PC vs Mac

[Sphynx]

I did not know where else to put this, so i put it here:

I just had a snoop around yesterday and looked at the new MAC.

Currently i got a laptop with windows XP on it... but at some point i guess my little dear toy here would not cope with my gfx stuff anymore.

So i just nosed around.

Folks say that a MAC is so much better for gfx stuff.
Hubby says its way too expensive compared to its power.
You could get a more powerful windows PC for the same price.
The guy in the shop said, its even hard to upgrade a MAC.


So what do you think is a better thing?

[CkretAjint]

O God, here we go again. Please do a search. This has been discussed HUNDREDS of times on the forum. It even has it's own section in the FAQ/newbie (http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=489612&postcount=9) post. :)

[Jriddim]

i dunno? pc has got its own cheering squad now-a-days ;)

[Virgo Nightingale]

The best is when someone knows how to get the best out of his/her machine, regardless of platform. ;)

This topic has been done to death here. I know you can't get any results from the search tool on this forum since the words "mac vs. pc" are all either too short or too common. I know the former is most certainly true. Try this google search (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=mac+vs+pc+site:graphicdesignforum.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8). It will give you "mac vs. pc" results for this whole site.

In a nutshell: The hardware is virtually the same, and they are both capable of doing the same job. PCs are cheaper and more easily upgraded, Macs are more expensive but don't need to be upgraded as often and are less susceptible to viral attacks.

[MikeHun]

One thing now though... you can run PC and MAC on a MAC simultaneously!!!

[Ferraribabe]

One thing now though... you can run PC and MAC on a MAC simultaneously!!!


I think that comes in handy, although, I prefer Macs because the graphics are better. I guess the only good thing about splitting your harddrive is that you can install your pc games on it.

[cnic]

Turn the towers off, and close the laptops... all of the hot designers these days work directly from thier iPhones.

.

[Broacher]

iPhones are already old-school. I'm working right now off a prosthetic brain I bought on the gray market last week for just $500. Dropped a mod-chip onto the board and now I have it all. Amazing. And it plugs right into your corpus callosum. Direct RS feed to the frontal cortex. And guaranteed impenetrability against all virus attacks and malw@{{{d.. </ <// %|EBRITY NUDE GALLERY! FREE MEMEBERSHIP! CLICK HERE!!!!

[Yossarian]

*clicks Broacher's brain*

[Ferraribabe]

*wants a discount*

[Danger_Mouse]

^ I clicked it too and got "Error, insufficient memory" :D

[MikeHun]

I picked up mine up at the MackWindoze

[Silence04]

Turn the towers off, and close the laptops... all of the hot designers these days work directly from thier iPhones.


i think we are only a couple months away from that... i've already got my iphone setup as an FTP server and also have installed Finder, Preview, Quicktime and tons of games! :D

[Mynock]

If I'd know it was going to be this type of party I would have stuck my . . .

[longboy]

what? Mashed potatoes?

[John G]

they're teh same thing now.

[Mynock]

what? Mashed potatoes?Exactly. :)

[budafist]

I love mashed potatoes.

Get the best computer that you can afford. Do you even have to get a laptop? For the price of an average laptop you can get a killer desktop.

I heard on TV last night that laptops were outselling desktops 10 to 1. At least in NZ anyway. Crazy huh?

[DesignVHL]

I love SWEET MASHED ptaters w/ cinnamon, so BOOYAH! :P

But I don't think 10-1 ratio is so crazy buda...more and more people are on the go! I am about to get a mbp myself - as soon as I rationalize it and have a bit more $$ saved up that I have worked my butt off for....

I am SO TIRED of feeling tied down to my g5 tower - which was top of the line a few years ago! It still performs extrememly well with no problems at all....but being able to do simple web updates from other parts of my house, or creating some illustrations outside in the nice warm summer sun just really sounds nice to me...not to mention just doodling around while I boob some tube or whatever...

So ya, i think in general people are just sick of feeling tied down to their computers and want to be able to have more mobility and flexibility in their lives...at least that is how I see it!

[budafist]

I guess I thought it was crazy because I didn't realise I was becoming a minority. I can't use laptops. They're mobile sure, but I find they annoying to use.

[longboy]

Why do you find them annoying? I have a laptop at work that has a regular mouse and keyboard, and runs dual 19" LCD displays. Seems better than the tower that I had previously.

[DesignVHL]

Some are more annoying than others. I could never use anything under a 17" one...and if I had major work to do, I'd definitely hit my office and use the desktop....but i don't need a 27" monitor to update some text and a few graphics to a website....and if i'm simply doing vector drawing, and can worry about color later, it doesn't bother me so much....i think the lappys are getting better tho, and less annoying to use...and yes I totally feel ya on that...probably why I have been having a tough time justifying myself to get one...maybe I just want it lol....

