Edia Loc: Central New Jersey

Mac vs PC? Either way, you can't make a mistake. However, Apple infuriates me in certain ways that make me side with a PC. Almost all PC laptops are touch screen while no Mac is. Apple iPad and iPhone are touch screen but their iMacs and Macbooks are not. Why is that? The MacBook keyboard is also not as comfortable to my fingers as the keys on my PC laptop. Cost vs Power also favors the PC. Another issue with Apple is that older Macs cannot be upgraded and are not supported after a few years. My old Mac Pro became a door stop when Apple switched to Intel processors.

As I said, either way, you can't go wrong but all things considered, stick with a PC laptop.

Tinkwmobile

I have a what was sold as a gaming laptop about 7-8 years ago. I have replaced hard drive with a solid state device. You will need auxiliary /backup hard drives. I backup old stuff to DVD and current stuff is kept on hard drive and backup. Lots of folks backup on web.
The power of a laptop comes from the graphics, mine uses an nvidia card; and from the processor, buy the fastest you can afford, IMO. I have a core i7.
My laptop processes the most current software (in this case ON1) with no effort. I run an aux screen at home and laptop screen when traveling.

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

I'm not a fan of touch screens. It's just that my hands are not always clean, and even if they were, my skin generally has natural oils on it that eventually make the screen look cruddy (to me, anyway). The touch screens that I have never look as clean as my untouched monitors.

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

There isn't any other argument. Unless you want to go UNIX or LINUX. Then you still will probably need Windows or Mac clones. Windows will do more. Apple will do optics a little better. How many pages will this go on?

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

Not sure about all these Apple complaints but that's OK. One thing I really like with Apple though is that you can name drives whatever you want. You're not stuck with boring A drive and E drive. On my Apple, my photo working disk is called, Photo Working Disk. My new main drive is called (wait for it) New Main Drive. My Main Drive backup drive is called, Main Drive Backup. In my work I have to use a bunch of Windows laptops. I just want to rename all the drives with something that makes sense, something that tells me what that drive is about.
This doesn't really affect how they work, just annoying.
...Cam

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Not trying to convince you to go to windows, but you can name a Windows drive anything you like, simply by right clicking on the drive and choosing a name. For example, I have a drive named “raw images”, one named “JPEGs”, one named “music” and one named “scratch”. You can also change the drive letter in disk manager if you wish.

BDickson

I agree about sticking to what you're used to. Several years ago I needed a new laptop as my Dell laptop suddenly died. I also had a torn rotator cuff so needed something light. I got a Mac Air and it is easy to carry around and it has lasted twice as long as the two Dell laptops I'd had before it. BUT I find it annoying. I have a PC desktop and I use Photoshop Elements for editing. Elements now works in a Mac, but it doesn't work quite the same. When I use it on my desktop and want to label my photos (I use month-day-year and a sequential number) the last number comes up. Not so on my laptop. I either have to remember it (which doesn't always work) or I have to refer to "finder" or scroll down. Also my Mac doesn't always save my files in order and I'll look for what I saved earlier and find it clear out of sequence beyond the images that I haven't edited. Basically, it does what it wants to do, not what I want it to do. I'm frequently tempted to get a new PC laptop now that they have lighter ones, but the Mac still works so I don't.

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

I didn’t know that. Something new everyday.
...Cam

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Not being a dedicated windows user, I suspect you can rename any drive. BUT you still reference the drive letter in the command, like copy c:*.* d:

On a Mac you reference the VOLUME NAME, not a drive letter, but next time I fire up my windows 10 VM will test it out

Bunko.T Loc: Western Australia.

I recently upgraded to a laptop, the desktop is getting slow, but still has much stuff in it.
My geek son gave me guidance in criterion:
8 GB of Ram—- 512 GB of capacity—- SSD with I7 processor 10th edition. I9 is around but not available in my choice. USB3 ports, & win10 OS, unfortunately. Win 10 is a pain in ass, but I’m stuck with it.

mjmoly

I concur with pixelstan77. I was a longtime Windows person. Until I switched cold turkey about 15 years ago. I’ve never looked back. There is a learning curve. Apple equipment tends to be more expensive for comparable gear. But I’ve had much fewer problems with the hardware and software than before my switch. I have an iPhone, iPad Pro and Mac-mini which work seamlessly together. I’m sorry I didn’t switch sooner.

