design geeks, i implore you!

[iroc409]

trying to make the decision between mac and pc. partly because of the whole microsoft issue, and partly because i need a very damanding mobile environment.


is there anyone here that does design with a laptop? i'm looking at the powerbook 15" or 17" vs a top-end ibm or dell laptop. it's becoming a very difficult decision.

i don't really want to carry around 2 laptops, and the pc would definitely not require that. i have dependencies on a few pc-based programs. but, the mac has really nice screens, with fairly decent speed comparisons, etc.

i really can't decide. the mac's are a little more expensive, so that kinda hinders things as well. plus, i know very little about the mac platform.

anyone who might do this for a living, i'd appreciate your insight. i'm really leaning towards the pc, but the mac just seems like "a good idea". i dunno. it's making things _very_ difficult.

[airspirit]

Don't get a Mac. For all the bruhaha about ease of use and the neatness factor, they are basically just candy coated PCs that don't run as fast under most circumstances, cost a shizload more, and don't have the software library that IBM PCs have.

Buy a Dell or something. You'll be glad you did. Besides, the 17" Powerbooks are shattering screens right now due to faulty workmanship and Apple isn't replacing them via warranty. I know I could use a multithousand dollar paperweight; couldn't you?

EDIT: Let me clarify something. With a Mac, you are basically buying one of the greatest marketing jobs in history. With a PC, you are buying a computer. While Mac whores would argue otherwise, 99% of them are using Macs for one of the following reasons: they are considered trendy, they have always used Macs, or they got it as a gift. It is rare to find people that use them for serious work, though in some cases such as graphics design this is the case ... though PCs have outdone them in that field as well. Don't waste your money on a damn Mac.

[iroc409]

yeah, i'm pretty much thinking the same way, but i have relatives, a couple of friends and some professional associates that are pushing really hard.

didn't know about the monitor breakage thing, that's a definite turn-off. so far most of the mac folks haven't given me a cut-and-dried end-all argument that really makes it difinitive. mostly it's just "we're too inept to make a pc function". a mac may be easy to use, but the pc is second nature to me anyways, so that's not an issue.

right now i'm looking at basically 4 machines. the ibm g40, t40, dell inspiron 600m and 8500.

the g40 is pretty damn cheap, and has some nice features. a p4 3.06 for $1800, with a 15" display. it's a little bulky though. same with the 8500, and it only has a 2.5ghz p4, but still might be the better deal.

the t40 and 600m are both pretty impressive. 14" display, 1.6ghz p4M, etc. and only 1" thick.

i don't know much about this M processor though. they say it's faster than a same-speed p4, but i was hoping to be above the 2ghz range, that's why the g40 seems like a nice unit.


i'm still not sure about the whole design thing, but i'm sure that it's more than doable on a nice laptop like one of these. i've got a friend that's a student in architecture, going to have him bring over his fairly recent dell, and try out photoshop, just to see how it handles. i think that will be the best test, especially if that be the machine i buy anyways.

thanks for the heads-up on the apple screens though. it only really confirms everything i've been telling myself. mac users can't come up with a reasonable argument, but pc users can easily create appropriate persuasion. if nothing else, mac users aren't very good sales folks

[pHaestus]

For the most part, OSX and its updates give you the stability of Unix with all the slickness and eyecandy of a Mac. What's the problem with that? I have played around with my friend's 15" powerbook a fair amount, and never noticed anything that would be a dealbreaker for using it. I DO have about $3k worth of technical apps that are win32 only that are integral to my job, so I am not at all tempted to switch. I would run into the same problem using Linux as well. I am a chemist though and not in graphic design.

I find OSX much more familiar and intuitive than Linux, and the ability to continue to use MS office in OSX is also quite compelling (none of the linux office apps have wowed me). They just don't do what I need at this time (and they are more expensive, and the new centrino notebooks are such a step forward).

Look at the IBM thinkpad t40 for a work notebook. I absolutely love my T30, and the T40 more than doubles the battery life in the same package.

[Zhentar]

I have a T30 too, and love it. It looks a little plain, but its a great laptop.

