Macbook or PC notebook for design student??

[jokun]

Hi guys,

Been awhile since I posted, but you guys are always helpful. I'm more of a lurker anyway. I did have a question I wanted to open up here for some opinions. I'm about a year into a Graphic Design degree program and finally feel the need to pony up some $$ for a laptop. I've been eyeballing a macbook (not a macbook pro, too pricey for my blood), but am also considering a PC laptop since it seems I can get a little more for my money.

It seems like the screen on the macbook is a little small to be useful for full-time design work, although whenever I'd use it at home I could hook it up to a larger monitor. I could get a much larger windows laptop for the same money, though, and with a better graphics card. I'm torn, since I'm also not a fan of the compatibility issues between PC and Mac in the design industry, and know that most places use macs. Also, I get about $100 off the price of a new macbook with my education discount, and Apple is offering a free ipod touch and printer with any new macbook/macbook pro purchase which I could sell and put back towards the price of the mac. I've also been checking craigslist for used macbooks, some of which are at a pretty decent price and still have the apple care plan.

Any thoughts, opinions, advice? Sorry for the long post.

[BS]

I would definitely go with the mac.

[Stratification]

Do you really want to carry a bigger laptop with you as a student? I'd suggest the MacBook, but I'm a little biased probably since that's what I have. You'll likely be able to do all the same things on either platform, and file compatibility issues probably aren't going to be a huge issue for most of what you work with. I have to say though, the MacBook is a great laptop, and it's likely to hold up nicely and work well for you. It also has the advantage of easily replaceable memory and hard drive. Bumping the hard drive up to 250 GB or so without a lot of effort is awesome. So that's my vote, go with the MacBook, I'd be very surprised if you regret it, especially if you have a bigger monitor to hook it to for serious design sessions.

[Templarian]

IMHO if you want a mac don't get a MacBook. I've lost most bias against the MacBook Pro so I'd say def keep saving for a MacBook Pro.

You don't want anything larger than 15.4 as a student though so careful (to me even 15.4 is too large).

as long as you get a nice PC, you do have the chance that OSX will install on it so keep that in mind

//edit, also this goes in Computers & Games/Tech

[Loyx]

Intel Laptop...

[fasterthanlight™]

don't waste your time and money on a measly macbook....

the screen is garbage (not size, but quality, its sheer lame), its underpowered... its a consumer laptop, ie: for college kids to write essays on and check email

if you are a design student, you need the extra power, and screen size (& QUALITY) of the 15" macbook pro.

Trust me, the macbook shouldn't even be blipping on your radar


And for design purposes, OS X is where its at, you'll be spending have your time cursing windows, and half your time having your workflow slowed down by bad UI if you went the PC-way

OS X !!!! its made for people like you and me!

[jokun]

I'm not so much concerned about the size of the laptop itself as I am about the macbook's small 13" screen. Unfortunately I can't justify spending the extra several hundred dollars ($700 price difference between the macbook I'm looking at and the base pro!!!) for the MBP, especially when the only advantages seem to be a bigger screen and better graphics card. The processor is exactly the same, and the hardrive and RAM can be upgraded easily.

So it's definitely between a macbook and similarly priced, or even cheaper, pc. After selling off the Touch, though, I'd be looking at the 2.4ghz, 2gb ram, 160gb hard drive, super drive macbook for around $900 US before taxes. Not a bad deal.

Have you guys with macbooks found it difficult designing on the small screen?

[fasterthanlight™]

not just bigger screen, its a better *quality* screen. There is a difference.
They say the macbook is capable of displaying millions of colors, but that is simply not true. Its a cheap, poorly built LCD.

And for designing, do you not need to see millions of *actual* colours?

you'd be better off not buying a macbook, and getting a PC in your case, since money is an issue...

but be warned, you're going to hate the experience of using it as a design machine

*i have a macbook at work and I curse its small size and low-quality build, i have an imac at home with the higher quality 8bit (? i think? is it more?) and there is a huuuuuuuuuuge difference

[Templarian]

If you could afford the M1330 I would highly suggest that (but its around 1500USD after optional configs... but it has a much better screen then most every other laptop I've seen (one of the optional configs)). Plus most of the hardware would be OSX compatible.

