Is it absolutely necessary to buy a MAC for graphics design?
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I’m going to go to graphic arts, computer arts, and maybe a side of game creation but i have never bought a laptop in my life. My friend has been ranting how bad macs are and i kinda believe him. They seem to pass my budget of 2000 and all they can do is computer arts, i would have to buy vista separate for a extra 300 added to the price of 3200 of the mac which scares me if i have to get it. If i get a credit card and not get vista i wouldn’t be able to play any of my games or programs i have, but it runs photoshop a lot smoother then my friends pc and it looks nice, i was looking at a gaming computer as a alternative from other companies but my other friend who dose graphics design says I’m going to need one if i want to continue it into a career and it would be difficult just using a pc; she advises both mac laptop and pc desktop. Is their a cheaper alternative or should i just screw it and use the credit card?
I heard of mac having no virus problems but my pc has never had a virus problem before so im not concerned about that.
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If you are pursuing a career in graphic design, it’s a good idea to be very familiar with Macs, because any job you get in graphic design is very likely to have you using a Mac.
That doesn’t mean you have to buy a Mac, though. If you can use your friends’ Macs or if your school has a Mac lab, you can use a Mac from time to time just to make sure you’re familiar with it.
That BS about the application taking up only the part of the screen it actually uses is no reason to use a Mac. If you’re a graphic designer, most likely anything you’ll be working on will take up the whole screen anyway (are you really going to be working on a picture that’s 300×300?). And Windows does not force you to maximize windows. More importantly, you can buy an external monitor with the money you save from not getting a Mac and then hook it up for more screen real estate and have all the drag and drop room you want.
Most graphic designers prefer Macs and get used to the workflow on Macs. But if you genuinely prefer using Windows, and you have all the programs you need (mainly Adobe Creative Suite, I’m guessing), then there’s no reason you have to buy a Mac.
you don’t need a mac, try asus they have been pretty good. you can always upgrade the video card, just get one with a decent processer (at least 2.0 GHz) and RAM (at least 2GB).
Dont do it, It’s a waist of money
and if thats all your doing,
you can acchive all that with XP
Macs can get virusues too not believe the Mac fanboys line of crap that they are immune because they aren’t. If you are looking into going in to graohics arts a Mac is probably your best bet.
What makes a Mac different from a PC in the area of graphic design… it comes down to graphic designers being one of the few groups of users who truly need to multitask. I’m talking about user multitasking, not computer multitasking… there is a difference.
In Windows, most applications are designed to take over the interface of the system (rooted apps within full screen windows). When working on an image in Photoshop in Windows, you have the image window inside a root window which takes over the screen.
Now this is fine if the only app you use is Photoshop, but for most graphic designers, Photoshop is one of many tools being used, and when that root window takes over the screen, they are isolated from the other apps that they were working with.
On Macs, applications take up only what is actually needed by them. In this way you can see other apps in the background and even the desktop, which many people use for holding items that they will end up dropping into a piece of work. You can’t drag-n-drop from the desktop (or any other app) if you can’t even see the desktop. The ability to drag-n-drop is a major advantage in work flow for users who multitask.
Personally, I think Windows is a great platform for secretaries, gamers and the like. People who only do one thing and don’t want to be distracted while doing that thing.
That having been said… you should use what you like. If you don’t know what that is, I highly doubt anyone else can help you figure it out.
ABSOLUTELY NOT. Anything you can do on a mac can just as easily be done on a PC. The main difference is the price. You can get the same hardware (basically) as a mac and a windows OS much cheaper.
All software packages that have been released for mac are also available for windows. However, the reverse isn’t true.
As far as virii, the only reason that windows PCs are more effected is because there are more of them.. Also, don’t believe anyone that says Macs don’t get viruses. There are viruses that effect Macs quite badly. If they had the market share that MS has, the roles would definitely be reversed.
Use what you are comfortable with. If you are used to mac, use it. If you are used to windows use it.
I’m going into graphic design as well. Macs aren’t absolutely necessary for the graphic arts. Although PCs occasionally have a few problems if you’re working on Macs in your school and transfer a file, it’s not that big of a deal. I personally don’t like Macs, but it’s all up to you!
Your friend doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Macs are great computers. They last longer that PCs since the Mac OS tends to get faster over time, where Vista needs more power than XP. You can get a Mac Mini for about $600 and have a great system that will be easier than a PC and far more secure.
By the way, just because you haven’t found any viruses on your PC doesn’t mean that you don’t have one. There are literally millions of PCs with viruses right now that are sending spam and/or phoning home to their bot masters with bank account information, passwords, etc., and their owners are completely unaware. You could be one of them.
Anyone who says Macs can get viruses is either lying or they don’t know what they’re talking about. Sure, Macs can theoretically get viruses, but since there are ZERO Mac viruses, a Mac cannot get one in the real world. Someday, there probably will be one though, so you always need to be aware of the possibility, and there are some silly Trojans, but the danger is incredibly low especially compared to Windows.
A Mac is expensive, almost impossible to upgrade on your own, hardware that can run *nix or Windows.
A PC is cheaper, very easy to upgrade on your own, hardware that can run *nix and Windows.
About the only important difference between them is price, so if you have money you want to get rid of, buy a Mac.
If you don’t download viruses you don’t have virus problems.
As far as graphics goes, a lot of commercial graphics work is done in Photoshop – and that runs on Windows. If you absolutely must run *nix (which is the native Mac OS), you can get it free and install it on your Windows laptop, just as you can install Windows on your Mac laptop. (About the only significant difference is that you can get a much flatter Mac than PC these days, so if you need a laptop you can slip into an interoffice envelope, you have to get a Mac.)
It is not absolutely necessary. of course you need to see what computers use the place you want to study. this is a priority because of the interface of the programs like Photoshop or Maya.
Also if you will use the laptop or mac only for school or for your personal use as well, <For the second one i recommend a mac>
Mac does have viruses but it is a lot harder to get one than the ones on a pc.
I Absolutely recommend you a mac, if you do not have the budget get a desktop with a lot of ram.
also remember that the macs have a 5 years (aprox) of working the same way than the day you bought them.
You have gotten some good advice and some really poor advice. The advice telling you to get a Mac falls in the good area. I taught high school digital photography & Photoshop, we just used Macs. My daughter has a illustration/graphics art degree from an art college, she just used Macs there and runs her illustration business off a Mac Pro Tower. If you create something on a Windows PC it usually will transfer over to a Mac which most of the design & illustration companies use, but then again it may not. If you are serious about doing art, you need a Mac.
As to a Macs capabilities, a Mac can do anything a Windows PC can do, in some cases better and faster. Vista runs better on a Mac than most Windows PCs.
As to viruses, there are no released MacOS X viruses, despite what the Windows users tell you. There are over 1,500,000 Windows viruses. In the real world of business you will be downloading daily virus updates and doing scans to keep your Windows PC clean. That will slow you down, that will affect the time you can use your computer to do work. Check the Sophos website below, it has the date of the last Mac virus (2006). There are 7 Mac trojans which require you to be greedy or stupid to install with your admin password,
My suggestion, get an iMac and a MacBook. Together they cost about the same as a MacBook Pro. You can use the MacBook for the portability & back it up to the iMac. You can do your serious work on the iMac, have it for your scanning, etc. and run windows on it if you need to.