I would also recommend the T40 over the G40- the pentuim Mobiles are suprisingly powerful for their low power draw, and it will easily beat out 2+ Ghz Pentium 4 mobiles. With a reasonable weight and over 5 hours of battery life... its quite a system.

[JSimmons]

I've heard that Wine compiles on the mac. That would allow you to run a good number of windows apps on the mac.

I've got a co-worker that has a Mac laptop (15-inch screen), and he absolutely loves it (he switched over to it from PC's).

I've been in the PC biz for 20 years, and I would like to have the dekstop version, but the wife would never let that happen. Of course, I am one of those people who think Microsoft has all but tuined the PC industry, and would dearly love to see them put in their place (not out of business, just taken down a bunch of notches). I wish Apple would do OSX for the PC.

[GTA]

Go with what you're used to using.

If you've been using Winblows all your life, then you won't find anything on a Mac that you can't find on an IBM style OS.

And besides, however good OSX is, you will have to get used to it before you can whip through menus with the speed you're used to on a PC.

[pHaestus]

If you are running wine or virtual PC then you should just get a PC and be done with it.

[airspirit]

Wine and its variants are why it is getting easier for people to swap between Windows and Linux, not to mention the dual booting possibilities. I'm using Crossover Office/Plugin on Mandrake 9.1, and I have Office XP installed and running almost perfectly in Linux. I also can jump into a game of WC3 if I'm feeling bored. It's only if I need specific Win apps that I'm too lazy to configure in Wine that I'll reboot (takes all of 20 seconds due to the new silicon) into XP.

The difference between a Mac and a Linux box is that a Mac can't just reboot into Windows if you need it. If there is a Win app you need to run and you only have a Mac, odds are you're fscked.

[pHaestus]

But if I have to reboot to windows for some things then I really might as well run windows and skip the linux learning curve altogether. Why ADD complexity and a steep learning curve to my daily work routine (and then end up using win2k anyway in the end)?

[beav]

What kind of windows app would you need that a mac doesn't have for the average person? You have your web browser, chat, file transfer apps, productivity, and creative design apps....

It's definately not a candy coated pc. Far from it. And i don't konw many people who use wine...nor find the necessity to use it.

If you were going to go with a mac laptop, wait just a bit, as the new 15" pbooks should be out (the current 15" pbooks are still titanium and not aluminum) thus reducing the price of the old models.

The 17" isn't worth buying. It's waaaay too big. I haven't heard very many complaints of the screen shatering. They dont' randomly break. The users probably drop them or smash the screen becaue it's so fricking big.

I personally have a 15" TiBook. I love it. (use it for music/movies, productivity apps, photoshop/illustrator. I used my pc strictly for games now)

As for speed and cost though, you can't go wrong with a nice centrino. The 3.06 P4 mobile probably sucks battery life really quick.

[pHaestus]

Are we talking about the average user here? For me, the following are REQUIRED (and are Win32 only):

http://chemstore.cambridgesoft.com/s...uct.cfm?pid=15
http://www.winxas.de/
http://www.galactic.com/products/GRAMS_32/g32ai.htm

And I could probably find a decent OSX graphing package but I am intimitely familiar with this one:

http://www.originlab.com/

We will skip the software that lets my notebook deal with all the instrument results from the lab, because presumably I would just do data analysis on the lab PCs. Wait I could put all my work apps on THAT PC and then just use the mac for word processing and surfing the web and games. Yea that makes perfect sense FOR A WORK COMPUTER.

Whatever

[beav]

Agreed...but i don't think he's going to need to be hooking up instrumetns to measure the pH of dirt and stuff =D

[cybrsamurai]

Hey I just bought a Dell Inspiron 8500. I like it alot and have had little problems with it. It isnt as light or as thin as the Titanium apples but it is faster and cheaper. It would be difficult for me to do any designing on it without using an external mouse. I like the wide aspect screen and speed. I am having a little bit of a problem getting linux to work properly with some of the ACPI features for powersaving and heat managment. Other than that I am super happy.

