DavidM Loc: New Orleans, LA

I recently just bought this laptop... I use it with an external monitor when needed. It has plenty of memory, a fast ssd drive and has most any port needed. If you need more then just buy a hub. This is well inside of your budget.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-zenbook-flip-15-q528eh-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-gtx1650-max-q-512gb-ssd-grey/6436222.p?skuId=6436222&ref=P30T24R150&loc=BODY&CampaignID=1203263&eut=1789386033

scsdesphotography Loc: Southeastern Michigan

ecurb Loc: Metro Chicago Area

I read that as:
Since Mac's are overpriced and overrated,, a custom built PC from Puget Systems would be a better buy, as it was for him.

xt2 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

Based on budget go cheap with PC. Cheers!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Having recently acquired a MacBook Pro with M1 chip I have been spending time trying to get used to it. After 30 years of closing or minimizing windows on the upper right, I now have to go to the upper left. Not only that but I'm still using my old PCs because there are several Windows Only programs I'm using and I haven't yet found a Mac app comparable (part of the problem is my muscle memory and learning to get around a new UI).

Finally got around to comparing the two machines. My PC laptop dates from about 2015. I have a program that takes an image, 8.5 Megapixels, and compares a tif image with a series of jpgs derived from it to look for differences. The program takes each pixel and compares the tif pixel to the jpg pixel, finds the difference, averages them and finds the standard deviation, so there's a lot of computation going on. In 32 passes the PC takes 77.47 seconds per pass while the M1 Mac takes 24.78 seconds. The Mac has about a 3.12 factor speed advantage.

Of course this is only one program, others may vary. Also, the PC is old and has a lot of processes running in the background, so that may slow things down a bit.

But LR/PS takes half a minute or more to load on my old PC and the Mac loads it in a couple seconds. Now if I want to do something simple like drawing an arrow or some text on an image, where I used to use IrfanView (Windows only) to do it because it loaded so quickly, I can now use Photoshop because I don't have to wait for it. Which is nice because I haven't found a good substitute for IrfanView on the Mac. Pixea is close but doesn't have all the IrfanView features I use. And I haven't quite gotten used to using the Mac keyboard shortcuts, which are different from the Windows versions.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Look for Sara Dietchy on YouTube. She just made a video on macOS Monterey for folks who, like her, are switching from Windows to Mac... I've used both platforms for decades and learned quite a bit from it.

scsdesphotography Loc: Southeastern Michigan

Technology moves on very quickly. I don't think it's fair to compare a 7 year old PC with a modern Mac. At least when it comes to making a purchase decision. But if you're just reporting that your new computer is faster than your old one, that goes without saying!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I agree that comparing two computers with 7 years of age difference isn't fair, but this is what I have. I just got the Mac and had the impression that it was faster but I like to quantify things. Now I have a number.

When my wife gets a new Mac I'll try to load Python on her old Mac and run the benchmark then I can compare the old Intel technology with the Apple silicon.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

"Faster for what?" is an important question when comparing computers. It is dependent upon lots of things.

Was the software written for Windows and ported to Mac with few optimizations? Or vice-versa?
Was the software written independently for Windows and Intel Macs, and optimized for each?
Was the software fully re-written and optimized for Apple Silicon Macs, or is it Intel code running on Rosetta 2 emulation?
What does the software rely upon? Single core? Multiple cores? Graphics cores? Neural Engine cores? Dedicated media encoders/decoders?
Is the PC a desktop or a laptop?
Which PC or Mac processor generation, brand (AMD/Intel), and type?
If PC laptop, does it have a dedicated graphics processor, rather than Intel motherboard graphics?
If PC laptop, does the processor get throttled when the laptop is unplugged?
If PC laptop, does it have rabidly power hungry fans?
What kind of display is in the laptop?
…and on and on.

MaxTech, Max and Vadim Yuryev's YouTube channel, is a good source of fair comparisons of technology. They've run dozens of tests of the latest Mac and PC laptops, using various benchmarks and real-world tests in Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve.

Other YouTube channels have developers testing various machines for software development, engineering, graphic design, video and photo editing, music production, and other intensive tasks. Still others test for general office and home uses. Check them out.

I can tell you that my M1 MacBook Air is very satisfying. I have yet to really choke it, even when having 47 apps open at the same time. It manages memory very efficiently, much like the iPhones and iPads its chip is based upon.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Faster for what I'm using it for.


The software was written in Python and run with PyCharm as a Python interpreter. Same in both platforms. There was no attempt to use code specific to Windows or Mac. No programmed use of GPU beyond whatever PyCharm will use normally. When I wrote the program initially I used it on both the laptop and the desktop. The time/pass was pretty much the same in both machines (similar ages). The output of the program was text on the monitor so the display shouldn't make any difference (Actually the original program wrote the results to disk and that part of the program was removed to keep junk off my disk).


Will check them out in my Copious Free Time


I am getting to like the M1 MacBook. The only thing holding me back at the moment is trying to find replacements for the Windows Only software I have gotten to depend on. There's a lot of software out there and it will take me a while to figure out which is going to do the job with minimal retooling of my workflow (features, UI, keyboard shortcuts).

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

It does take some getting used to. For many years, I had a PC and a Mac in my office. Eventually, I used Parallels Desktop and ran Windows on my Mac in that emulator. I could switch back and forth, cut and paste between the two environments, and access all the same files from both.

Look up Sara Dietchy on YouTube. She made an excellent tips video the other day for Windows-to-Mac switchers. That will probably prod YouTube to suggest several similar videos with more tips. There are some things on both platforms that seem freaky to people predominantly used to the one they use the most. (For instance, apps on the Mac stay open when you close the last open window. You have to do a Command+Q or use the Quit command under the Application name in the menu bar to kill it... That is a pet peeve of many a Windows user.)

They're both computer operating systems, so they do most of the same things, albeit differently. I got used to switching back and forth pretty quickly. Control this is Command that on the Mac. Alt usually equals Option. Beyond that, it gets muddy.

Software often works on both platforms, but there are loads of apps from small developers that write only for one platform or the other.

hrblaine

"I'd recommend a 27" iMac with at least 32G of RAM. It might run a bit more than your stated budget but it will be worth it."

Things are probably different now but years ago my employer bought a bunch of Macs and I got one. I always had trouble getting the programs I needed and so switched to an PC which I used with no problems. I liked that Mac though but with Windows the transition was simple. Harry PS And I'd get 64G of RAM, just in case. :-)

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I've been avoiding that for the moment. If I used Windows on the Mac I'd never learn the Mac foibles. But I'll probably get to it eventually.


You recommended Sara previously and I took a quick look. She has a lot of YouTube videos and I'll have to find time to look through them to find the one you refer to.

Another question:
I knew that there was software available to emulate Windows on the Mac. Why have I not heard anything about software to emulate the Mac on Windows?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Market share… little demand, and it’s not a completely workable process. When Apple made Intel Macs, they were basically PCs with a different BIOS or electronic firmware. So the Mac could “dual boot.” That was an “in” for Apple in some corporate environments.

Emulation with software only took a 10% performance hit. So most of us did that, rather than dual boot.

Now, Parallels 17 works on M1, but only with the Developer Preview version of Windows for ARM.

Here’s Sara’s video:

https://youtu.be/9gIkJ9fE4sE

I forgive her use of weird colored lights in the background. It seems to be a staple of YouTube millennials.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Thanks for the info and link. It's always useful to get advice from someone who already went through all (or most) of the millions of apps out there. Will check out the link.