Mac question

Allright so here are some questions that I have and the mac store people are gonna say mac is best and the dell kiosk says windows is best. So here it goes.

I am going to go to college for digital imaging to do 3d graphics eventually and things of that nature.

Now I am being told that mac is better for that however if mac is better. Than the new macs can run windows so would it still be better if you bought a mac computer and ran mac's os or would it be the same if you bought a mac and ran windows vista on it.

The mac store said that macs os lets things run faster and does not restrict it.

However the dell kiosk guy said that vista is better than xp because it goes as fast as the hardware unlike xp. So it is better than mac.

So now you can see I am all confused. And on top of it the college uses macs for people that don't have computers.

Also if anybody has any recommendations as to what computer I should get please feel free to do so.

Also I am talking about laptops if I forgot to say so in the beginning.
Edited by phrostbite on 06/16/07 08:24 PM (server time).

Welcome to the world of nonsense. The Dell guy has no idea what he's talking about. Today, the Mac and the PC use essentially the same hardware. 3D chips, processors (Intel), hard drives, memory, etc. The advantage of the Mac is, of course, the Mac OS. And they run Windows just great. You can either use Apple's Boot Camp, which lets you boot into an installed Windows XP or Vista and get the same performance as any PC box, or use a virtual machine program, such as Parallels Desktop, to get most of the performance side-by-side with the Mac OS.

Listen to the person at the Mac store.


Peace,
Gene Steinberg
Co-Host, The Paracast
http://www.theparacast.com

Personally I'd base my decision on two things. Exactly what software packages are you going to want to run on your laptop, and what OS will those programs run under. If you're just going to be using Adobe suite, it runs just as well on a Windows as a Mac.

If it turns out that any software you might be using will work on both OSes, I would make my decision best on the best deal I can find. AS a professional photographer I use a mix of applications that will work on both OSes. The only reason I don't have a mac is because I got a lucky.

Regardless of which OS you end up with, make sure you're familiar with a the mac. It's considered the industry standard and a lot of people still stick to it because of that old mind set.

--Matttail
art.googlies.net - personal website

Ah, it's nice to see that salespeople are still salespeople!

First, let me assure you that you won't go wrong either way. There are fine machines to be had in either camp.

A couple of questions seem to me to be relevant and important to answer before you decide:
1. What will you need to do with the machine for school?
2. What machine will the people around you be using?
3. Do you have a budget?
4. What kind of fun stuff do you think you'd like to do with it? games? music/studio work? photography?

In reply to:

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Listen to the person at the Mac store.

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Don't listen to anyone who works in a store. They are "trained" to sell you product, and will not have a clue what is right for you. Call the college and ask them what software you will be expected to use - and consider all the classes you will be taking. Ultimately, I think you will find that either machine will be just fine, and it will come down to things like cost, size, the size and quality of the screen, etc. If you are going to be doing any serious digital graphics work you may want to consider getting a machine with the largest screen you can afford, and perhaps a graphics tablet.

I hope to be using 3d studio max and phtoshop. As for the graphics tablet that's a maybe they didn't say anything about that. They said that the reason they reccomend macs is because they have some contract with apple or something.

I assume most people will be using a mix.

And as for a budget I am considering this an investment and don't have a budget really. I saw a mac book pro for 2700 that looks about right. That's what the mac salesman recomended. And I forgot what the dell salesman recomended.

I also like playing games like counterstrike and warcraft 3 so I guess I need a laptop that can give me the most outta my games.

If your school has a contract with them there's most likely a purchasing program which will get you a mac a lot cheaper than you can on your own. For instance I know that the School of the Art Institute Chicago has a contract with mac, and they require all entering freshman to purchase a mac laptop that comes preloaded with the software you'll need for school. It's cool because they know every student has a good laptop with wireless access and all the software they'll need. The bad part is you have to pay for it out of pocket - the bill for that comes due before you get any grants or loans. They also highly encourage their graduate students to do the same - but as long has you have a high quality laptop of either species they'll let you slide.

Looking into a graphics tablet is a good idea too. Wacom is the only manufacturer of high quality and precision tablets, and a new one will run you between $300 and $500 (depending on size). You get a 3 button mouse and a 2 button pen (with drawing nib and eraser). I bought my tablet through their refurbished program, and it's been working just fine for about a year now. I don't think it's a requirement, but a high quality optical mouse will be - there's no way you can even begin to work with an image on a touch pad.



--Matttail
art.googlies.net - personal website

Ok so I heard completly wrong. They do not have a contract not sure where I got that from

Well, you can still get the Apple educational discount, right?

Yeah if I bring in an acceptence letter they will give me a ipod and a printer also. However does anybody know and good windows based pc's that will work for this or should I get a mac book. I am kinda scared to get a mac since I have never used one before and not all software and games work on a mac.

I don't know about specific models, just look for some good stats. Get a dual core processor at 2 or more ghz, medium-high end graphics card from ATI or Nvidia, absolute minimum 1 GB ram - but you really should be in the 2 -4 GB range, and at least an 80 GB hard drive.

A good setup for gaming on a laptop is one that doesn't share system memory with graphics card memory. I don't know if dell does that or not. I know Alien ware does. Their systems are a lot pricey though, and I don't know if I ever would have bought one retail. One thing I don't like about my Alien Ware laptop though is that it's very heavy and I don't feel like it's a very portable system. It just barley fits down in my backpack and is a pain to lug around.

Don't be afraid of a Mac either. As far as learning the system, it will probably take you a grand total of 30 min. It's the best UI of all the OSes out there, designed to be very easy to use. If you're familiar with working on the command line through DH, you'll find a terminal and similar functionality with Mac now that their OS is based off of the Linux kernel.

I would also get an extended warranty on any laptop you buy - to three years. There's lots of parts that can fail, and unlike a desktop computer you often can't just pop it open and replace the part. Most replacements must come directly from the manufacturer and at a hefty price too.



--Matttail
art.googlies.net - personal website

In reply to:

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I hope to be using 3d studio max and phtoshop.

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Unfortunately, 3D Studio Max is not available for OS X. If you decide to go with the Mac you will need to run it under Windows (via Boot Camp or Parallels).

Mark