Laptop vs PC

paddytehpyro

Dell are quite good. The ability to customise virtually everything means you get roughly what you want.

For £1000 you are spoilt for choice really. And you can buy in to some of the latest technology (e.g. quad core proccessors) and have plenty of possibilities for upgrades in a few years time.

student100

Laptops also have the advantages of built-in UPS (i.e. a battery) and taking up much less desk space... possibly lower power consumption too.

Personally I'd go for laptop plus external monitor, keyboard and mouse for ultimate flexibility.

Leopard

Marty_J wrote: »

If your monitor is still working, you could get yourself a Mac Mini. Prices start at £399 and go up from there, depending on the spec you choose.

The problem with a Mac mini is that it can only support 2GB of RAM. In a year or two that will become insufficient.

Mac OS (10.5.4) running on an Intel Mac will already get well into 3GB on even simple tasks if it finds that much available.

To future-proof yourself even modestly, you really need a Mac that can support at least 4GB of RAM.

For that reason alone, a recent-generation MacBook is a wiser buy than a Mac mini. It's powerful, eminently portable and it can run an external monitor in extended desktop mode when parked. Connect one to a 23" display and you have two screens with a lot of space.

I won't get into the endless Mac v PC debate. Suffice it to say that, personally, if given the choice, I'd pick a Mac every time. What I would recommend is that before parting with any money on a PC, you try out a Mac and see if it suits you better. Don't be bullied by other people's prejudices; find what's right for you.

totalsolutions

Hi If you dont have a laptop it can be great fun... but fix the slow desktop though. Fast and cheap don't go together now do they? For photoshop even the basic high end laptop will be ok, 1gb ram and duo processors. Depending on how much software you have I might be tempted for a mac, there look great in the Apple store in London. No need for You to spend £1K for your requirements on a desktop
Packages just throw in the *rap you would not buy seperately

Hintza

Unless you are a total gaming freak then +/-£500 (ex monitor) will be more than enough.

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/vostro-deal-comparison/

jaydeeuk1

Just my 2 cents, unless you have some kind of profession that requires the latest kit, you'd be mad to spend £1000 on a PC. £500 should easily get you a quad core, 1TB hard drive, 4gb ram and a decent graphics card. Even then, you'd have enough cash left over for a nice laptop and a 24" monitor if you really wanted!

Idiophreak

Leopard wrote: »

The problem with a Mac mini is that it can only support 2GB of RAM. In a year or two that will become insufficient.

Not overly convinced by that - firstly...what's going to change in a year or two? The only real reason you'd suddenly leap up in ram usage like that is if you change software and / or OS - and if the user's needs don't change in the meantime, there's no real reason for them to change this...

Secondly, Vista and most "current gen" OS's will work OK with 1gb of ram (albeit justabout) - 2gb ram has them working quite well...Not going to have anything about in the next couple of years that's going to require more than 2gb...

Interesting that the Mac Mini only supports 2gb though...(incidentally, I'm not defending the Mac here - I would never advocate buying an Apple product - just the principle )

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

The problem with a Mac mini is that it can only support 2GB of RAM. In a year or two that will become insufficient.

Mac OS (10.5.4) running on an Intel Mac will already get well into 3GB on even simple tasks if it finds that much available.

To future-proof yourself even modestly, you really need a Mac that can support at least 4GB of RAM.

For that reason alone, a recent-generation MacBook is a wiser buy than a Mac mini. It's powerful, eminently portable and it can run an external monitor in extended desktop mode when parked. Connect one to a 23" display and you have two screens with a lot of space.

I won't get into the endless Mac v PC debate. Suffice it to say that, personally, if given the choice, I'd pick a Mac every time. What I would recommend is that before parting with any money on a PC, you try out a Mac and see if it suits you better. Don't be bullied by other people's prejudices; find what's right for you.

I'd be a bit sceptical about that. For instance, the latest version of Microsoft Office for Mac requires 512 MB of RAM (the student edition only requires 256 MB). The latest version of iPhoto requires a minimum of 512 MB of RAM. I had a computer about 7 or 8 years ago with 512 MB of RAM, and it's still the recommended minimum for a lot of things. I find it hard to imagine that 2 GB will not be more than enough for performing simple tasks for several years to come. The OP hasn't indicated that they will be performing any particularly intensive tasks with their new computer.

I guess I should have mentioned the MacBook though. If the OP would rather have a laptop and doesn't mind paying more, it might be a good choice. I guess they did indicate a desire to "future-proof" their computer, although when it comes to computers, that's always a losing battle. My advice would be to get the best you can afford, and enjoy it while you can.

And I agree that people should looking into buying a Mac when computer shopping; ignorance is no basis for making decisions.

Millionaire

Leopard wrote: »

The problem with a Mac mini is that it can only support 2GB of RAM. In a year or two that will become insufficient.

Mac OS (10.5.4) running on an Intel Mac will already get well into 3GB on even simple tasks if it finds that much available.

To future-proof yourself even modestly, you really need a Mac that can support at least 4GB of RAM.

