What Apple laptop ?

I have been running Windows since forever, however lately I seem to be having nothing but problems with updates. I basically only use my desktop for a few things, the main one being photo processing using Capture One pro for Sony. I also use OneNote a lot (which I believe is available in OSX now).

So, I am seriously contemplating getting an Apple laptop and giving the desktop to my son for gaming.

I know next to nothing about Apple. What laptop would you recommend ? I was looking at MacBook Pro Retina. I assume it should work with most external hard drives ? I also assume it should work fine with my Dell 2209WA monitor and eye One calibrator ? I'd like to stay at $1500 or below.

Also, is there any good free image editing software ? I use C1P for 99% of edits so don't want to invest $$$ in an editing program.


Thanks !

- Capture One is also available on Mac, as well as i1 calibration software.
- Using adapters, you can connect almost any type of display to the MBPr, or natively if that display has a Displayport jack.
- External drives should work as long as they're formatted in a "universal" file system like FAT32 or EXFAT, if they're NTFS you'll need to buy a system extension that'll allow OS X to natively access disk (otherwise disks will be read-only).
- You can save a bunch of money by buying refurbished products, which a lot of people consider a good idea, here is the normally-$1500 13" MBPr for $1270: http://www.apple.com …el-i5-with-retina-display

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #17693570
- Capture One is also available on Mac, as well as i1 calibration software.
- Using adapters, you can connect almost any type of display to the MBPr, or natively if that display has a Displayport jack.
- External drives should work as long as they're formatted in a "universal" file system like FAT32 or EXFAT, if they're NTFS you'll need to buy a system extension that'll allow OS X to natively access disk (otherwise disks will be read-only).
- You can save a bunch of money by buying refurbished products, which a lot of people consider a good idea, here is the normally-$1500 13" MBPr for $1270: http://www.apple.com …el-i5-with-retina-display

Thanks,

What is a good spec notebook that would be sufficient for the next few years ?

The one Kolor linked to should last for quite some time. When it is time to change out would be all on you. A machine being slow can be subjective.

That being said, that model linked is a model from March 2015 w/ a 256GB SSD. That should cover you for more than a few years depending on your usage habits.

One thing with new MacBook pros, the ram is now soldered to the board. So there is no upgrading later.

If you want more ram you must pay apple for it when you buy it (if buying new) or be locked into however much ram comes with it.

Also, there is a learning curve when switching room windows to OS X. So know it will take a little bit to get used to the new way of doing thing.

I am reading about Macbooks and there seem to be many complaints about dead pixels showing up on Retina displays, any insight on that ?

My macbook is like 8 years old (and not used for anything past internet any more) so I can not comment on retina displays

Amamba wrote in post #17694276
I am reading about Macbooks and there seem to be many complaints about dead pixels showing up on Retina displays, any insight on that ?

Buy somewhere with a good return policy. Apple store, for instance. And a physical one that you can walk into too. Apple care is always an add-on option, but I've never bought it.

BH has good deals if you don't mind the shipping and harder returns. A week ago, they had a sale of 1750 for thr MBPr 15 inch with quad core i7, 16gb of ram, 512gb ssd, and 2gb dedicated video card (last year's model, only big difference is that the ssd is 700MBps vs 1.3 MBps on the current model).

gremlin75 wrote in post #17694120
One thing with new MacBook pros, the ram is now soldered to the board. So there is no upgrading later.

If you want more ram you must pay apple for it when you buy it (if buying new) or be locked into however much ram comes with it.

Also, there is a learning curve when switching room windows to OS X. So know it will take a little bit to get used to the new way of doing thing.

8GB of RAM should be enough for most processing tasks, C1 runs fine on my iMac from late 2010.

OS X does take a little bit to get used to, but it's also super easy to learn, if you think that there should be an easy way of doing something, chances are there is.
For instance, pressing space bar activates preview, which lets you look at almost any type of file without actually opening it.

Amamba wrote in post #17694276
I am reading about Macbooks and there seem to be many complaints about dead pixels showing up on Retina displays, any insight on that ?

It's probably no more common than on any other display, and buying refurbished in this case may be even better since the device has essentially passed two QC phases, especially if it was returned due to dead pixels.

idkdc wrote in post #17694385
Buy somewhere with a good return policy. Apple store, for instance. And a physical one that you can walk into too. Apple care is always an add-on option, but I've never bought it.

I've bought Apple Care with my past purchases and the price of purchasing one for my Macbook was worth it alone for the three/four devices I have purchased it for. The keyboard went out on the white MB I had and the quote to fix it that warranty took care of was like 3x the cost of applecare on it's own. I also had a battery issue with our current MBP and they swapped it with almost no questions asked.

Like idkdc said, one that you can walk into is so nice. They are totally cool to deal with and refuse to let you leave upset.

Although my first computer was an Apple II (1981) I have been with "IBM"/Microsoft/Window​s since the mid 80's until last months when I bought a McbookPro with 15" Retina display. And I am sold... Hope to see my 27" retina Mac desktop delivered next week.
Photoshop works faster on the MacbookPro (16Gb ram) than on the windows desktop (which got 8Gb ram and an i7 processor and the display quality is so much better than on my LG Flatron E2441 display.

Getting familiar with the GUI on the Apple Mac is not that much of a problem. Took me a couple of days and now when I want to close a program I click on the left side of the screen instead of the right.

Switching was always a problem because of Photoshop: you had to buy the Apple version even when you already had a Windows license. But now with the CC system of subscriptions you can download either version as long as you haven't got more than two installed at the same time.

So... I highly recommend you switch to Apple...

I am an old Apple user and very unhappy with the virus problems I have had with a PC. The laptop i5 processor seems slower than the 8 year old IMac I have.
Can you get by with 8 Gigs of RAM and how well does the new flash memory work? I am used to hard drives on computers, and wonder how much storage you need...if you have a reasonable external hard drive.
What do you current users consider minimum specs on a laptop for dealing with stills, and not video? I would also like to keep the costs of hardware down, and I am considering picking up a new Apple laptop.

The MacbookPro I have got 500GB SSD and I have an external 2TB HD for storage and backup. But it feels like Apple software is far more compressed than Windows and the disks don't fill up that quickly.
My Macbook got 16GB memory and a Core i7 processor. It is extremely fast with Photoshop and RAW processing. But when I look at the memory usage then 8GB RAM would have done as well.