Need new PC/iMac, need advice

redcloud

redcloud

Messages
135
Name
David
Edit My Images
Yes
I'm looking for some advice folks.

I need a new PC as mine is getting very long in the tooth and I have been leaning toward perhaps getting an iMac, now I'm still at numpty level when it comes to using PC's and image editing programmes (even after a few years pc using a pc). I've been down the shops and had a fiddle around with the Mac's on display and although they are a little different to use than my old PC I started to find my way round the Mac fairly well (I thought anyway).
So My question to all you tech guru's out there is, What differences should I expect if I buy an iMac as opposed to a PC? and what am I likely to need to buy extra over the system to get started with image editing? Is i-photo enough? Is going for the 24" and the extra RAM and hard drive space worth the extra £250 or even necessary to work well with on one of these systems?

I'm sorry for all the questions but I need to get sorted fairly quickly and I do need to get some clearer advice that is not from a salesman if you get my point.

Thanks
 
I'd suggest that you really need at least Lightroom to do any proper photo editing.

As for differences you obviously have the difference in software, however the programs will run identically on both systems (although they may run a little slower on the iMac as it is essentially a laptop, it uses laptop components, depending on the specification of the PC).

I think generally it will be a lot cheaper to buy extra RAM and space and install it in after (however I dont know how easy it is to do with an iMac), however if that extra price is for the extra screen space then it may be worth it.

As for hardware you will already realise a windows machine will generally be cheaper (and built of desktop components), however if you like the OS of the Mac more then go for that.

If you want an all in one machine (like the iMac) Sony do some nice ones for a similar price, may be worth looking at if that's the main reason for getting an iMac?
 
Personally I would go for the 24" iMac, not because of the bigger screen, but because it is a higher quality screen, 8bit as opposed to the 6bit panel used on the smaller version.

With regards to software what are you using at the moment? Elements? Lightroom? Picasa? Paint?
 
Amp34 said:
As for differences you obviously have the difference in software, however the programs will run identically on both systems (although they may run a little slower on the iMac as it is essentially a laptop, it uses laptop components, depending on the specification of the PC).
Click to expand...

Not so, the only desktop computer Apple manufacture that is a laptop shoehorned into a small desktop case is the Mac Mini, not the iMac. I've never seen a 1 TB 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drive from an iMac used in a laptop! The only part of the iMac that could be classed as a laptop part is the slot loading optical drive, and this doesn't effect its operational speed.

The iMac would be a great choice, my only reservation would be the gloss screen, although they are hard to avoid with most current computers. This comes down to personal preferences.

Re photo editing software, iPhoto is adequate for most home users, but not the serious photographer. Alternative choices vary from Photoshop Elements to Photoshop CS4. Both support RAW files, as do Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom. You can download trial versions of these to try.

Overall the iMac would be a good replacement choice. If you can budget for it, go for the 24", until you use a larger display you don't realise how much more useful they are. I was installing an Apple Mac Pro system yesterday (a photographer replacing his 2 PC's) and the main monitor was an NEC Spectraview 2690 (25.5"), within minutes I was at ease fully utilising the larger screen area and wishing I had one too.

Re hard drive space, decide what you are likely to need before purchasing, the drive isn't user replaceable, although it can be upgraded by an Apple Authorised Service Provider. External USB or Firewire 800 storage can easily be added. Memory is user upgradable, and by undoing one screw and pulling off a cover you can pop in additional memory at any time should you need it, and probably cheaper than buying with the iMac.
 
Craikeybaby said:
Personally I would go for the 24" iMac, not because of the bigger screen, but because it is a higher quality screen, 8bit as opposed to the 6bit panel used on the smaller version.

With regards to software what are you using at the moment? Elements? Lightroom? Picasa? Paint?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help folks.

I never noticed the larger screen was higher quality/bit, best get meself to specsavers methinks lol.
I'm using an older version of Photoshop elements at the moment (my old steam powered pc wont run most of the newer software without causing it to crash/run super slowly). From what I've gathered so far the iMac's come with very little in the way of software (so I wont be getting loads of software I'll never use I suppose) so I'll need to buy anything I need extra. I know I need to sort new photo editing software anyway regardless whether I get a Mac or PC and this is another minefield I have to cross to find what works for me.
I need a computer upgrade (soon before this one dies completely) and I've just about talked myself into a Mac, but am just looking for any pitfalls, when changing over from PC to Mac, that I might have missed before I shell out a wedge on one.
 
