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 (nobody)...and 346 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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So apparently I'm required to get a laptop for my major, and I don't know if I should get a Mac or a PC. I like the look of those new ibooks and i hear they are good for music production, but I'm already familiar with PC and I have tons of software for it vs. no software for macs. As far as school stuff is concerned, I'll be doing mostly graphics type applications.. So which would be the best bet? |
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*ducks* |
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flip a coin. |
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my wife does graphic design, digital imaging, web design stuff and she uses mac. it crashes a lot but she says it's better than PC for what she does. one huge problem with her mac is that if she ever needs to buy software or periferals, they are crazy expensive. PC stuff is easy to get for free depending on how unscrupulous you are. it's also much easier/cheaper to upgrade your machine if it becomes outdated. if you are a starving student, the affordability of the PC probably outweighs any advantages you will get from the MAC. If money is no issue, or you have access to cheap or free software, you probalby should go with mac. |
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"PC stuff is easy to get for free depending on how unscrupulous you are" so is mac warez(i presume that is what you are talking about), you just have to look in the right places. |
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Dell Laptop 'Nuff said |
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yeah, but "the right places" are everywhere regarding PC. but yo, i got no experience hacking mac stuff so... yo.. tonyfish, my friend had some problems with his dell laptops sound card and it not being 100% full duplex. do you know a work around? or are some of the dells full duplex? |
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"the right places" are everywhere regarding PC that's true, but probably cos most people use pcs ;) |
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PC is the choice for freedom! |
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if price was of absolutely zero importance to me i'd prolly get a . but, in the real world, i'd prolly shop around for a nice PC laptop, simply because i'd be able to get more machine for my money. |
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pc laptop |
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mac for sure, give me your post and and you will recive all the softies that a graphic design student shall need... end |
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macs are wonderful. |
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word. |
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doing visual stuff? Mac. |
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i use an i-book (and did use pc & will never again) and for sure if you want a computer to do something than "computoring" choose mac. you have to know that the clock speed of a mac is always less high than the one of a pc but so efficient. the new i-book are only 1500¤, G4 1Ghz, 14", DVD,CDRW... for the softwares with p2p no problem if you are "unscrupulous" evolume wrote: "it's also much easier/cheaper to upgrade your machine if it becomes outdated" how do you upgrade a laptop? definitely mac, don't make the mistake i made 3 years ago because i believed a mac 300 Mhz was less efficient than a 500 Mhz Pc, when i look now to my old pc (hardly workin) and the i-book my girlfriend bought at the same time (never a problem) i still regret it. |
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my friend bought one a week ago i had to put plastic over to stop my drool fckin it up |
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..but mac prices are insane. |
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I'm getting the new iBook G4 12". Can't wait! This is the first new machine I've bought since this here iMac 233MHz which still works perfectly and has never had a hard disk crash in almost FIVE years. And NO, the new iBook's prices are not insane. More expensive than PCs yes, but no way are the prices insane. Another thing to think about is, with most PC laptops when the battery dies you can't use it again until you've FULLY recharged it. Whereas with the Mac you just plug it in and can use it again straight away. If you know everything about PCs and how their "operating" system works and like spending hours (sometimes days) every now and again trying to fix some bug that's fucking everything up, get a PC. If you don't want aggro, get a Mac. |
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oh and iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD etc etc which all come free... OS X Panther is tops as well :-D You get Soundstudio free with the iBook too. www.apple.com/ibook or www.apple.com/uk/ibook Check it out, go on, you know you want to |
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"Another thing to think about is, with most PC laptops when the battery dies you can't use it again until you've FULLY recharged it. Whereas with the Mac you just plug it in and can use it again straight away." Hmm, I've never experienced or heard of that problem, despite having used half a dozen PC laptops... I think the huge availability (IE, ease of getting it, one way or another) of PC hardware/software far outweighs the few advantages of a mac. People's opinion of pcs seem stuck about 3 years back... Now you can get "pretty" PC laptops and with Windows XP or Windows 2000 they very rarely crash. Unless you want to do music in a live situation where low latency and reliability are paramount, I'd go for a PC myself. Specifically a Sony Vaio- more expensive than most laptops, but still less than equivalent mac models. Oh and I'll be quite frank, I think at least some mac users (this isn't directed at you patrik) are aesthetes who are swayed quite considerably in their chocie by the look/image of the mac hardware/software rather than the practicalites of its uses as a "tool", which is what computers ultimately are. NB: I have a mac powerbook as my "portable machine"at the moment, so I'm not entirely anti-mac! |
