purchase advice!

[blustocking]

What with working now and financial aid, I think it's time to upgrade my computer, especially since there's no way it's going to handle RAW files without crashing and/or taking 3478392 years to process one photo.

SO, Mac vs. PC. Let the battle begin (for me at least). Must be in laptop/notebook form.

PC's are cheaper, Macs are more "design oriented". PCs are more buggy, Macs are...well, not. I'm comfortable with PCs and am reluctant to drop 2 grand on the image that Apple projects of being the "cool" and more "artistic" of the two. However, if my schooling is to be trusted, then I'll have to get used to it as the "industry standard". Yes, I'm feeling quote happy.

So...refurbished MacBook Pro (17" monitor) for around $1600, plus student discount on Aperture or Photoshop, and possibly Illustrator. p.s. has anyone used Aperture yet and if so, is it really as great as I hear? And do you think an older MacBook will be sufficient. I have an external HD that holds 250GB, so I don't think that's a problem. Plus, the refurbished unit I'm looking at has 120GB. Oh hell, it's this one

OR, actually...the more I'm looking, $1600 for a MacBook is pretty reasonable. Any other ideas?

Comments

[nic.livejournal.com]

My experience with Aperture is that it needs an AWFUL lot of disk space for the photo library. You'll definitely want that external disk for it! I used Aperture for a while and it is very snazzy but I didn't like it enough to switch from my current workflow of Photoshop Camera RAW and iPhoto. I couldn't tweak photos in the same way as I could in Photoshop Camera RAW as well which was a pain. Worth trying though - why not grab a version off of bittorrent before dropping all that cash?

[unimmagine.livejournal.com]

I can help you potentially get a better deal.
I work for apple, and have a friends and family discount which is 15%.
I think it's a little better than the student discount.
I also get cheap ass adobe stuff and aperture.
my opinion of aperture is that it's okay. it's nice to be able to see everything you're working on, but Adobe Lightroom is also basically the same thing. I rarely, if ever, use Aperture because it's not very practical and I like photoshop better for editing my photos. The one good thing, is it doesn't degrade image quality when you work on them, whereas photoshop does.

a macbook would also be sufficient, as long as you bump up the RAM to 2gb.

[blustocking.livejournal.com]

How cheap is your cheap-ass Adobe stuff?
And do you get a discount on the refurbished items?

I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to this.
I hate sitting in front of a computer sometimes.

In any case, thanks for the input!

[hearteststill.livejournal.com]

look back a week or so in my lj. I got fired.

I did get a discount on refurbished items. and the adobe stuff was a little more off than the student discount.

[blustocking.livejournal.com]

Oh man! I'm sorry!
Eff that noise.

[serialkiller.livejournal.com]

get the macbook, you will never go back to a PC again.

[kitryne.livejournal.com]

get the refurb. you'll love it. i'd give a toe to have one, really.

and aperture is pretty rad, i'm meaning to get it myself.

[spritek.livejournal.com]

I know plenty of designers that use PC. I've become so familiar with it that learning to navigate around MAC is bothersome and takes to much time. Ergo, I don't use MAC because I'm lazy.

MAC certainly has its cult following, though, and while it is an "industry standard", PC is used as well. Find a design forum and post your question there. And let me know where you post it, I want to see the pc v. mac wars, haha!