proper graphics monitor.
for colour corrections and photoshop use i plug in a 24in Eizo CG monitor (not cheap, cost as much as the laptop)
with 8gb of ram it's o.k on files up to 1.5-2gb as the extra ram means a scratch disk isn't utilised. thinking of installing an ssd in the dvd drive bay with a kit from OWC and perhaps a hybrid seagate XT drive as the main HD. i don't keep any crap on the computer only current jobs so it's never more than half full, this keeps it running fast.

i use capture one, CS5, HDR software, Phocus and final cut without any problems. the extra ram makes a big difference. don't buy it from apple though.

If your main use is manipulating images in any way shape of form then it has to be a Mac. For all the reasons stated above. The quality of the HD screen, the colour calibration, the lot.

a decent screen is useless for colour work without a decent hardware calibrator like an eye-one or spyder, without one you are just pissing in the wind as regards colour accuracy.

the glossy screens are too contrasty to do this and have limited gamut (a long way from the full adobe98 colourspace)

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....

[IMG] [/IMG]

I'm sure I saw him riding a fixie earlier today. ^^^

Blimey! Well... thats me told! Apparently the screen on my Macbook Pro 17 is actually complete gash! And I've been using it to make a living on. What a fool i now feel.

Please disregard everything I said above, and go and buy 5 grands worth of kit and then a huge bundle of software. Seems its the only logical solution.

Might be worth waiting for intels new sandy bridge whatnot processors. Current MBP are due a big update apparently.

Thank you all for the sound advice
And YES Phototim as I did read on Macrumours that not to buy
a Mac Book Pro as updates soon.

How Bloody soon I need one now!
Anyone know when the Mac Book Pros be updated?

Thanks again for sound advice and input.

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Why not wait for the imminent nre macbooks and snaffle yourself an 'old' one at a heavily discounted price

Just a thought

[url= http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=0D805CB0A5CA7304 ]memory[/url]

came across this earlier, i have a 13" macbook pro from 2009, but i guess the memory is still the right one.

8gb for £75 isn't to bad, if only i had a job:-(

Blimey! Well... thats me told! Apparently the screen on my Macbook Pro 17 is actually complete gash! And I've been using it to make a living on. What a fool i now feel.

Please disregard everything I said above, and go and buy 5 grands worth of kit and then a huge bundle of software. Seems its the only logical solution.

i make a living with mine too, only i need to hand over colour balanced files that correspond to the clients product, i can only do that with a fully colour managed workflow. this isn't achievable with a 6bit laptop screen dithered to 8bit.
a hardware calibrated screen (like an Eizo CG class one) and a calibrator comes to about £900, no extra software needed.

no need to feel like a fool, just accept the fact that your screen can't show you a large colourspace like adobe1998 or very far into the blues/greens of a cmyk conversion. if you only work in sRGB then it's probably good enough.(if calibrated properly)

Wow. I dont think OP's livelyhood depends on this choice. If it did he'd know the costs etc. He probably just want advice as an enthusiast. Well Im hoping anyways.

I've own/ owned hardware from all of your suggestions. The cheapest option is the windows route. For hardware support I'd pick Mesh - ime when my workstations overheated and they fixed it quicker than I'd ever get to complain about.

My Dell laptops failed with a "recall" problem - but they only recalled personal customers stuff and told business customers to **** off (uk consumer law etc) and I had to pay £400 for each laptop to sort Dells cooling design problem. Never again.

The Macs are great but are more expensive for software and they still break. The main difference is that there's less for you to mess with (which is probably a good thing).

Mac screens are good. But the ones on cheaper machines are just ok. A good monitor is expensive. Either ways.

To stop trojans on windows make sure everyone (even you) has a "user" account for day to day work. Not "administrator". Ever.

If anything tries to install itself you get major warnings (passwords etc). Since I did that I've not had one problem.

You're having a laugh - recommending Mesh for support?

As for Dell, dunno what business you're in but any faults get fixed for us. A few years ago they took back 50 desktops due to an on-board GPU issue, not sure around laptops but the last three I've had (over a 5 year period) have been fine. However given the OP's requirements I'd probably say Apple to...