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"Oh and I'll be quite frank, I think at least some mac users (this isn't directed at you patrik) are aesthetes who are swayed quite considerably in their chocie by the look/image of the mac hardware/software rather than the practicalites of its uses as a "tool", which is what computers ultimately are." i think thats just a lame PC'ers argument. Just because it looks cool, doesnt mean that automatically everyone who uses it, is biased, because the image is so intensely dominant or something. i know thats not what you said exactly... but I think you need to give people more credit. I think thats an unfair theory. What I think should be pointed out, is that most mac users, where at one point, PC users. And a huge percentage of these people, (myself included) would never go back to PC. I dont know how many of you guys started on macs, and switched to PCs... |
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The laptop that wouldn't let you turn it on until fully recharged was an Acer Travelmate 300 (not sure about the number). A friend of mine bought it a month ago. |
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I was never a PC user. But probably only because I was two when my Dad got the Mac 128k including ImageWriter (which still works!! at a beautiful 72dpi) for a whopping £4,500. Now THAT's expensive! |
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Like I said, "at least some" are... My point was that I believe at least some are largely influenced by the appearence of them and I hinted (by my wording) that it is perhaps some small influence on all mac users decision. I feel it unfair to deny this is true, I have seen people who know *nothing at all* about computers, go and "ooh and ah" at the Macs and not even look at the comparatively ugly PCs. I know that at least some (2 I know) of these people then buy them, based largely on this initial "wow factor" of the nice case. Of course almost all mac users are swayed at least some small amount by the appearence- if there were two identical (in terms of functionality) machines, with the same price tag be they cars, computers, games consoles, etc. the vast majority of people would choose what is generally considered the more popular of the two. Also, to counter your argument of experience, two out of about four die hard mac users I know in real life have never owned a pc or really got to grips with one, despite using one occassionally at work for word processing etc. As I said, I own a mac myself- I'm not a PC diehard, they (pcs) have their flaws, I'm just ultimately pragmatic and I don't believe that (unless you have a fair bit of money spare) macs are worth the extra cost based purely on their functionality. One last swipe- I know someone who started out with a mac, swore PCs were gash (without ever really experiencing them), who has now bought a PC laptop and would now never go back to Macs as the difficulty in getting comparatively specialist programs like autocad pirated for them is too great. |
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Ah right! Just to reassure everyone, it's not a common problem on all PC laptops :) |
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* the more popular (in appearence) of the two. EG Skodas are actually really good cars nowadays, sort of budget Volkswagens... but people still see the image and quite ugly bodywork and instead opt for a comparable (or even slightly worse in terms of reliability, fuel economy, etc.) car with better looks or image. I know that is an example of cars, but the same mentality applies to a lot of computer users. Nowadays, many computer users are "normal people" with little or no interest in computing as such. They just want to be able to browse the net and word process and maybe play a DVD. These are the same people who know little about the practicalites and approach buying a machine with the same mentality as buying a car. |
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Well I never tire of my blazingly fast, high rez, dell inspiron. never had a problem with it. |
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Get a Mac running OS X and run virtual PC with Windows XP on top of it. There you go, both bases covered. Want to go real crazy? Run Mac-on-Linux, then run the virtual PC over that! (I don't know if that actually works, but I want to try it once I upgrade Cubase to the OS X version which is the only thing keeping me from upgrading to X.) OS9 crashes just as much as Windows, but I like the interface and feature layout a lot better. From what I understand OS X crashes very little because it is based on Unix. |
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Cripes not this again lol. Just fucking buy what you want. Take it from the Ex computer salesman. Its all the same shit just a different pile : ) |
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I personally like windows. It's pretty brain dead and is most friendly for videogames. |
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yeah, they're all the same. they're both computers remember :P this arguement has been done to death. i love hearing stories from mac user tho, mostly involving a gorilla leaping from the screen and punching them in the face while whiping there work mind you! haha. |
