help on purchasing a laptop please kind fellows :)

howdy ho people,
well in the next few weeks im starting uni, and according to my tutors i need to purchase meself a laptop. As im studying a Graphics degree, naturally I have been told that a mac would be ideal as it is speacialised for those kinda things.
Other then that I dont really know what other benefits a mac can offer me, i have a PC at home which i have been using since forever, so naturally I would Like to choose a PC.........laptop........thingy whateva. However, would be nice if people could point out to me the pros and cons of both types of laptops in general as well as in terms of for use in design work or film editing etc, etc.
I would search online but there is so much information outhere i do not know where to start, and its all typed out in technical jargon which is alien to me. Also maybe somebody could point out the best type/model of laptop availible.
Thanks alot and hope lots of people contribute.

 

A macbook pro using boot camp would steal your heart. Best of both worlds.

cons: mac intels still don't have universal binaries for adobe products. (photoshop on OSX for instance won't run natively and may suffer some performance)


I use a powerbook g4 which I'm sure you can get a good deal on nowadays. When the time is right I'll eventually upgrade to a macbrook pro when this transition period is over. (about another year and a half or so) At this point it really sounds as if you should just stick to a PC. I have both, and see both as tools to complete a task.

Oh, if you game just stick to PC.

 

PC I told you in person PC I tell you online /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif , if anything goes wrong easier to replace parts (in my opinion) , software compat, plus most people use windows so convinieance, yes macs are great from what I've heard but with a limited budget I'd go a with a pc.

 

oh dont get me wrong might probably end up getting a PC laptop thingy but just wanted to know the pros and cons of both before commting to one, plus i forget the advise you and tony tell me so felt be easier seeing it in type form /versus/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

What will your budget be?

 

Thinkpad

 

hmmm well maybe around £1,000 but would like to pay less, but then if im gonna do quite a bit of design work and film editing, i might need quite alot of memmory for saving stuff,

 

For that money you can have a 17inch WUXGA+ dual core killer machine

 

Yeah for a £1000 you will get a top of the line machine you wont' need to upgrade for aaaages if you build it yourself,
if you go to the shops you will get an okish machine for that price,

 

Optimus, I get the impression you're talking about a desktop all the time. /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As for the PC geewai, what Fishie said - £1000 buys you an excellent machine, dual core CPU, 1+ GB of RAM, huge LCD and HDD, DVD burner etc. That said, are you sure you don't want a desktop? Since your studies will be graphics-related, maybe this is a better idea. £1000 would get you a bloody dream desktop machine that provides blowjobs and more.

P.S. Don't even consider Mac. It's like an inflated iPod.

 

[ QUOTE ]
GLC said:
P.S. Don't even consider Mac. It's like an inflated iPod.

[/ QUOTE ]

I imagine if you compare a Mac and PC with the same performance, the PC will cost less (maybe substantially).

My recommendation for the graphics field is still Mac. Here's why...

Note that this is the graphics world in the United States (I don't know about other countries). Even though files for Illustrator, Photoshop, and Quark Xpress are pretty much cross-platform, the fonts are not. If you're doing any kind of print work, most magazine/newspaper publishers, service bureaus-turned-printers and printers themselves have been outputting files from Mac Quark XPress files for years. For a while, and maybe still, the US graphics industry is almost 98% Mac.

If you open a PC file on Mac, even if you have the right (same-named) fonts, the text will almost certainly re-flow and you'll have to check the formatting on every page. It's more dfficult to work with other companies in the graphics field if you are PC based. Any time a magazine to which I'm submitting ads finds out I use Mac, the response is usually "Oh, thank God - you'll be easy to work with and your ads might just come out right the first time."

Now-a-days, the print graphics world is shifting to PDF and this will clear up a lot of things as the fonts are embedded. Things still seem to happen when a PC generated PDF is output from a Mac based direct-to-plate machine (not that they don't also happen with Mac generated PDFs).

If you're doing web-only stuff, you probably don't need a Mac.