The iMac wil come with iLife 09 which includes iPhoto that you could use for cataloging, management and some basic manipulation (colour, contrast, exposure etc)

You can even use Preview to make a lot of adjustments to an image.

http://www.applelinks.com/index.php...ews_new_photo_editing_tools_os_x_odyssey_908/

For further photoediting using layers etc you could use Photoshop Elements. If you don't need the bigger feature set of the other products. You could probably replace this with an opensource solution like GIMP at no cost too.

iPhoto and Elements will see you right, no need to spend £200+ on Lightroom

Spend the extra cash on the 24" model, and take a look in the refurb store, as you can save a few quid by only getting it in a plain brown box (that just gets stuck in the loft!)

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=MTE2ODI
 
As stated iPhoto comes with new Macs, it is a good piece of software to get you started, however if you use Elements a lot, you may find you need something a bit more powerful, the main options, increasing in price are:

Elements - You know it and what it does.
Apple Aperture - A more powerful version of iPhoto, with lots of options for expanding it. I found the way of working very similar to that of iPhoto.
Lightroom - Does pretty much the same as Aperture, just in a different way.
Photoshop - Like Elements, but lots more powerful & expensive.

There are 30 day trials (and lots of online tutorials etc) of all of these so you can try them out before spending any money. For iPhoto and Aperture you could even book an appointment with the Apple Store and get them to go through them with you, bringing in some of your own image files.
 
steveb said:
Not so, the only desktop computer Apple manufacture that is a laptop shoehorned into a small desktop case is the Mac Mini, not the iMac. I've never seen a 1 TB 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drive from an iMac used in a laptop! The only part of the iMac that could be classed as a laptop part is the slot loading optical drive, and this doesn't effect its operational speed.
Click to expand...

They use laptop sized memory DIMMs, the CPU is a low power consumption laptop socket Core 2. They may have a full sized hard drive but essentially most of the internals are effectively the same as laptop components. These wonn't necessarily make it slower, after all a 3GHz laptop based Core 2 will perform largely the same as a 3GHz desktop Core 2, but one will be considerably more costly. Same with the memory, no huge performance difference but the laptop modules are considerably more expensive (look at Crucial and the difference in price of the Mac DDR3 and desktop PC DDR3)
 
divine` said:
They use laptop sized memory DIMMs, the CPU is a low power consumption laptop socket Core 2. They may have a full sized hard drive but essentially most of the internals are effectively the same as laptop components. These wonn't necessarily make it slower, after all a 3GHz laptop based Core 2 will perform largely the same as a 3GHz desktop Core 2, but one will be considerably more costly. Same with the memory, no huge performance difference but the laptop modules are considerably more expensive (look at Crucial and the difference in price of the Mac DDR3 and desktop PC DDR3)
Click to expand...

I know, it cost like £600 for 2 x4G pair where for the desktop version about £100 !

Saying that, i still love my iMac.
 
I made the switch just over 18 months ago, from PC to iMac.
I'd do it again tomorrow.
Hopefully fabs will be along as he's just done it, about a week ago.

ANY Mac will cope with photo editing, my MacBook with 1GB ram manages just fine, the iMac has 4GB so obviously it is a bit quicker.

I think it took about 2 days to understand how the OS works but I still find the odd useful thing now and again.

Of course you could upgrade your PC or replace the tower or get more ram, it all depends on you really. Personally, my current setup works best for me.
 
Thanks for all the help folks, the deed has now been done and I'm posting this on a nice shiny new iMac :D:D I've got to say this is the easiest system I ever set up. I haven't had time to start with any photo's yet but up to now I'm finding everything quite easily and adapting to the Mac easily enough.

Once again thanks for your input :D
 
steveb said:
Not so, the only desktop computer Apple manufacture that is a laptop shoehorned into a small desktop case is the Mac Mini, not the iMac. I've never seen a 1 TB 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drive from an iMac used in a laptop! The only part of the iMac that could be classed as a laptop part is the slot loading optical drive, and this doesn't effect its operational speed.

The iMac would be a great choice, my only reservation would be the gloss screen, although they are hard to avoid with most current computers. This comes down to personal preferences.
Click to expand...

As Divine' mentioned, but also their graphics cards are the mobile versions too, so it is essentially a laptop with a desktop Hard Drive (although 2.5" drives are up to 500GB at 7200RPM), attached to the back of a screen.

