wteffey Loc: Ocala, FL USA

I am really happy for you. Good to have the $2,500, and a partner that will let you indulge. If my 5 year old HP dies I will go to Amazon and buy a replacement for $528. May or may not be as good, or look as pretty, but let me see, I could buy a new DSLR, a lens or two, and a copy of Elements 2018 with the change. Or, I could invest the $2,000 and be able to buy a new PC every year for 5 years if need be. Good to have options.

tomcat

So far, in the past, every time I have called Apple I got their help. Fortunately, I have not had to call them in the last 2 years or so. But they are always there and very courteous and happy to help me when I call. Keep this a secret though: If they charged me, then I would not mind paying a fee because I have an Apple technical expert on the line and not some self-taught ninny

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

According to 1-2 reviews, Dell XPS series exceeds Mac for photo editing, but neither are cheap. That said, a laptop is not my first choice for editing photos, but they are popular.

shelty Loc: Medford, OR

I've found building my own machine or having a computer tech to build our machine is the best way to go. My machine I built about five years ago and cost me a little over $1,000. It has a four core board and processor, three 2 terabyte hard drives and one 750 gig solid state drive. It does everything I want it to, and if I want to, I can add to it or modify it any time I want to. I know that there are new and more powerful boards and processors out there, but I really don't need them. I've found, in the past, that purchasing a manufacturer's machine you're pretty much stuck with what you got and can do very little modifying on them. I also use a 4k monitor.

RodB Loc: Dallas/Mckinney

A good analogy... Originally the Mac was designed for graphics, page layout, prepress, and imaging... the others were modifications of existing machines/operating systems to also use similar programs and came after the Mac. Fast forward and now its difficult to tell which platform you are in if you are using Photoshop or LR. If you want or need a wide range of different software for different special interests then the PC is your choice...but I have not found much that I wanted to do that was not available in the Mac platform except for CAD maybe.

As a competent PC user I have used the Mac platform for the past 35+ years. There is no simpler easier system for a new user to get up and running. It was designed for graphic arts... Their hardware has always been top notch and lasted many years till I had to upgrade for fantastic new featured software. Much of the software for the Mac is very smartly written... a good example of this is the software for the iPhones which makes them the highest user loyalty group in the industry.

I like the similarity of most programs for the Mac in that many of the key commands are the same/similar function in most programs. The similarities/commonality of most Mac software in may ways is a real advantage especially if you bother to learn key commands. Learning key commands makes it possible to go thru scores of images in Photoshop with a minute or two on each image... I like knowing I only have to follow some commonsense rules when online to avoid ever having virus problems ... I like the fact that all the IMac desktops I bought have all lasted approx 8 years and I sold them when I upgraded. I personally have long used the iMac platform... and for the past 12 years have used an iMac 27. The only time I had to replace a unit was from damage caused by a lightning strike that came up my ethernet Internet line... and ruined my computer... (no more hard wired inet connections for me).

After using a 27" iMac monitor its hard to be happy with the smaller Mac laptop (more expensive than the Desktop iMac). The color accuracy of all the Macs the past 20 years is amazing compared to years past when you had to pay extra to get a particularly color accurate monitor for serious color work. I love it that I can get the "Tactile Pro 4 Keyboard" which has the wonderful touch of the original IBM keyboard with the clean clear "click" and the indented key with such a great feel (lots of vendors make cool products for the Mac). I love the simplicity of connecting and using new hard drives, printers, scanners etc when using Macs.

As an Apple guy... I love it that my iPhone can hold all my music and connects simply to my computer USB with iTunes to back up all my contacts and music (50 GB I also do it on The Cloud) which also plays easily on my Pioneer 4100NX car radio/cd player which runs Apple "Car Play"... which allows me to see my major icons of my phone on my radio screen... for Phone, Music, Text, Maps... and I can safely connect my iPhone to my radio and have complete control verbally of who I call, text or look up a business or listen to all my music... all hands free for my safety except for music which I must select the start playlist/song on the radio screen.

As an imaging professional I would be remiss if I didn't recommend you take a look in an Apple store before deciding.

Camera buyer Loc: Las Vegas

I have been using Apple Computers from the Apple II to my current Mac Pro Laptop and my Tabletop Mac 21". The ease of using Photoshop, which I have been using since Version 1 is flawless. I was in charge of the computer programs in a school district. The operating systems for PC's was always a problem. The Windows platform has become far more reliable than MSDOS was. If you are just beginning, the ease of operation would suggest getting a Mac. Most importantly have at least 8mb's of internal memory. I have 16mb. SSD ( Solid State Drives ) are faster but expensive. I have a hybrid 750mb drive.
The initial cost is higher, but the reliability and ease of operation should be worth the extra dollars.

