I’ve been an Apple mac user since 1995 and have had  a love hate relationship with the company since then.

It’s so long ago I can’t really remember using OS9 in the 90’s, about 15 years ago along came OSX, at the time of launch, it was a bit buggy, but quite brilliant and I embraced it fully as soon as the software companies caught up and brought out updates which worked with the new operating system.

Since the early 2000’s I’ve owned several Apple laptops (From the appallingly  slow G4 Powerbook  series up to 2013 version) and Apple desktops (G4 dual, Mac Pro tower, current Mac Pro.)

The reason for a change to Windows PC?

Apple taking away the full sized USB, meaning I have to buy USB adaptors to connect my camera when tethering, something else to loose or break when I’m in the middle of a corporate portrait session. It’s apparently for our benefit, or is it so Apple can sell us more adapters?

Funding the 40%+ Apple profit margin can get a bit tiring. Apple have always been overpriced, but a recent £500 price hike for the base Mac Pro to £2999 (I know, Brexit, exchange rates) for 3+year old technology just doesn’t make them a viable option anymore for a small business.

Windows 10 is a viable alternative to OSX and Microsoft look to be innovating more than Apple.

Finally, and most importantly, performance. For approx half the price of a Mac Pro D300 the PC* speed increase is quite remarkable. Using Capture One pro 9 with 100 Canon 1DX RAW files the results are;

Building 100 RAW Canon previews; Mac 124 seconds PC 43 seconds

Processing 100 RAW Canon files to full quality jpegs; Mac 102 seconds PC 54 seconds

Next purchase, Windows 10 laptop….It’s been fun Apple, Windows is a bit of a learning curve but I’ll get used to it, and less time in front of the computer post processing images will be very welcome.

*PC specs

Corsair case.

Asus Z170 deluxe motherboard

Intel Core i7 6700 CPU air cooled

Samsung 950 pro SSD PCIe NVMe

GTX 1070 GPU gaming edition

16gb DDR4 RAM