The Age Old Dilemma... Photographer Laptop: Macbook Pro vs Other

[dsiegel5151]

I do all my editing on a Mac, but I have my main work camera tethered to a PC. Why? I don

[HDNitehawk]

Re reading the title of the thread. Then reading what everyone posts. The age old Dilemma seems to be a Dilemma for people who have never owned a MAC. While there are a few that tried a MAC that would rather use a PC, it seems that most that start using a MAC prefer it.

[bob williams]

Wow, looks like you guys prefer MAC-----Just to add a different perspective---I have been using a PC..well, since there were PC's (my first was a 4.77 megahertz processor with two floppy drives and a green monochrome monitor)


Anyway, I like the ability to choose my hardware, modify my software and pay a competitive price for upgrades and add ons. Since 1981, I have only had 1 harddrive failure and I had one monitor go out a few years ago. Usually, I spend money on machines because I outgrow them, not because they break or die. Name brand software is usually about the same price for both platforms, so thats not really a deciding factor for me.


Sometime last year I decided to buy a new system, and like you I struggled with the PC/Mac Question and even asked this forum the same thing you did-----I got about the same answers. Ultimately, I spent about $1500 on an I7 Quadcore 3.2 Ghz, 12 Gig of very fast ram, a mediocre Graphics card, a 256 Gig SDD and two 1TB hardrives, an onboard card reader and two multi-optical drives and enough power to add more goodies.----This system runs my adobe software like a champ---no conflicts---It does very well with video editing and simultaneously runs PS, lightroom and HDREFX pro extremely fast. I looked at the the MAC pro and for a comparably spec'd system it would cost me $4000---I chose the homebuilt PC and added a Canon 100mm Macro f2.8L, a Canon 50mm1.2 L to my lens collection for the price of that Mac Pro.


Like you, I had experience with and was comfortable with PC's. Yes, I had to shop and read alot to buy the right components, Yes I had to build it, Yes I had a couple of minor bugs to figure out, But....for a weekend of work, it was worth every penny I didn't have to spend on a Macpro and I got a couple of really nice lenses to boot.


Good luck on your decision.


Bob


PS, My boss is a diehard Macbook fan----he has had 3 harddrive failures in two years--But....They just work[:'(]

[jeanmarc87]

Hey everyone, thanks for the variety of perspectives. I very much appreciate you taking the time to give your thoughts on the matter, and I hope this discussion can answer other people

[Tim]

The very best option for me is to get a mac and run bootcamp or parallels (what I do) with windows and never connect the windows side of things to the internet. I do this because there are a few programs that only work on windows.


For you this might not be the best option, get what you are comfortable with, but If you do decide PC, I was strongly recommend doing a clean install right out of the box with a version of windows directly from Microsoft, that way you can avoid all the junk the other manufacturers put on them.

[Fiveways]

I know people say thats what you should get if you

[Sean Setters]

I'm a Windows guy. I was never comfortable with the Mac OS's interface, the high price tag, and the lack of ease when wanting to upgrade the system. And darnit, I like my standard two button mouse. :-)


At the end of the day, there are no inconveniences that I can readily identify that makes viewing and editing photos on my Windows 7 PC more difficult or time consuming than it needs to be. I liken my operating system to my hammer--both do their jobs effectively, and at the end of the day, the customer can't tell which tool I used to get the job done. As long as the tool works for me, there's no reason to change it.

[Daniel Browning]

I'd recommend a Mac because a lot of what you're paying for in that initial purchase is the quality of the display you're getting.

That's a common misconception. Apple's MacBook Pro displays have always used the cheapest, junkiest type of displays possible: 6-bit TN. (At leastfor the 2006-2010 years that I've researched.) In 2010, they used aSamsung LTN154BT08 display panel.Anyone who has used a MBP and a *good* laptop displayside-by-sideknows just how inaccurate the Apple displays are. After that experience, you wouldn't dream of doing any color correction on one.I've compared my $2700 MacBook Pro's 6-bit TN with my $900 no-name laptop's 8-bit S-IPS, and it's night and day.



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I threw my junky 6-bit displays on the trash heap 10 years ago, at the turn of the century. Yet Apple is still putting that cheap garbage on their high-end MBP. Why? It doesn't even make sense. Of all the places they can cut corners, why the display? People are already paying $2,000 for a $1,000 laptop -- why not make it $2,500 and put an 8-bit display on it? Apple customers are used to paying through the nose for everything, what's another $500? I don't know why Apple does it, but I'm embarrassed for them. I hope that Apple will someday upgrade to 8-bit displays, so their poor users can finally enjoy the benefits everyone else has had for the last decade. (Probably not before everyone else has moved to 10-bit.)


Apple's low-end displays and false advertising have been the subject of many class-action lawsuits over the years, at least two of them involving my personal laptop. One of them was because Apple tried to pinch some more penniesby buying NVIDIA's reject video cards -- ones that weren't good enough for normal product standards, but could be put in the very lowest-end laptops. Dell, HP, and the rest bought the chips too and put them in their low-end bargain-bin models, but Apple put them in their $3,000 MacBook Pros. (Unlike other venors, Apple doens't let you choose a better video card, either.) NVIDIA promised Apple that they would last at least three years before they burned out, but it turned out most of them died much sooner (like mine).


But not only do the laptops have terrible display accuracy (due to "TN" LCD), 90's-era 6-bit color (why, Apple, why!?), and reject video cards, but the panels themselves are not even reliable. My MBP is not even four years old and just last month the display died (after months of slowly getting worse -- and it never sees any rough usage). Our excellent local Apple-authorized repair needs $500 to fix it, but even though I paid almost $3000 for it only 3 years ago, I can already get a much faster Windows laptop, brand new, for less than $500. I'm probably going to see if anyone on Craigslist wants to buy a dead MacBook Pro and fix it themselves. My HP laptop is 8 years old and still going strong. I never had to take it in for repair, whereas the MBP went in three times -- twice for repairs covered under the lawsuit, once for a bad power supply. I had hoped to get more than 3.5 years out of it.


Obviously, I've had a much worse experience than some of the other Mac users on this board. But ask yourself this: if Apple is putting all that money from their higher prices into higher quality hardware (e.g. displays), how is it they are able to maintain 2-3X higher margins than the industry average?



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[Sean Setters]

And Daniel throws down the gauntlet... :-)

[Fiveways]

I definitely agree with what you