cyclespeed Loc: Calgary, Alberta Canada

A little practical advice here. I have a business providing tech support for approximately 50 small to medium enterprises.
12 years ago I made the change. As most clients had some form of evergreen plan in place wherein every 3 to 5 years the end user and server platforms were replaced. Those who switched to an all Apple configuration were given a 50 percent discount on all service calls over the next 3 years. I gave notice to all that did not switch that my services would be no longer available once new non Apple hardware was purchased or 1 year hence which ever came first.
I lost or better said let go 7 clients. The rest switched. I expanded my business over the next 5 years by 30 %. I had 1 full time and 2 part time employees. Our total billable hours went down by 20 % and as a result one of my pert time employees was given notice.
I made the switch for many reasons but the primary one was lower call outs. My logs to date show I have never had more than 1/3 the number I had when my business was almost exclusively non Apple.
I also offer free 2 year service on all installs in clients homes if all components are Apple. Twenty-seven installs to date. One call out after a power outage during a back up run in all the eight years this offer has been in place.
The simple answer is Apple build a far more reliable computer. They do not need to enter the race to the bottom as others are constantly challenged to do.
Mac is the answer period.
Also, upgrading ram, switching to SSD drives and replacing batteries are all much easier or as easy to perform in the after market realm as others.

wteffey Loc: Ocala, FL USA

Public institutions, like school districts, use OPM (Other Peoples (Taxpayers) Money) to buy and maintain equipment. Not necessarily a good reference.

RodB Loc: Dallas/Mckinney

I know quite a few people in the digital imaging pre-press industry and all use Apple computers. I completely agree with you.

wteffey Loc: Ocala, FL USA

For someone just beginning to explore photography a camera is essential. After a while a computer of some sort will be essential. A MAC, while perhaps the ultimate editing machine, is not essential. A PC will do nicely, thank you. If someone already has a PC, but the initial choice of camera was not perfect, upgrading to a better camera will be a better investment than upgrading to a MAC. If someone has a limited budget, say $1,200, a $700 camera and a $500 PC might be the way to go. If the newbie already has a PC that runs Windows 10 then upgrading may not be necessary for some time. No one should defer a photography hobby because they are told they absolutely must have a MAC. Silly. Post your photos here and no one will know what computer you are using.

sawdust_128

dpullum, I am completely in agreement with you. I have three Windows 10 machines at home, all built with gaming motherboards and graphics cards. When I feel that the system has bogged down, I will upgrade or add newer components. I am looking hard at the new hybrid disk drives. I am sold on ViewSonic Monitors. I have 22" monitors on all machines.

I love Newegg as a supplier of all components.

There are apple emulators for Windows.

There are Windows emulators for Apple.

There are Windows and Apple emulators for linix.

As I have and always will believe about the tech business, These companies are maestros at selling on minutia.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

An Apple emulator for Linux and Windows?

Hopefully you are not talking about a 68000 emulator to fake an Apple IIe, or an IOS emulator right?

Usually an “emulator” is not like running the actual operating system on your hardware, it’s a kludge.

Running a virtual machine is not an “emulator” but it takes quite a bit of work to get a VM that runs OS X

Then there is the “Hackintosh”, meaning you install OS X on a peecee, again quite a bit of work, especially for device drivers, but can be done.

FWIW - I would rather pay for what I think is the best then fight with a kludge over and over everyday!

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

Well put it this way, IBM moved from supplying only pc's to their employees until about 2 years when they started recommending Mac because the MTBF (mean time before Failure) was over 2.5 times higher for PC (and we only bought the very highest end PC). While I will give you that pc laptops are both less expensive for the initial purchase and have gotten better just to give you an idea, we have 4 Macs and MacBook Pros which the oldest is over six years old and still running like a top. My wife teaches computer science classes for which she needed a pc laptop for because the teaching software they use is only on PC (I ran it on parallel on the 2010 MacBook pro and it worked fine). So I purchased a high end laptop using windows 10. I put all the apps you need to protect a pc from malware, etc on the machine and got it totally up to date and safe. Then 10 days later my wife was saying it was running significantly slower than before. I took a look at it and spent 4 hours cleaning all the crap it gathered in just 10 days. Now every Saturday I'm forced to spend at least an hour working on it. I've never had to do anything like than on any mac.

So you pay more initially but you get what you pay for with a machine that lasts longer and cost much less to maintain. But hey if you have an hour to kill every week go for it.

By the way I do agree the latest macs are a bit harder to upgrade except for memory which you can install yourself quite easily. I run all my macs off external SSD drives thru thunderbolt and use the internal drives as storage. Works great and super fast.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

NOT AGAIN? This is like twice in two days!

Satman Loc: Indy

I started wit a Comadore, then Atari, Trash 80, then IBM,

Have PC and Mac,

PCs are getting better, and they are...you just need to wait, and wait...

At 76 I am still waiting for a faster PC....maybe at CES this year,