Strongly consider an iMac Hi, given that your windows option was a full gaming rig hints to me that you don't really need portability. Combine that with your only major requirement of using Photoshop, I think you could be better served by a 21" iMac instead. You get a far higher resolution and lower cost to you. Also seems this will be your first venture into the world of OSX, and while many love it, myself included, some just can't enjoy it. Unless you need it while travelling, or hav a tiny bedroom, consider an iMac too. About your sister's MacBook overheating, the aluminum surface acts as a conductor to dissipate heat. If it can't remove heat because it's on pillows or duvets, ten the fan works extra hard. Same thing will happen with (older) Dell laptops that have exhaust fans blowing downwards from the base. And bear in mind Flash websites run the CPU usage into at least 50%, triggering extra heat output. And balance your perspectives with a windows-centric forum, and try the macs at s retail store to see if you like it.
Come on, any macbook is capable of running Photoshop. 400mhz powerbooks ran it like a dream eight years ago, you just need to max out the ram (the biggest slow-down is Photoshop running out of memory and using the hard drive.) The biggest favor you can do for yourself if you're doing graphic design or image editing is to get a big external monitor (and perhaps a Wacom pad). You'll find the 13" screen on a Macbook to be a much bigger hindrance than the graphics card or processor speed.
Alright thanks guys, I'm gonna check out the iMac and also have a go on my sister's Macbook when she gets home at the weekend. I'll play about with Photoshop on there, should help me make up my mind.
How much difference will it make? Unless you're going to use the laptop/PC for heavy graphics editing, either will be perfectly fine for playing games. I'm pretty sure a MacBook can run something like Crysis smoothly. I've always used a PC, but I love the sleek design and interface of Apple laptops. The downside is that it takes a while to get used to a totally different OS. The only decision factor should be the price.
No macbook is going to run Crysis smoothly at any decent settings until you get into the ones with dedicated graphics.
Nah if I go with a Macbook I won't be thinking about gaming. That model costs almost exactly twice as much.
If you want both gaming with the mac look (but not the OS) you could always go with an HP Envy 15.. I know i mention it alot but its really nice. It can play crysis on pretty high settings at around 20-30 FPS, but it is kind of expensive. Also looks exactly like a mac http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=ENVY&series_name=ENVY15_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/ENVY/ENVY15_series
I bought my girlfriend a MacBook for Christmas and she loves it (Spiffyone helped me out with some advice). I really like it too and have decided I'm going to get myself a MBP. I'm going for the low-end 13" because I don't plan on doing any intensive stuff with it. A regular MB would suit me fine actually but I really like the aluminum MBP's so I'm going to pay the extra money just for that. I've been looking at them closely this week and was almost ready to buy one but I keep seeing rumors that Apple is going to release new MBP's with better specs sometime within the next few months. There is a Mac buyers guide on Macrumors (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/) that says Do Not buy MBP's right now, because it's been 2xx days since the last upgrade and Apple averages only 200 days per upgrade... I don't like getting caught up in the technology races but it's hard to ignore this kind of stuff. Everyone is convinced the new MBP's will get the new Intel i3/5/7 chips and new GPU's. Since I don't plan on doing much graphic intensive stuff I really could care less about these upgraded specs but I don't want to potentially miss out on a better screen or something. Plus there might be better deals on the "old" models once the upgrades ship. I decided I'm going to wait on it a month or so.
I think I'm gonna go with a regular Macbook. Pro would be nice, but it's more than I'll be able to afford anytime in the near future. I looked briefly at the 13" MBP but according to everymac.com the regular Macbook pretty much matches (or even exceeds in some cases) it in performance. The most intensive thing I'll be doing is Photoshop, I went on Skype with my sister and she showed me how hers performs running it... it seemed to manage perfectly fine and that's on a 3-year old model so I should be alright. As for gaming, like some people pointed out... I own two consoles already, I'll survive
I always buy Mac refurbs. With most companies it's pretty risky and you only get like 30 or 90 days warranty but Apple does a good job with testing them and give you the full year's warranty, same as new. You can also buy applecare, though whether that's worth it is a whole different discussion. The only thing is, you have to check often and be fast to snatch it up when good deals show up. You can usually get at least a couple hundred dollars off though, some times even more. Oh, and you should also do a little checking to see what revision the machines are, since they don't tell you if the machine is the latest or if it's last year's model- you have to figure it out for yourself by the specs.
yea the refurbished thing would be the way to go. I've got a macbook had it now for a year and its awesome. You can play games on them if your desperate as well, you can either use programs such as crossover games ( thats what I use) or you can run boot camp which is running windows on a mac, which means you can play windows games natively. And they arent that bad value when you consider things such as build quality, OS and the fact that macs are just awesome computers. I know some people will disagree but if you have the money to spend they are worth the premium you pay. They also dont suffer the slowdown that you will find with most windows computers after several years of use, one of my mates mac lasted for 7 years without any slow, they only replaced it because they wanted the newest model, macs are the way to go!
My 2.4Ghz iMac (ATI Radeon HD 2600) can be a pretty powerful gaming machine, running Half-Life 2 on full detail at 1680x1050 at 40fps. Crysis it runs at about medium detail, and Spore runs pretty smoothly on full with the same resolution. Macs can be good gaming machines if the need arises.
You'd definitely need at least a MBP for 3DSMax... it's quite intensive. I wouldn't usually try 3D modeling on anything other than a desktop computer personally, but that's not to say it wouldn't work. So anyway I've ordered a Macbook. It does the stuff I want so I'm happy with the decision. I know what people mean when they talk about value for money, but I like the fact that you know exactly what you're getting in regards to build quality, with other laptops it's always a bit of a gamble. Plus... the money I used to buy it was a Christmas present from my grandfather, so it's alright if I spoil myself a little, I wanted to get something special rather than slowly wasting it on rubbish.
The Envy line is a great product, but there's one issue that may be glaring for some: There is no internal optical disc drive of any sort.
