skibum422

Hi all, new to the group. Have a quick questions for you all. I am shopping for a new laptop and have heard pros and cons of both pc's and mac's for photo editing. I have been using lightroom for my photo editing and wondering if anyone has any strong thoughts either way..... which is easier/better for using lightroom. Thanks in advance.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Windows machine keep getting better and better, and they are very easy to upgrade. You can add memory, change hard drives or the SSD. With an Mac, what you buy is what you live with. Apple has been making it more and more difficult to make any modifications to their machines. If you buy a Mac, make sure you order it just the way you will want it to be three years from now. Apple stores stock the basic machines. If you want anything special in terms of memory or drives, you have to order it. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Maybe that has something to do with their pricing.

Dell laptops are very good, and they compare favorably with Macs.

Some links -

Inexpensive
http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-laptops-1304361
https://www.cnet.com/topics/laptops/best-laptops/budget-laptops/
https://www.laptopmag.com/best-laptops-under-500
https://www.lifewire.com/best-laptops-under-500-4043278
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/how-to-buy-a-budget-laptop/

Best for photo processing
https://makeawebsitehub.com/best-laptops-for-photo-editing/
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/167185-best-laptops-for-photo-editing
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2017/sep/07/which-is-the-best-laptop-for-photo-editing
http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/best-laptops-for-image-editing-2016-1329234
https://laptopunderbudget.com/best-laptops-for-photo-editing/

skibum422

Thanks so much, I will check out the links you sent.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Good luck. Whatever you get will be fine. I think you'd have to search to find a bad computer these days.

BebuLamar

I think Microsoft makes good computers these days.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

no difference. The Mac just costs about 50% more, and generally only comes in a laptop. If you want a desktop, then it costs about $4000 by the time you purchase external storage and a display. It's a great machine not not any better than a comparably equipped PC, which would cost around $3000. With Lr, the editing experience will be identical.

Look at Jerry41's links, there is a lot to read there.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

When did they start making computers?

BJW

I personally switched to Mac about 10 years ago from PC. I then proceeded to switch my whole law practice to Mac. Started with IBM, tried Gateway, Dell, HP, Toshiba and others. But I moved on and I have been happiest with each of the Macs I've had over the past decade. Now that I'm doing more and more with photography, I see the ever greater value to the Mac. The smooth interplay between hardware and software is a delight. Not so on a PC, which I found constantly crashing. The Apple Care customer service is tops in the few instances I have needed them. Not so with PC machines, where you need to speak with different customer care companies for each of the brands, and if they can't figure it out, they tell you to talk to the other vendor. Royal PITA. If Apple is the wealthiest company in the world, it may be because of pricing, but it is also due to customer satisfaction. You get what you pay for.

For my work, I now use a MacBook Air. For my photography, I use a MacBook Pro, attached to a large Apple monitor. I download and store my images from camera to a portable external HD and back that up to a second external. Add to that a cloud back up for $5. per month.(BackBlaze). And Time Machine, which is indigenous to the Mac, backs up the computer every hour to a third external. From the external, I import to LR. I use Lightroom Classic CC and that gives flawless sharing of my photo Collections with LR Mobile on my iPhone or iPad. All this syncs beautifully without worrying about the quirks of piecing together various brands of PC/Windows based machines and devices.

While PC gurus say you can do comparable things that you can do with a Mac using PC based devices, I find great virtue in simplicity and reliability. Apple gives me that.

As the sages say, "Once you've tried a Mac, you won't go back..." IMHO, I'm glad I switched and stayed with Mac.

Either way, good luck.

BJW

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

PERSONAL VIEW IN FAVOR OF WINDOWS: Off the shelf pre built name brands, booth excellent machines assuming the purchaser makes good choice of configuration. But as Jerry points out, a Mac is glued in place the day you receive it while a Widnows can be up graded. DIY Windows "gaming" Machines like mine, Jan 2015. built with at least one year old-price-has-dropped components can be upgraded as time goes on. I do not do gaming, but those components are tigers at doing graphics for photography.

Now going on 3 years old I have replaced the Graphics card with a faster one with more memory. I could up grade to 32 gig from 16; replace the HD with SSD; and probably did not afford the fastest CPU that fit the slot. Do I find the machine has slowed down, no, but the software demands certainly demand more and so the machine takes a bit more time to do the change. Our cameras now give us much larger files than 2015. More software is available for Windows, another advantage. Once Mac only graphics such as Affinity, has migrated to Windows, thus trimming the Mac Graphics advantage.

When I or the demands decide to build another machine it will be a Windows. I can use the Graphics card, the case, the drives and just transfer over to the new faster machine. DIY building is easy in that you can not put the round peg in the square hole and many things are color coded; how easy can it get! My new build will again be with price reduced gaming components and I will end up with a great machine for under $1000. The one after that I will be in my mid 90s!!! YIKES

DNW

Macs are easy to hack into. Their software for virus scans are not good. They use "old-hat" in the tech world. δ¿δ

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I upgraded from a 6-year old desktop CPU and a 10+ year old monitor to the following from Best Buy in Aug 2016 for $1350 getting:

1. Dell - XPS Desktop (Intel Core i7 / 16GB / 1TB Hard Drive)
2. Dell - UltraSharp U2415 24" IPS LED HD Monitor

I didn't shop "hard" on price, rather focusing on equipment good for photo editing and that I could stop at the Best Buy location nearest my office and pick-up the equipment. The computer could have been cheaper with other brands, but the monitors were consistently in the $300+ range for this size for editing. If our OP is just starting out, there's probably about $300 to $500 worth of software needed to purchase too. But still, you're topping out less than $2000 ....

BebuLamar

Don’t remember when but checkout the surface and surface book. I don’t think they actually make them but it’s their brand.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Check out Linux....The android market is growing. Less hardware needs and software is 'freeware' The new Google phone seems to plug directly into the 'cloud' and probably the need to have a 'high end' PC laptop etc will be the next casualty. 'Personal Ownership' of programmes and hardware may not be the way forward.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Ah, completely forgot about the Surface Book. The Surface is not a computer, it's a tablet.

Funny, my wife has a Surface Book but I never regarded it as a computer - my bad. I'd rather have that than a MBP and use the extra $1000 to buy a lens.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

I think either machine will work just fine for photos and editing using Lightroom. Which machine you use is a personal choice based on what you want, what you've used in the past, etc. I have only used a PC a couple of times in the last 25 years because I got started on a Mac (the very tiny little screen one) and liked the way it worked and kept on using Mac's, long before they became so popular. I do not find a PC as easy and quick to use, but a PC user would reverse the comment I just made. Get the one that works for YOU.