Help my wife select her new Mac?

Started by Rhcole, December 14, 2016, 06:40:38 PM

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Rhcole

Hi guys,

I'm out to dinner with my lovely wife and she says she has decided to dump her two awful Win 10 computers that have been nothing but trouble and switch to a new Mac. She will buy right away. I'm not an Apple guy but I know many of you are. Help her out?

She teaches classes online, is a photographer, and will run Office and other business apps. She wants a big screen and would prefer a desktop unit over a laptop. She would like her computer to last for a few years. What hardware/software do you recommend, and where should she buy it?

Thanks!

Brent Flash

#1
My newest one is a Mac Mini hooked to an HDTV, I have many iMacs and MacBook Pros through the years and they all still work fine. This latest one I set up with wireless keyboard and trackpad and is now my favorite. No moving parts in it, all solid state. My latest MacBook Pro is the same, no traditional hard drive to one day fail. All very fast. So I would say look at the Mac Mini for best value.

Oh, and you buy it at the Apple Store on line or in a town near you.

mooncaine

Does she teach photography or something similar?

Does she already use Photoshop?

If yes: iMac.



alexmcginness

If shes gonna switch from Windows to Mac she should be prepared for a steep learning curve. Im a PC guy. I bought a Mac Book Pro to use with my VG-99 as the Mac drivers for that box work better for guitar to midi conversion. Its the only thing I use the Mac for. Anything other things Ive tried to do with it that I can already do on my PC involves a LOT of curse words, shaking my head, and eventually just folding it up and using it as a paper weight until the next time I need guitar to midi. I have found from the two years that Ive owened the Mac that it is true when people say that " moving from PC to Mac is like moving to a foreign country and not being able to speak the language." All the folk that will tell you that they did the switch and it was easy are IMO are envoking very selective memory. Good luck.
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aliensporebomb

#4
Steep learning curve?  As an MCSE who's used PCs for years and a musician who's used Macs for years I find it's the opposite.   But, consider it more like a different functional philosophy rather than "hey, this is different than windows".  But, I also liked Windows 7 better than Windows 10 (or 8 for that matter).

But part of it is how agreeable you are to the "country" you are moving to.  If you expect a bad experience you will get one and if you are more agreeable to a change you will probably do fine.

My wife and I are both running i7 iMacs, hers with 16 gigs and 1 TB internal drive, me with 32 gigs and about 14 TB of disc spinning in various boxes.

She does a lot of voiceover work so her machine has a Focusrite 2i4 and is running a Blue condenser mic in our closet turned into a vocal booth.

Mine is a bigger trainset.

That being said, for photography purposes I use Adobe Lightroom, Noiseless Pro and Snapheal CK.  Lightroom for editing and collating photos, Noiseless Pro to reduce noise in low light photos and Snapheal to remove unwanted items from existing photographs.    Photoshop is cool but you could buy a small country for what they want for it.

My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

admin


lumena

Second on imac ..
Only the 27 inch allows user to upgrade the ram.
She really needs to max the ram to 32.
Macs share gfx card processing with cpu processing so for gfx intensive tasks whichever gfx card she can afford of the ones that have Nvidia.
Normal cpu will have less effect than ram and better gfx card so the sweet spot might be an i5 processor with the 2gig video card. Fusion drive really not as good as an external ssd connected by thunderbolt. Samsung ssd have price dropped lately and are easy to put in thunderbolt cases from macsales.com to keep cost down.
Sorry for terse typing but answering using phone.

Elantric

#7
Quoteshe says she has decided to dump her two awful Win 10 computers that have been nothing but trouble

I can believe it - over the past few days Ive had to use my Asus Win10 laptop - and what a P.O.S. Win 10 is.

Simple things I do in seconds on Win7, take forever on Win 10.  As a long time windows user, I have an easier time adopting to a Mac with OSX, compared to the nightmare of converting to Windows 10   

I suppose if you get paid by the hour on a government contract with no oversight - Windows 10 rules because you will make more money eating up hours to  doing simple things. Use the Excuse: "sorry the project  was not completed on schedule, I got stuck in a Windows 10 update"

THIS experience will drive folks to Linux IMHO.   

carlb

#8
Agree with Lumena and Adminsustainiac: Refurb (best value) and upgradeable. The latest macs aren't necessarily the best, depending on your need. I run a 2011 15" Macbook pro, because I could swap to a 512GB SSD and put in 16GB of ram. Can't do that on their latest laptops.

Macs are interesting. The apps and operating system tend to dissuade knowing about where a file is. "Let the application manage that, why would you want to know that?" seems to be the theme. "Why would you want to find the root directory?" Agh! Little things like going up a directory are not obvious and involve a control or apple or option key along with another key - something I can never remember.

I do figure it out though. I bring in my photos manually to a directory structure that I like. Documents/pics/year/month/date/camera. After that open a pic with my editor, not Apple's darned editor or previewer. But it keeps wanting me to do things in the "on-quaaludes-way" way, which is annoying.

It's driven my girlfriend bonkers to the point where she's going back to a Windows machine. I've told her to go with Windows 7, avoid Windows 10 like discussions under a politics article (only frustrations and time-suck without accomplishment).

I'll stick with the Mac for home. Work - Windows 7. Thankfully our IT has shielded us from Windows 10. Although we have so much security crud on our networks and encrypted everythings that the fastest Dells are tortoise slow. We're "safe but not effective," heh.

