MACBOOK PRO

CATALOGUEKID

CATALOGUEKID

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Looking for some advice....

Was looking at a Mac Book Pro today....brand new.....13" Intel Core Duo Processor, 4 gb ram, 320 gb hard drive......£850....

Is this a good deal? any advice on the mac book pro with regards to photo editing etc

I'm a PC (at the moment)


Cheers for your help!! :)
 
Compared to a PC, the laptop itself is not a good deal. You could buy a much better PC for the same price.

There are pros and cons to buying a macbook over a Pc, but if price is your main concern go a pc.
 
CATALOGUEKID said:
Looking for some advice....

Was looking at a Mac Book Pro today....brand new.....13" Intel Core Duo Processor, 4 gb ram, 320 gb hard drive......£850....

Is this a good deal? any advice on the mac book pro with regards to photo editing etc
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You'll get quite a bit better bang for buck for £850 with a PC laptop (eg: http://www.asuslaptop.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=N53SN-SZ085V - I know it's not in stock at the mo but...). It will destroy the MBP for photo editing. It won't be as pretty or as well engineered tho. and the battery won't last as long. Up to you to decide what matters...
 
PS. The one I linked to has a 1920x1080 screen too :)
 
To get anywhere near a sub £900 PC laptop spec in Mac world you are going to be spending £1400 and upwards of your hard earnt wages (from the Mac Shop)...

Now there used to be a massive difference between Mac n PC laptop in terms of tech but frankly, under 2k the difference is simply cosmetic. Sure you'll hear folk witter on about the difference in the OS; Mac users tend to love to do this and Windows users love to defend thier OS.

That aside, there really isn't much difference between them if you're spending, as I say, under 2k. Bag yourself a bargain and buy a PC laptop or go Mac Quad Core and spend a little over 2k.
 
CATALOGUEKID said:
Looking for some advice....

Was looking at a Mac Book Pro today....brand new.....13" Intel Core Duo Processor, 4 gb ram, 320 gb hard drive......£850....

Is this a good deal? any advice on the mac book pro with regards to photo editing etc

I'm a PC (at the moment)


Cheers for your help!! :)
Click to expand...

Do you mean one with an i5 processor? "Core Duos" are pretty old.

I picked up the new baseline 13" MBP with the i5 today through University and that set me back £860 (got 3 yrs warranty and £65 voucher for the App store).
 
redddraggon said:
Do you mean one with an i5 processor? "Core Duos" are pretty old.

I picked up the new baseline 13" MBP with the i5 today through University and that set me back £860 (got 3 yrs warranty and £65 voucher for the App store).
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that looks a good deal....what RAM and hard drive memory does it have? I take it your at uni and got a special discount through them or is there a company called university that sell macs?
 
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CATALOGUEKID said:
that looks a good deal....what RAM and hard drive memory does it have? I take it your at uni and got a special discount through them or is there a company called university that sell macs?
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It's the baseline 13" - http://www.apple.com/uk/macbookpro/specs-13inch.html

Yes, it's through my University on the HE contract. Apple aren't too fussy about who they provide student/staff discount to, so if you know any student/staff of a university you'd be able to get the discount.
 
Technically, all the posters are correct, there's better hardware fir cheaper.

IMO, in all the years I've been using laptops, the MBP is head and shoulders the better work station to spend a few hours at. Especially for photography.

I guess this will be more about working with osx than any hardware.
 
MichaelToye said:
IMO, in all the years I've been using laptops, the MBP is head and shoulders the better work station to spend a few hours at. Especially for photography.

I guess this will be more about working with osx than any hardware.
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That depends on your workflow. I NEVER go near the OS when working with photos. Everything is done via lightroom and photoshop for me as LR allows me to tag, organise, process (in 90+% of cases the others are done in PS), manage and export to websites all of my photos.

