Mac or PC, which should I buy?

[NecroPhone]

I'd like to partially hijack the OP's thread since the original problem has been solved.

My greatest concern, and the only thing keeping me from gladly buying a windows based laptop is monitor quality and color calibration. I've understood that macs have always had good, long lasting displays and from my own experience with my iMac, calibrating it is quite simple. This isn't the same for windows pc's, with which I've had bad experiences in terms of display quality.

I'm hoping that some of the more tech savvy artists on here might be able to point me in the right direction for buying a good, artist ready laptop model. So far I've been looking at the T series thinkpad for it's excellent hardware, history of good performance, and large battery life (or so they claim). The only issue is that I've been led to believe the thinkpad will have a poor monitor compared to something like a macbook. Guidance would be appreciated, I'd really rather not dish out $1,700 for a 15" macbook, especially since I already know what OS X has to offer.

(Ahh, sorry guys, I didn't notice how old this thread was)

[bd_art]

Funny, almost a year later I finally buy another computer and it was for totally different reasons.

The problems with my laptop were cured with a new hard drive for $25, but its video card was still too slow, so off I went in search of a new system.

Financial considerations became the deciding factor.

I really wanted a Mac and came sooooo close to purchasing a gently used system, but there was this one issue with Photoshop...it didn't have it.
I would have to purchase it anew for the Mac.

So for a fraction of the cost ($150) I picked up a Windows 7 PC and loaded my Photoshop CS1. It serves its purpose nicely.

Someday Mac, someday...

[PasiJH]

I'd like to partially hijack the OP's thread since the original problem has been solved.

My greatest concern, and the only thing keeping me from gladly buying a windows based laptop is monitor quality and color calibration. I've understood that macs have always had good, long lasting displays and from my own experience with my iMac, calibrating it is quite simple. This isn't the same for windows pc's, with which I've had bad experiences in terms of display quality.

I'm hoping that some of the more tech savvy artists on here might be able to point me in the right direction for buying a good, artist ready laptop model. So far I've been looking at the T series thinkpad for it's excellent hardware, history of good performance, and large battery life (or so they claim). The only issue is that I've been led to believe the thinkpad will have a poor monitor compared to something like a macbook. Guidance would be appreciated, I'd really rather not dish out $1,700 for a 15" macbook, especially since I already know what OS X has to offer.

(Ahh, sorry guys, I didn't notice how old this thread was)

If I had the money I'd buy Lenovo's X220t, which is a tablet pc. I have HP tm2 tablet pc, but it's got a cheap TN-panel as a screen and the viewing angles are pretty horrible. I do sometimes sketch on it and read books with it on the bed etc, but the viewing angles are a pain. The good news was that it was pretty cheap, but I'd recommend buying a laptop with IPS- or PVA-screen. To my understanding Macbook Pros nowadays have IPS-screen, so in that sense they are a good buy, but you might try to find other IPS-screen laptops. Mind you, Apple also has at some point used cheap TN-panels in their laptops, and even in their iMacs, if I remember correctly, but I guess nowadays they use IPS-panels.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/Lenovo..._Laptop_review

At this point it seems that IPS-paneled laptops are quite hard to find, and they probably cost more than the TN-paneled normal ones. There are IPS-panel displays coming out more and more in the desktop displays but at the moment the trend hasn't yet come to laptops, which is a shame.

Funny, almost a year later I finally buy another computer and it was for totally different reasons.

The problems with my laptop were cured with a new hard drive for $25, but its video card was still too slow, so off I went in search of a new system.

Financial considerations became the deciding factor.

I really wanted a Mac and came sooooo close to purchasing a gently used system, but there was this one issue with Photoshop...it didn't have it.
I would have to purchase it anew for the Mac.

So for a fraction of the cost ($150) I picked up a Windows 7 PC and loaded my Photoshop CS1. It serves its purpose nicely.

Someday Mac, someday...

bd_art, there's no reason to buy mac to do art or to do work, that's just nonsense. You can do art just as easily on Windows as you can on macs. There is pressure at some circles to be using macs, where people are still old-school mac-heads or wanna-be's who have a bit of a superiority complex. I wrote yesterday about my experiences as a former mac-user that might interest you:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...5&postcount=17

Of course you should use which OS makes you feel most at home, but please do realize that having a mac does not make you more of an artist.