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Sorry, I stumbled on this and couldn't resist posting it: |
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well macs aren't gaming machines |
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and a lot of good musicians prefer mac's, I think Bjork wrote a lot of Vespertine on a mac. |
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You a fan of the Northern Lights trilogy or is your username based on the more historic Pantalaimon (or perhaps even Jung's "spirit guide")? I know macs aren't gaming machines, my last post was entirely tongue in cheek :) |
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the trilogy is His Dark Materials, the first book is Northern Light :) excelent books... you read them? |
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Yep! Just gonna start the second one soon. |
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All you socialists buying all these expensive macs. Who said you don't have any money? |
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I think they'd probably appeal to socialists more on the grounds of it not being "M$oft", rather than the price... |
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Thank you everyone for your input.. I wasn't trying to start another mac vs. PC argument, I just needed some help with my purchase. I know PCs are easier for games, but I've already got a buff ass tower PC for all my gaming needs, the laptop is solely for development purposes, but I would probably be using it for music needs as well. I guess I should say as well that money is a factor, being that I don't have a lot of it. Since I've already got so much software for PC, I'll probably just get a PC laptop, but I haven't ruled out getting a mac yet. |
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as a digital arts major, i chose a powerbook g4. hasn't crashed yet. go mac. |
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I like working on a mac better than on a PC for my graphics stuff. I think the mac still has a slight edge there. |
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It doesn't matter as far as music production which one you get. If you enjoy using Logic, go Mac, since it isn't supported. Or Max, or the many other tools only offered on the Mac system PC users have just as many toys if you know where to look You can install FreeBSD on your PC and be able to use pretty much all the "just for mac" software that is for OSX, including the desktop environment. It just takes a lot of work and if you don't know linux/unix you'll have a big learning curve. I bought a PC laptop, and IBM T40 to be exact. The build quality is as solid as the mac laptops, but the price is up there If money is a factor go check out the Centrino based Compaq X1000 series, they have been getting very good reviews at the tech sites I respect, and save some money to get a good portable sound card or PCMIA because onboard sound simply will not suffice for any music related activities |
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Uh.... you're completely wrong. There is no way in FUCK you can: - Run Aqua on FreeBSD. It's closed source. - Run Aqua apps on FreeBSD. - Run PPC compiled binaries on x86 hardware. OS X apps run on OS X. That's it. FreeBSD apps can be compiled to run under OS X in most cases, though, so perhaps you're getting confused there. Mac laptops /rule/. You won't regret it. And the thing about macs is that they just work; there's no fucking around, there's no viruses, there's no Windows fucking itself over; it just works, no problems. Plug in a camera, plug in your audio shit, plug it into a network, it just works. Can't say the same for Windows, although XP/2K made it far better. |
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Oh, and another nice thing about macs is that their onboard sound totally rules. External sound cards (USB I'm talking) are shit for any hardcore audio stuff because their latency is absolutely awful, so I can't see why you would justify needing one. I didn't think there were that many decent PCMCIA sound cards around these days, either. Mac laptops aren't expensive these days, either, considering - iBooks are quite decently priced. |
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*unleashes the mac viruses* fools! |
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My bad on the Mac thing, I was thinking the third party programs that aren't offered as a PC equivilant and most of them aren't specifically for Aqua The Mac onboard is definitly heads and shoulders above anything else, but I'd still recommend an external or PCMIA for anything serious for music Echo just released a great PCMIA card called the Indigo in two new versions, one with input and output and one with dual stereo outputs, so depending on whether you want to DJ or record The external USB cards have fine latency, the USB strean is good enough to handle 4 channels, or 2 stereo outputs comfortably, but anything over that and it runs into problems. The Quattro from MAudio was what I was using, but it got really hot when I used it, otherwise it was perfect. The latency needed some tweaking, but once it settled down it was as fast as my desktop system. Creative Labs just released a USB 2.0 version of their flagship Audigy which actually got good reviews, although I still distrust them personally. There's also a cheap (400$) Firewire interface out now by M-Audio which should have no latency issues, although firewire isn't standards on PC laptops, it's perfect for the mac |
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Heh, nice, last time I'd heard of PCMCIA audio was years and years ago. Many PCMCIA audio cards for OS X? |
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firewire is generally standard fare on all pc and mac laptops i thin |
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