Been awhile since I posted, but you guys are always helpful. I’m more of a lurker anyway. I did have a question I wanted to open up here for some opinions. I’m about a year into a Graphic Design degree program and finally feel the need to pony up some $$ for a laptop. I’ve been eyeballing a macbook (not a macbook pro, too pricey for my blood), but am also considering a PC laptop since it seems I can get a little more for my money.
It seems like the screen on the macbook is a little small to be useful for full-time design work, although whenever I’d use it at home I could hook it up to a larger monitor. I could get a much larger windows laptop for the same money, though, and with a better graphics card. I’m torn, since I’m also not a fan of the compatibility issues between PC and Mac in the design industry, and know that most places use macs. Also, I get about $100 off the price of a new macbook with my education discount, and Apple is offering a free ipod touch and printer with any new macbook/macbook pro purchase which I could sell and put back towards the price of the mac. I’ve also been checking craigslist for used macbooks, some of which are at a pretty decent price and still have the apple care plan.
Any thoughts, opinions, advice? Sorry for the long post.
Do you really want to carry a bigger laptop with you as a student? I’d suggest the MacBook, but I’m a little biased probably since that’s what I have. You’ll likely be able to do all the same things on either platform, and file compatibility issues probably aren’t going to be a huge issue for most of what you work with. I have to say though, the MacBook is a great laptop, and it’s likely to hold up nicely and work well for you. It also has the advantage of easily replaceable memory and hard drive. Bumping the hard drive up to 250 GB or so without a lot of effort is awesome. So that’s my vote, go with the MacBook, I’d be very surprised if you regret it, especially if you have a bigger monitor to hook it to for serious design sessions.
don’t waste your time and money on a measly macbook…
the screen is garbage (not size, but quality, its sheer lame), its underpowered… its a consumer laptop, ie: for college kids to write essays on and check email
if you are a design student, you need the extra power, and screen size (& QUALITY) of the 15" macbook pro.
Trust me, the macbook shouldn’t even be blipping on your radar
And for design purposes, OS X is where its at, you’ll be spending have your time cursing windows, and half your time having your workflow slowed down by bad UI if you went the PC-way
I’m not so much concerned about the size of the laptop itself as I am about the macbook’s small 13" screen. Unfortunately I can’t justify spending the extra several hundred dollars ($700 price difference between the macbook I’m looking at and the base pro!!!) for the MBP, especially when the only advantages seem to be a bigger screen and better graphics card. The processor is exactly the same, and the hardrive and RAM can be upgraded easily.
So it’s definitely between a macbook and similarly priced, or even cheaper, pc. After selling off the Touch, though, I’d be looking at the 2.4ghz, 2gb ram, 160gb hard drive, super drive macbook for around $900 US before taxes. Not a bad deal.
Have you guys with macbooks found it difficult designing on the small screen?
not just bigger screen, its a better quality screen. There is a difference.
They say the macbook is capable of displaying millions of colors, but that is simply not true. Its a cheap, poorly built LCD.
And for designing, do you not need to see millions of actual colours?
you’d be better off not buying a macbook, and getting a PC in your case, since money is an issue…
but be warned, you’re going to hate the experience of using it as a design machine
*i have a macbook at work and I curse its small size and low-quality build, i have an imac at home with the higher quality 8bit (? i think? is it more?) and there is a huuuuuuuuuuge difference
[ot]If you could afford the M1330 I would highly suggest that (but its around 1500USD after optional configs… but it has a much better screen then most every other laptop I’ve seen (one of the optional configs)). Plus most of the hardware would be OSX compatible.
Screens only 1280x800… but its perfect for totting around to classes and such (plus you don’t have to plug in because the battery like is like 4hours on performance mode). [whisper]makes me wish i had the money for an envy 133[/whisper][/ot]
Look - here’s the thing. You can get an awesome Dell for like $1500, or an awesome MacBook Pro for $2500. It’ll be the exact same hardware, so if you think a shiny operating system is worth an extra $1000 or more, go for it. You’re gonna be looking at the interfaces of your software, which works exactly the same on each platform, so keep that in mind.