Screens only 1280x800... but its perfect for totting around to classes and such (plus you don't have to plug in because the battery like is like 4hours on performance mode). makes me wish i had the money for an envy 133

[Anogar]

Look - here's the thing. You can get an awesome Dell for like $1500, or an awesome MacBook Pro for $2500. It'll be the exact same hardware, so if you think a shiny operating system is worth an extra $1000 or more, go for it. You're gonna be looking at the interfaces of your software, which works exactly the same on each platform, so keep that in mind.

[fasterthanlight™]

Thats mostly true, except for the fact that actually *using os x for designing* (not the software interface) is better for your workflow.... IMO anyway....... but who am i to say, i just use OS X every day for design and development as my primary source of income :|

*shrugs*

I say go for a top of the line Dell or something... and eventually you should think about putting money away for an apple machine

[Templarian]

*hehe* FTL, that just makes you extremely biased. I'm as biased as you and I think the complete opposite usually all these things come down to opinions. At least your more rational than most mac guys *cough* BS *cough*.

although I remember seeing a really well put together study that compared OSX and Vista in only the UI portion and windows actually got a higher score... but IMO personal preference can out way human habits which UI conventions are based on.

[fasterthanlight™]

Yea you're right, sue me, damn my logic!

[jakattak]

If you fully intend to pursue a career in design I would lean towards the MacBook. As several others have pointed out, the MacBook Pro would obviously be a much better option, but if that's out of your price range it's a non-issue.

You are going to find some inefficiencies working on design with that small screen, but the bottom line is Mac is the standard in the design world, especially in print and multimedia (if moving strictly into electronic design and avoiding print altogether, you'll find Mac/Windows options a little more balanced.) Anything you learn in individual applications like Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, etc. will carry over from Windows to Mac, but personally if I was just entering the design world I would want as much familiarity working in OS X as possible. Plus, if you do get a MacBook you can always sell it a couple years down the road to upgrade... one thing about Macs is they seriously hold on to resale values.

On the issue of the lower quality screen mentioned above, I honestly wouldn't worry about it, at least not as a student. While yes, it is definitely nicer to have a full quality screen like in the MacBook Pro, hooking it up to an external monitor in your dorm/at home will solve that issue while not in class, and while in class it's manageable.

[jokun]

Thanks-everybody. Still not sure which direction I'm going to go, but I appreciate everyone's input. It'll be probably a month or two before I decide (by next semester in August. just taking Gen Ed classes over the summer).

[twdesignz06]

not just bigger screen, its a better *quality* screen. There is a difference.
They say the macbook is capable of displaying millions of colors, but that is simply not true. Its a cheap, poorly built LCD.

And for designing, do you not need to see millions of *actual* colours?

you'd be better off not buying a macbook, and getting a PC in your case, since money is an issue...

but be warned, you're going to hate the experience of using it as a design machine

*i have a macbook at work and I curse its small size and low-quality build, i have an imac at home with the higher quality 8bit (? i think? is it more?) and there is a huuuuuuuuuuge difference

Just as a FYI, almost all notebook screens available are 6-bit screens, which make them less than ideal for design work. I think there was a Thinkpad that had an 8-bit screen, but I'm not sure they make it anymore. I would say go for a Macbook and an external monitor if you need the added screen real estate/color accuracy.

[fasterthanlight™]

Yea like jakattak said, hooking the macbook up to an external display will solve the display issue.....

So maybe you *should* dive into a macbook.... keep in mind the product life cycle, the macbook is right in the middle of its product life cycle, and a couple months from now when you need to buy it, you might be edging close to an update..

Also, @temp, me using os x all day every day doesn't make me biased, I am legitimate example of what macs can be used for

[dj_kyron]

I have the M1330 from Dell. I don't recommend it only because the motherboard isn't reliable. There have been 5 other people in my engineering class this year that had to send it back to dell to get it replaced because it got fried. That includes me as well :(. Other than that, it was a terrrrrrrific laptop (HDMI, Geforce 8, tiny, thin, sexy, slot loading dvd burner, white glossy paint-no cheap ****, and aluminum casing-again no cheap plastic ****). Just the motherboard...