The only things I care about with photo editing are having a performant processor, enough memory and a decent screen. The OS is immaterial IMHO. If Apple did a better laptop than the one above for a reasonable price, I'd probably buy it (and that stuck in my throat as someone who dislikes the way Apples work ;) :D)....

Sure, buy a MBP if you want, it's your money but there really isn't any valid justification other than "it's a Mac and it's sexy". IMHO of course ;)
 
Arad85, I don't want to get into an argument about this, but I prefer the screen and keyboard to the vaios and dells I've had. The mac track pads are also really fast and easy to work with. My current work dell is far harder to trackpad navigate web pages, etc.

Imho of course. I do understand people prefer pcs, windows or cheaper hardware. Fair dues.
 
MichaelToye said:
I guess this will be more about working with osx than any hardware.
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and

MichaelToye said:
Arad85, I don't want to get into an argument about this, but I prefer the screen and keyboard to the vaios and dells I've had. The mac track pads are also really fast and easy to work with. My current work dell is far harder to trackpad navigate web pages, etc.
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:shrug: Make your mind up, is it the hardware or not ;) :D
 
i prefer both OS and hardware :D it just makes me sound like a fanboy though.

bottom line, we have 3 vaios, a dell and macbook pro, all laptops, in the house. i prefer a working day in front of the MBP.
 
if youre getting a MBP its worth looking at the "anti-glare" matte screen for photography work, more reliable colour reproduction.

i believe that is an optional extra at cost on certain models only though.
 
neil_g said:
if youre getting a MBP its worth looking at the "anti-glare" matte screen for photography work, more reliable colour reproduction.

i believe that is an optional extra at cost on certain models only though.
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Unfortunately not available on the 13", so your looking at megabucks for the 15" and 17". I would have paid to upgrade my 13" to AG hires, but apple just don't provide it, which is a shame.
 
If your going to spend 850, I would buy the asus. Much better spec than any mbp near the price.
 
Try the MacBook - you've got your peace of mind etc, I'm betting you won't want to send it back once you'e tried it.
 
Some of the replies in this thread show why Apple has the biggest brand value.

Technically, it's a no brainer - the PC is the better choice. Some people get a warm fuzzy feeling from owning/using a Mac and they're prepared to pay a premium to get that feeling. Nothing wrong with that either.

Yer pays your money and takes yer choice...
 
arad85 said:
Technically, it's a no brainer - the PC is the better choice.
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For a desktop definitely. But for a laptop it's not so clear cut IMO. Specs v Specs a Windows systems should always win, but there's things like build quality to take into account too.

£860 - 13" MBP, made of aluminium (not crappy plastic like 95% of other laptops), top notch keyboard and trackpad, comes with £65 app store voucher that I can buy Aperture (and some other bits) with, 3 years Apple warranty, 7hr battery life. Ok the actual CPU/RAM/HDD/GPU Specs might be lower than similar priced laptops - but I bought the laptop on the whole package - can you find a metal and glass laptop, 7hr battery, 3yr Warranty, quality keyboard and touchpad for £860? Personally I've not seen one. I also reckon OS X makes an excellent portable OS with the touchpad gestures.

I have no requirement whatsoever for a super powerful laptop, I have a PC with an OCed i7, 3x2GB DDR3, 2xHD5870 in CFX, SSD boot drive, 4TB storage, and I'm totally happy with Windows 7 on it. I'd never touch the ripoff that is a Mac Pro.

I'm finally past having to have the best specs ever on a Laptop, I used to totally avoid anything Apple because of their cost v spec, but they seem to tick the box for everything else.
 
redddraggon said:
I have no requirement whatsoever for a super powerful laptop, I have a PC with an OCed i7, 3x2GB DDR3, 2xHD5870 in CFX, SSD boot drive, 4TB storage, and I'm totally happy with Windows 7 on it. I'd never touch the ripoff that is a Mac Pro.
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But the OP mentioned photoediting. Then you do want as much power as you can get (having moved from an e8400 to o/c i7-2600K - I can categorically state it's a much nicer experience). I find that all 8 threads on the CPU light up whenever you do anything reasonably demanding, so more cores = faster experience (within limits).

