MacBook or Laptop?

Justin_Scotland

almillar wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand what Justin_Scotland means about Windows programs running in slower compatibility mode but I'm pretty sure it's wrong.

It may have come from my misunderstanding of a photographer friends comments the other day when we were discussing Adobe Photoshop CS2. I had upgraded to CS3 and he was using a windows version of CS2 on his Macbook Pro and had mentioned that he found the performance not to be as good as he was running in virtualised mode. Now I assumed he meant the performance between PC and Mac running the same software however with hindsight it might just have meant that the performance between a Mac running CS2 windows version and a Mac running CS2 OS-X version is quite different.

The following link has a useful comparison of virtualisation solutions and there comparison to a base PC performance.

http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.24/24.02/VirtualizationBenchmark/

and this link shows the difference between using OS-X and windows versions of software on a Mac under virtualisation and under native OS-X

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9760910-1.html

converse

Justin_Scotland wrote: »

It may have come from my misunderstanding of a photographer friends comments the other day when we were discussing Adobe Photoshop CS2. I had upgraded to CS3 and he was using a windows version of CS2 on his Macbook Pro and had mentioned that he found the performance not to be as good as he was running in virtualised mode. Now I assumed he meant the performance between PC and Mac running the same software however with hindsight it might just have meant that the performance between a Mac running CS2 windows version and a Mac running CS2 OS-X version is quite different.

CS3 will run faster on a new Intel based Mac than CS2 because CS2 is effectively running PowerPC code in emulation via Rosetta on the Intel chip whereas CS3 has been rewritten to be native on the Intel chips, actually it's a universal binary which will run on Intel and older PPC based Macs.

converse

Another professional here using both platforms. I run a variety of OSes on a variety of platforms for development.

Seems to be quite a lot of barracking on this thread, but I think isofa's and toastman's comments are the best and most accurate, and both state the facts well.

There is nothing wrong with bring up the comparisons with the macBook Pro, especially to demonstrate the speed running Windows - really don't see the problem Garz has - its not irrelevant to the thread at all. It's showing the options available and what is possible.

Someone else mentioned "You will get slightly more bang for your buck with a Laptop. Nothing else is relevant. I'd buy a notebook". This is a misnomer, there are some important factors to consider. The Mac will be able to run both Mac and Windows software and operating systems (if required) + Linux too, the pc will be able to run Windows, Linux etc, but not Mac OS, so if you are looking for that the Mac is clearly a very relevant option. And if you are a standard home/offie user, it's unlikely you'll have ever delved into the Linux world.

If you are going to deviate from the base spec, up the hard disk by all means, but upgrade the RAM yourself, it's easy, especially if you buy from a good third party supplier such as www.crucial.com/uk where it'll be 50% to 75% cheaper than buying from Apple.

isofa

1canshortofasixpack wrote: »

<snip> just last week when screen cracked, £365 to fix but have sourced a place in london that will do it while i wait with genuine parts for 250 + vat still a big ouch but better. I am 23 days out of warranty and yes i should have gone for the extended warranty, we live and learn.

Have to spoken to Apple or the store you brought it from, as it's only just gone out of warranty, they may look after you and help you out - in 75% of cases they do, especially if you are a "valued customer" (easy to come across as that!). Hope you get it sorted!

lasvegaschris

to throw in my two cents regarding speed of the mac...

i bought a macbook on saturday for the first time (after owning two terribly slow pc's/laptops) and started to transfer my files across. i had around 1,200 songs on my desktop pc - i transferred these onto a portable hard drive, and then onto the macbook.

It took around 20 minutes to put 1,200 songs from a PC onto a portable hard drive. But i plugged the drive into the mac book and it took all of 2 minutes MAX to get every songs across without a glitch.

The internet browser Safari has just launched a new version today which ive downloaded and so far it is stunning.

I could go on and on but it appears I'm a little late joining onto this thread, so ill crawl back from the hole I came from lol.

chaddy7604

Don't ever crawl back into your hole

I've been singing the praise of the Mac for a long time, convinced a friend in work to get one, he's seriously into photography, he finally treated himself to a macbook too last week, he absolutely loves it, says he can't believe how easy it is to do anything compared to the pc

Bob63

Another Apple Fanboy/Fangirl. Welcome!

Safari 4 beta is very nice. It broke some of my software when I installed it so unfortunately I'm backing it out and reinstalling regular Safari but what I saw was superb. I look forward to the final release.

M4RKM

no internal OPTICAL drive you mean... a computer needs to have something to store the OS on...