[fasterthanlight™]

who knows ,maybe by this point Dell has caught on and fixed the motherboards by now

[Templarian]

I have the M1330 from Dell. I don't recommend it only because the motherboard isn't reliable. There have been 5 other people in my engineering class this year that had to send it back to dell to get it replaced because it got fried. That includes me as well :(. Other than that, it was a terrrrrrrific laptop (HDMI, Geforce 8, tiny, thin, sexy, slot loading dvd burner, white glossy paint-no cheap ****, and aluminum casing-again no cheap plastic ****). Just the motherboard...
:lol: my laptops gotten up in the 180F+ and stuff and hasn't fried yet. I've broken the hard drive and dented in the screen... both probably my fault so the warranty has well payed for itself). Dell has a 2 day replace cycle so any damage can be repaired in 2 days. I really abuse my laptop the tech even said that. I've scrapped off entire edges of the paint and chipped the sides and everything its a strong laptop though. I wish I had a envy so I had a carbon fiber case.

the paint thing was fixed in the later models... but I like the warn down look... in 2 more months I can celebrate is 1st birthday

[fasterthanlight™]

hahahahahh yea, if you got the envy, you'd still chip and dent it, then you'd be pissed off to a level not known to mankind

[actionAction]

I definitely wouldn't get a Dell if you are going to go the PC route (as the majority of my job is replacing their complete crappiness with something slightly less crappy like Lenovo). The only difference b/w Mac and PC is the users and the way the OS looks, both OS suck because of their ludicrous competition, secrecy, closed-source and total focus on looks over functionality. The two party system thing doesn't work in any realm.

Mac's are more responsive, load less items on startup, have Apache pre-installed (sweet), better comes-with software and yes, seem to have the design field captivated. They also make basic system administration a f'ing nightmare with CTRL + APPLE + F9 + X + T + HOME + "Spin around three times" to reset the pram and nvram so your OS doesn't continuously crash. Or you can go talk to a Mac "Genius", who is not going to be pretentious at all, and will definitely be a genius. In my experience, Macs tend to crash out of the blue (spinning rainbow of death), I used my then-top-of-the-line G4 Powerbook to do mobile recordings with a gang of ridiculously expensive equipment and software, and I can't tell you how many times I wanted to stomp on it for 10-36 minutes when it crashed out of nowhere, with no error message.

PCs are well supported, mostly stable (depending on Windows version you run), easy to administer and fix yourself, and most of all CHEAP. Not as in "cheap, piece of crap", but closer to the actual cost of the parts and software. You are not paying for the brand (at least not as much as Mac). PCs break a lot, they don't blue screen that much (no more than Mac), there are a lot of crappy vendors (such as Dell, Compaq) out there, Vista kind of sucks, plus Macs and their OS are much more fun to look at, which being a design person, you probably are interested in. It all makes sense to me now...

LINUX, FTW!!!

No matter which way you go, you will be happy, pissed and excited at some point. What you should care about is processor speed/# of cores, installed RAM, firewire, DVD/HD burner, DISK SPACE (though that can be fixed later), Motherboard quality, and how helpful support is.

[fasterthanlight™]

i love how completely false this is with respect to OS X:

"total focus on looks over functionality."

its the other way around, total focus is on functionality, they just have the perfectionist sense of design to make their functionz look good

[Theros]

I definitely wouldn't get a Dell if you are going to go the PC route (as the majority of my job is replacing their complete crappiness with something slightly less crappy like Lenovo). The only difference b/w Mac and PC is the users and the way the OS looks, both OS suck because of their ludicrous competition, secrecy, closed-source and total focus on looks over functionality. The two party system thing doesn't work in any realm.

Mac's are more responsive, load less items on startup, have Apache pre-installed (sweet), better comes-with software and yes, seem to have the design field captivated. They also make basic system administration a f'ing nightmare with CTRL + APPLE + F9 + X + T + HOME + "Spin around three times" to reset the pram and nvram so your OS doesn't continuously crash. Or you can go talk to a Mac "Genius", who is not going to be pretentious at all, and will definitely be a genius. In my experience, Macs tend to crash out of the blue (spinning rainbow of death), I used my then-top-of-the-line G4 Powerbook to do mobile recordings with a gang of ridiculously expensive equipment and software, and I can't tell you how many times I wanted to stomp on it for 10-36 minutes when it crashed out of nowhere, with no error message.

