[iomatic]

I need to shop for Dell laptops for the graphics department. Yes, I know. I want to bring my case to the upper mgmt. that perhaps MacBook Pros would be more effective (I already own one personally, and so do the other designers).

Thanks.

[lpranal]

I'll bite.

Having worked in a graphics department for 3 years, on a PC, I can tell you that the comparison won't be fair on paper. The real advantages are harder to quantify (especially to the bean counters on high)- hours of lost time due to incompatible fonts (this is changing somewhat with opentype), WAY more time spent recovering from crashes, and relying on print vendors and others on macs to convert legacy files.

That said, one can get a vostro with a 1900 x 2000 19" screen for like 800 from the small business site (with the default processor, pumping it up to MBP specs puts it at 1500+ )

If you're willing to compromise with a 15" screen with an external display, you might be able to win them over. Good luck!

[SierraDragon]

Why laptops for a graphics dept.? All laptops are limiting to heavy graphics apps.

In any event IF they select laptops Macbook Pros are needed and fully configuring PC laptops to meet MBP specs fully gets expensive.

-Allen Wicks

[mduell]

Vostro 1500 (15") or 1700 (17")

For the 15", you can match the $2000 MBP for about $1500 (including things like webcam, IR remote, gamer graphics card, etc that I don't think a corporate graphics department really needs) or about $1200 if you take those extras out. Dell's HDD/RAM upgrade prices are much more reasonable than Apples if you're looking for a higher than base config,

[Simon]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

I need to shop for Dell laptops for the graphics department. Yes, I know. I want to bring my case to the upper mgmt. that perhaps MacBook Pros would be more effective (I already own one personally, and so do the other designers).

Take a look at their Vostro line. It's not a perfect match (and obviously design-wise it is far form it): Dell's 15" Vostro doesn't offer a 2.4 GHz CPU option. You need to go 17" for that. For a 15" the only direct comparison you can make is with the low-end 15" MBP. If you go 17" you can match the specs quite well. In any case the Dell will be somewhere around $500 cheaper. I guess it's up to you to argue that the MBP's build quality, its slimmer and lighter design as well as OS X's superiority is worth that much.

On a side note, my lab and the university it's affiliated with have stopped buying from Dell altogether because of reliability issues and the related additional costs. According to their numbers, the initially substantially more expensive ThinkPad has a lower TCO. And that's what they're now buying (apart from Macs that is).

[iomatic]

@Allen: Laptops today are more than adequate for graphics (all my colleagues use them. I mean all, not one or two, but ALL in design, motion, Flash, web, etc.). WTF is an expansion card? (hehe)

I looked at the Precision 17" with the same C2D processor, and it came out over $300 more than the MBP.

We'll see. Collectively cross your fingers, please.

[mduell]

The Precision line comes with things that the MBP doesn't, and you probably don't need them (like ISV certification, pro video cards, etc).

[iomatic]

Originally Posted by mduell 

The Precision line comes with things that the MBP doesn't, and you probably don't need them (like ISV certification, pro video cards, etc).

Well, OK. But, I'm trying to compare top-of-the-line to top-of-the-line; I guess that would be kind of fair. Our corp. runs XP only, so we would want something that can come installed 'stock' (well, custom, really, but company-supported). You know what i mean?

There are smatterings of Macs here, and so it's not impossible to get; I think it's just a matter of presenting a case. Maybe move this to Design? Though I think i already asked a similar question there on more of a political level. I guess asking here would be on a more technical level.

Thanks.

[shifuimam]

Does your company/school/whatever have a contract with Dell that gives them major hardware discounts? If so, you're going to have a hard-to-impossible time getting them to buy Macs.

If they also have standards for things like NTFS mapped network volumes, use ADS for centralized authentication, or other things, their IT dept. probably *really* doesn't want the headaches of trying to add Apple hardware to an enterprise-grade Windows network.

[iomatic]

Company. But I don't have to go through IT anymore, thank goodness.

Not like I ever used them anyway, nor do they know how to do anything (we're in the Web department and know how to do things way better than them.) Yes, we're snotty that way.

[iomatic]

OK, I think we're on our way.

Now, why is Apple a better choice for Adobe products? Anyone?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

Well, OK. But, I'm trying to compare top-of-the-line to top-of-the-line; I guess that would be kind of fair.

Blindly comparing 'top-of-the-line' is misleading and unfair. Would you compare Apple's top-of-the-line server (dual processor Xserve with 32GB RAM) to IBM's top-of-the-line server (64 processors and 2TB RAM)? No. The Vostro is a much closer comparison than the MBP than the Precision is.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

If they also have standards for things like NTFS mapped network volumes

The underlying file system is abstracted away by the network sharing protocol.

[iomatic]

Hmm.

I don't know that Xserve vs. a supercomputer is Precision vs. MacBook Pro, so I'll just have to disagree with you there.

