New laptop... decisions!

cam1986 said:
Macs are too costly for what you get
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Depends what value that you place on reliability, but their initial cost does always appear greater than a PC.

For 15 years I was a PC rule type of person, could not see the value or reason for owning a Mac, then I replaced an XP machine with a Vista machine.

I owned said vista machine for 10 weeks, at least one day a week was lost due to problems with the PC, I am freelance, being conservative that is £200 a day lost, or time I have to make up working late or weekends, so the cheaper vista powered machine cost me at least £2000 in lost time.

I did something I never though that I would do and purchased a Mac, that was three years ago, and the Mac has not missed a beat, I have no need to defrag it, sort out conflicts or delve into it's OS the way I had been used to with my PCs.

I have a Mac pro, when I open the side up there are no bundles of cables everywhere, in fact not a wire in sight. If I want to add a hard drive I simply screw it to a sledge and push it in, if I want to add memory I slide out the board, fit it and push it back in.

The build quality of it is superb, it's hardware top notch but that all comes at a price.
 
Martyn... said:
Depends what value that you place on reliability, but their initial cost does always appear greater than a PC.

For 15 years I was a PC rule type of person, could not see the value or reason for owning a Mac, then I replaced an XP machine with a Vista machine.

I owned said vista machine for 10 weeks, at least one day a week was lost due to problems with the PC, I am freelance, being conservative that is £200 a day lost, or time I have to make up working late or weekends, so the cheaper vista powered machine cost me at least £2000 in lost time.

I did something I never though that I would do and purchased a Mac, that was three years ago, and the Mac has not missed a beat, I have no need to defrag it, sort out conflicts or delve into it's OS the way I had been used to with my PCs.

I have a Mac pro, when I open the side up there are no bundles of cables everywhere, in fact not a wire in sight. If I want to add a hard drive I simply screw it to a sledge and push it in, if I want to add memory I slide out the board, fit it and push it back in.

The build quality of it is superb, it's hardware top notch but that all comes at a price.
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you dont need to defrag windows either these days ;) but either way macs arent invincible to problems. spend as much money on a windows based machine as an apple machine and youll get an equally as good system if not much faster.
 
neil_g said:
but either way macs arent invincible to problems.
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Never said they were Neil, and to be honest I was a PC nut for years, I was a reluctant convert to Mac, and must say I have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to switch over, the reliability and build quality of the system.

I could have easily built an equally good PC from scratch using top notch components for a lot less money, that would work as well, but I decided to give the Mac a try.

After 15 years of keeping my PCs running I developed a good understanding of how the OS worked, and was fairly capable of resolving most issues that cropped up.

After 3 years with the Mac I do not have a clue how the OS works as I have never had to delve into it to fix anything ... I like it this way :D
 
tomkbucks said:
still comes out at £969 to spec a quad core i7 and HD screen - far to much money :(
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No it doesn't... I get:

l502x/i7-2630QM/full HD screen/6G RAM/750G HDD = £939 before disc., £801 after

If you want to get Dell to change the 6G for 8G add another £67.50

The quoted cost is before you apply the discount...
 
for that money though i want a MPB :( if only the 15" ones were that money ! i agree with everything said about mac os - ive worked with pc's for 15 years, switched for a mac at home 3 years ago and to this day have not got a clue how it works - it just does lol
 
tomkbucks said:
yup dell it will be then ! :) as i cant compromise screensize :(
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Personally, I think that's a good choice. I wouldn't want to go back to a 1366x768 screen on a laptop again....
 
Windows 7 is far superior to Vista and a superb alternative to Macs OS.
 
cam1986 said:
Windows 7 is far superior to Vista and a superb alternative to Macs OS.
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Got both, Windows 7 is still awkward, and frustratingly unintuitive far too often I am afraid this is why it has been relegated to my gaming machine alone. I still do not understand why getting my MBP connected to different WiFi spots is a click of a button while on the Windows machine is a headache and a half. Same goes for Bluetooth Connections/peripherals. Same for some installations/uninstallations of programmes, backup. Making windows work like you want them is hard work really.

For anything that matters like work, photos, music, coding, chatting, browsing am on a MBP soon to become an MBA and I don't see that changing soon.
 
vrapan said:
I still do not understand why getting my MBP connected to different WiFi spots is a click of a button while on the Windows machine is a headache and a half. Same goes for Bluetooth Connections/peripherals.
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Other than typing the network/pairing key and telling windows how trustworthy the network is, all I do is click on any network to join it. I'm confused as to why it would be more difficult than that too.... Do you have to do anything more than the video shown in this link to connect to a network: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/View-and-connect-to-available-wireless-networks
 
You guys have lost me on all that! Is this the PC equivalent of pixel peeping? But I'm in the market so trying to keep up ;)

Adobe says Pentium 4 and 2gb of Ram for Lightroom 3. I know that's minimum, but what is the actual benefit of higher spec? I'm not really bothered about shaving a millesecond here and there, I'm the slow link in the chain.