[urstwile]

PC vs. Mac:

http://i18.tinypic.com/8a0vl83.gif

[BJMRGTIVR6]

good one urst.

I have a Mac at work and a PC for freelance. I am proficient in both and frequently send files cross-platform without a hitch. Some fonts cause issues but with OTF things are usually fine.

I slightly prefer a Mac because of some Glyph shortcuts I know on there. both get eh job done though

[budafist]

Why do you find them annoying? I have a laptop at work that has a regular mouse and keyboard, and runs dual 19" LCD displays. Seems better than the tower that I had previously.

Umm...I wouldn't consider your set up a laptop setup. I find laptop (default keyboard and screen and speakers, no mouse) annoying. Your set up is basically a desktop. Why do you even have a laptop if you have a regular mouse and keyboard and dual 19" LCD displays?

[Craig B]

Buda, what you don't know is that Longboy carries around the dual monitors, keyboard and mouse with him and just sets up wherever he goes. He sounds like he'd be fun to sit next to on a plane ... if you're okay with holding one of his monitors in your lap ...

[budafist]

How do you power dual monitors on the go? I guess he wears a battery pack on his back too?

[longboy]

Its perfect for graphics. 90% of the time I'm at work on my laptop, the other 10% I am at home, connected to my mac's display. The laptop keyboard fits just fine for the amount of typing I do, and I do keep a real mouse in my laptop bag. For the times when I need to work off just the laptop screen, it is a 1920x1200 resolution which gives me plenty of real estate for palettes, etc.

Toss it in my laptop bag, and it's very easy to cart around. I doubt I'll ever own another desktop, unless I go back into video work-

[urstwile]

My home computer was a laptop for a long time, but when it came time to buy a new computer, the iMac was the next best thing. I liked the smaller footprint of the laptop, but it was an iBook (yes, pre-Macbook) so I couldn't connect a second monitor and have it span rather than mirror.

[Sphynx]

*has lost the plot*

[Broacher]

The real story:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/museumofmodernfiction/sets/72157604997611884/show/

(Warning, frontal nudity, cartoon depictions of various acts of fornication which should guarantee that most people here will waste no time in clicking through. At least there's no sound.)

[Red Kittie Kat]

hehe ... cleverly done :D

[Broacher]

I suffered PTD from the Mac/PC graphic design wars which were at their worst in the 1990's. (Not to be flippant towards true victims of PTD, whom I respect and sympathize with)

But after many years of banging on Mac-only doors, and dozens of mid-interview 'aborts' ("You NEVER worked on a Mac before?!!") and platform-induced dead-ends, I decided instead to adopt the Mac T-shirt philosophy and accept the fact that as a professional designer, I would just have to learn to 'think different' about my platform choice, and not worry that nobody else in the field seemed to agree with me.

And in the end, I got a lot of GOOD things out of all my Windows trials and tribs that maybe I wouldn't have learned from the Mac side of the fence. Troubleshooting, for sure. And it still gives me a delicious little jolt of glee when I solve a problem for a fellow designer who's solidly Apple-based-- especially when they don't realize my platform brand. On fewer occasions, when I happened to be nearby, I have even solved directly on the Mac, seemingly unsolvable software/workflow problems with my deeper understanding of the underlying structure of many software packages. I'm not sure if I would have reached this 'dirty' level of understanding without being forced to by working so much in Windows (especially the BIRTH of postscript production on Windows. Not a pretty video!)

These days, platform branding really doesn't seem to be such a career killer, and I'm happy for the younger crowd who don't have to face these prejudices (as much!) in their career paths.

Ironically, after more than a ten year absence from my workspace, there is even talk now of a return to the Mac for future workstations. Realistically, I don't think we could get the budget for this. But it's a sign that things are changing-- for the better. And that's good news.

[Sphynx]

so to summarize: most of you say most of you prefere the PC, if i understood that right?

thats all i needed to know :)

[longboy]

If I were a business buying a computer for a designer, I'd lean towards a PC for price/compatibility reasons (keep in mind my network at my office is extremely security-driven, and I have had issues in the past with Macs on our secure network).

If I were to buy a new computer for myself at home to use for personal and graphics work, I'd buy an Apple. I've been using Apples since the mid-80s, and don't plan on changing that.

[Ferraribabe]

If I were a business buying a computer for a designer, I'd lean towards a PC for price/compatibility reasons (keep in mind my network at my office is extremely security-driven, and I have had issues in the past with Macs on our secure network).

If I were to buy a new computer for myself at home to use for personal and graphics work, I'd buy an Apple. I've been using Apples since the mid-80s, and don't plan on changing that.


