Please Help Me Decide on a Computing Direction

[lhodaniel]

I'm about to replace a 6 yr old Dell laptop. I'm considering currently: Surface 4 Pro, Lenovo Yoga 900, or 13 or 15" MacBook Pro.

The SP4 would offer the ability to be bracketed to a tripod like I now use an Ipad Mini. I could then use corded tethering in addition to the CamRanger. (Sometimes, the wireless is just not reliable.) The other use the SP4 would enable is to use it like a Wacom Cintiq. I would very much like to hear from Surface users about how well the stylus works practically for Pen Tool and other selection tools in Photoshop. (If this isn't as good as it seems, the Yoga 900 is about $1k cheaper.)

Surface Book is out because the tablet has no I/O port. It might as well be an Ipad when detached.

The Mac is appealing because there are more software choices, and I already use iOS. I could go with Affinity Photo, C1P, and Final Cut Pro, and have a viable exit strategy off the Adobe chain gang. Recent events have shown it's prudent to have one.

If I do go Mac, I would be using the MBP virtually exclusively as both a desktop and a laptop for awhile. I'd pretty much retire the current Windows laptop and desktop except for emergency use. I have no fear that a 15" MBP with discrete graphics could handle my editing needs. I'm less confident in the 13" (would probably go with the 2.9 i5 16gb 512gb. I've read that the i7 is not much faster.) Do y'all think the 13" could serve as a do-all machine for awhile? I'd be running D800E files through it.

Thanks for any input...

Lloyd

[Kiwi Paul]

I'm about to replace a 6 yr old Dell laptop. I'm considering currently: Surface 4 Pro, Lenovo Yoga 900, or 13 or 15" MacBook Pro.

The SP4 would offer the ability to be bracketed to a tripod like I now use an Ipad Mini. I could then use corded tethering in addition to the CamRanger. (Sometimes, the wireless is just not reliable.) The other use the SP4 would enable is to use it like a Wacom Cintiq. I would very much like to hear from Surface users about how well the stylus works practically for Pen Tool and other selection tools in Photoshop. (If this isn't as good as it seems, the Yoga 900 is about $1k cheaper.)

Surface Book is out because the tablet has no I/O port. It might as well be an Ipad when detached.

The Mac is appealing because there are more software choices, and I already use iOS. I could go with Affinity Photo, C1P, and Final Cut Pro, and have a viable exit strategy off the Adobe chain gang. Recent events have shown it's prudent to have one.

If I do go Mac, I would be using the MBP virtually exclusively as both a desktop and a laptop for awhile. I'd pretty much retire the current Windows laptop and desktop except for emergency use. I have no fear that a 15" MBP with discrete graphics could handle my editing needs. I'm less confident in the 13" (would probably go with the 2.9 i5 16gb 512gb. I've read that the i7 is not much faster.) Do y'all think the 13" could serve as a do-all machine for awhile? I'd be running D800E files through it.

Thanks for any input...

Lloyd

I have a Dell XPS15 which is a lovely laptop, the latest version has a 4K screen I think.
Maybe worth checking that put too.

Paul

[graeme]

I'm about to replace a 6 yr old Dell laptop. I'm considering currently: Surface 4 Pro, Lenovo Yoga 900, or 13 or 15" MacBook Pro.

The SP4 would offer the ability to be bracketed to a tripod like I now use an Ipad Mini. I could then use corded tethering in addition to the CamRanger. (Sometimes, the wireless is just not reliable.) The other use the SP4 would enable is to use it like a Wacom Cintiq. I would very much like to hear from Surface users about how well the stylus works practically for Pen Tool and other selection tools in Photoshop. (If this isn't as good as it seems, the Yoga 900 is about $1k cheaper.)

Surface Book is out because the tablet has no I/O port. It might as well be an Ipad when detached.

The Mac is appealing because there are more software choices, and I already use iOS. I could go with Affinity Photo, C1P, and Final Cut Pro, and have a viable exit strategy off the Adobe chain gang. Recent events have shown it's prudent to have one.

If I do go Mac, I would be using the MBP virtually exclusively as both a desktop and a laptop for awhile. I'd pretty much retire the current Windows laptop and desktop except for emergency use. I have no fear that a 15" MBP with discrete graphics could handle my editing needs. I'm less confident in the 13" (would probably go with the 2.9 i5 16gb 512gb. I've read that the i7 is not much faster.) Do y'all think the 13" could serve as a do-all machine for awhile? I'd be running D800E files through it.

Thanks for any input...

Lloyd

If you go with the MBP get the 15". I used a 2014 13" ( 2.8 i5, 16gb ram ) as my sole computer for a few months. I had it plugged into 2 external displays and kept my Lightroom catalogue / PS scratch on an external thunderbolt SSD. It worked OK but it wasn't really any faster than the 2007 Mac Pro it replaced and I wouldn't like to have tried processing D800 files on it. ( My camera is only 18 mpx ).

[lhodaniel]

Paul: I do have the Dell XPS13 and 15 on the list too, particularly the latter with the Adobe RGB screen. I believe I read that it's 400 nits, which might make it good for outside tethering.
Graeme: Yes, I thought the 15" would be the better option. I'm looking at the 2014 i7 2.5 16gb 512 gb Nvidia video card that's being closed out now. Hopefully, I want let them all get gone during my paralysis-by-analysis period. 

Thank you both for your input! it is greatly appreciated.

Lloyd

[The View]

I wouldn't buy a tablet computer for this kind of work.

I'm on a MacBook Pro retina - but it's your decision if you want to go PC or Mac - both are great.

Check out the notebooks and see what you like best. My laptop is three years old and I'm not upgrading. It's still running strong.

Just be sure you put in the maximum amount of RAM, which would be 16GB on a mac.

[seosp4]

My choice is Mac book pro.

[Robert DeCandido PhD]

Have a look at these PC laptops/desktops:

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/products%28%29ec

[Hans Kruse]

The MacBook Pro 15" is the one to go with as a laptop and desktop solution. It can drive 4K and 5K external displays. It is a very fast machine. I would say that with LR6/CC the fan is used much more than before with LR5 when editing. I hope this will be solved. It looks like the graphics card gets hot in a number of cases before the cpu. For all other types of work than photo editing the machine is completely silent. All Windows laptops I have come across has the fan going much more, but it could be a parameter in deciding if you want to have a dedicated desktop machine. For me not as I travel a lot and need one machine.

[alatreille]

HI Lloyd,

I've just picked up the XPS13 to use as a travel/shoot machine.

I'm going on a 3 week work trip next week so can provide some constructive feedback on it after then.
I don't think it'll be up to much snuff processing 5dsr and Credo 60 files...but i didn't buy it for that.

If you're not in a rush, pm me and I can keep you up to date how I'm finding it.

Cheers

Andrew

[lhodaniel]

Thank you all for your advice! I went with the 2015 15" rMBP, 2.5, 16, 512. It seems very fast...faster than my windows desktop on some things. This is my first Mac since I had a Mac Plus from 1986-1992. So, there is a learning curve, but I am enjoying the new OS. I'll probably be asking newbie OS X questions from time to time.

Lloyd

[plugsnpixels]

Lloyd, the good news is, by choosing the Mac you've also kept the ability to run Windows (and Linux) on the same laptop if you wish, via virtual machines (or Bootcamp).

As far as learning OS X, there is much info available online. Just remember: As a Windows user, you might find it "hard" to use because it's TOO easy! ;-)

I'm mainly a Mac user but run Windows 10 on a home-built PC (and via VM on an iMac) and elementary OS Linux on an old Dell slim tower, just because I can.