Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

The overall improvement, after tinkering, was:

jeffhacker Loc: Dallas, Texas

I had a Dell XPS and a 2018 MacBook Pro - both are good machines, but the Apple has MUCH better battery life. I just got a new MacBook Pro with the M2 chip and it is better than the older one because it adds back the ports that had been removed on the 2018 model. The trade off, of course, is that the Apple is more expensive, but from my experience I think it may be a bit better for photography.

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

I'm not a pro photographer... I play engineer for a day job, and am not a gamer. Choose the best one for the job.

Bill UT

I appreciate the feedback.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Avoid the base model of the M2 mini — it has a slow SSD. The next notch up has a much faster one.

I strongly suggest getting 16 or 24GB of unified memory and a minimum of 512GB internal SSD storage. It fills up quickly.

Check out reviews from MaxTech on YouTube, along with others that will pop up in your channel feed once you watch his.

Klickitatdave Loc: Seattle Washington

I purchased a Dell XPS 17 a year ago and I do not experience loud fan noise. So far it handles every resource-intensive editing program that I can throw at it and even multiple programs simultaneously. I did opt for the Intel I7 and 32 mb of memory so that probably improved it's ability to multitask.

profbowman Loc: Harrisonburg, VA, USA

Bill, I'd throw out any of us who say to buy none or the o ther. That really is your choice. But we can give you a sense of what we think is important.

I use PSs myself but know Macs well enough that I was a volunteer tech guy for Macs here at the retirement community we live in.

Is cost a big factor for you?
Is battery life important? Then look at both Macs and PCs for ones with hefty batteries. They all have them. We purchases two PC laptops a year and a half ago, and I made sure they were ones with the larger numbers of cells-->more life since they can stor and deliver more Amp-hrs.
Do you have any particular software you want to continue to use? Then make sure that the software comes in PC or Mac or both versionsw.
Do you have a store you trust and like to work with? Then study what they carry in the store or online.

Just some thoughts. --Richard

Red6

I think this is strictly a personal preference decision. I routinely use both Macs and PCs, and there is little difference in capabilities. There are lots of differences in functionality and methods. Ten years ago I would have said go Apple. MS was having issues with various problems and viruses. But honestly, MS software has gotten as good as Apple's OS in my opinion. MS's anti-virus software is very good and this is less of an issue now. WIN is easy to use and in some ways easier than Mac OS.

To me Mac OS reminds me of the AUTO mode in cameras, it often does what it wants to do, especially in file handling. WIN machines operate more in a manual mode, where the user decides when, where, and what to do in certain operations. The Mac OS can be used in a more manual mode but the manual techniques seem more difficult than in an MS machine. Again, these are my opinions developed over 10+ years of using both.

The Mac M1 and M2 machines are amazing. My wife has a Mac Air with the M1 and it is an amazing machine. However, the newer PC with Intel i7 and i9s are nearly as good and considerably cheaper.

But my advice is to go with what you are familiar with. Ignore all the advice from the various fanboys and go with what you are comfortable with. Either is a good decision as long as you are comfortable with it. There are enough differences between the MS and Mac OS that will cause frustration for weeks after changing. I know because after using both for many years, I still have to stop and think sometimes before I hit my next keystroke.

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

One area where Windows has the advantage over Mac is focus.

I was recently typing something when suddenly a dialog popped up stating that the Mac was validating some program. Took about 1 second. When it was done, it disappeared, taking the focus with it. It DID NOT return focus to the program I was using. I had to stop what I was doing and reset the focus so I could continue typing. That does not happen in Windows.

Similarly, if you have two windows open and you are working on both of them, when you want to do something on the window you're not working on at the moment so you click on the icon and do what you want, that works fine. But on the Mac if you minimize the second window, you have to then click on the first window again to place the focus there. It doesn't go back automatically to the last window you were using. Windows does that.

Also, if you're working on two windows and you want to switch back and forth rapidly, in Windows you can click on the icon of the top window and it will minimize. Then without moving the mouse you can click and return it to the screen. You can just use the mouse button to switch the windows back and forth. Not so on the Mac. Clicking on the icon of a window that has the focus does nothing.

Having worked on Windows machines for 30 years, I have gotten used to that functionality. Having been on the Mac for 18 months, the lack of that functionality is really annoying. It's a small matter and does not overcome my satisfaction with using the faster machine. But it's still a major annoyance for me.