Only problem is, you'd have to worry about getting viruses and such. Thats why when I was computer shopping, I should've baught and apple instead of a pc because I'm dealing with all these stupid viruses.

[John G]

("You NEVER worked on a Mac before?!!")
I love that.

uh... it's made so user friendly that idiots can use it... It's not hard.

[longboy]

Only problem is, you'd have to worry about getting viruses and such. Thats why when I was computer shopping, I should've baught and apple instead of a pc because I'm dealing with all these stupid viruses.

Usually most IT departments are up to date on all of that, but its certainly something to consider. In the years that I've been using computers professionally (since 1996), the only virus-type activity my computer has ever gotten was on a Mac (CD-ROM autoplay, circa 1998). My PC has blocked all virus activity with the IT-enabled protection in our corporate environments.

[Broacher]

I love that.

uh... it's made so user friendly that idiots can use it... It's not hard.

Yeah, but we're all a product of the branding work we do. In the case of Mac, it's extremely tribal. The elite-- and the mindless horde (even though, as you point out-- the Mac's tribal culture was built around that rarer segment: the creative but techno-phobic horde).

For the record, I have two brothers who are professional programmers. One is a research scientist too. Their work platform choice? For years they were PCers. But about five or six years ago they switched to Macs. Reliability would be their main choice- that and they make a lot more money now than they did before. But even they will tell you the reliability has less to do with hardware than it does with OS software. In fact I was talking to one the other night and he mentioned this story of a co-worker who bought an ancient Pent3 for his son at a garage sale. Sixty four meg ram, small hard drive. Then using his programming skills he setup Windows XP and dumped every module, function, extraneous 'MS Garbage' he could possibly knock out and did the same for MS Office. The result? The 'old' PC outperforms his brand new Windows laptop. Word pops up almost instantly, file access is boom, boom. I told my brother that this guy could probably market what he did as a patch and make a mint.

The other concern of course is security. And that's where I've always felt that there's little you can really compare. When just about every virus/malware is designed specifically for Windows (because it still dominates the market by pure numbers), it's not such a good reflection on hardware/OS security performance as much just a simple truth that the more targets one side has, the more they'll get hit -- and tempt shooters. And let's face it-- the PC is the most common shared 'family' machine out there. More users, more risk. Tough math to beat.

[budafist]

so to summarize: most of you say most of you prefere the PC, if i understood that right?

thats all i needed to know :)

I think you have COMPLETELY missed the point. That is not what we are saying at all.

[doubting_thomas]

so to summarize: most of you say most of you prefere the PC, if i understood that right?

thats all i needed to know :)
I don't, but I understand that some do. I have to be able to ensure professional
results off either platform for our clients, so I know both, can use both, and
our machinery can't tell the difference. At work it really doesn't matter which
platform I prefer.

[SurfPark]

There is only one way to settle this. Rap battle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkrn6ecxthM

[KingCurtis]

I myself am a Mac user. I purchased it for college mainly because it was a must, and I couldn't start classes with out one!

So far with the Adobe products I never really had any problems, and working in 2 at the same time, like going from Photoshop to Illustrator isn't that slow. The best thing to do is get a lot of memory, for ram and hardrive.

So my answer and suggestion is a MAC desktop or laptop!

[doubting_thomas]

There is only one way to settle this. Rap battle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkrn6ecxthM

LOL

[urstwile]

And in the end, I got a lot of GOOD things out of all my Windows trials and tribs that maybe I wouldn't have learned from the Mac side of the fence. Troubleshooting, for sure. And it still gives me a delicious little jolt of glee when I solve a problem for a fellow designer who's solidly Apple-based-- especially when they don't realize my platform brand. On fewer occasions, when I happened to be nearby, I have even solved directly on the Mac, seemingly unsolvable software/workflow problems with my deeper understanding of the underlying structure of many software packages. I'm not sure if I would have reached this 'dirty' level of understanding without being forced to by working so much in Windows (especially the BIRTH of postscript production on Windows. Not a pretty video!)

Funny, I get the same little jolt of glee when I show a co-worker on the Windows platform how to insert a picture into Powerpoint, on the Windows platform. And I work on a Mac.

The point I'm making is that some of us are computer savants, and some of us are not. Those of us who are savants in that area are going to figure out a way to make either platform work for us if we have to, sometimes both at the same time (which speaks well of the Intel Macs being able to run Windows). I would posit that for the older of us (and I include you in that Broacher), there's the idea that we have a task to do, we know the computer can do it, we just have to figure out what the computer calls it. And then get there. Genius? I think not. Savvy? Perhaps, or just affinity, maybe.

For the younger generation, this platform is so last decade. Eventually the platform won't make a difference. It's barely making a difference now.

