revisiting OS X vs. Vista

Over a month ago I set sail on an adventure, the purchase of my first Windows computer…ever. As the current owner of nine Mac computers and as an Apple diehard, I never considered a machine other than one running either the Mac OS or a distro of Linux. My first post on the purchase of this Windows laptop created quite a bit of feedback from prophotolife readers, both pro and con. Having lived with the Toshiba Satellite (and, more importantly, Windows Vista) for awhile, I’m ready to share some thoughts and draw some initial conclusions.

The Good

I like the $599 Toshiba laptop: nice keyboard, build, webcam, screen, yada yada yada. Nothing to complain about with the hardware at this price. Actually, there are a LOAD of features for the price. It seems like prices continue to drop even further since I purchased this machine.

As for Vista, I honestly have no major complaints. Keep in mind that one of my first actions was to switch it to “classic mode”. As a result there are no fancy graphics but, I was told, those fancy graphics are a resource hog. So the computer interface pretty much looks like Windows 98, at least to my faint memory. That’s just fine because the primary task of this computer is to tap out the daily blog. This is a plain, vanilla, work box of a machine and in that respect it hasn’t let me down.

The Mediocre

Vista seems eager to help me, it’s always popping up little windows with questions and information. But in most cases these prompts are just a distraction. I’m learning how to turn them off but it’s a process.

An interesting thing (to me) is that Windows Media files never look great on my Macs but they play much nicer on this Windows machine. Conversely, Quicktime files are beautiful on the Macs but don’t look nearly as good on this Windows box. What’s up with that? Is it just me or do the companies do this on purpose?

The Bad

My iTunes music won’t play on this Vista machine, I’m told the computer isn’t authorized. So I authorize it and iTunes tells me it’s happy…until trying to play the music again and being told the machine isn’t authorized. I’ve chased the bug around in forums but don’t have it solved yet. Bummer.

The only really perplexing thing about Vista for me has been the Help Menu. Sometimes it’s accurate but sometimes the help paths get vague or they indicate making choices that I simply can’t find. It’s like restoring a ‘72 Jeep with the manual from a ‘76 model. Most of the information is the same but some of the components appear to have changed since the manual was written.

Overall

This machine was inexpensive and does what I hoped it would do. For the $599 purchase price I’m very happy. It doesn’t do anything more than I hoped but it also hasn’t disappointed in any great way. It’s a good machine and I’d buy it again.

But is it a Mac? Again, keep in mind I’m running this in Classic Mode so it’s “bare bones”. Mac OS X is a more enjoyable, more polished, more user-friendly experience, in my opinion. It works better straight out of the box and comes with a suite of more integrated, intuitive softwares that are powerful and easy to use. Windows is a bit clunky in comparison. When OS X encounters a problem it seems to offer an easy fix. When Windows encounters a problem it offers a bunch of choices that leave me at least as confused as when I started. That’s the honest perspective from this at least fairly computer-savvy photographer.

BUT…#1

In this particular case and application I’d still choose this $599 Windows machine over buying the more expensive Macbook. It does what I’ve needed it to do for the blog and has done so very affordably. I’m fully content. Plus it’s nice to have one PC machine to troubleshoot video on, so for that alone it‘s worth it.

Since I’m a tinkerer, though, the hard drive has been partitioned and is awaiting the loading of Ubuntu Linux for a dual-boot setup alongside Vista. I admit it, I’ve been missing Linux a bit (John B., I’m comin’ home to Linux).

BUT…#2

I’ve also had the pleasure(?) of trying out a Windows desktop machine for video editing recently, to see how it would handle these duties. The computer is outfitted for media purposes and the full CS3 suite is installed, including Premiere for video editing. To date I’ve been using OS X and Apple’s Final Cut Pro. This seems to be considered the current industry standard. If the Windows machine worked out well our studio could save considerably on a new video editing setup.

Premiere has an easy-to-use interface and the integration with After Effects, Photoshop, Soundbooth and Bridge is wonderful on the Vista machine. But I’ve encountered big problems with sound. Sometimes the sound drops out of clips, sometimes the audio and video get out of sync when importing. It’s been frustrating, to say the least, and has cost time and productivity.

Some people tell me the problem lies with Premiere. Some say it’s a problem with Vista and the Nvidia graphics card. All I know is that I can’t remember being slowed by such bugs on a Mac.

Check out the sweet flash-on-camera lighting on this setup! Nope, I’m not that orderly, nothing’s connected yet, it’s all waiting for a spare moment to get hooked up. Soon the papers and iced-tea-glass-rings will begin to collect on top of the fancy hollow core door tabletop .

In Conclusion

I’ve looked at two extremes here: normal, everyday computing and video editing on deadline. For writing this blog I’m perfectly content to save money and use a budget Windows laptop. For video editing I prefer my Mac and Final Cut.

Photo editing, I would imagine, falls somewhere in between these two extremes. I can see how people are divided on their allegiances. Right now I’m setting up an external monitor, film scanner, flatbed scanner and printer at home for use with the laptop. It will slide right in the middle of this setup and I’ll use it for my personal / fun photo duties for awhile. Hopefully the little budget laptop will continue to meet my expectations in this incarnation. But, if not, everything will already be in place if I ever have a desire to substitute a Mac in it’s stead.