Quick mac vs PC question...

[rob13]

My laptop is in dire need of upgrade, and thus having indulged in the world of DSLR, I am looking to get a beefier system with a better monitor.

Ive looked at the possibility of buying an iMAC and a mini desktop tower setup.

The Mac is leading at the moment, but I have a 1TB external drive full of photos from Lightroom and a lot of pictures on there too.

Would I need to reformat this external drive to use it on the Mac or could I just plug and play?

[Kalessin]

It should work just fine if it's FAT32 formatted. Be aware however, that NTFS-formatted drives will be read-only on a Mac, so will need reformatting to something else. HFS+ or FAT32 will do nicely.

[Bri w]

I'm in a similar position, i.e. looking for another laptop just for the photography. I've been looking at the refurb'd ones on PC Worlds website. Decent spec etc, and still with a 12 mth warranty, not a bad price.

[thedonal]

The MAC will read the drive format fine.

[454697819]

dont do it.. go PC or Laptop... think of the upgrades.. lol

[keithd]

have you tried Dell?

[rob13]

Believe me, I'm no Apple fanboy! I looked at the Iphone and went for the HTC Desire as I didnt want what everyone else had.

However, looking at the Macs, for internet browsing and photo editing, they just seem to appeal.

I dont want a laptop as I want the S-IPS panel for photo editing. I've seen that Dell offer a few options in that department, but need it to be compact. I dont want to go back to a big tower so the mini ones are as large as I would go.

[rob13]

Believe me, I'm no Apple fanboy! I looked at the Iphone and went for the HTC Desire as I didnt want what everyone else had.

However, looking at the Macs, for internet browsing and photo editing, they just seem to appeal.

I dont want a laptop as I want the S-IPS panel for photo editing. I've seen that Dell offer a few options in that department, but need it to be compact. I dont want to go back to a big tower so the mini ones are as large as I would go.

[Jabba]

I have a 21.5" iMac with 1TB HDD. Got it about a month ago (credit card bill in to remind me!). The screen is awesome :-D

No probs reading FAT32 formatted disks/stick-drives/external HDDs whatsoever.

Comes with iLife software pre-installed. This includes iPhoto which is great for cataloguing photos according to data, event, etc and will even catalogue by location if your DSLR stamps its images with GPS data. Just plug your camera into the iMac via USB cable, or stick the SD card into the iMacs slot.

Got mine from Comet for £1150 and it came with a free copy of M$ Office 2008 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Entourage, plus Windows Messenger). Other vendors were selling at this price but didn't have the Office freebie.

I don't regret moving fromPC to iMac one little bit. Boot-up/shut-down times are amazingly quick :-D

[maxinc]

Even if the hard drive is formatted in NTFS there are utilities out there who can write as well as read this type of file system on the Mac.

Probably a good idea to get another External HDD and transfer your data onto a native mac partition for a boost in performance as well as backup. 1TB of data loss can make you regret a long time.

And working with photos seem a lot easier on the Mac (and I used to be a PC for 20+ years).

[Bri w]

Daughter no.2 has a Mac she got for her Design course at Uni. The Uni recommend Mac for graphics etc.

[Viney]

have you tried Dell?i Was thinking the same thing

[beabert]

Have you tried dell?

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00474/delboy_280_474001a.jpg
http://www.starringthecomputer.com/snapshots/only_fools_and_horses_master_compact_1.jpg

[rob13]

I've pretty much decided on a refurbished Mac. No fear about build quality as they are quality checked by Apple and given the same warranty as a new one. The 27" Mac can be had for £1169 which is a stonking price for that size monitor. I didnt initially want such a big screen, but after visiting a friends tonight to see his whopper ;) I couldnt take my eyes off it! The screen alone for a 27" IPS panel from Dell is £899

[rob13]

I've seen this Acer x5900 mini tower, with the following spec:
Processor Intel® Core™ i3 (i3-530, 2.93 GHz, 4MB Cache)
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Edition
Memory 4GB
Hard Drive 1000GB
Optical Drive DVD-RW
Graphics Dedicated (nVidia Geforce G210 Graphics with 512MB DDR2)
https://www.simplyacer.com/Acer_Aspire_X5900_Desktop_PC_693589.html


Compared to the Mac:
Processor Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E7600
- 3.06 GHz
- 1066 MHz FSB
- 3 MB L2 cache
Operating System Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
RAM 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; four SO-DIMM slots support up to 16GB
Graphics card ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
Screen type LCD TFT screen
Screen resolution 2560 x 1440 pixels
Screen size 27"
Screen features LED-backlit glossy widescreen TFT active-matrix liquid crystal display with IPS technology
16:9 aspect ratio
Millions of colours at all resolutions
Typical viewing angle: 178° horizontal; 178° vertical
Typical brightness: 375 cd/m2
Hard drive 1 TB SATA, 7200 rpm


Which will be the better performer for photo editing?

[maxinc]

With Mac is always about the experience & end result. Achieving the same tasks even with half the horse power is waaaaaay easier and more fun on a MAC than on a PC.

I've been doing graphic & web design (and that includes editing photos) for 15+ years on a PC only to discover what an idiot I was for not switching to a MAC earlier.