When I first started working with Macs, back in the mid-80's, Postscript and Windows as a partnership was a frightening thing. We had a PC in our workflow. The amount of time it took to RIP a job from the PC versus a Mac was mind-boggling. Now that's all a thing of the past, more or less.

So this is a moot point. Do I need to repeat the kitty and dead horse image again?

[Broacher]

^Good points. The platform wars have reached the 'old-school' status. If you don't believe me, check out the new UI of MS Office. Our whole org here was recently forced to upgrade to this. First reaction by virtually everyone: what happened to the UI? Second: how do I change it back?

Well, you can't. And MS decided against that option because of the user studies they conducted. Average age is now under thirty. The new interface is built around much larger tool buttons and the new XPS graphic standard they've developed, all of which is centered around the on-line, uber-network/portable screens model of software interface. The new tribal lines are being drawn not around platform, but by user UI background, which translates (at least now) into young and old.

Their studies showed that the younger users are most comfortable with UI's that work/resemble established social network/search engine UI's. Are these type of UI's more productive or efficient as the conventional workstation desktop for the power user? In a word, no. But that's not who's being served.

So goodbye platform wars and hello UI wars. Stay tuned (will anyone know what that means in fifty years?)

[Sphynx]

Being kinda of the "old" generation myself, i was not asking to start a platform war.
I just asked what was really true on the statement "Mac is better for GFX, than a normal PC". If that is a dead horse, then the case is closed for me.

I am a person that can work on any platform, coming from IT.
So i do not care what the baby is called, as long as it is "healthy", if you know what i mean.

So if the results are the same nowadays, then i will just go with more horse power for the same cash and buy a pc. Why? Cos its easier to upgrade and repair. All the rest, i do not care about then.

Thanks for answering my question, darlings. :D

Your humble,
lil me

[DesignVHL]

I'm not sure I understand the word repair. None of the macs i've owned have never gone bad...and they've outlasted all my pcs...I work on both platforms...both are great for different reasons. I do prefer the mac over a PC, but there's no reason to compare - you've seen the mac commercials...lol no really I think people looking to buy a computer should explore both and see what works best for them. Sometimes it is an individual thing. I like the thought about the future UI wars, makes perfect sense.

[MikeHun]

There are more intrinsic plus's and multitudes of benefits to Mac's. They last longer are unix OS based now and again I can run both OS's on a Mac / Boot camp. I see no reason for a PC box unless for gaming purposes or proprietary software. A big stumbling block is some R.I.P.'s can't run on vista now you get these Microsoft incompatibilities and the bloated windows code that is a reflection of where the windows operating system stands it needs a big rewrite from the ground up. Gates and crew are coasting on software thats 20 years old, reason alone to leave the monopoly.
I've worked with both rather leave windows behind if given the choice.

[Sphynx]

hmmm interesting points... am not a huge fan of buying a new pc with vista on it tbh... but then again i got the old XP cd here to install...

choices choices....

[Piscosour]

This is war... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vV5mZ8Ox8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JixbzFjv_cU&feature=related

[Broacher]

:: SNORT! ::

Ah, you know that someday, somewhere, somebody is going to open a museum dedicated entirely to the Mac/PC war. There's more than one museum worth of stuff they could put there, easily.

[Ferraribabe]

I love that.

uh... it's made so user friendly that idiots can use it... It's not hard.


For about the majority of my time here on earth I've used a PC and when I got enrolled into this course I was in we started to use Macs. Now I dont know if it was just me but it took me a while to get used to it. It was a whole different ball game for me. So I dunno bout the part of user friendly...

[budafist]

Repairs.

I have had my mac for over 6 years now and have never had a problem with it. Except for it being slower than my work computer sometimes. Never had a reason to take it to the shop for repairs.

My fiance has had his computer for about 5 years and needs to take it to the shop at least once every year for a new "bit" or to be fixed.

Just saying.

[doubting_thomas]

5-6 years with my current company, the only claim I've ever made on
a work station is with my newest MacPro ($4k+ USD box). The SuperDrive
tray motor went out, so I couldn't eject a disk without a paperclip. They
replaced it as a DIY part for me. Never had any part of a PC fail on me at
work (beer on the keyboard not included).

Luck of the draw I guess (I fully expect problems next week after posting this).

[Wes Towers]

People try to convince me PC is better but I never listen. All our work is done on Mac.





(Link Removed)

[Chicomoralessxm]

Mac all the way..............lol i use a pc at work for designing and use a macbookpro at home for freelance projects. To me their is well no huge gap anymore like over decade ago. I just boils down to preference tea or coffee choice? But one thing i love my mac for no hassle online with viruses and its ease of use. Its designed for lazy dummies like me.........:)