Glossy screens are only a problem with integrated screens (i.e. laptops (both windows and macs) and imacs), get a seperate monitor and most are matt still.:)
 
As Cyclone says, I made the switch last week and could be more pleased. It's way faster than any windows machine I've ever used and it's far easier to navigate round so I don't really care about the technicalities of what parts have gone where! :p
 
fabs said:
It's way faster than any windows machine I've ever used and it's far easier to navigate round so I don't really care about the technicalities of what parts have gone where! :p
Click to expand...

Sums the whole subject up for me, and it only took you a week.
 
fabs said:
As Cyclone says, I made the switch last week and could be more pleased. It's way faster than any windows machine I've ever used and it's far easier to navigate round so I don't really care about the technicalities of what parts have gone where! :p
Click to expand...

That said, even if you do need a Windows machine, thanks to a piece of software called Bootcamp, you can run Windows on your Mac (though I'd recommend waiting till Windows 7 is out in October before you contemplate it).

divine` said:
If you'd spent the same on a PC it'd be even faster than that ;)
Click to expand...

An interesting tidbit for you; I was speaking to a couple of contacts I have at the magazine I write for. They were saying the Met has just upgraded the laptops they use. Want to guess what they use?

15-inch MacBook Pros running Windows XP. Faster, more reliable and actually cheaper than a similar spec PC system once they factored in all the other costs.

That said, I first used a Mac when I joined the publication house and within days found I was getting frustrated with the limitations of my PC. I bought a MacBook Pro 10 months later.

I don't know if anyone has told you or showed you (or you've found out yourself), but if you press the F3 button, you can access something called Exposé. It along with clear desktop CMD (next to the spacebar) F3 will become your new favourite short cuts. They let me flick around and find open windows and files far faster than on Windows.
 
divine` said:
You're doing it wrong then, quite simply.
Click to expand...

That's the point, why I said Macs work better for me.
You don't need to know any special ways of doing things, you install stuff, it works, the machine works like it's new.

To repeat a much disliked phrase... it just works.
 
divine` said:
If you'd spent the same on a PC it'd be even faster than that ;)
Click to expand...

For pure raw processing power and speed, no doubt, you'll get the same spec on paper for iMac a few hundred pounds less. I knew that when i got mine 2 weeks ago, cost me £1.5k, that is a lot of money to me and I would do it again.

Also, you can't buy the silence :p iMac are silent, even when the fans kicks in, it is totally silent.
 
Well, you can buy the silence, it does however require being somewhat more selective with components and doing some research :p
 
cyclone said:
That's the point, why I said Macs work better for me.
You don't need to know any special ways of doing things, you install stuff, it works, the machine works like it's new.

To repeat a much disliked phrase... it just works.
Click to expand...

You don't have to do anything special beyond not installing mounds of useless crap.
 
I've never had significant slowdown from installing your typical average software, Office, Photoshop, DVD burner, media player and so on.

I've only encountered PCs becoming slow when they're full of rubbish toolbars and dodgy freeware etc.
 
divine` said:
I've never had significant slowdown from installing your typical average software, Office, Photoshop, DVD burner, media player and so on.

I've only encountered PCs becoming slow when they're full of rubbish toolbars and dodgy freeware etc.
Click to expand...

Well obviously I can only speak from my experience and you from yours. :shrug:
 
oh dear, this is like another Canon or Nikon thread :D

istock_can-of-worms.jpg
 
My experience would suggest there was something wrong with your PC if it become noticeably slower from installing basic software.
 
Windows DO slow down when you start installing software.

Fresh install of XP, about 20 seconds to boot.
Add Office, add another 10 seconds to the boot up time.

Now, there is nothing more or less i could do.
 
Lets just accept that the OP has made a decision to buy a Mac, and is happy with the decision.

Lets also accept that some other people have the experience that the Mac experience suits them better

We can also, while we're at it accept that some people will have a better experience with a Windows based OS, although they may need to be a little more vigilant in what they do, or don't install

While we're at it, lets consider those that like to run Linux, it's not the wrong choice, it's jut a choice some people prefer to completely control their environment.

Windows / OS X / Linux they're not the wrong choices, just different ones, no need to deride people for the choices they've made or the experiences they've had.

