Is a Mac right for me

After many years of using DOS based PCs I am considering purchasing a Mac Pro... I borrowed a friends Mac Mini briefly last year and I was impressed with the OS, although not the speed. A Mac Pro will hopefully solve the speed problem!

I've used PCs running various OSses including Linux and BSD, I like the stability, but I use commercial software (such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver) which are not available on those platforms. I've tried VMWare and WINE but that isn't a solution. Mac gives me access to that commercial software.

My main interest is digital photography so I've got a choice of Aperture or Lightroom for RAW image processing, Lightroom on a fast PC is still slow, I like the software but hope that it will be a bit quicker on a decent spec. Mac.

I assume MS Office is similar to Office 2003 which I use at the moment.

I have a couple of Win32 application which I still need but don't particularly want to run on a separate Windows machine, are any options available for running Win32 apps on a Mac?

If I visit The Apple shop in Meadowhell will I be tempted to buy a machine on the spot?

It sounds like a mac is for you.. If you got one of the new Mac's (the intel ones) then you can run Windows XP from it any ways as a dual boot option so you will end up with the best of both worlds

After many years of using DOS based PCs I am considering purchasing a Mac Pro... I borrowed a friends Mac Mini briefly last year and I was impressed with the OS, although not the speed. A Mac Pro will hopefully solve the speed problem!

 

I've used PCs running various OSses including Linux and BSD, I like the stability, but I use commercial software (such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver) which are not available on those platforms. I've tried VMWare and WINE but that isn't a solution. Mac gives me access to that commercial software.

 

My main interest is digital photography so I've got a choice of Aperture or Lightroom for RAW image processing, Lightroom on a fast PC is still slow, I like the software but hope that it will be a bit quicker on a decent spec. Mac.

 

I assume MS Office is similar to Office 2003 which I use at the moment.

 

I have a couple of Win32 application which I still need but don't particularly want to run on a separate Windows machine, are any options available for running Win32 apps on a Mac?

 

If I visit The Apple shop in Meadowhell will I be tempted to buy a machine on the spot?

Im running a mac pro at work and its very fast, but obviously speed depends on the config you buy. Mine is a dual core dual processor, with 7gig of ram (they can take up to 16gig), so its pretty rapid at doing everything, but cost in the region of £6K!

As Ghozer says, you can run windows on a mac using summat called 'boot camp', but dont know the ins and outs.

and yes, if you visit the applestore you will be tempted to take one home with you. Have you considered a top end imac? That may well solve your problems at a lower cost

You dont need bootcamp with the new Mac's

I run a Mac mini as a webserver and it's the easiest thing in the world to administer. And fast! Even the basic spec gives the dual G5 ppc I use normally a run for its money.

I switched to a Mac about 4 months ago and its brilliant, never had a single problem with it. I'm only yer average computer user (surfin t'net, email, downloading files, burning discs etc) so i don't know much about the photography software you mentioned. I only know that i no longer swear when im at my computer cos it just WORKS!

Once you've had Mac, you'll never go back:thumbsup:

I've been using an iMac at work running Windows XP pro with bootcamp. It's been working really well and it's convinced me to make my next computer a mac. The quality of the hardware is noticably better!

I got a MacBook in September and love it. I never use the PC anymore and when its ready for replacing, we'll be replacing it with a Mac

I'm egalitarian - I run Windows, OSX and Linux (Fedora Core). I find Windows best for playing on and running standard software, Linux best for programming and real work and OSX makes the best compromise of the two (and looks the most pretty!)

It does sound like a Mac is for you.

All above advice is good... my only warning might be to hang-on a while if you can. Rumour is there'll be eight-core machines soon (if that's the sort of power you're after!).

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Eight Core machines, pfft.. Intel have to fix thier Quad Core first, make it real quad core, and dont cheat.

and besides, there's already an 80 core hehe..

if you buy a mac dont buy your upgraded memory from them. you can find it cheaper elsewhere.