Sounds like you want a laptop for portability. If I wanted that, I'd probably go and buy a smallish netbook with one of the bigger battery packs and spend the £500+ saved on the cheapest MBP and go and spend it on something else....
 
Good point from Neil. The last laptop I bought was the first one with a glossy screen and I find it difficult in normal use - hard to find anywhere that I don't get reflections.

Never used a Mac so can't comment and therefore probably have some unreasonable bias. However, PCs work and I'd want something very special to pay the premium for a Mac.

Dave
 
Well I can definitely say that, when I can't order through the Apple HE agreement (3yr warranty + 15% off) any more, I'll not find the MBP as such an appealing prospect!
 
redddraggon said:
£860 - 13" MBP, made of aluminium (not crappy plastic like 95% of other laptops), top notch keyboard and trackpad, comes with £65 app store voucher that I can buy Aperture (and some other bits) with, 3 years Apple warranty, 7hr battery life. Ok the actual CPU/RAM/HDD/GPU Specs might be lower than similar priced laptops - but I bought the laptop on the whole package - can you find a metal and glass laptop, 7hr battery, 3yr Warranty, quality keyboard and touchpad for £860? Personally I've not seen one. I also reckon OS X makes an excellent portable OS with the touchpad gestures.
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the higher end dells are magnesium chassis. personally i find the machined aluminium edge of the wrist rest uncomfortable, it is quite sharp and digs in. the screens at arent really anything that cant be found elsewhere. and regarding 7 hours from a battery, id always take those with a pinch of salt on every laptop. it will very much depend on usage, processing time, screen brightness, processor throttling etc etc etc etc.

id have to agree with andy, personally for photo work id rather have a higher spec for the price rather than something that looked marginally better.
 
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Some great advice here....thanks for the response!! I went in to buy a Dell....15.6" intel core i5-480m 2.8ghz, 6gb memory, 640gb hard drive, ati 550v 1gb graphic card for £525

What would you choose.........?

Or £850 for the MBP with spec mentioned in the OP..... my budget was £500 for a laptop but if I was to spend £850 it wouldnt break the bank I'd just get an ear bashing off the misses for a week or so:LOL:
 
CATALOGUEKID said:
Some great advice here....thanks for the response!! I went in to buy a Dell....15.6" intel core i5-480m 2.8ghz, 6gb memory, 640gb hard drive, ati 550v 1gb graphic card for £525

What would you choose.........?

Or £850 for the MBP with spec mentioned in the OP..... my budget was £500 for a laptop but if I was to spend £850 it wouldnt break the bank I'd just get an ear bashing off the misses for a week or so:LOL:
Click to expand...

I'd choose the mac. I buy the thing I enjoy most and personally thats the ability to use OSX over windows. It's a better OS for my preference so it's worth paying the extra for.

If you don't mind working with windows then it makes sense to buy the dell.

here's a question for the windows users - if it were the other way round and windows machines were more expensive, would you pay more money to be able to use the OS of your choice or would you settle for the OS you don't prefer because it was cheaper?
 
joescrivens said:
here's a question for the windows users - if it were the other way round and windows machines were more expensive, would you pay more money to be able to use the OS of your choice or would you settle for the OS you don't prefer because it was cheaper?
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Good question. I'd learn to use OSX. Very little of what I do is OS dependent anyway - they both put windows up on a screen and I can get a command line on both. OSX is Unix based, I have cygwin installed here so see a Unix command line on Windows. 90% of what I do is interact with apps that should be the same on both, the other 10% is shell scripting and would be the same on both - in fact, I'd probably do more command line on the Mac... I must admit, I'd probably run mostly 3rd party stuff though - I like modularity and scalability over the OS knows best approach - but I'm a :geek:
 
CATALOGUEKID said:
What would you choose.........?
Click to expand...
My other option to the Asus is this: http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_As...l_Cam_b-g-n__Win7_H_LX.RGK02.013/version.asp?

