Mac versus PC: engineering and music

[g00eY]

I realize that the general "Should I get a Mac or a PC?" question gets asked a lot around here, but I was hoping to get some advice as it pertains to my particular situation.

This fall I'll be a freshman in college studying mechanical engineering. The no-brainer thing to do would be to get a PC because drafting and 3d simulation programs typically aren't made to run on Macs. At the same time, I would love to continue exploring music/media throughout college and I always hear how Mac is better at music and video production and whatnot (let's refrain from arguing whether or not this is actually true, please).

Obviously, if it weren't for Bootcamp I wouldn't even be considering a Mac due to the nature of my studies. While I am very familiar and comfortable with Windows (at least XP), a lot of my friends have Macs and I've had a chance to play around with them a bit. From the little hands-on experience I've had, I like the way Macs look and feel, both OS and hardware wise. XP, in my experience, has some kinks that really frustrate me, like programs crashing and some hardware incompatibilities that I feel like shouldn't be a problem in the first place, but, again, I'm very familiar with the way XP works.

I've also looked into VMWare Fusion and Parallels, but I've ruled those two out. At my current internship I basically draft and make a lot of 3d models. I'm running XP, which is a very smooth process, but my coworker is running XP on VMWare and he's had some problems with speed after the renderings got more complicated.

I've narrowed my choices down to either a Dell M1330 or the 13" MacBook Pro.

Here are the ideal specs for the ones I'm looking at:

Dell M1330
13.3" screen
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz
250 GB hard drive
2 GB ram
128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
DVD/RW

MacBook Pro
13.3" screen
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz
160 GB hard drive (32GB will be allotted to run Windows)
2 GB ram
256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
SuperDrive

If I get the Dell it will be through the Dell Factory Outlet (refurb) and the Mac will be through the student discount program. Both configurations I'm looking at for both brands comes out at around $900 (rebates/coupons/free stuff that I don't need), and my max budget is $1200 (but saving my parents some money is always a good thing).

I have a slight preference right now, but I would like to hear what you guys/gals would do given this situation.

[JulienJeff]

buy the Mac

[jdieh1]

Yeah, the Mac is better.

[g00eY]

Can you explain why the Mac is better?

[JulienJeff]

Originally Posted by g00eY

Can you explain why the Mac is better?

just because it is better.

honestly, I use a PC at work becaue I'm obliged but I've been using Mac at home for the last 5 years and there's no way I would go back to a PC.
A mac is more stable. Applications don't close for unknown reason. A mac starts in a few seconds while a PC needs a few minutes to start and being stabilised. PCs are touched by virus, you have to care about it (installing anti-viruses, anti-spywares ,etc.). Mac don't have viruses (well, it does exist, but during 5 years, I've run my mac without anti-virus and it's ok).
and many more reasons

[jdieh1]

Originally Posted by JulienJeff

just because it is better.

honestly, I use a PC at work becaue I'm obliged but I've been using Mac at home for the last 5 years and there's no way I would go back to a PC.
A mac is more stable. Applications don't close for unknown reason. A mac starts in a few seconds while a PC needs a few minutes to start and being stabilised. PCs are touched by virus, you have to care about it (installing anti-viruses, anti-spywares ,etc.). Mac don't have viruses (well, it does exist, but during 5 years, I've run my mac without anti-virus and it's ok).
and many more reasons

All these reasons plus Macs don't slow down after time like PCs do from getting clogged with unnecessary junk. The programs are better even though there are fewer.

Plus you can just use Bootcamp to get Windows on the Mac machine. It's a very awesome feature that I use myself

[Mark Latimour]

Basically what you will have in this thread is:

1. a bunch of nerds listening to their iRiver player and waiting on anyone to call them on their Google phone which they've "hacked" (which no one will), reading a comic book, drinking Moutain Dew and responding to you whilst in another window playing World of Warcraft coming and telling you to buy a PC; and

2. a bunch of cool guys rushing out the door to go on a date after having just returned from a gig, responding to you on their iPhone, telling you to get a mac.

