buying a computer

Are you after a Desktop or laptop and what is your realistic budget?

As a die-hard PC user back in the early 2000's I eventually made the jump to Apple during my time at Art School and I really haven't looked back since. I would strongly suggest Apple (with Applecare).

I'm a freelance Graphic Designer and I use the 15" MacBook Pro. The portability for me is key so I would say your first decision is desktop or laptop. Personally, I think for your uses, you wouldn't need a desktop unless you need massive storage or obscenely high levels of processing power for rendering videos in Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe After Effects.

Second, depending on where you draw the line at “web designer”. If you're just going to be writing code, and work with supplied images then I think the MacBook Air would be best. It's the best for portability, battery life is incredible and you have very little lag when starting up your machine. It really is the most beautiful laptop I've ever seen! If you need to get involved with the Adobe CC packages, like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom etc, then this is where you may want to look at the MacBook Pro range. They have higher capacity hard drives, more RAM (meaning you can have more apps open without your computer grinding to a halt) and also a bigger screen.

Third, depending on your budget, I have a secondary monitor when I'm working at my desk, so you could look at the Apple Display to have at home/workspace which is really handy!

Fourth. The reason why I prefer Apple over PC is that with a PC you can spend wasteful hours on end tinkering with a box, and sometimes support (in my opinion) is frustrating. With Apple (and Applecare) you have 3 years of phone support and if you live near an Apple store they will help you with anything. Computer parts (regardless of Mac or PC) are always susceptible to failing. In the 8 years of having Mac computers my failed parts have been replaced with no extra charge. This includes 2 screen replacements, 2 hard drives, 1 mother/logic board and my DVD drive. This would cost a hellavah lot of cash if you don't have Apple care.

I've thrown a lot of information at you but I hope this advice has been helpful.

Good luck :)

Really if you are to assume a technical role, operating system should be down to your own personal preferences - most design software is cross-platform or there are viable alternatives to the software out there.

I personally design from a PC, I've built it from scratch and although spent a lot of money on it; you could have a decent design build for a fraction of what you would pay for an apple system. With that being said though, if eye candy is what you're looking for and you take pleasure in working from well-designed products, apple would be your first choice. I don't feel limited with my PC in any way and I've actually avoided a learning curve by doing so (which would drastically effect my productivity) so if you're looking to hit the ground running, stick to the OS you're used to.

A lot of design jobs in my local area have specified knowledge and experience working with Apple operating systems, if you're looking to work for a design studio in the future, Apple may be your best bet also. If you're looking to freelance, you hold the reins and again your personal preference should be your main influence.

As for brands, if you're going down the route of PC; I'd stick to building your own system, if you have no experience of this I really wouldn't worry - it's simple and there are plenty of instructional videos on how to do so out there, it's a matter of screwing a motherboard to a case, fitting selected components and securing these and then installing an operating system.

Specs again really depend on your budget but building a system with the following hardware should be affordable as well as future-proof you for years to come:

An AMD (cheaper) or Intel (often better performance for a considerable amount more) Quad core or higher processor running at 3 GHz or above 8GB DDR3 1600MHz (or above latency) 1TB Hard Drive (These have cheapened and should be more than enough for your needs) with a drive speed of 7200RPM+ (I'd pay the few extra bucks for 7200RPM as opposed to 5400, it makes reading/writing speeds that little more faster which is favourable for transferring large files) An ATX form factor case with an ATX Motherboard to accommodate your processor and memory (It's as simple as looking for a processor to suit your needs, checking out what socket this processor fits into and searching for a motherboard with the same socket) as well as ensuring the max RAM support is 8GB+ (Most now accomodate 16/32GB so I really wouldn't worry) if you find selecting the processor and motherboard to be difficult, sites like ebuyer.com (which I use for my hardware selection) often show what users recently have bundled with the processor you are currently viewing). A power supply to accomodate this hardware (Don't cheapen out here like a lot of people do, a good power supply is crucial, you don't want power surges at all and you definitely want your hardware to run optimally, 750W+ is a good option, Corsair supply good power supplies. If you're doing any video rendering, a good graphics card will work in your favour, if you're going to be at least experimenting I suggest a 1GB DDR5 card, NVidia cards are my favourite but AMD cards are much cheaper).

I would stray from SSD drives, a lot of people may recommend these for their great read speeds (your operating system will load faster) but I've seen and heard of many fail, currently they are unreliable and some have read speeds so fast they have actually skipped reading crucial files to boot the operating system in the first place.

If you're new to building, it'll save you a BUNDLE doing it yourself, if you're looking into purchasing your own hardware you can always get in touch and I can make some recommendations if you assign a budget. Tidying up your cables is a good idea as to not restrict airflow, this will keep your components running slightly cooler and in turn will increase hardware performance and lifespan, again optionally, a good CPU and memory coolers are recommended too. When installing the heatsink/CPU cooler I'd consider scraping off (with rubbing alcohol) any of the standard thermal compound shipped with the cooler (you'll receive a stock one with your processor) and using a silver-based compound instead; I've had good paste reduce processor temperatures by over 20 degrees celcius because the stock compound they ship with was so poor. Ensure a good contact with the heatsink and processor and replacing this paste every 6 months - 1 year as this paste will dry and degrade over time.

I hope this information was helpful and again, I'm always happy to consult you with your build after you've had a look at videos and read around some more.

Good Luck!

Go visit any design studio, agencies, university design labs and you will know that an apple is healthier and favored in all aspects.

A desktop or laptop, depends on where, when and how you will use it.

Specifications, if you are going to work in Multimedia production, animation, 3d, motion and vid-editing then get the fastest computer you can get your hand on regarding the brand. otherwise any Mac with minimum spec of 8-16gig of ram, 1gig of vid-card, and if you afford a ssd/fusion hard drive that will be a plus!

Good Luck!

I agree with Mohammed… you won't find any homemade PC mash-ups in a design studio!

:)

Who says Deirdre will be working in a design studio? She's looking for specifications for a system that will meet her requirements; there is very little different between Apple and Windows operating systems that will hinder her design. I design from a windows machine on a freelance basis and have procured a position with a company that includes design work - windows meets my needs. Also, I've seen many studios with 'home-made' builds being used, it's a computer, there's no difference when it comes to hardware.

If she's looking to work for someone, then yes, perhaps an Apple OS would be favoured but when giving information to someone new in the field, it is important to remain unbiased - there is no such thing as a 'healthier' system, the computers I have built have all been fully functional and well-built and the maintenance costs if a component were to fail are much cheaper.

Definitely if she can afford it, she should consider an Apple computer but with no information about her budget - it's not a solution we can recommend.