Dalek Loc: Detroit, Miami, Goffstown

The new M2 Apples are loaded with power to edit photos. From Ai to searching the web all is well with the new Apples. Go to a store with a photo file and demo one.

Bruce T Loc: Michigan

That’s excellent.

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

My son worked as a tier 2 (I don't know what that is) Apple tech support for a few years... and most of the tech guys had PCs as well as Apple machines at home. The PCs allowed them to 'tinker' with the hardware.

Walt B

Look at the MacMini with the M2 processor. I think I saw it at Amazon for $599. Buy a 27" monitor at Costco or Amazon and you will have a very fast system for less than $1000. I have a Macbook air with the M1 processor which is very fast and hooked up to a 27" monitor. The MacMini with the M2 will be even faster. The 27" screen is much better for photo editing than the screen on a laptop.

Walt B

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The photo lab I worked for had both Macs and PCs in use. I used Macs and PCs daily for 24 years. I had one of each on my desk, as I went back and forth all day long. I got completely used to it. The ultimate was running WinXP in Parallels Desktop on a MacBook Pro, so I could travel with all my software on one computer.

The whole concept of Apple's ecosystem is to make information appliances. They serve the general public with machines that perform like kitchen appliances — simply, and without complications. As such, with the exception of the Mac Pro, the latest Macs are all sealed boxes that prevent internal upgrades. Even the new Mac Pro won't let you upgrade the graphics processor or the memory, both of which are wholly integrated into the System On Chip. You can add controller cards and drive cards into the Mac Pro, but that's it. (With 60 or 76 graphics cores, there's no need to add video processors! Memory is fixed, at 64, 128, or 192 GB.)

My impression of the Mac since 1985 has been that it mostly gets out of your way and lets you do the task at hand. Since version 10.4, MacOS has been a deep layer of functional elegance on top of UNIX. My impression of Windows, since 1990, is that it's been a presentable veneer on top of DOS, with a few versions being not so presentable (Me, NT, Vista, and 8). It is also mostly possible to make one look and function like the other, for about 80% of common tasks.

Years ago, my boss walked into a training session I was conducting in upstate New York. I was using my MacBook Pro with WinXP on Parallels to demonstrate some of our proprietary software to customers. He just smiled, shook his head, and at a break, jokingly called me a "show-off." In the lab, I'd be using a PC laptop to demonstrate that application, but I was creating new DVD content on my Mac while traveling, and didn't want to pack two machines. Windows ran faster on the MBP than it did on my older PC laptop, anyway and it ran perfectly well, so... I began using the Mac on the road.

Fast forward 14 years. A huge advantage Apple has right now is efficient power consumption, with cool, quiet operation. Apple Silicon Macs use about one third the power to do similar work as Intel/AMD chips. I seldom need to plug in, unless doing lots of rendering video, audio, or stills. The Mac can run at full speed on battery, while most PC laptops slow down considerably to save battery. You can set the Mac to slow down on battery, but it's not necessary, and not the default.

Another advantage is the built-in hardware support for Final Cut Pro, a Mac-only video editing tool. As my son learned last weekend, it is more efficient to edit and render a show in FCP than in Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve. He had been using Premiere for a year, and switched back to FCP to edit a short commercial.

The M1 MacBook Air is fan-less, yet it barely gets warm unless it is doing some really heavy lifting. Mine has been warm to the touch only a couple of times, in the 22 months I've had it. Both times, I was exporting a 45-minute 4K video slide show in Apple ProRes 4:2:2 to an MOV file. Both times, the Air finished the job without incident. (I WAS using a 4GB external Thunderbolt 3 SSD to store my source files, and a USB-C SSD to save the end result. Both SSDs got pretty warm.)

I agree that the OP most probably should choose platform based upon prior experience and preference, unless he's currently fighting the system on a daily basis. Some people naturally fit with one or the other approaches. Others have to use applications that are platform specific. Some others have an innate need to tinker, which the PC world offers in spades.

The cheapness argument is specious, at best. Yes, you can build a cheap PC, but your time is money. That includes the time you spend learning how to do it, researching and buying components, assembling them, loading the OS, and testing. One of our twins did that for his gaming PC, and of course, for GAMING, it was damned well worth it. But he uses an M1 Pro-based 14" MacBook Pro for everything other than gaming. The ability to move projects from iPhone to Mac and back makes his life work.

Ruthlessrider

I have a relatively new MacBook Air with the M2 chip and could be happier. I use it with an LG screen to make it easier for these old eyes to see.