[Alice Herring]

Your copy of photoshop MIGHT have been a version too old - but Adobe does allow people to 'upgrade' to the other platform. (Provided you agree to destroy or return the other platform copy, IIRC.) Many program upgrades no longer have to be installed on top of an earlier version; instead, they simply require the license.

As for Mac vs. PC - I switched to a Mac because of continual problems with my cintiq. (This was not an issue with Windows XP - but never managed to fix them in either vista or 7.) It was frustrating to have the settings corrupt and re-calibrate constantly simply because the system goes into a screen saver.

Other individuals have not had this experience with PC's, so who knows.

However, I also intend to eventually purchase Final Cut - which is only available on Macs.

[AlstonA]

Hello all, I've got a burning question.

I have been running Photoshop and a Wacom Intuos 3 on my laptop for some years now. Well lately my laptop of six years is bogging down and the constant battle between my laptop keyboard and Wacom tablet is out of control. The screen is only 15 inches and not the best quality. So it is time to upgrade I think.

So the burning question is as the title says: Mac or PC, which should I buy?

I have long heard the a Mac is the way to go for digital art, is this true? If so, why?

Is a PC acceptable? A selling point for a PC is that I already own Photoshop CS for it. If I go with a pc, should I get a tower or a laptop. Either way I would have dual monitors.

Thanks all

if you plan on playing some high-end games, I would recommend PC, if your planning on creating only graphical images I would recommend Mac

p.s. Mac has software that allows you to use windows software, it's pretty nice, i'm a PC though hope this helps!

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

[tomcat]

Well after reading that....I'm still none the wiser, cannot decide between the two, getting quotes of around a grand for a really well spec'd PC but a new Mac pro desktop is going to be well over 2k, think that will be the deciding factor, shame really as I keep contemplating a Mac....

[philofmars]

If you want no stressful times and have the financial supplies for a mac, get a mac. If you are short on cash and want to play games with more supported software may as well get a PC. Both are good though macs are more stable.
---
PC user - 17 years
Mac user - 6 Years
IT Graduate
non bias

This really is it for me. I work on both. I have never had a problem I could not fix myself on my macs in 15 plus years. The PCs tho, there is always something I have to pay someone to fix.
The PC people will say yes but you can do so much with them and they are so programmable and all that, but that is also why I have trouble, I'd imagine. So at some time I know you will have to learn some dos commands and more about your PC computer than you care to, or pay to fix it.

Other than that, they run the same, I like them equally. It's just the stability/repair I have issue with.

Games are pretty much a nonissue anymore aren't they? With the consoles so powerful, I hate sitting at the desk more than I have to.
I have a mac at home because every one of my ad agency freelance clients uses them. Not one PC in the bunch. Not because they're better at graphics, because they just "push a button and it works".

[joshbailey]

This really is it for me. I work on both. I have never had a problem I could not fix myself on my macs in 15 plus years. The PCs tho, there is always something I have to pay someone to fix.
The PC people will say yes but you can do so much with them and they are so programmable and all that, but that is also why I have trouble, I'd imagine. So at some time I know you will have to learn some dos commands and more about your PC computer than you care to, or pay to fix it.

Other than that, they run the same, I like them equally. It's just the stability/repair I have issue with.

Games are pretty much a nonissue anymore aren't they? With the consoles so powerful, I hate sitting at the desk more than I have to.
I have a mac at home because every one of my ad agency freelance clients uses them. Not one PC in the bunch. Not because they're better at graphics, because they just "push a button and it works".

I agree completely. But saying what you said always angers the apple haters. I guess because it makes sense lol. I work in graphic design and every place I have worked have used macs only. Some quite reputable places too. Billabong, Nixon, Element,Von Zipper to name a few.

[ikken]

Well after reading that....I'm still none the wiser, cannot decide between the two, getting quotes of around a grand for a really well spec'd PC but a new Mac pro desktop is going to be well over 2k, think that will be the deciding factor, shame really as I keep contemplating a Mac....

do you really need a macpro? I'd imagine imac with 16/32 gb of ram (purchased from any recognized vendor other than apple to cut ram costs) will be an awesome deal for 2D artist
unless you plan to do some heavy rendering, macpro is quite excessive imo.