Thats mostly true, except for the fact that actually using os x for designing (not the software interface) is better for your workflow… IMO anyway… but who am i to say, i just use OS X every day for design and development as my primary source of income
shrugs
I say go for a top of the line Dell or something… and eventually you should think about putting money away for an apple machine
hehe FTL, that just makes you extremely biased. I’m as biased as you and I think the complete opposite usually all these things come down to opinions. At least your more rational than most mac guys [whisper]cough BS cough[/whisper].
[whisper]although I remember seeing a really well put together study that compared OSX and Vista in only the UI portion and windows actually got a higher score… but IMO personal preference can out way human habits which UI conventions are based on.[/whisper]
If you fully intend to pursue a career in design I would lean towards the MacBook. As several others have pointed out, the MacBook Pro would obviously be a much better option, but if that’s out of your price range it’s a non-issue.
You are going to find some inefficiencies working on design with that small screen, but the bottom line is Mac is the standard in the design world, especially in print and multimedia (if moving strictly into electronic design and avoiding print altogether, you’ll find Mac/Windows options a little more balanced.) Anything you learn in individual applications like Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, etc. will carry over from Windows to Mac, but personally if I was just entering the design world I would want as much familiarity working in OS X as possible. Plus, if you do get a MacBook you can always sell it a couple years down the road to upgrade… one thing about Macs is they seriously hold on to resale values.
On the issue of the lower quality screen mentioned above, I honestly wouldn’t worry about it, at least not as a student. While yes, it is definitely nicer to have a full quality screen like in the MacBook Pro, hooking it up to an external monitor in your dorm/at home will solve that issue while not in class, and while in class it’s manageable.
Thanks-everybody. Still not sure which direction I’m going to go, but I appreciate everyone’s input. It’ll be probably a month or two before I decide (by next semester in August. just taking Gen Ed classes over the summer).
[QUOTE=fasterthanlight™;2343613]not just bigger screen, its a better quality screen. There is a difference.
They say the macbook is capable of displaying millions of colors, but that is simply not true. Its a cheap, poorly built LCD.
And for designing, do you not need to see millions of actual colours?
you’d be better off not buying a macbook, and getting a PC in your case, since money is an issue…
but be warned, you’re going to hate the experience of using it as a design machine
*i have a macbook at work and I curse its small size and low-quality build, i have an imac at home with the higher quality 8bit (? i think? is it more?) and there is a huuuuuuuuuuge difference[/QUOTE]
Just as a FYI, almost all notebook screens available are 6-bit screens, which make them less than ideal for design work. I think there was a Thinkpad that had an 8-bit screen, but I’m not sure they make it anymore. I would say go for a Macbook and an external monitor if you need the added screen real estate/color accuracy.
Yea like jakattak said, hooking the macbook up to an external display will solve the display issue…
So maybe you should dive into a macbook… keep in mind the product life cycle, the macbook is right in the middle of its product life cycle, and a couple months from now when you need to buy it, you might be edging close to an update…
Also, @temp, me using os x all day every day doesn’t make me biased, I am legitimate example of what macs can be used for
[ot][quote=dj_kyron;2343757]I have the M1330 from Dell. I don’t recommend it only because the motherboard isn’t reliable. There have been 5 other people in my engineering class this year that had to send it back to dell to get it replaced because it got fried. That includes me as well :(. Other than that, it was a terrrrrrrific laptop (HDMI, Geforce 8, tiny, thin, sexy, slot loading dvd burner, white glossy paint-no cheap ****, and aluminum casing-again no cheap plastic ****). Just the motherboard…[/quote]
:lol: my laptops gotten up in the 180F+ and stuff and hasn’t fried yet. I’ve broken the hard drive and dented in the screen… both probably my fault so the warranty has well payed for itself). Dell has a 2 day replace cycle so any damage can be repaired in 2 days. I really abuse my laptop the tech even said that. I’ve scrapped off entire edges of the paint and chipped the sides and everything its a strong laptop though. I wish I had a envy so I had a carbon fiber case.
[whisper]the paint thing was fixed in the later models… but I like the warn down look… in 2 more months I can celebrate is 1st birthday[/whisper][/ot]
