What about a computer for processing images?

mikep

skyeyes70 Why leave Mac out of your consideration, One you convert you never go back, I was with a PC for Donkeys years, and friend put me on to Mac,That was 7 years ago, It simply works.

In my day job, Outlook and Excel are my mission critical applications. Outlook is fine on a mac, but my big 50 mb Excel files don't run on a mac worth a damn.

If I was a professional photographer, I would think about a Mac.

id recommend a mac with 16gb of ram. the 15 inch macbook pro is hard to beat in many ways (except for price)

if you need windows programs, just get a program called parallels desktop, its fantastic and just lets you run windows, in a window, just like any other program, you can choose how much memory it has etc etc. it run very nicely except for intensive things like gaming, or maybe editing. but for outlook, or excel it would run it great.

here is a screenshot to illustrate : http://i.imgur.com/2f942OQ.jpg , im running xp sp3, just because i want it to be light on resources, as i only have 8gb of ram (wish i had 16 these days) - its an excellent setup, and really works very well.

you can always dual boot windows too, so you can just choose mac osx or windows at startup - another great option

i dont want to go too far off topic, and i also dont want to start a war about mac V windows, but imho, while windows 7 is great, mac is just better in a few ways. and yeah i used windows for years, but after trying a mac a couple of years back, i could never go back to windows. i just love the touchpad on a macbook, its so much nicer and more functional than any other laptop out there, swipe to scroll, swipe to go back and forward when browsing - two very simple movements that just make using a computer to browse the web 10 times easier ..... trying a normal touchpad after a mac one is just so infuriatingly awkward and slow, i cant stand it

oh ps, if you do instal parallels on your mac, the touchpad doesnt work on windows, you gotta use your mouse to scroll and that sucks

nikon_jonathanbruce

Hello. I have a heavy I.T setup at home, although now returning to Photography as a serious Hobby, and spend sometime on both OS/X, different versions of Linux and Windows.
I do find that it just depends what you want to do with your computer, different people want to do different things besides the usual "Internet Browsing and Email".
For photography and Video production use I tend to use my MacPro (New 2013 model), I use my old iMac (Oct 2012) as an iTunes server. For Office use I use my main PC running Windows 7 (not 8, don't like it - too messed up for me).
I do have a MacbookPro Retina i7 15" (I bought this January) that I use on a daily basis, for everything and I'm not Pro Apple or Pro Windows but admit that for my own preference would be the Mac route. Watch this space... Big year for Apple! My PC running windows is no dinosaur ([email protected] (haswell) , 16gb ram, 500gb ssd) but still gets it's butt kicked by both my new Laptop and my MacPro on ease of use and performance.

Every individual has their own preference.