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

What is your budget?

Here is a site that will optimize the specs for photographic use:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/content_creation/index.php

What matters is the hardware choices, not the platform. Mac OS runs these applications equally well compared to Windows, if you don't count the recent problems with 32 bit programs and 64 bit-only Catalina. For now Windows provides a bit more support for legacy software. For the same money, you can get more storage, ram, cpu cores, faster gpu with more vram, etc by purchasing a Windows machine. Or, you can save about 35% by using a Macbook Pro spec and duplicating it on a Windows laptop.

I am about to pull the trigger on a Windows laptop myself - i7-9750 6-core, 32gb ram (mboard takes up to 64 gb user-upgradeable ram), 1 TB m.2 PCIe, NVMe SSD in first slot, 2 TB m.2 PCIe, NVMe SS in second slot, and the option to add a third drive in a 2.5" SATA III drive bay, overclocking to 4.5 gHz, upgraded thermal compound, and cooling, Windows 10 Home. Total price is $2065 shipped. The system can drive three external displays (I need to drive 2 when using them in my home office).

A comparable 16" MacBook would cost $3600, but seems to only offer a single SATA III SSD drive - the most comparable is their 2TB system so it has 1 TB less storage, has no option for NVidia graphics card which actually run Photoshop and Lightroom better than AMD cards, it has no option for adding a second or third internal drive and seems to only drive a single external display.

So right out of the gate, the Windows system is 41% less expensive than the comparable MacBook Pro. And with 2 m.2 drives as primary storage, and not having to rely entirely on external drives for additional storage, the performance is likely to be slightly better on the Windows system.

The problem I have with the Apple website is that ther is so much information that is not provided - drive mfgr, drive interface, is ram user upgradeable, how many displays are supported, bluetooth/wireless spec, etc.

Your money, your choice. I am not saying one is functionally better than the other. But I am saying that the Windows machine has more options and is a LOT cheaper.

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

I am not a Mac basher either - but I do not subscribe to the notion that in today's world, there is really much of a difference between the two platforms. My background was in workstation customization and support, for engineering and architectural design analysis, and documentation (working drawings). Must have built and spec'd over 3,000 machines over a 16 yr period. Never once did I have anyone wanting to purchase an Apple machine to run Autocad, SolidWorks, 3DStudio, etc. Things got a little more interesting towards the year 2000, when Final Cut Pro matured and many were using it for post production. The PC platform was well behind the curve on that, only offering Premiere Pro and Avid Express (?) as a post production platform, and using Matrox graphics cards for support of industry standard RGB reference displays. In those days the Apple guys offered a PowerMac G4 which ran FCP flawlessly. But again, the G4 was prohibitively expensive. I taught video post at a local state college in NY, and managed two labs - the Mac lab which had 2 G4s, and the PC lab which had 12 PC workstations - the equipment budget was the same for both labs. Go figure.

The only gripe I have against apple is the unnecessarily premium they are still charging (and always have) for essentially the same components. The "value add" is pretty much gone. I am still learning and moving . . .

ta5567

Stay with Windows. All of your programs will continue to work. RAM is where the computer does its work, get more always.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

The difference that I see is not related particularly to the hardware, but rather the software. A Mac seems more suited to multiusers and perhaps a bit more bulletproof or at least bullet resistant to malware/infections due to the under lying operating system and not being what every business deploys as standard.

Working with Dos 3.3 - thru Windows 7 There were often many hours of tweaking involved, with the Mac, it just seems not the case. Perhaps it is that I have changed over the years, but it always seemed like something was amiss with Windows as an OS, especially when run on top of DOS.

I gave up on Windows for Linux initially using Ubuntu. Then after a few years of running Linux, I went into an Apple store and was hooked on an iMac. I have not regretted switching and staying with Mac, it does everything I need and with the help of Virtual Box software, even does Windows for my radio scanner programming. If I switch over to SDR (Software Defined Radio) then I no longer need my scanner or Windows at all.

My wife and daughters were able to move from Windows to Linux fairly easily, and even easier from Linux to OSX, so my support level has decreased, even more so now that they use iPhones & iPads! And thats a good thing!