PCs are well supported, mostly stable (depending on Windows version you run), easy to administer and fix yourself, and most of all CHEAP. Not as in "cheap, piece of crap", but closer to the actual cost of the parts and software. You are not paying for the brand (at least not as much as Mac). PCs break a lot, they don't blue screen that much (no more than Mac), there are a lot of crappy vendors (such as Dell, Compaq) out there, Vista kind of sucks, plus Macs and their OS are much more fun to look at, which being a design person, you probably are interested in. It all makes sense to me now...

LINUX, FTW!!!

No matter which way you go, you will be happy, pissed and excited at some point. What you should care about is processor speed/# of cores, installed RAM, firewire, DVD/HD burner, DISK SPACE (though that can be fixed later), Motherboard quality, and how helpful support is.

Frankly, all I see in this thread are Mac people going on and on about the awesomeness of macs and OSX (especially) and then the people who say Dell sucks.

That's not the point of this thread...the OP wanted some advice on what's a good notebook for him/her. In that light, I'd suggest either going to a notebook dedicated forum like notebookreview.com because you'll get the most "unbiased" responses from then.

However, IMO I believe the macbook is utter crap, especially at its price range. I agree with Temp and Anoglr that the Dell M1330 is a very good option as well, I think your looking at paying no less than $1,300 for a decently speced laptop anyway. Here's some options you may consider, the m1330, the Asus F8 series, HP's dv2700 series. Frankly, you probably want to compromise on power and portability, meaning you should go with a 14.1 laptop, as they still have enough power to run demanding programs, but still don't weigh 6-7 pounds.

[fasterthanlight™]

Yea, what theros said, ^5

:lol:

[jokun]

hehe, thanks again. I've pretty much sworn off Dell due to previous bad experiences, but am looking around at all my options. Theros, thanks, I'll check those out.

[actionAction]

Yea, what theros said, ^5

:lol:
bias, what bias? :)

@ftl, in context I wasn't describing Macs in particular (and "total" was an overstatement), just saying that computers in general could be a lot better than they are presently if there wasn't so much concern about unnecessary bells and whistles (which they all have). Yes, Macs are designed well, look nice, work pretty nicely, all that jazz. I will liken it to the fact that we could all be driving water powered cars right now if the transportation industry would switch their focus to something more worthwhile.

@theros, yeah, there are some good Dell computers, I just don't see a lot of the good ones in business settings (other than our servers). The truth is I have replaced countless Dell failures, that's not bias, it's shoddy parts and workmanship. I will also concede that their tech support is good. because it has to be, dell sucks!!!

Sony Vaio are solid computers, great support, kinda costly (brand name). HP are definitely worth looking into, I have an HP 2.6 quad core and it's great. MacBook Pro are really great computers, if you can afford it, it's a good investment. Good luck!

[jokun]

Crap, I was just checking the clearance section of the Apple online store. They had previous generation MBP's listed for 1,359. Came back to look, and suddenly they were 1,499! Refreshed again, and now the cheapest is 1,699. Dangit

I could swing 1,359 for a macbook pro. It's inching up towards the $1,800 dollar mark that's too much for me.

[Stratification]

Keep in mind that the refurbished stock varies quite a bit. It can be worth your while to keep an eye on it, and watch it for a couple days when you do decide to buy.

[jokun]

Keep in mind that the refurbished stock varies quite a bit. It can be worth your while to keep an eye on it, and watch it for a couple days when you do decide to buy.

Yeah, I was checking out the refurbs and clearance models, and was shocked to come across a new (previous generation) 15" macbook pro, 2.2ghz, 2gb ram, etc for 1,359. Then minutes later it was gone. dammitdammitdammit

[jokun]

Crap. Found it, still available, but just not showing on their website. The link in my History still works. Unfortunately now is not the time. I just don't have the $$ right this second. Would have come to $1,454 with tax.

[Theros]

Crap. Found it, still available, but just not showing on their website. The link in my History still works. Unfortunately now is not the time. I just don't have the $$ right this second. Would have come to $1,454 with tax.

Frankly, even with Macs (which hold their value really well)...I still would hesitate to buy it used. Buying used electronics is something I just cannot endorse..

[Stratification]

Refurbished is not used. Refurbished means something that was returned with a small issue (that has since been checked), or returned unopened. They're typically checked more thoroughly than new purchases and come in as-new condition. I've purchased several Apple refurbished products and been very happy with them.