If I can make an argument for a better environment for my computing, screw it, I'll overprice the Dell and get a Mac. I've been tortured with the Dell/XP for a year now, and I can qualifyingly say it ****ing sucks as a system, hardware and software-wise (yes, crashes, issues, bullshit, etc.)

Doubt that would be blind, as much as simply preference and agility with a toolset.

Originally Posted by mduell 

Blindly comparing 'top-of-the-line' is misleading and unfair. Would you compare Apple's top-of-the-line server (dual processor Xserve with 32GB RAM) to IBM's top-of-the-line server (64 processors and 2TB RAM)? No. The Vostro is a much closer comparison than the MBP than the Precision is.



The underlying file system is abstracted away by the network sharing protocol.

[mduell]

Ok, take an example with a smaller difference.

When Apple was the only player with the quad 3Ghz Xeons, would you have said a price comparison between a dual quad 3Ghz Mac Pro and dual quad 2.66Ghz Dell was fair?

To bring up a terrible and tortured car analogy, would you compare the top of the line Ford truck to the top of the line Chevy sports car?

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

Laptops today are more than adequate for graphics (all my colleagues use them. I mean all, not one or two, but ALL in design, motion, Flash, web, etc.). WTF is an expansion card? (hehe)

I respectfully but very strongly disagree. Yes, unlike the old days, today's top laptops will run graphics adequately well for casual usage (In the field I run Aperture and the Adobe CS apps on a maxxed 17" C2D MBP myself). However, all laptops are very significantly limiting to the performance of heavy graphics apps. Selection of laptops for professional graphics usage in an office means intentionally accepting very substantially reduced performance day in and day out.

Perhaps if one deals with nothing but tiny web graphics laptop power is indeed "more than adequate," I do not know. However for print graphics, DSLR image manipulation, video and the like laptops perform far below the bar set by Mac Pro towers.

Just the RAM limitation alone is an obvious serious limiter even with today's app versions, and as RAM prices continually fall modern apps and the OS are taking advantage of more and more RAM all the time (e.g. Even though Photoshop can only directly address ~3 GB RAM, PS running under OS X has shown improved performance with up to 8 Gb RAM for about 5 years now). And, boxes purchased today will be running the OSs/apps of the next few years, when the 3-4 GB limitation of laptops will be even more significantly limiting.

In addition, life cycle costs (longer life cycle for towers) are cheaper for Mac Pro towers.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in laptops, and personally accept the serious performance loss to achieve field portability. However IMO for a graphics department Mac Pro towers provide far better absolute performance as well as more performance per dollar than Macbook Pros do.

Do not take my word for it. Just run a Mac Pro tower next to a Macbook Pro (like I do) and the differences will be obvious (however, don't bother with in-store comparisons because store setups are almost always so seriously screwed up as to make performance evaluations meaningless). Or check out the performance tests at iMac Aluminum versus Others -Photoshop CS3 and After Effects CS3. The performance differences are huge: PSCS3 Mac Pro ~1.5 times as fast, After Effects the Mac Pro more than 3 times faster.

And my guess is BareFeats tested single monitor setups. Most graphics pros run multiple monitors, and the available extra graphics card power of towers becomes significant when large displays are added, or when card-using apps like Aperture are in play.

We do agree that the issue of expansion cards is today mainly relevant only for certain specialties.

Note too that (99.9% certainty) Mac Pros will get even more powerful between now and December. Performance relative to MBPs will get even stronger, and the cost of the existing excellent Mac Pros will fall (falling prices already showing up on Apple's Refurbished pricing).

-Allen Wicks

P.S. If you do end up with laptops the extra screen real estate and pixels of the 17" is a huge benefit.

[iomatic]

mduell: No, the Xeon comparison is unfair; but in the case of the Precision vs. MBP, I think it's fair the processors, RAM, and HDD are matched up. I still think your other analogy is off (you're likening cars vs. trucks to laptops vs. desktops, really)

SD: I agree with you that laptops underperform towers. But seriously, five years ago when we were doing the same thing, I would say, yeah, that would've sucked. The graphics are still the same sizes; yeah, Flash has gotten bloated, but performance is plenty fine for Web. We open the occasional file from a print group, but that's never been a particularly bad problem for our crappy Dells either.

We have a budget and VPN access, and are able to work from home-- so, we'll take the ability to work remotely at the expense of a bit of processing performance. We'll get a refresh in three years, as do all corporate slaves. We think it's a fine trade, and are happy with that. You may not be, and want to commute to work; hey that's your prerogative.

Yes, the 17" will be in the cards for us to better work from home.

Plus, as I've said before, all my colleagues and I use laptops daily and get plenty of print and Web work done. Can you imagine the days of the Quadras? Yes, this is a nice time to have a laptop.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

mduell: No, the Xeon comparison is unfair; but in the case of the Precision vs. MBP, I think it's fair the processors, RAM, and HDD are matched up. I still think your other analogy is off (you're likening cars vs. trucks to laptops vs. desktops, really)

Poor analogies aside, the MBP is not in the same market as the Precision; it's in the same market as the Vostro.
The Precision has pro graphics card and ISV certification (hardware/application certifications, performance optimization, and specialized support), while the Vostro/MBP have gamer graphics cards and no certification or specialized support. Both of those things increase the cost and value of the Precision for those who actually need them, but just jack up the price if you don't.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

...five years ago when we were doing the same thing, I would say, yeah, that would've sucked. The graphics are still the same sizes; yeah, Flash has gotten bloated, but performance is plenty fine for Web. We open the occasional file from a print group...

Apparently you primarily deal with small web sized files, print sized files only occasionally, and your graphics are still the same file sizes as five years ago. In that case I can see where laptops should be just fine. For those of us dealing with DSLR captures and/or print as mainstream work file sizes are much larger and the volume of images dealt with is much greater than five years ago.

E.g. a single wedding shoot is typically 10 GB of 20 MB RAW files that all need to be promptly dealt with. Last week I shot such a wedding and started the process out of town on my MBP. Everything was doable, but after a few hours I was really wishing for a tower. Five years ago pro print graphics on a laptop was pretty much impossible; today it is feasible but inefficient.

-Allen Wicks

[iomatic]

Why is it you two are always the counterpoint team?

Thanks for the swell input. Hey, mduell, what do those certifications mean? Would the Vostro line really be across the line; is there a comparable-cross configuration, hardware-wise? I think the real argument that's tougher to articulate is time spent with viruses, malware, downtime (man, LOTS of downtime, I've never seen so many problems in our group, from programmers, to marketers, etc. BTW, has anyone seen CS3 install issues on XP?).

Allen, I've dealt with lots of 200MB+ files I needed to crop, path, sharpen or manipulate (for the last decade), and yes, while a tower would be nice, I think we can live with the advances that are in the C2D performance of today. I process only a few M8 shots at a time, and my colleagues are happy with their 5D RAW captures. For color accuracy, I use a different monitor (I'm thinking of getting an Eizo for home; not sure what route for work: again, Dell or Apple-- weigh in here.)

Thanks!

[mduell]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

Why is it you two are always the counterpoint team?

Thanks for the swell input. Hey, mduell, what do those certifications mean?

Dell says:
* Hardware certification: In concert with leading workstation application vendors (ISVs), Dell Precision workstations are rigorously tested to help ensure performance and compatibility in demanding workstation environments
* Performance optimization: A dedicated performance engineering team, working with ISVs and industry-standard benchmarks, tunes Dell Precision hardware for optimal results in each application
* Specialized support: Dell Precision’s world-class service and support includes a dedicated support queue, trained application specialists, and an available link directly to 2nd level ISV support when appropriate
One big plus for professional users is that it ends the fingerpointing when an app doesn't work or does something funny.

Originally Posted by iomatic 

Would the Vostro line really be across the line; is there a comparable-cross configuration, hardware-wise? I think the real argument that's tougher to articulate is time spent with viruses, malware, downtime (man, LOTS of downtime, I've never seen so many problems in our group, from programmers, to marketers, etc. BTW, has anyone seen CS3 install issues on XP?).

Right, and that's not going to change no matter which PC you buy.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Dell says:
* Hardware certification: In concert with leading workstation application vendors (ISVs), Dell Precision workstations are rigorously tested to help ensure performance and compatibility in demanding workstation environments
* Performance optimization: A dedicated performance engineering team, working with ISVs and industry-standard benchmarks, tunes Dell Precision hardware for optimal results in each application

HAHAHA That is incredibly inaccurate. I am typing this on a Dell Precision workstation right now. My almost 5 year old powerbook runs circles around this computer for any IO or network activity. *Times how long it takes to open My Computer* 15 seconds! That should not take even 1 second. It takes my laptop half a second to do that. Heck I can start up virtual pc and click on my computer in there and it would take less than 2 seconds.

Do NOT get a precision ever. This is the worst machine that I have ever worked on short of the IBM Aptiva computer that I owned for a year back in high school. Dell Precisions are .

[Simon]

I think waking from sleep and also going to sleep (if you turn SS off) are exceptionally fast on MBPs. Most people are quite impressed when you open a sleeping MBP and by the time the lid is at the right angle the computer's already up and running.

I like the ThinkPads we have at work (they run Scientific Linux 4) too, but if there's one thing I'd like to change, it's the time it takes them to wake up and go to sleep. I don't know about Vista, but in my experience also XP takes significantly longer (on those same ThinkPads).

[iomatic]

I don't think I could use that rationale for the MBPs. Heh.