Decisions Decisions

[Liona Lionheart]

So, I plan on getting a new laptop. I'd like to use it for digital artwork as well as some photography. I use SAI as my art program and Gimp for photo editing, but would like to upgrade to photoshop. I'll probably end up getting an older version of PS rather than the newest and latest version. My camera right now is a Canon Eos Rebel T2i. That's just background stuff that might be helpful in your answers I think. My real question, because I'm technology handycapped and really don't know anything when it comes to computers is: I'm looking at getting a Macbook Pro, and wanted to know should I pay the extra couple hundred for more memory, ram, and a larger hard drive? Or is not worth it?

Cheaper one is 4GB Memory and 500GB Hard Drive. More expensive one is 8GB Memory and 750GB Hard drive. The difference is only around $230 but that's a lot when you're poor and have to pay for school and rent. Should I just suck it up and pay the extra?

[Fuin Elda]

Seems like an awful expensive bump up for an awful little amount. I know you can get a 3tb external drive for $199 if you look hard enough now... And I know I paid $50 for 8gb of really nice memory... almost a year and a half ago now.... DON"T think that 4gg/150 Gb is worth that much...

granted I don't think macbooks are worth as much as they like to pretend they are now... PC has caught up, they caught up when I was in Highschool... and I've been graduated from University for years now. And lets face it. Photoshop works the same on both os.

You want powerful and open source (but difficult as frak if it decides to crash)... get a linux. You want easy to get fixed get a pc... you want to look like an art hipster that is probably going to starve for several months so they can look like an art hipster... get a mac.

[Freiheit]

don't buy a mac if you don't have money to burn, buy a pc and use that extra money left to buy a house made of cintiqs. The 8gig would be nice if it wasn't so over-priced, but you'll do fine with 4 gig (that's what I have)... But if you want your computer to run smooth and fast, you want to make sure the rest of it is good to.

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Feeling a bit snarky I want to say if you have the money to burn on a mac, go ahead and get the bigger one. Macs are notoriously hard to upgrade(probably because they want you buying a new one).

Just go with what you want, though. But if you're getting a mac because someone told you it's better for art and photography: that was true over a decade ago, but PCs have caught up...quite a while ago. A lot of teachers still prefer macs because they had learned on them for that reason, but nowadays file compatibility between mac and pc is a negligible problem. I've been working on the school macs and PC laptop with no trouble(when I was in college the first time there were still a few problems on opening files in one of the other).

[Saturn22]

No way PC's have caught up no macs. It's still not even close. Macs are just better in general and for art/design purposes there's no comparison.

[Eizoryu]

I'm currently against Apple on a matter of principle and forever PC-loyal, but if you have the money to burn, get the bigger machine.

I will tell you, though. Whatever amount you spend on that MacBook, would get you a non-Mac that would absolutely blow that Apple laptop out of the water.
Laptops from Dell, Toshiba, and Acer (to name a few) can give you the same performance as a Mac laptop can, and for quite a bit cheaper, usually. I just found a Dell Inspiron that outstrips both of those MacBooks on RAM, HD space, and (online) price point. Its drawback is its size, at 7.3 lbs and a 17" monitor.

But it's your computer. Go with what you want. x3

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Saturn22

No way PC's have caught up no macs. It's still not even close. Macs are just better in general and for art/design purposes there's no comparison.

In what way, praytell? Last I checked on this whole mac vs pc, Adobe released a test that concluded that PS ran better on PC. That was a while ago, admittedly, but how is there still a gap?

[Liona Lionheart]

Thank you all for the advice and input. It's very much appreciated. I haven't bought a laptop since 2005, and never was good at picking electronics. Thank you for the link to the Dell, Eizoryu!

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Oh, I just remembered. You said you use Sai? Sai is a windows-only program. There are ways to get it to work on a mac, but pressure sensitivity might not work on it.