[Esherido]

And for design purposes, OS X is where its at, you'll be spending have your time cursing windows, and half your time having your workflow slowed down by bad UI if you went the PC-way

OS X !!!! its made for people like you and me!
I've done a bunch of design on Windows and have never cursed it. Whenever I try to load Photoshop on a Mac, it either 1) Takes twice as long as it would on a PC or 2) Crashes. I seem to have a knack for making Macs crash/freeze, while I've only been able to freeze Windows once. I would say go for the PC, you get a bunch more bang for your buck. And in my opinion, the Mac workflow is almost exactly the same as a PC. The whole "design on a Mac is so much better" is a big pile of bull stool.

[jakattak]

Crap, I was just checking the clearance section of the Apple online store. They had previous generation MBP's listed for 1,359. Came back to look, and suddenly they were 1,499! Refreshed again, and now the cheapest is 1,699. Dangit

I could swing 1,359 for a macbook pro. It's inching up towards the $1,800 dollar mark that's too much for me.

If you're not looking to buy until August, keep looking at the refurbs at apple.com. Availability constantly changes and it's a great way to get something like a MBP for less $. I have purchased 2 Macs that way in the past 4 years and both have been great.

[jokun]

Frankly, even with Macs (which hold their value really well)...I still would hesitate to buy it used. Buying used electronics is something I just cannot endorse..
Actually, it wasn't a refurb or used. It was a leftover model from the previous generation. The last new model rollout was, what, April? This was a new model of what they were selling up until that time. 2.2ghz instead of the new 2.4, a smaller hard drive, and no multi-touch, but still new.

[BS]

Used electronics is a no no

[Theros]

Actually, it wasn't a refurb or used. It was a leftover model from the previous generation. The last new model rollout was, what, April? This was a new model of what they were selling up until that time. 2.2ghz instead of the new 2.4, a smaller hard drive, and no multi-touch, but still new.

As long as its using an Intel CPU, then your all good. I don't think you'd be picky about hard drive space or GPU.

[Jeff Wheeler]

LINUX, FTW!!!

No matter which way you go, you will be happy, pissed and excited at some point. What you should care about is processor speed/# of cores, installed RAM, firewire, DVD/HD burner, DISK SPACE (though that can be fixed later), Motherboard quality, and how helpful support is.

My primary machine is Debian GNU/Linux, my work machine is CentOS Linux, and my MacBook Pro runs FreeBSD.

With that said, do not run Linux as a design student. I'm reasonably comfortable in GIMP, and I use Inkscape, but the tools available simply do not compare in this field, unfortunately. PhotoShop, despite what *nix users like myself want to believe, still easily overpowers any free software and stuff like Flash are not easily run under *nix systems (WINE just won't cut it if you use this stuff every day).

I love *nix systems, but they are entirely inappropriate for use by a design student.

[Theros]

My primary machine is Debian GNU/Linux, my work machine is CentOS Linux, and my MacBook Pro runs FreeBSD.

With that said, do not run Linux as a design student. I'm reasonably comfortable in GIMP, and I use Inkscape, but the tools available simply do not compare in this field, unfortunately. PhotoShop, despite what *nix users like myself want to believe, still easily overpowers any free software and stuff like Flash are not easily run under *nix systems (WINE just won't cut it if you use this stuff every day).

I love *nix systems, but they are entirely inappropriate for use by a design student.

Yes, totally agree. Linux is great for everything else (almost)...

You really run FreeBSD on your laptop? Do you ever use OSX and why not use just Debian again?

[jokun]

I don't mess with that stuff. Just give me any old mac or pc operating system out of the box.

[Jeff Wheeler]

You really run FreeBSD on your laptop? Do you ever use OSX and why not use just Debian again?

I don't really use OS X that much; every once in a while I need a real brower (:P), and I need PS occassionally, but for the most part I'm fine without it.

I wanted to try something new, so I went with FreeBSD; when I screw up this machine (hopefully soon), I'll try to reinstall with ZFS as the primary partition. I think that'd be fun.

[grimdeath]

Get a MBP and have the best of both worlds end of story, both OSes are good I ahve managed to crash both so they both have their faults.

Although I'm really hating my MBP because Leopard broke my wireless internet connection and Apple still hasn't fixed it D@MNZ Y0UZ APPL3Z :fight: