Mac or PC? for Web Design

[superspartan004]

I will be entering Web Design courses next fall, and I was wondering what should I get, a Mac or PC? It might not matter but I want to know what the people of the escapist think

Edit: oops didn't realize there was an advice forum, sorry admins

 

[aba1]

web design = mac
web programming = pc

depends on what your primarily doing both can do either but ones better than the other at each personally im a multimedia designer so I use a mac for my web development

 

[Alfador_VII]

You should get a Mac as there's still some design stuff that's better on that machine.

Plus of course, with Bootcamp, it'll run Windows 7 as well as any other PC, so you've got the best of both worlds.

 

[silversnake4133]

Well, I think it would come down to what do you really want out of the computer? Plus how much are you willing to spend? Even with education discounts, Macs are very expensive and so is the software for it.

PCs on the other hand are cheap and can multitask pretty well. Granted I have a Mac, and I do use it for most of my art stuff and writing, but when it comes down to the wire, you should get something that you will use to your money's worth and more. It's true that Macs are the choice for artists, but I've seen some pretty amazing things come out of a PC as well.

Just make sure you stay away from Vista if you get a PC. It will save you a lot of headaches.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

It's true that Macs are the choice for artists, but I've seen some pretty amazing things come out of a PC as well.

Most of that is due to legacy and mental inertia going back to when Macs were superior for artwork... not to mention having a much less intimidating user interface to their contemporary windows platforms. Also Macs were easy to colour calibrate... old windows platforms were not.

These days, except for where Industry Standard is still more or less set in stone if you're looking at a professional career (film editting and printmedia, for example), it really comes down to what you learned on, what you're most comfortable with and what does the software you want/can afford run on.

 

[Erana]

Either one, but remember, Macs can't run Internet Explorer even with Wine, so you'll have to either have a PC with multiple versions of IE on it handy or have a windows partition/parallels.

 

[devotedsniper]

A PC hands down, there alot cheaper than a MAC, and while MACs are associated with design work the software used by such companies (usually the Adobe Suite, Dreamweaver mainly, and things such as autodesk products), will also have a windows counterpart.

My housemates on a web design course at university and the cheap £300 desktop i built her didnt even have a dedicated graphics card and it still handled all her work very well (and this is with the windows 7 aero themes still running, music, hd movies and such going on in the background so performance was no issue). In fact the only reason it now has a dedicated graphics (it didn't for 2 years) is because it came out of my rig when i upgraded.

So really £300 (minimum) on a pc or £700+ (last time i checked with a student discount) on a mac.

*EDIT* you'll also find alot of people still use the basic text editor to create there sites since it doesn't have features such as autocorrect.

 

[Phraggah]

Well, everyone has their opinions. Apple computers aren't as different from Windows machines as some people perceive them to be. Despite everyone's bias they are exactly the same machines doing the exact same thing and all it really boils down to your tastes and especially your budget.




Seriously though, don't get a Mac please. They are insanely overpriced sometimes doubling what you pay for the same hardware if you buy parts and assemble yourself. You shouldn't take software into consideration either because most professional software (especially graphics software!) have PC equivalents OR work well on a virtual machine. If you're looking for a desktop you really have no excuse to get a mac other than being gluttonous. If you're looking for a laptop then you could consider a Mac but they're still unworth-it in my eyes.

Conclusion:
Asking an internet forum probably isn't going to help you much, because for every person recommending a PC you'll get another with equally good reasons to buy a Mac

You should probably ask your future professor/teacher/etc., not necessarily which is better but just what he uses and what is used in class...just to avoid problems with "translation".