Mac or Laptop

[clippedgull]

Windows 7 is a very polished operating system, it is fast and well featured, plus any software you can get on a mac, you'll either find the same software, similar software or better software on a PC.

In terms of aesthetics macs win hands down, and if your looking for a fashion item then a mac's your only choice.

However, you said you want it for photography in which case you'll want a good screen, and depending on your opinions on software piracy some editting software that doesn't come cheap.

You could spend £1500 on a mac, or you could spend £700-800 on the same spec hardware, and put your savings into buying a really great high resolution monitor, and some software like photoshop.

My Imac came with a 27 inch LED back lit screen with a resolution of 2560-by-1440 for £1399. 3.06mhz core 2 and 4gb ram

Plus I can run any Windows programme from Boot Camp

I wouldn't recommend Macs for Gamers, but for anything else I wouldn't hesitate. Up until I bought this machine I was a 100% windows freak!

 

[Paskman]

Correct. I would rather run a Dell Server with Apache than use an OSX server with Apache. Dell servers are good quality, and there top range desktops PC's are also very good. Of course if you pay 299.00 for a dell laptop you will be get cheaper plastic. You get what you pay for.

In that case buy a mac

 

[Husty]

My Imac came with a 27 inch LED back lit screen with a resolution of 2560-by-1440 for £1399. 3.06mhz core 2 and 4gb ram

Plus I can run any Windows programme from Boot Camp

I wouldn't recommend Macs for Gamers, but for anything else I wouldn't hesitate. Up until I bought this machine I was a 100% windows freak!

You can get a 3ghz dual core and 4gb of ram for £400-500, spend the rest of a good graphics card (not some portable shit like in all macs), an equal if not better monitor and the software... as I suggested in the first place.

And of course i've already stated that he would need to acquire any software himself, I don't know how he feels about piracy but your asking him to spend extra on windows on top of photoshop, on top of unnecessarily expensive hardware, and all because the hardware looks better and the operating system has a few snazzier effects. We don't all have endlessly deep pockets, i'm advising him on how to get the most out of his money.

 

[Scoffers]

I've always gone for PCs, primarily because I'm a gaming whore. I assume that PCs are still the choice of such whores ?

Of course, I also have an iPad, a Wii, a 360 and a PS3 . Well I did say I was a gaming Whore !

 

[clippedgull]

You can get a 3ghz dual core and 4gb of ram for £400-500, spend the rest of a good graphics card (not some portable shit like in all macs), an equal if not better monitor and the software... as I suggested in the first place.

If you can find a better monitor for under a £1,000 . Please share.

Also I don't have endlessly deep pockets but the hardware combination with the monitor and the excellent design sold it to me at this price point. The guy doesn't want a machine to play high end games so your slur on the graphics card is irrelevant. It's more than capable of meeting a domestic/semi pro photographic persons needs.

 

[clapham_gull]

If you can find a better monitor for under a £1,000 . Please share.

Also I don't have endlessly deep pockets but the hardware combination with the monitor and the excellent design sold it to me at this price point. The guy doesn't want a machine to play high end games so your slur on the graphics card is irrelevant. It's more than capable of meeting a domestic/semi pro photographic persons needs.

I believe Apple monitors are manufactured by LG.

 

[Fef]

Photoshop is geared to photo editing. I'm looking for software that is geared towards downloading photos from a digital camera and where I can organise a library of photos into different categories by dragging and dropping.

Lightroom. (by Adobe) Download the trial and give it a whirl.

 

[disgruntled h blocker]

If you can find a better monitor for under a £1,000 . Please share.

Also I don't have endlessly deep pockets but the hardware combination with the monitor and the excellent design sold it to me at this price point. The guy doesn't want a machine to play high end games so your slur on the graphics card is irrelevant. It's more than capable of meeting a domestic/semi pro photographic persons needs.

The imac is all well and good until you want to replace the system but want to keep the monitor - as screens can last a few years more than the actual life of the system unit.

In addition to this, for photography and graphics work, a glossy screen front like on the imac isn't ideal. You are far better off getting one that hasn't got a front glass planel between the user and LCD/LED panel - to reduce glare and reflections.

A higher spec EIZO monitor is a far better investment than an imac, if connected to a Mac or PC.

 

[clapham_gull]

Slightly off topic on the subject of Excel, the latest 2010 version has a nice little feature called "sparklines".

All it does is place a mini graph referring to a series of cells automatically, the mini graph sitting in a cell by itself - simple but a quick way of showing a trend without inserting a graph.

Unfortunately the new buzz word with David Brent types will be "sparklines"

Watch this space...

And for those who like to send huge screen shots to IT Departments detailing meaningless error messages inserted by a programmer from the far east, Office has added a "insert screen shot" menu option which allows you to pick an image of all other open windows.

Very useful for doing user manuals though.