You dont need 3gb to run Mac OS X Leopard.. I have it running on 1GB without a glitch. In actual fact it barely uses 600-700mb Ram for basic tasks.

2GB is more than enough for a few more years.

A family member has a Pentium 3, 1ghz, 512mb ram 7 year old laptop running XP SP3 perfectly fine for basic tasks like internet, email, music.

Leopard

It's certainly possible to run Mac OS 10.5.4 on 1GB of RAM.

It's also possible to drive a car from Land's End to John O'Groats using only first gear.

What it boils down to is how agreeable or otherwise the experience is.

If you've never tried changing up to a higher gear than first, you will be unaware of just how much your pleasure can be enhanced by doing so.

So it is, with adding RAM to a Mac. if you've never tried running Mac OS 10.5 with 4 GB of RAM you don't know what you're missing.

Before buying my first Intel Mac last year, I did a lot of research into the whole issue of how much RAM it would be best to run and how much improvement would also be gained by installing a 7,200 rpm (SATA) hard drive instead of a 5,400 rpm (SATA) drive.

It was * THIS * table of benchmark test results, carried out by Other World Computing in Woodstock, Illinois, that most persuaded me to buy a 2.2 GHz 15" MacBook Pro (which can run 4 GB of RAM) instead of the previous 2.16 GHz model (which can address only 3 GB).

I found this table very interesting - not least in identifying the relative merits between installing more RAM as opposed to faster harder drives.

In the end, I went one better than a 2.2 and treated myself to a 2.4 GHZ 15" MacBook Pro, put 4GB of RAM into it and gave it a 200 GB, 7,200 rpm hard-drive. :EasterBun

Recently, however, I acquired a second, identical MacBook Pro and until I upgrade it (soon!) this has the standard spec of 2 GB of RAM and a 5,400 rpm hard drive.

So, I have been able to compare the two of them directly and side by side. The one with 4 GB of RAM is noticeably faster and its fan seldom runs. The one with 2 GB of RAM is slower and busier.

It bears out exactly what the table shows.

On the first (Photoshop CS3) task, compared to 1 GB of RAM, having 2 GB is 5.1% faster, whereas having 3 GB is 33.8% faster and having 4 GB is 35.2% faster.

On the second (Stress Test) task, compared to 1 GB of RAM, having 2 GB is 4.8% faster, whereas having 3 GB is 25.4% faster and having 4 GB is 26.6% faster.

On the third (RAM hog) task, compared to 1 GB of RAM, having 2 GB is 44.6%% faster, whereas having 3 GB is 68.0% faster and having 4 GB is 83.2% faster.

On the fourth (Halo) task, the differences are insignificant - but this task is designed essentially to compare video card performances between models.

On the final (XBench) task, the differences are also insignificant - but this task is designed essentially to compare CPU performances between models.

So, in point of fact - and in total contradiction of Millionaire's assertion that I was wrong and that there's no point in upgrading from 2 GB of 3 GB of RAM - it's currently the step up from 2GB to 3GB of RAM that gives the most spectacular improvement in performance.

That does not surprise me. I'm writing this on my 2.4 GHz ProBook with 4 GB of RAM: I'm using just the operating system (OS 10.5.4) and Safari browser (with about ten pages loaded), in the background are only NetNewWire and Mail, Time Machine and Dot Mac synch run occasionally; yet Activity Monitor tells me that 1.87 of my RAM is being used - 2.13 is free. If I load Word and Excel these will use up most of another GB and I'll very easily get into the fourth GB of RAM if I load Photoshop.

Now, all of this could be done on 2 GB of RAM (on my other Mac), or perhaps even on 1 GB, but everything would a lot slower, Virtual Memory would be strenuously at work, the hard drive would be busy, things would be getting hot and the fan would be noisily at work.

As it is, with 4 GB of RAM, everything happens fast, Virtual Memory is inactive, the hard drive is powered down, little heat is being generated and the fan almost never runs.

For the price of two 2 GB sticks of Kingston RAM - less than £70 including shipping - I certainly think it's worth it. (It's cheaper still if you buy RAM from Crucial and get a 7% Quidco discount on it, as well - but my Macs frequently work hard, so I don't begrudge them Kingston RAM to do it with).

Modern operating systems are very clever and can adapt to however much RAM they find to use. I'm not saying you should put 32 GB of RAM into a Mac Pro tower if all you're using it for is to write the occasional letter, but a laptop will always perform better if you max its RAM.

Eventually, my Macs will be replaced. Barring any accidents this will be when they can no longer cut the mustard with new, more sophisticated and more demanding operating systems and applications. As they get older they will need every bit of RAM that they can address, just to survive. So, my attitude is that if they're eventually going to need the maximum complement of RAM that they can address anyway, why not install it now and derive the full benefit of it for as long as possible?

I have applied this philosophy to every Mac laptop I have ever had, and it has always proved to be the wisest, most rewarding and, ultimately, the most economic strategy to adopt.

Spending £70 (or less) to max the RAM on a £1,600 investment in a laptop seems a pretty sensible idea, to me.