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Ok so...i do a lot of research before i go out and spend a lot of cash.

I really get sick of when i go to Best Buy and i look at really higher end PC's and a sales's rep talks to me and then he tries to lure me into the Apple section.

Well, i was looking at the HP Envy 14 at the time. I can say that though it looks like a Macbook, it def dominates it in all spectrum's.

I told the rep that i wanted a pretty good bang for the buck potable laptop for recording and of course he says "well...Apple etc..." After comparing the Envy to the Macbook, i left him speechless.

Its Apple vs Windows, not...Apple vs PC

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Ashfall Tue, 11/22/2011 - 13:33

It is true that PCs are cheaper for better specs. No doubt about it. But when looking at statistics, how the hardware of an Apple computer corresponds to each other, and the stable operating system, and lack of viruses that can affect the Apple... Even though the specs might be better on a PC than that of the Mac for the same price... At the end of the day, is your system responsive enough? And not being brought down by a resource hungry operating system? And will it crash during a recording?... And at the end of the day... What software are you using? But it is just my opinion on the matter :).

Ashfall Production Studios, sent from my iPhone 4.

assemblethelight Tue, 11/22/2011 - 13:58

Personally, i have not had the issues people face with Windows, like i said its not PC..its Windows.

If you keep your PC off the internet and set it up solely for recording and editing, you will not run into issues.

Most studio is go to have PC because at the time they bought one, Apple really did not compete with a PC spec wise. They still are running QUAD-CORE older Intel with out issues. O.S and hardware.

At this time i would def invest in a Apple tower considering the specs. But....years back...no.

MadMax Tue, 11/22/2011 - 17:08

I was an IT/Systems Admin for over 15 years, responsible for a little over 350 workstations and 6 servers in an extremely high volume image production system. While I've not dealt with Win7, I can tell you with 100% certainty that Windows boxes historically failed 100% of the time. Either through OS failure or hardware failure. The OS failures were around 90% of the total failures on the Win platform.

Where as I experienced less than a 5% failure rate in the Apple platform, and those were HDD failures on boxes that were run 24/7/365 in excess of 7 years, each.

TCO analysis showed my expenses to operate a Windows based workstation were roughly 30% higher than the Apple workstations due to performance degradation due to necessary add-on security, malware and AV packages, maintenance time involved, and continuous upgrade/downgrade issues. All in all, this pretty much made it a moot point as to Windows being cheaper... it proved to actually be roughly 5%-7% more expensive in the long run. When including lost productivity, hands down, Windows versions of the time were in excess of 15% more expensive to own/maintain.

Those are just the real numbers I had to deal with.

assemblethelight Tue, 11/22/2011 - 18:16

Apple purposely puts their product 1-2 years behind from the most up to date new material.

I can say my more expensive HP laptop now, at the time, was the most up to date hardware wise. It never gives me problems and has been stable.

I really like the HP Envy Beats. It seems to be a beast compared to its compet Macbook Pro. The Envy can and has been hacked to run Apple OS.

dvdhawk Wed, 11/23/2011 - 01:05

FWIW I own several computers on each platform and I will just add - even before Apple switched to Intel chips, you could disregard the specs. Real-world users and independent test facilities found that although the Mac was slower on paper, in actual application it could render all the benchmarks (specific Photoshop filters, Premiere video editing effects, video rendering farms, etc.) in less time than it's contemporary windows/pc clocked at a much higher processor speed.

Carry on.

assemblethelight Wed, 11/23/2011 - 08:15

Well, i base my results on Reaper and not other DAWS. We did a battle with a Macbook Pro Older model with the T6600 and 4GB of RAM. Same specs with a HP G71. Loaded a the same mix down tracks from a live gig:

The Macbook, though it did its job, it heated up to the point it could probably cook a egg. It also lagged.

The HP G71 heated up but not as much, its also did not lag like the Macbook.

I had high hopes for the Macbook. Could have been Reaper liked Windows better.

I still will get a iMac i5 for the fact that its a good bang for the buck. As far as portability, i choice a HP ENVY.

audiokid Wed, 11/23/2011 - 08:25

I own both platforms and a professionally built custom built Windows 7 machine with top quality components can be optimized far better than an Apple. Apple is over rated and over priced . Microsoft's mistake is allowing people to build junk and piece it all together in a garage and call it a PC. I wouldn't call most PC found in a store custom built either. There is a difference between store bought and Custom built by people who know what they are doing.

If you spent the same money on a professionally built Microsoft machine as you could on a stock Apple, I doubt the Apple would be better and you'd still have money left over. I love Apple, always have but its looking more like its fast becoming a very bloated mobile market.

Choose the software and then the OS.

Here is some chat.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=822921
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2676347?start=0&tstart=0

hueseph Wed, 11/23/2011 - 16:47

assemblethelight, post: 379517 wrote: audiokid said it right. Do not base your opinion off a over the counter PC

But you are or have bought an over the counter HP Envy. Just sayin'. There are full customizable Laptop's from ASUS but then, you are spending the same or more money than a Macbook if you max it out.

assemblethelight Thu, 11/24/2011 - 06:02

hueseph, post: 379534 wrote: But you are or have bought an over the counter HP Envy. Just sayin'. There are full customizable Laptop's from ASUS but then, you are spending the same or more money than a Macbook if you max it out.

What i mean is, for the price of a Macbook Pro 13, you can get a Asus, Leveno, HP or Samsung 17" that will run laps around it.

The HP Envy, is not over the counter where i am at here in NC ha. Its a laptop you have to buy online.