Do you want to be a nerd, or do you want to be cool? I thought so.

[Nappa]

Of the two listed and for around the same price the Mac is better*. Though for drafting laptops are usually underpowered.

*Two OS for the price of one.

[Absentia]

I've been running boot camp with XP SP3 on my mac since july last year.
It runs great and does everything I need it to do.
I do alot of test runs with both network software and different graphic, sound and engineering software like solid works for classes at work.

the main thing I see that's better with the mac you posted is the video card you'll have alot better time with it.

I was never a fan of dells, they just don;t seem to hold up to heavy use, look at toshibas or lenovos if your looking for a PC type laptop, though HP gives a good bang for the buck.

either way I would go for the mac, on partition for logic, final cut, and adobe studio, the other for anything you need that isn't availible for mac, like engineering softwares you might run into, MS Viso and project.

either way you look at it you can do more with the mac.

[Absentia]

Originally Posted by jdieh1

All these reasons plus Macs don't slow down after time like PCs do from getting clogged with unnecessary junk. The programs are better even though there are fewer.

Plus you can just use Bootcamp to get Windows on the Mac machine. It's a very awesome feature that I use myself

Any OS slows down over time that's just the nature of the beast be it windows, mac, or linux.

[Nappa]

Originally Posted by Absentia

Any OS slows down over time that's just the nature of the beast be it windows, mac, or linux.

That should be given, unless you never install a program or use internet.....


Windows programs tend to use more VRAM over time and restarting helps with this tremendously.

[JulienJeff]

Originally Posted by Absentia

Any OS slows down over time that's just the nature of the beast be it windows, mac, or linux.

maybe Mac Os slow down, as windows does, but it is not noticeable, at least on my mac.
my macbook is 14 months old and works like on the first day. It doesn't change with the time and with the % of hard-drive filled.

[Thunderitter]

Mac customer support is the best I have experienced anywhere.

From experience (I also use a Dell desktop for my business) Dell's/Microsoft's is some of the worst and certainly most frustrating - mostly call centres in far flung places where the folks you speak to read off scrips and it will take at least 45mins to get 'upgraded' to someone who know what they are doing.

I've just bought a 15" Macbook Pro because of a hard disk issue with my old G4 and needed a little help trouble shooting that and also some help with migration issues of swapping over to a new external hard drive. The Mac folks I've experience all seem to know their stuff. On one call I got help with two different software questions that were unrelated to my hard disk issue (DVD rendering and music production) but came up in our conversation about how I used my computer.

In the end I had to put a new hard disk (yikes!) in the Mac, but with Timemachine, Apple's back-up software, all I had to do was plug my external hard disk into the Macbook and within an hour it was set-up exactly like my G4 had been on the last back-up before the fail. I have never had that sort of recovery with a PC.

Positive out of this is a friend has upgraded my G4 to 2GB (from 1GB) of memory with a 320GB hard drive (it was 100GB) so it now become my dedicated music machine!

[zenrad]

Which is better, Nikon or Canon?

[Absentia]

Originally Posted by zenrad

Which is better, Nikon or Canon?

Nikon IMO

[Thunderitter]

Originally Posted by zenrad

Which is better, Nikon or Canon?

Not a good analogy IMHO; should be which is better the bus or the train?

[Absentia]

Originally Posted by Thunderitter

Not a good analogy IMHO; should be which is better the bus or the train?

Train... IMO

[zenrad]

Originally Posted by Thunderitter

Not a good analogy IMHO; should be which is better the bus or the train?

How about, which is better - Firebird or Camaro?

[SoonerMatt]

Personally I'd go for whichever has the better processor, since you're looking at doing engineering and CAD primarily. Apple's customer support is top notch, but that being said it's the only thing I'm going to miss about Apple. (About to buy a new Windows laptop to do genetics work) If you decide to go Windows then hold off on purchasing until tomorrow so you can get a free Windows 7 upgrade.

[Sonic_Death]

It is not about which is 'better", it is about what which you are more competent in using.

Personally, if you know how to use either OS, then you should have zero problems either way.

No one can argue that.