People buy Porsche for the overall driving experience, there are quicker, better handling cars out of Japan for less cash, but the ownership experience isn't the same as with a Porsche.

Canon vs Nikon vs Sony vs Pentax vs Samsung
Pepsi vs Coke
Honda vs Yamaha vs Kawasaki vs Ducati
White vs Brown bread
Gay vs Straight
Christianity vs Islam vs Atheism vs Scientology

No need to deride people over their choices, it hurts you not one bit, the decision's been made, lets all just walk away.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Windows DO slow down when you start installing software.

Fresh install of XP, about 20 seconds to boot.
Add Office, add another 10 seconds to the boot up time.

Now, there is nothing more or less i could do.
Click to expand...

Do people actually still boot from cold anyway?
 
divine` said:
Do people actually still boot from cold anyway?
Click to expand...
I still boot my pc from cold, as it gets bogged down when its been on a while.

My macs last cold boot was about 2 months ago. Apple actually make a point of the fact that macs never need a restart ( apart from after a major update ).

I switched to mac about a year ago now, and i wish i had done it years ago.

You can sum it up in 3 words " IT JUST WORKS "

There are 2 or 3 things i cant buy for Mac OSX, but thats where VMWare Fusion steps in and emulates for me, the OS is so stable you can emulate windows with ease, i recently did this just for a giggle and still couldnt crash the system.

3797390445_f321d6f733_b.jpg


Thats my Mac Mini running its host OS with Windows XP, the RC of windows 7, and a copy of ubuntu, all from VMWare Fusion Virtual Machine manager.

To the OP : you have probably made one of the best decisions in your life.
 
Haha Monkey that's awesome.
I have Ubuntu here but never tried it on a Mac, I'm not 100% on the partition side of it, is it reversible?
I ran Ubuntu on the old laptop here when I couldn't face windows anymore but now I have the MacBook too, I haven't felt the need. Might still be a bit of fun though. :)
 
cyclone said:
Haha Monkey that's awesome.
I have Ubuntu here but never tried it on a Mac, I'm not 100% on the partition side of it, is it reversible?
I ran Ubuntu on the old laptop here when I couldn't face windows anymore but now I have the MacBook too, I haven't felt the need. Might still be a bit of fun though. :)
Click to expand...

if you use VMWare fusion, then only 1 file is created for the whole virtual machine, no partitioning at all, and when you dont want it, you just pop it in the trash.

The only reason i have ubuntu on is i swapped the wifes laptop to it because i was fed up of fixing windows problems for her. I have it on my mac so i could get used to it to show her how to get on.
 
Raymond Lin said:
And there are less cables ! and arguably uses less power too compared to a PC.
Click to expand...

iMacs use 1 cable for power, one for the keyboard and one for the mouse generally, that's 3.

A laptop uses none (or one occasionally)

Dell%20XCPS%20M2010%20laptop.jpg


(As we've already discussed they are laptops attached to a big screen), BTW that's a 20" laptop, and Sony do iMac esque machines too.

;)

Raymond Lin said:
Windows DO slow down when you start installing software.

Fresh install of XP, about 20 seconds to boot.
Add Office, add another 10 seconds to the boot up time.

Now, there is nothing more or less i could do.
Click to expand...

XP yes, but that was released around 10 years ago, we're on Windows 7 now. Which (as with Vista) doesn't slow down at all.

Monkey said:
I still boot my pc from cold, as it gets bogged down when its been on a while.

My macs last cold boot was about 2 months ago. Apple actually make a point of the fact that macs never need a restart ( apart from after a major update ).

I switched to mac about a year ago now, and i wish i had done it years ago.

You can sum it up in 3 words " IT JUST WORKS "

There are 2 or 3 things i cant buy for Mac OSX, but thats where VMWare Fusion steps in and emulates for me, the OS is so stable you can emulate windows with ease, i recently did this just for a giggle and still couldnt crash the system.

3797390445_f321d6f733_b.jpg


Thats my Mac Mini running its host OS with Windows XP, the RC of windows 7, and a copy of ubuntu, all from VMWare Fusion Virtual Machine manager.

To the OP : you have probably made one of the best decisions in your life.
Click to expand...

Nor do they slow down after being left on for weeks and months.:)

Anyway, there's been enough Mac VS Windows on this and other forums, lets not let this thread descend into another one, he bought a mac and that should be the end of it, unfortunately the mac fanboys arrived...:p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top