[iroc409]

wow.. good info. i didn't get the email saying someone replied

anyways. that's interesting to hear about the pentium M, because performance here is a pretty big issue. obviously i'm using some healthy apps... often times several at once. that's basically why i was looking into the 8500 with the p4 2.5. i've pretty much ruled out the g40, although it was attractive for the price.

having the slimmer series of the 600m dell or t40 are very promising. since i'd be traveling most likely a considerable amount, and depending a lot on wireless, those would both be pluses.

still not entirely ruled out the mac. took a look at my neighbor's ibook, and damn that thing is small! it had to be less than an inch thick, but it was the 12" screen model. very nice, sharp screen though. and its size was very nice. but, i don't think the ibook would be a viable solution. it'd have to be Ti or Al.

i'm still pretty much thinking about going pc though. i mean, my real reason only to go mac is basically to avoid microsoft. that's pretty much it, and the fact that mac lappys have really nice screens.

most of my _dependant_ software is cross-platform. macromedia studio, photoshop, that kinda stuff. the web programming stuff would probably come more naturally on a pc, but i could manage. although, there are 2 programs that i rely on pretty heavily, and would need a very good replacement. outlook and gaim. the only reason i have a real dependency on outlook is my contacts (which i could easily move anyway), and my email. i've been using outlook for a long time, and i have a lot of pretty important saved email. i'm talking like a 175mb .pst file. a lot of my work correspondance goes through email, and i need records of that stuff. also, there's gaim, which i've become exceptionally fond of, and since a lot of my work also goes through icq, it's very nice to have logs. both for recordkeeping and for reference for design specs and such. comes in very handy, and as well uses all 4 of my messenger clients in one very tidy program. i much prefer it over trillian, as well. for some reason i didn't like trillian.

back to hardware, i probably wouldn't go with the 600m, if i'm going to get something that big, i just as well go with the 8500. the 8500 is definitely probably the most robust, which is good from the standpoint that this is going to replace my desktop a good amount of time. and, the t40 of course is just a sweet machine, and i love ibms. one question for you ibm owners.. the site said they have dual pointing devices, does it have a touch pad as well, like the 8500? that's one of the main problems i have with the ibm, no touchpad .

pricewise they're all around the $3k mark, for top-line. and, the 8500 uses the 15.4 widescreen or whatever. i guess it's just a bit wider than the regular 15" or so.

obviously this is a fairly large descision. i could build a lot of desktop stuff for $3300. but, this is also a work dependency, so i want to make sure i make the right decision. so, want to have all my ducks in a row before i jump in. right now i'd say it's between the t40 and 8500, maybe leaning a little more towards the 8500.

[iroc409]

Originally posted by cybrsamurai
Hey I just bought a Dell Inspiron 8500. I like it alot and have had little problems with it. It isnt as light or as thin as the Titanium apples but it is faster and cheaper. It would be difficult for me to do any designing on it without using an external mouse. I like the wide aspect screen and speed. I am having a little bit of a problem getting linux to work properly with some of the ACPI features for powersaving and heat managment. Other than that I am super happy.

eh, yeah, the mouse. i'll be getting probably an mx500 for that. i really like my mx700, but that isn't viable for a laptop.

[cybrsamurai]

If you decide to go with the 8500 check out www.bensbargains.net or http://www.fatwallet.com/ etc untill you find some good coupons! I got my 8500 (not top of the line configured as: P4 2.0, WSXGA+, 256MB (cheaper to upgrade on my own), GF4, XPHome (removed and replaced with pro and Redhat 9),802.11g,and the rest kinda stripped down.) Anyway i got mine for $1,280 after rebate. So keep your eyes open and you can find a killer deal.

[iroc409]

Originally posted by cybrsamurai
If you decide to go with the 8500 check out www.bensbargains.net or http://www.fatwallet.com/ etc untill you find some good coupons! I got my 8500 (not top of the line configured as: P4 2.0, WSXGA+, 256MB (cheaper to upgrade on my own), GF4, XPHome (removed and replaced with pro and Redhat 9),802.11g,and the rest kinda stripped down.) Anyway i got mine for $1,280 after rebate. So keep your eyes open and you can find a killer deal.

wow.. good call, thanks for the info. yeah, i figured i'd do a lot of the basic upgrading myself with any of the laptops. $900 for memory is a bit steep, IMHO.

oh yeah, you're running unix with xp pro? have any problems with that? ol' girl is convinced that xp pro screws up your unix partition, so much so she's got a w98/redhat laptop, and is getting her dad to get her another laptop to run xp on (spoiled?). so like, can you dual boot those without problems after all? i can just see barely-competent *nix people dual booting, and setting things up all wrong and hosing it...