Linux ... very cool. At work I use Cygwin a lot, gives you that great POSIX environment as a "skin" for Windows. All the great greps, awks, cut, tail, head, you-name-it for slicing and dicing huge files without an editor. Only way to do things quickly when the files get huge.
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QSC CP8 powered speaker

concordal

+1 for the iMac.  The 27" monitor is gorgeous. 

+1 on full 32Gb RAM

Switched to Mac a few years ago and never looked back.  However, having said that, after Steve Jobs passed away, Apple's offerings, not to mention their behaviour, is less than customer-friendly.  Expect to buy the current technology and be satisfied for 3 or 4 years -- then plan on switching.  To Linux?  To ?   Your guess.

Please et us know what you decide!


Rhcole

Thanks to all thus far for the suggestions. I know little about the Apple universe other than my iPad, which I have only had for five months.

Elantric, Win 10 makes me nostalgic for Vista, if such a thing could be possible. Every time it updates it blows up the wireless adapter which I have to go back and manually reconfigure. It interrupts my wife's work, makes drivers go crazy, it is a piece of junk.

I think where MS is making it work is on the Surface Pro. That seems to be their emphasis. Well, that's up to them, but they are losing a few computers in our household due to what appears to be a permanently broken business model.

gumbo

Another Mac vote..
...written on an iMac 27.   ;)
Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...

kenact

Just my 2 cents worth, I have 3 business class laptops and 1 consumer class laptop running Windows 10. The business class laptops are nearing 10 years old, and I've had relatively few problems with them. The consumer class laptop is just over 2 years old, and I have already replaced the screen, RAM and hard drive.

As for Windows 10, my biggest complaint is the fact that Microsoft keeps moving things around, changing the look of applications, and keeps reinstalling "Get Microsoft Office".

As for learning curves, I think it's largely a personal thing.
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aliensporebomb

#13
Part of what Microsoft decided to do when they changed their user interface around was they were looking at the future and thinking kids of the future would demand this in the workplace if they used it growing up in school and home.  The problem is, the kids of that time period were using iPads!  This was around the time of Windows 8 when Microsoft was alienating their established business customer base who was used to things like the Start Menu. 

I personally witnessed a Fortune 100 business conglomerate put the nix on Windows 8 and 8.1 and remain with 7.  And then with Windows 10 they were similarly disenchanted though are softening some now.

The other impetus for putting things in unfamiliar territory is that Microsoft wants to sell training.  They miss the boat at times.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

kenact

Quote from: aliensporebomb on December 15, 2016, 05:44:30 PM
Part of what Microsoft decided to do when they changed their user interface around was they were looking at the future and thinking kids of the future would demand this in the workplace if they used it growing up in school and home.  The problem is, the kids of that time period were using iPads!  This was around the time of Windows 8 when Microsoft was alienating their established business customer base who was used to things like the Start Menu.

I've spoken with a number of 30 somethings that say they liked 8 & 8.1 because of the XBox interface.
Godin Session & Montreal FTP, LGXT, LGX SA, Redline, ACS, A12, A11, A10, A4
Danoblaster Baritone w/GK-3
Gretsch Nashville, Viking
Fender Strats
Fret King Supermatic
Larrivee DV03RE
Parker Midi Fly
Seagull, S&P 12
VOX Phantom XII
GR-55, 33, 30, 20, GI-20, RC-50, US-20, VG-99, VP-7
Sentient 6
Cyr 7

Elantric

#15
Quote
I've spoken with a number of 30 somethings that say they liked 8 & 8.1 because of the XBox interface.



Windows 11 will  probably convert to a "League of Legends / World of Warcraft" interface  - to attract more millenials

kenact

Quote from: Elantric on December 15, 2016, 06:01:57 PM
Windows 11 will  probably convert to a "league of Legends / World of Warcraft" interface  - to attract more millenials

I'm hoping for Intellivision. :)
Godin Session & Montreal FTP, LGXT, LGX SA, Redline, ACS, A12, A11, A10, A4
Danoblaster Baritone w/GK-3
Gretsch Nashville, Viking
Fender Strats
Fret King Supermatic
Larrivee DV03RE
Parker Midi Fly
Seagull, S&P 12
VOX Phantom XII
GR-55, 33, 30, 20, GI-20, RC-50, US-20, VG-99, VP-7
Sentient 6
Cyr 7

Elantric

#17

Windows Boomer Edition

GustavoWoltmann

I agree you should buy her an iMac. My wife that is working in Florida Panama sent me an iMac and it's really cool. Now I'm still using it until today. I have no regrets, I am very thankful that she gave me one. - Gustavo Woltmann
_
"I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it."
- George Bernard Shaw

pasha811

iMac suggestion here.
If 21" it's big enough, keep in mind that you have options for a 256+ SSD internal drive and more memory.
If strong graphics it's the aim then only 27" have dedicated graphics card and as a side effect they are RAM up-gradable.
Listen to my music at :  http://alonetone.com/pasha/

Rhcole

Looks like we got a winner- she went out and bought an iMac 27. Not cheap, but she was done with messing around. She is going to give one of her Win 10 boxes to her assistant, the other goes in the garage.

I don't have any upgrade pressures but will likely follow her at some point. If I had more configuration skills I would consider a Linux box for myself. An associate set me up with a system seven years ago and it ran like a top until  it needed upgrading.

I'm likely done with Microsoft everything. I don't like renting my word processor, I don't like Win 10. I use Skype and Dropbox, other than that I am vanishing from their universe.