I'm currently running Lightroom on an old dog with 1gb of Ram and a processor that Noah chiseled out of an off-cut. But it does work, slowly, and hasn't crashed (yet).

To the OP, you can edit on a small screen, but you have to keep zooming in to see detail. Apart from being frustrating, that slows you down big time.
 
HoppyUK said:
Adobe says Pentium 4 and 2gb of Ram for Lightroom 3. I know that's minimum, but what is the actual benefit of higher spec? I'm not really bothered about shaving a millesecond here and there, I'm the slow link in the chain.
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Much quicker to do things and more responsive. It's not milliseconds - I noticed a massive difference when I moved from a mid spec Core 2 Duo with 8G to my current i7....
 
arad85 said:
Much quicker to do things and more responsive. It's not milliseconds - I noticed a massive difference when I moved from a mid spec Core 2 Duo with 8G to my current i7....
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So what drives the speed? Is it the processor type, dual core or whatever, or the Ram?

Say I have 300 images from one shoot in Lightroom, I edit one and then want to apply colour and exposure adjustments to the other 299. Which aspect of the spec has most impact on that?

Thanks.
 
HoppyUK said:
So what drives the speed? Is it the processor type, dual core or whatever, or the Ram?

Say I have 300 images from one shoot in Lightroom, I edit one and then want to apply colour and exposure adjustments to the other 299. Which aspect of the spec has most impact on that?

Thanks.
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It's not easy and the same as asking which makes more difference to your pictures: body, lens or make... Having said that, the fundamentals are: processor, memory and disk speed. Disk speed to get the images off/onto the disk, RAM so the system can pipeline the data on/off the disk efficiently and processor to actually do the work.

Let's take your example - colour and exposure adjustments to large numbers of raw images. There's a number of things going on there. Colour/exposure adjustments can be split into tiles - that is you can split the processing down into small segments of the image. That means, the more processors you have, the better it is for doing that operation.

The problem here is that you need to get the images off the disk do do the work and then write them back (at least as previews in LR) so you have the effect applied. It's a balancing act: too much processing, too little disk speed and you're waiting for the images all the time. Lots of disk speed and slower processing and you're compute bound. That's why PCs are coming out with: good processors (able to compute), 7200rpm disks (faster to get data than the 5400 rpm disks in most PCs) and 4+Gbytes of memory (you can pipeline the data on and off the disk and help with latencies that way).

The real problem is that the mix of compute vs I/O to the disk is what determines the best tradeoff - and that differs depending on what you're doing. My tradeoff is that I know there are times I can get all 8 cores of an i7 lit up (as opposed to the 4 of a mobile i5), so spending the extra £40 above an i7 over the equivalent i5 is a no brainer. If that difference was £140, I'd think twice about it.

As far as I can tell (without spending £thousands on machines to compare next to each other), the i7-2630QM is the best value for money SandyBridge processor. Couple that with at least 4G of memory and a 7200rpm disk (or SSD if you're wealthy or don't need a large amount of space) and you have a great laptop. Couple that with a 1080p display and you have a fabulous laptop.

I'd be willing to bet the difference between the same laptop running Win 7 and OSX running Lightroom would be negligible. Other than the look and feel, you'd be unable to tell the difference.
 
Andy, thanks very much for that detailed reply. I'm getting a better idea of the trade-offs now - makes sense :thumbs:

Cheers :)
 
I used a 13" MacBook as my main machine for 3 years, I went for 13" because for a laptop I prefer the smaller form factor.

I used to (and still do now sometime too) do all my keywording etc in Lightroom just on the laptop, but for all serious processing I hooked up to an external monitor, not only for the extra real estate on screen, with the image full size on external monitor and tools on laptop, but I always find it hard to get accurate colour form a laptop screen. Even with both calibrated laptop screens aren't as good as external monitors, that's before you take into account variable viewing angles etc.
 
tomkbucks said:
they are going to be way over budget - ideal budget is the £600 - 650 bracket BUT would stretch to £900 ish should i go the mac way (as it will hold its value better)
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Residual values on computer equipment. Don't be silly.

I've got a 13" MacbookPro Core 2 Duo. Processor seems pretty slow now when crunching RAWs, although HDD is ok after an upgrade.

One thing to bear in mind with Macbook Pro is that you can't use it on your lap. May be an issue depending on what you want it for.

Personally I'd go for a Lenovo business model. I've got a W510 from work and it is a beast, just wish I could run Lightroom on it!
 
technically you shouldnt use any notebook on your lap, couple of reasons..

those notebooks that have vents in the underside are easily blocked on soft surfaces. they should be placed on flat solid surfaces only. i know some MBs dont have vents but the heat dispersion is done through the case so same can apply.

also the heat generated by some notebooks can become damaging for ones "personal areas". if youve ever used a notebook on your lap for an extended period you might already be familiar with the old red thigh problem lol

that said i use my notebook on my lap, on the duvet in bed etc.
 
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I think he was implying that MacBook Pros get very hot due to the Alu case, but mine only gets hot when I've got Folding@Home or Handbrake running.

I have no problem on the odd occasion that I use my MBP away from a desk though.
 
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