Which one would you choose?

Stefan

I don't like PCs but I'm sure that if I had to use one I'd get used to it .

So there's no difference for you .

But please for all our sanities [ if there is such a word ] please don't keep dithering until February

In February there will be more new processors and video cards on the horizon, none of which are necessary for running Photoshop...

There is no difference indeed only that I'm on the other end but what you said isn't precisely what I said.
There is a difference in getting used to something and liking something and that's what I talked about and there is no certainty that I'll like mac when I use it more but the only way to find that out is to try it.
I wished there are clear comparisons that show that Mac run so much better than Windows that would give me confidence I won't pay in preformance but I can't find any.

Off course they are necessary, if you know a computer without a processor than please tell me

The processors will most likely come too late but the nVidia cards not, they will come in a matter of months.
The new ones use the GF106 and 108 chips from nVidia, they are more efficient than the GF100 so they run cooler and use less power, both important with laptops.
Also as far as I know CUDA is implemented better with them than the generation chips used with the current notebook cards if so than you will see a difference in preformance with Photoshop and other programs that use them.

I can wait for these cards so why won't I do that?

Stefan, for the sake of making the decision easier if nothing else, put all thoughts of getting a mac from your mind. As a windows user, you will probably find the os unacceptable. I use a mac at work and, as a windows user at home, and someone who likes to multitask, it causes me tears of anguish virtually daily. On the plus side, it almost never crashes!

Stefan,

Just don't decide at all!

Buy as fast a laptop as you want or can afford. With a good display and at least 2 cores. Depending on your ethics you can even refuse the bundled Win7 and claim back ~90euro. Now install Ubuntu AMD64. This will make so much more efficient use of your hardware, that you can now take the - simple - step of installing VirtualBox, and installing Win7 and OSX as virtual OS's. You now have all 3 to choose from. And Ubuntu and Windoze at least can even co-exist, ie. apps from both can appear to be running simultaneously on same desktop (Windoze desktop is transparent). And at home with 2 or even 3 monitors you can have 1 OS per monitor - essentially 2 or 3 separate systems with the same single keyboard/mouse pair.

There is a slight performance loss, but as Ubuntu makes such good use of the hardware, the difference will be small. (If you decide not to actually use Ubuntu beyond being a virtual host OS, you can run it with a very efficient lightweight WM such as XFCe normally reserved for running on low powered older systems.)

Real advantages occur with easy of managing the guest OS's. You can save them once created and reset to a known good base in minutes. Think if it as Windows Restore on steroids. Get a virus, no issue, restore, continue.

But biggest gain is that you can claim your life back, starting now, and stop fretting frmm now till Feb, 2011 as to which to buy. Plus Ubuntu will allow you to keep the host OS and VirtualBox fully and easily up-to-date for no further cash outlay, as well as letting you have easy access to a large number of free apps for those little things. It really is easier, not to mention quicker, to install apps under Ubuntu.

And there is also Wine, which believe it or not, runs many Windows Apps directly on Ubuntu, in some cases even faster than on native Windoze!

Thank you layingback, Shaky already talked about that and that might indeed be an idea if must from the school use Mac but that isn't the case but still it might be better.

A different question, the graphics card with laptops are they baked in into the motherboard, I believe that isn't always the case so if not can you than upgrade them?
I know you can upgrade the hard-drive, optical drive and the RAM with little problem but I've no idea about the CPU and the GPU.

Just like a desktop, graphics cards can be integral or separate. Of course for Photoshop you don't need an ultra-fast gaming graphics card, hence my reference above to new cards and processors not being necessary.

After all Stefan, you are using Photoshop right now with much lower specification hardware than you are contemplating.

Upgrading is a path that means you will always be one step behind. We tend to be many steps behind as we upgrade infrequently. The latest upgrade we expect to last for the next 5 years at least. The last one ran quite happily for almost 7 years.

I upgrade every couple years...
when I upgrade, I prefer to do cameras/photogear one year, computers/software the next...
when it is time to upgrade computer hardware we go imac or macbook... apple does the hardware and software, so you get both.... new os, new hardware, new software all the latest, all at once....

No you're right photoshop doesn't need a fast card but more and more programs are capable to use the graphics card to make calculation and with the laptops I've looked at the graphics card was the lowest scoring hardware component so in time it might be useful to upgrade that together with the RAM and maybe a SSD drive.
Also the windows laptop use Ati cards and nVidia now has cards that can completely shutdown automatically when you don't need the card so you extend battery life quite a bit when surfing the web or writing a letter.

Same here with the PC around the two years, too bad the sockets in my current PC aren't used any more or else I would have upgraded it again because everything runs still fine but it's getting slow now.
Software gets update when the new one comes out since the price hardly drops for the upgrade version.

for me it is the headache factor... you try to upgrade a pc, and you find hardware and driver and software conflicts all over the board....try to upgrade one peice and then you have to change something else to get it working, by the time you're done, you pretty much spend as much as a new pc....

buy a new mac, get everything upgraded and working at once, no headaches...

Never had that problem Don because I've build my own system and so am not at the mercy of the manufacture of the PC to provide the correct firmware.
I've successfully without problems upgraded RAM, the CPU, GPU, Harddsik, and put in a blu-ray burner separately over time.

The only problem I had with upgrading the RAM or the CPU was that I've overclocked them and they are connected to each other so if you change one you need to adapt the other for max preformance but that's only when you've it overclocked.
For the rest, if you the software or the hardware is not older than 3 to 4 years all should work without a problem.

If you want to upgrade a 6 year old PC to windows 7 that can be problematic indeed with some hardware.

And the new nVidia cards are out now link

I agree with your comment about graphics cards but the processor (and it's related peripherals, principally amount and speed of memory) can make quite a difference. Processing a picture does involve quite a lot of "number crunching" and if you have been out and shot four or five hundred RAW in a day, it can make a lot of difference.

Well I disagree with the comments about graphics cards.

Some graphics cards now are a lot more powerful than the CPUs themselves, so if all that power is not needed for graphics, then why not use it for general purpose computing to speed it up? Think of it as an extra core if you like. It's easy when your OS handles this all for you and you don't have to think about it.

Aperture on the Mac performs better with better graphics cards, so the best that I can afford is what I get. When you start throwing around and processing 1100x 15MB+ RAW files that you just shot at a wedding, you appreciate all the power and memory you get. You might not need an i7 laptop with 8GB ram running 64 bit OSes and 64 bit Photoshop and never needing a scratch disk, but it is nice.

As for the argument that you don't need all this extra power to use Photoshop, well, each to their own. Just because you don't need or want the extra speed, it doesn't mean that some of us don't need or want that extra performance! Is someone who buys a K-7 over a K20 stupid? You don't need a K-7 to take photos after all.

Next performance boost will be to buy an SSD, which will really see dramatic increase in certain levels of performance. Some of you might not need Photoshop to boot in 2.5 seconds, with an instant on laptop, but some of us like it.

Edit: forgot a link - “GPUs Are Only Up To 14 Times Faster than CPUs” says Intel

Thank you Danny.
Photoshop CS4 only showed a little bit what the GPU can do with CS5 it does already use it a bit more, it's only a matter of time before most filters can be caculated by the gpu, that would speed up things I hope.
Here are some things PS CS5 use the gpu for link
In Adobe Premiere CS5 you see a real jump in performance link

Danny this might interest you http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-7-ssd-trim,2705.html