[beav]

Yes, the 12" ibook is pretty small...and the 12" aluminum powerbook is even smaller! (not by much though heh) Outlook Enteraege and Express are both available on the mac. Obviously, the macromedia and adobe suites are all available on the mac.

As for a chat program...ichat is really good for aim...

Fire is another program that is pretty popular that is kind of like trillian in the fact that it can handle multiple chatting services in one gui.

If performance is an issue, then get a PC.

The 1.6 Centrino is just as fast as the 2.4 P4-mobile as most tests will show you. It sucks less battery power, and allows you to purhcase a smaller notebook.

[cybrsamurai]

can you dual boot those without problems after all?

It's not a problem dual booting xp an nix as long as you install your boot loader after XP, (usually means installing xp first). When you install XP first you need to make sure that whatever unix flavor you are installing supports being installed after the first 1024 sectors of the hard disk. This used to be a huge problem, but I think most linux distros have fixed it and I dont think it was ever an issue for BSD. The only other problem that exists is if you partition your xp disk as NTFS and try to let your unix file system read AND write from/to it. If you do this then you will destroy your NTFS partition. If you just make sure that your unix OS is set to just read from your NTFS part or just use Fat32 you should be A-OK!

[iroc409]

well, good information, i appreciate it.

really good to hear about the centrino... i haven't really heard _anything_ about it, but if it holds up that well, i might go for a smaller laptop (like the t40), because performance is an issue. i don't want to really have to shell out $3k every 6 months for an updated machine.

good to know about the *nix stuff, i have someone imma gonna call out now . i'll be running FreeBSD if anything for a dual boot, no question.


i would still like to know if the ibm's have touch pads yet, most notably the t40. the only other thing that concerns me, ibm doesn't list a video card, so i assume it's fairly generic with shared memory. the dell runs a 64mb ati the way i configured the 8500. it should be a gigantic issue, but it's nice. and, the ibm has a 14.1" screen instead of 15", but i could probably manage around that. especially that the ibm is almost an inch thinner, and a couple pounds lighter.

[pHaestus]

The T30 and T40 have both the little eraser nub pointer and a touchpad. I believe the T40 comes with the same gfx card as my T30: 16mb Radeon 7500. Not the greatest card in the world, but does multimonitor and s video out. I have a 19" Sony FD trini at work for dual display, and I keep outlook and such on the notebook screen. The T30 I have has a 14.1" 1400x1050 display that is very nice btw. I think the Dell screens may be a bit better but then the battery life goes down and size goes up.

[KnightElite]

Surprisingly, I know a lot of people in Electrical Engineering at my university who have Apple notebooks. From what I've seen so far, I'm quite impressed. They even use them to do real work, like programming .

If I were buying a notebook right now, I would consider an Apple very seriously. It would be either IBM or Apple, anyway.

[iroc409]

hmm. decisions, decisions.

[msv]

Originally posted by pHaestus
But if I have to reboot to windows for some things then I really might as well run windows and skip the linux learning curve altogether. Why ADD complexity and a steep learning curve to my daily work routine (and then end up using win2k anyway in the end)?

Correct! Or something.
If You´re going to quit smoking or any other nasty habit (that Windows thing) it´s better to just quit completely, don´t take it in steps, just leave it all behind and get going with Your new, better life. It´s hard in the beginning but it will quickly pass and soon start to feel better. Here I try to insert a smily, but i keeps on popping up at the end of my reply.
a good ole´ manual smily
Sorry, Phaestus, for quoting You in this inaccurate way. Hope no offense is taken.
Your point is a good one, though. If You´re satisfied with whatever You´re using right now, stick to it, unless You actually intend to learn something new. If You curios about MAC:s get a MAC, if You content with a PC stick with a PC. Think it´s called "simplicity".
How do anyone consider a 17" screen "portable"? OK, it´s a TFT, not a CRT, but still, it sounds like a huge laptop.
regards
Mikael S.