It may be more expensive, have less memory (I'd probably want to up it to 8G with time), the processor is over 2x as performant as the Dell (although you would need an application that is multi-threaded to use it - and both photoshop and lightroom do).

Unless you do a lot of single threaded stuff (e.g. lots of mp3 compressions) you're probably better off with more processors at a lower clock than out and out MHz.
 
joescrivens said:
here's a question for the windows users - if it were the other way round and windows machines were more expensive, would you pay more money to be able to use the OS of your choice or would you settle for the OS you don't prefer because it was cheaper?
Click to expand...

id chose the best spec for the price and use that OS, its a work tool not a fashion accessory for me.
 
neil_g said:
id chose the best spec for the price and use that OS, its a work tool not a fashion accessory for me.
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so you don't value the OS thats installed at all? You just value the hardware spec? What if you could get a linux machine that was three times as fast as either mac or windows for the same price ?

according to this you wouldn't be happy

neil_g said:
i tried linux once, i binned it after 15 mins :D
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That's the total opposite to me, i'd pay more for the usability of the machine over it's performance. Something that does something really fast but the y it does it being clunky drives me crazy
 
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joescrivens said:
so you don't value the OS thats installed at all? You just value the hardware spec? What if you could get a linux machine that was three times as fast as either mac or windows for the same price ?

according to this you wouldn't be happy

That's the total opposite to me, i'd pay more for the usability of the machine over it's performance. Something that does something really fast but the y it does it being clunky drives me crazy
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always twisting..

i dont like linux, plus as far as i know you cannot get the software i run on that platform. however that was never an option in this thread.. im not opposed to OSX, i use it every day alongside windows. if i felt that the switch to that system would benefit me and save me money in processing time then yes i would switch.
 
neil_g said:
always twisting..

i dont like linux, plus as far as i know you cannot get the software i run on that platform. however that was never an option in this thread.. im not opposed to OSX, i use it every day alongside windows. if i felt that the switch to that system would benefit me and save me money in processing time then yes i would switch.
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i wasn't twisting! don't be so precious! :LOL:

I was just trying to understand this obsession that windows users have with always being about the spec. The performance of the hardware is just one side of the coin, it's no good having a fast computer if the OS doesn't feel right, but that's just my opinion. I actually wish I preferred windows since you can get a better spec machine for less money if you prefer that OS.
 
Surley 13inch would be way to small for working with photos?
 
joescrivens said:
What if you could get a linux machine that was three times as fast as either mac or windows for the same price ?
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I'd take that - as long as they'd sorted out the bugs that were in the UI last time I tried it. Wouldn't run it now as I'd need a VM to run Windows apps. Tried that and it felt like it was the tail wagging the dog!

BTW: did you miss my post on the subject - or did I just not say anything contentious?
 
joescrivens said:
it's no good having a fast computer if the OS doesn't feel right
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What features of the OS do you mean? (serious question) I sit at a PC for far too long in a day and all I ever do is use applications that are the same on Windows and Mac (PS, LR, chrome, thunderbird, MS Office, skype). I have a virtual window manager that allows me to have multiple screens (virtuawin), I have a remote host program running (which I guess a mac has) and I have some monitoring tools in a set of gadgets. I also run command line terminals (again I guess a mac has this). 95% of my work day would probably be identical if I were on a Mac. The other 5% would get sorted pretty quickly. It's just windows and apps after all...
 
I would say you'll be happy with whatever you get if you're willing to spend that much money. If you buy a PC you'll have a better laptop (on paper anyway)

But with the mac, if your anything like me, you'll start to find you love your computer, and not see it as something you use to get a job done, something you use because you wont to.


I dont think computers are all about the spec, for me its whats gonna make you happy, and a mac definitely does that

Jack
 
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