To Mac or not to Mac?

Har44

Hi all,

Flying to UK at the weekend and have options of good price in duty free for Apple Mac Pro 2.4. Want laptop to replace PC, mostly general stuff including college work (which is currently on microsoft office), i-tunes, online poker but also would like to start using laptop for editing photos and for creating dvds from Sony Camcorder. Mac converts I know (x3) are saying that Mac is the only way to go...but the other option I would have in the shop would be a good Sony laptop.

Any opinions or pitfalls in going with the Mac.

many thanks

richieg

Go for it
I had a ibook, moved to macbook and will never go back

keefg

Har44 wrote: »

creating dvds from Sony Camcorder.

I would suggest you make sure your Sony Camcorder is compatible with a Mac first, I had problems with one of my Sony's when I first bought my Mac (I could not import the footage).

TBH, I am a recent convert to a Macbook Pro and while it is a nice machine I am not convinced it is worth the money I spent on it.

Despite the hype about "Everything just works on a Mac", in my experience that's not entirely true. I do a LOT of video editing (I bought a Mac so I could switch to using Final Cut) and I've had problems with a few different video file formats not playing on my MBP and I have had to edit them on my 10 year old PC.

The iPhoto program is pretty poor, you need to upgrade to Apples "proper" photo software if you want to do any decent photoshop work. The iWeb program as it is very restrictive if you don't have a Mac Mobileme account, there are a number of functions that you would want to use on a website (RSS feeds etc) that will not work if you want to use a server other than the Mobileme service.

This, by the way is the iLife 08 program I am talking about, from what I have seen of iLife 09 they have added a few more gimmicks here and there but nothing worth shouting about.

I don't like iMail, it works fine but I just have a personal preference of MS Outlook (probably because I am more used to it).

Safari is not great either for some reason I can't play certain types of flash video files even though I have the player installed, install Firefox (which plays everything) or another browser .

On the up side, iMovie & iDVD are pretty cool. Perfect for quick edits (as long as the file format is OK).

With the exception of certain types of video cameras as I have mentioned, I have had no problems with any other external devices. All my hard drives, printers etc work fine when they are connected.

The wireless airport function works well (so far anyway).

The MBP looks great and very professional, I always get a good response from people when I am working somewhere and I take a nice silver MBP out of my bag instead of a "normal" laptop.

Like I said, they are a nice machine but as I have found, full of gimmicky stuff that I don't use (Garage Band for example). Before you spend that much money on a Mac I would suggest you weigh up other (cheaper) options.

Even though I had a lot of problems on my old laptop (which I think was more to do with having an old crappy laptop than anything else) when the time comes for me to buy a new laptop I certainly won't just order a new Mac without seeing what else is available now that I know for myself what Macs are like. I'm not saying I won't buy another Mac, just that I will know at lot more next time I purchase now I have used both types of machine.

Soundman

Har44 wrote: »

Hi all,

Flying to UK at the weekend and have options of good price in duty free for Apple Mac Pro 2.4. Want laptop to replace PC, mostly general stuff including college work (which is currently on microsoft office), i-tunes, online poker but also would like to start using laptop for editing photos and for creating dvds from Sony Camcorder. Mac converts I know (x3) are saying that Mac is the only way to go...but the other option I would have in the shop would be a good Sony laptop.

Any opinions or pitfalls in going with the Mac.

many thanks

Is the price you are looking at the Duty Free Price? Presuming it is still the case that you can't avail of the Duty Free prices flying between Ireland and UK.

sexpot

Definitely go for the Mac. Just got my one back (had a dead pixel, make sure yuo ask to see it on before buying). Its the best purchase I've made so far. Its so much easier to use and organise stuff on. Do it, you won't regret it.