Design Forums - Graphic Design & Web Design Forums

What design forum would be complete without the age old debate of PC Vs Mac?

Which do you use? One or both?
Which do you prefer and why?

I'm currently working on a PC, although at my previous workplace worked on an iMac, must say I was very impressed with the reliability and speed as it was my first experience of using a Mac for real/live projects, apart from a regular freeze/crash when leaving Illustrator CS2 open for a long period of time without using it (that was on an Intel iMac).

Would like to get a Mac for my freelance work in the future, but the price has always limited me from that option. I think I would need to focus on a lot more print based work to warrant the extra spend, as the majority of my work as a freelancer tends to be more web based.

Does anyone here work on a Mac with a Windows OS running? Would be interested to hear how you find it, if it's stable/reliable?

Thanks,
Greg

I use a MAC and have converted my two co-workers to the dark side also..haha

In all serious I think that not only does Apple provide a more stable operating environment but one of the other main things is the software. The software for mac just seems to work. Right from the old drag and drop installation thought to streamlined processes and cross software integration.

Its funny that although there are tens of thousands more pieces of software for the PC every piece of software that I use for my Mac seems to deliver a better user experience, Its as if the software engineers have sat down and thought about the logical process of doing things where as with a PC you seem to have to go round the houses to get similar results.

As I mentioned in my first post I found using a Mac things did just seem to work (with the exception of the Illustrator bug I mentioned). It's interesting that you guys all use Mac's as a web design & development company it seems to be tradition to use PC's, do you run the Windows OS on any of your machines Nathan? How do you find cross browser testing with the Mac, presumably you have access to the same browsers/or if not tools to check things?

I use a iMac at a contract job I do and a PC (with two monitors I might add) here at home, and to be honest I like the change.

Its nice to work on the Mac some days and the PC others, mixes things up a little bit.

Welcome to Design Forums Lee! Don't forget to post an introduction

Do you have similar work on both Lee?
Or is one used more for print work over the other, etc?

Nope the same work on both...

...and to mix it up even more they're running different software and different versions of Adobe CS. So on the Mac I'm working with CS3, Textmate and Console and on the PC I'm working with Dreamweaver, CS2 and FTP.

You do like to mix things up then!
Do you work on Dreamweaver CS3 with the Mac then?

Textmate. Its far far better than Dreamweaver

Cool, so in the sense of writing website code do you prefer Mac for the availability of Testmate over PC and working on Dreamweaver?

hmmm. I think again its just a case of change is as good as the rest.

TextMate is far better becuase its simple and it lets you know where you are with code, but I tend to use a cut down version of Dreamweaver anyway (no default code, no tabs, file managment or snippit boxes) so its just a case of where ever I am.

I bought a Mac mini yesterday to do some Dev work on,

first time i will have ever used one so it could be an interesting experiance!

Any tips on programs etc to get?

Mac / PC... it doesn't matter. Both are just as capable.

PCs are cheaper, like for like, of course but if you want all the "glitz" and eye-candy of a Mac then knock yourself out.

PC all the way - much easier to use, more choice, more options, more chance of being able to open a file a client sends you etc etc etc

I like my macbook. It doesn't crash nearly as often as my PC and the programs are pretty easy to use. Nothing good by way of video on it inherently though. :/

I recently got a new MaccBook Pro 15.4 with 4GB RAM and its sooooooo fast