PC or Mac... HELP!

[ORourkeK]

I finally pushed my 6-year-old laptop to its limits and it is no longer with us. Now I have to decide if I want to stick with PC, or sell my self to the devil and go Mac. Right now I am stuck between the Dell XPS 15 with an 8th gen i7, GTX 1050 Ti, 1 TB SSD and 32 GB ram, or a MacBook Pro with the same processor, 1/3 the storage, half the ram, and an AMD processor... The MacBook Pro is $2400 while the Dell is $2100. The biggest thing stopping me from switching isn't even the price, but the environment. I have a full smart home setup with everything Google. A google pixel 3. A PC desktop (which I would probably end up turning into a server). So I have nothing invested into Apple which I think is Apple's biggest selling point. Owning everything Apple and having it just work everytime you need it, with ease. The biggest selling point for me on the MacBook side is the 4 USB-C (Lightning ports) as well as the rendering speeds in final cut pro. But, I edit photos way more than I do videos. So, I am just not sure I can justify going with the MacBook Pro. What do you all use? Any recommendations or insight from either side?

 

[Jeff15]

I would never buy anything Apple, ever..........

 

[SquarePeg]

I will start by saying I resisted all things Apple until I started traveling for work and wanted to be able to Facetime with my daughter and I'm not the biggest fan of iPhones but... My teenager has thoroughly abused her MacBook Pro - even stepping on it and cracking the screen, dropping it so it has a big dent on one corner and loading it to the max with videos and it still works perfectly (much to her dismay as I won't buy her another one while this one still breathes). I bought myself an iPad Pro and I truly love that as well - no issues and I love editing photos on it (is that an option for you?). Meanwhile, my 4 year old Dell laptop which has sat on my desk attached to an external monitor and has taken no abuse at all is down to only 2 working usb ports out of 4 and runs slower than I do. When and if I ever decide to get another laptop or desktop, it will be a Mac.

 

[dxqcanada]

As you noted ... Apple products work great when the entire environment is unified.
I have a MacBook 15" and had a MacBook 13", both worked great with my other Apple products (iPhone/iPad).
I also have an XPS 13 touchscreen running Windows 10 and Linux.
I use LS and PS on both ... and they work (for what I need them for).
It is difficult to say what would be best ... the MacBook has that cool Apple thing, but my XPS really does look awesome ... smaller than my MB 13 ... yeah, it is about appearance and portability.
OK, don't bother reading what I have to say ... just rambling ... it's up to you.

Note: it is really handy having a touch screen when your cat is lying partially on the computer while trying to sleep on the lap.

 

[Nwcid]

I am a huge fan of my MacBooks, but that is only Apple stuff I own. They are hard to beat and I have been using them since the G3. Mine are not abused, but extremely well used. I travel constantly and they survive.

If you are looking for a little better price, or at least one with more options in memory size you can alway try, Refurbished Mac

 

[DarkShadow]

Mac all the way.Never going back to winblows and macs hold there value.

 

[Derrel]

I would never buy anything Apple, ever..........

Yeah...it's a lot like Nikon. $hi+ just works and works well, for years and years and years, with no virus issues, no kernel panics, no blue screen of death nonsense, has amazing screen quality, HIGH resale value (unlike Win-doze PC gear), and amazing up-time... Macintosh is awful...I've owned it since the 1990's, and no matter how much I want them to break down so I can easily rationalize a new machine, that's never happened. meanwhile....in 2002, my $2,999 then-top-of-the-line Sony Vaio PC, my first-ever PC, got hit with a virus, then an irrepairable kernel virus (a nice, malicious one,complete with a hacker's taunt...Oh,how much I LOVED that!!!). Yeah, a $2,999 PC that was destroyed in less than two years' of light duty use...

Again...stay away from Macintosh...the high-quality hardware and the slick,reliable, easy-to-use Operating System that is specifically designed _FOR_ your computer and made _BY_ the company that builds the hardware will last a long time, and will keep working for years, and those two awful things (long duty life, and integrated hardware and integrated OS) will leave you with no choice but to pass the old Mac along to a significant other, or to sell it for a high resale amount--should you choose to modernize. Macintosh sucks as much as Nikon gear and Nikkor lenses suck. Macintosh the machine, and Mac OS, both are utter crap. As stupid a choice as is Nikon.

 

[D7K]

Switched to MacBook Pro last year (16GB, i7), after years of building my own PC's and owning several laptops, I'm more than happy and don't ever see me returning to the Windows world. My only gripe is that I need to invest in some decent sized external storage as shooting 47MB RAW files on the D850, the space is eaten up quickly. I have no performance issues with LR or PS and as has been said, and as I have also promoted to others even when not using Apple products, they just work... Updates are consistent to the OS and there's no company that have yet been able to get the performance between software and hardware tweaked to the level of Apple.

 

[ORourkeK]

I figured this would be the verdict (Mac). It will just kill me spending $300 more for something that has 1/3 the storage and half the memory. If the MacBook had the same specs and was $300 more, I would be having an easier time with this decision.

 

[ORourkeK]

I would never buy anything Apple, ever..........

Why is that? I used to be this way, but it is starting to get harder and harder to keep my hatred going.

 

[D7K]

I figured this would be the verdict (Mac). It will just kill me spending $300 more for something that has 1/3 the storage and half the memory. If the MacBook had the same specs and was $300 more, I would be having an easier time with this decision.

Apple know how to use their software to get the absolute beast from their hardware, I've often spoken to and seen people with higher spec windows or linux machines, they don't run like my MacBook... It...Just...Works...

 

[ORourkeK]

I get that. But storage has nothing to do with software. I will only be getting 1/3 the SSD space. How do you explain that?

EDIT: Storage size* has nothing to do with software.

 

[Nwcid]

I figured this would be the verdict (Mac). It will just kill me spending $300 more for something that has 1/3 the storage and half the memory. If the MacBook had the same specs and was $300 more, I would be having an easier time with this decision.

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/1tb-512gb-15-inch-macbook-pro

First 9 machines are either 512 GB or 1 TB and are under $2400.

 

[D7K]

I get that. But storage has nothing to do with software. I will only be getting 1/3 the SSD space. How do you explain that?

EDIT: Storage size* has nothing to do with software.

Storage is now cheap.... In everything in life there is a trade off, I'd rather have a solid reliable piece of kit and buy storage - be-it cloud or external or both, There's not a single reason I'd chose a windows box now, and like I said, I built them for years..

 

[ORourkeK]

But now we are talking refurb, and not new. And I am not trying to argue for the sake of arguing. I know the MacBook is the right choice here, I just don't understand how we as consumers have allowed this to happen. Apple is selling a product with less hardware (a lot less), for hundreds more. The next Dell XPS 15 has the same i7 processor and graphics card but 16 GB ram and 512 GB SSD for $1700. So that is still better specs than the MacBook Pro, and it's $700 cheaper. I know the MacBook "just works", I know they last, I know they hold their value, but HOW do we let them get away with that big of a difference?