Need help in buyng a computer

Wow, thanks! im thinking iMac and doing the external drive. What drive is reccomended?

CanonChic wrote in post #8990610
Wow, thanks! im thinking iMac and doing the external drive. What drive is reccomended?

Bus-powered Firewire drives are going to be the easiest to use. I like Seagate's drives (Freeagent Go), but OWC gets a lot of love too.

For a some students, where portability is a necessity... A laptop is your best choice. The differences between macs and say, dells, are about neck and neck in performance, with PC's being about 10-20% less expensive. Which rougly equates to $100-200. But if your preference is a Mac then that can easily offset the price difference. Personally for me I'd rather have the extra money, but it mostly comes down to preference for laptops.

Desktops are an entirely difference story. The cheapest mac desktop (actual desktop) is something like $2300 (Canadian, mind you) which is absurd because my $900 PC tops it in terms of performance.

The iMac starts at $1300CAD, which for me is a bit pricey. They only have dual-core processors and 4GB of RAM at that price and a base 500GB harddrive. $1000CAD can buy you a quad-core PC with 8GB of RAM, a 1TB harddrive and a cuda-based video card that photoshop can use to accelerate filters and whatnot-- but that $1000 doesn't include a monitor, although that leaves you able to pick out a really nice and accurate monitor.

The iMacs do take up less space though, and are trendy. It comes down to preference vs. price and if you NEED the extra processing power. If you get a PC, make sure you get Windows 7. It's worth it. What ever you get, make sure you get a good amount of RAM.

Hopefully that helps a bit and doesn't just confuse you.

Or if you have about $2,000 to spend you can buy a quad core which will be much faster than a duo core. Albeit, you'll buy a Windows unit, but if it's power you're after...

Maybe, but do the math if you're tossing out memory for lack of banks. Memory is a commodity and Apple buys and prices a year ahead. Sometimes it's a very good deal, sometimes a rape.

Cool, seems like you can use my idea. I have 4- LaCies now, Porsche design with a little USB tail that tucks in if you need it. I also have 2 that I made myself from laptop drives and Cool Drive enclosures. Bus-powering is a little hard to find, so be careful what you order. Apple pushes some big thing with (default) orange bumpers, LaCie All-Terrain 250 and 500 GB. The 500 is $179, the 250 is $119.

mcluckie wrote in post #8991205
Maybe, but do the math if you're tossing out memory for lack of banks. Memory is a commodity and Apple buys and prices a year ahead. Sometimes it's a very good deal, sometimes a rape.


Cool, seems like you can use my idea. I have 4- LaCies now, Porsche design with a little USB tail that tucks in if you need it. I also have 2 that I made myself from laptop drives and Cool Drive enclosures. Bus-powering is a little hard to find, so be careful what you order. Apple pushes some big thing with (default) orange bumpers, LaCie All-Terrain 250 and 500 GB. The 500 is $179, the 250 is $119.

Thanks for the external info!

mcluckie wrote in post #8991205
Maybe, but do the math if you're tossing out memory for lack of banks. Memory is a commodity and Apple buys and prices a year ahead. Sometimes it's a very good deal, sometimes a rape.

When I built my computer in June, I think 12GB was about a $500~600 option from Dell. My memory only cost $210.