I'm currently learning Web / Graphic design. I'm using a Dell Latitude D505 which i am fed up with. I would like a new laptop, can't really afford one at the moment, but i was wondering how good are mac's for design? I love the macbooks, they look great and hear they are really good for design; but are they as good as I'm told? If i was to buy one [eventually] would i then need to buy Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc or would iWeb and all the mac software be good enough? It all sounds a bit pricey.

Thanks

Tommy

Macbooks are only as good as the person who uses them, and they are not a "magic bullet" which will transform you into the next *famousArtistHere*. If you are used to Windows, I can suggest you try out Leopard before parting with your cash, as it is not unheard of for people to end up putting Windows onto their iBook after a week or so.

I'm using XP at the moment and i hate it. I don't want to use Vista, as i hear that is even worse.

there was a point in time when a mac was the best thing for a designer, but now-a-day only mac fanboys/fangirls will say that it is the case. PCs/windows based laptops are equally as good (in some aspects better such as updating specs a hell of a lot cheaper). Now it is simply all about the design talent of the person rather than what platform is being used

 

Again with software, software will not make you a great designer, I know a lot of great designers who use gimp (a free program) and notepad for webdesign and a lot of not so good designers that use Photoshop and Dreamwaver. It is all to do with talent and finding what works best for you.

 

 

 

Here you will get a lot of fanboys and girls saying that either mac or pc are superior and the same goes with software to....But it is seriously just personal preference

Ah, i see - thankyou =)

out of interest, what do you use?

OS and software?

thanks...

Ive used both pc and mac for webdesign, and i have to say i like my mac for desinging and coding better. Im not saying the pc was bad but i just like my mac better, i just prefer to use a mac over a pc so that may be why..

I use a PC mainly...at work my OS is the dreaded vista now and I hate that, at home XP

 

I also have an imac with OS X Tiger on it...but this only gets used to check if my sites are compatible on mac based browsers

 

 

As for software at college I was taught to use photoshop, freehand flash and dreamweaver so I still stick with these. I really only use code mode in dreamweaver but as I got it for free I still stick with it, if it was taken away from me I could happily code using a free coder that colourizes the code. I'd be lost without photoshop though, but this is just because I have used it for the past 9 years, so I am used to how it works.

The industry standard software package is the Adobe Creative Suite, which is available for both Mac and Windows. They're both good stable operating software systems. It's simply a matter of what you feel more comfortable with.

 

I use Windows Vista as my main OS. But I also have OSX and Ubuntu availible whenever I need it.

For graphics I use Adobe CS, and 3D Studio Max. (3DSMax only runs on Windows)

For coding I use PHPEdit. The reason I use that over other editors is it's code insight feature which assists me in my coding.