Personally, my company does a ton of print work. I and my employees use Macs and any freelancer must also use Mac so I can open their files.

As a side note, I look forward to dual-boot Macs. I look forward to the day when it's just "computers" and not "Mac or PC".

Hope this helps.

 

Mac computers being inflated iPods is a joke of course, but:

[ QUOTE ]
Plague said:
Note that this is the graphics world in the United States (I don't know about other countries).

[/ QUOTE ]
This is the key statement. He's in the UK. Europe is WAAAAAY different than the US in terms of Mac vs PC.

 

I think having both for developing purposes it important. I have my pc and develop on the mac. I use the browsers on both formats to check for funny stuff when coming up with designs.

Edit: Sorry I made that sound overbearingly serious. What I mean is I'll check to see if a box, or footer, or whatever is rendering quirky in IE for pc. It's not so bad though.

 

Well, I imagine he also wants to use the computer for non-serious stuff, like p2p, pr0n and whatever students do nowadays. Unless it's the "old laptop" for fun, and "new laptop" for serious stuff exclusively. Is it? *GLC pokes geewai_ho with a stick*

 

[ QUOTE ]
GLC said:

Optimus, I get the impression you're talking about a desktop all the time. /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif



[/ QUOTE ]
uh yeah silly me for not reading the question properly @_@ , although my excuse is I coulda swore he asked me about a desktop in person,
the laptop would only be an option I suppose if you absolutely need portability then.

 

[ QUOTE ]
the laptop would only be an option I suppose if you absolutely need portability then.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or if he lives in a tiny place like a dorm, or studio apartment. Space is a luxury.

 

thx for thre advice guys, sorry for late reply already have a desktop, belongs to my sis though, plus have no space for a desktop in my room, plus id like somthing portable, is a laptop siutable for palying games????
To spoilt for choice, i read that macs are good for stupid people like me, /versus/images/graemlins/blush.gif, maybe i shud opt for that, ??? my head hurts so much to think about /versus/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

I'd get a mid-range laptop and use the desktop as the main one.

I was going to get a laptop for Uni myself for my multimedia stuff but I ended up realising I would only use it to use the program being tutored on the spot. For instance, if the lesson was on Photoshop, the tutor will most likely be explaining how to do something on it for the whole lesson, so instead of writing notes down, I'd use the program on the laptop to follow along with what the tutor is teaching.

When you get to do some mad stuff later on like big photoshop work and especially video editing, the laptop will struggle where as a desktop (assuming specs are high) will cope just fine.

anyways, for laptops, toshiba's are pretty good and Dell's aren't as bad as people make them out to be when it comes to laptops. Plus good customer care /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif. Mac's are nice but they're all show to me but the intel CPU's do give them a lil kick up the backside for speed.

Mac pro's:
- Good easy to use interface
- no worries about virus's and adware and crap
- Handles editing programs well but the intel's don't do it very well right now as programs like photoshop aren't re-coded to take advantage of intels cpu...yet
- Less maintenance

Windows Pro's:
- You're used to it
- More programs available if you want them
- Handles intensive programs a lil better in my honest opinion specially intel cpu's

Some recommendations:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/110547
or
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/produc...;l=en&s=dhs

Oh and some money saving tips with Dell, if you decided to get a Dell laptop, in the custom set up, get the lowest amount of RAM you can get, they're are some cheap ass bastards when it comes to extra RAM. Buy some extra RAM elsewhere like ebuyer.com for less /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

p.s I'd still use a desktop

 

now the school term has started, ring up dell about returned laptops, even tho they will be 100% working and the only reason they got returned is cos of stupidity they cant re-sell them as new anymore and basicly they are up to %60 OFFF

mans can get a duel xeon pc for £600 notes

 

I guess its on topic so I might as well ask. I am going to be going to the army in january and after bootcamp i will be getting "teh phatness l00ts". With my first pay check i wanted to replace my monster laptop with a much smaller and stylish one for my long ass training. Anyone know of any smaller stylish laptops with uber long batter lifes? I gonna be searching around the internet but would appreciate any ideas.