To buy or not to buy (another Mac vs PC question)

[mbalkham]

All,

I'm still pretty new to this astro stuff. To date been running all the software on my work PC Laptop. I'm leaving the company soon and handing that laptop back so the question is do I buy a cheap (ish) PC Laptop to run everything or do I try to switch over to running everything on my MacBook pro (which I use for all my normal photography work and is pretty high spec)?

I'm leaning towards buying a PC specifically to run the scope etc. One that I'd be happy to leave in the garden! Plus I know what I'm doing with the software on the PC.  Any suggestions on a reasonably priced outfit?

Any other ideas? (Barebones PC and remote desktop to the MAC?)

Thanks in advance

Matt

[Davey-T]

I've been trying to get astro running on a MBP but in the meantime have a Bootcamp partition for things that don't work on the Mac.

Hoping to eventually get it all working on Mac.

Couple of threads on here if you do a search.

Dave

[beamer3.6m]

Why not run a PC in the garden then control it remotely from indoors via teamviewer with the MAC.

Best of both.

PC will do the grunt work and then MAC can process the images etc

[JamesF]

If it's going to be exposed outdoors then I'd say get a cheap Windows laptop for the astro stuff and transfer to the Mac for processing.  In an obsy I might be happier to use a Mac, but I'd personally prefer not to have such an expensive item out where it might get covered in dew etc. etc.

James

[Ouroboros]

I use a MacBook Pro in my "warm room" (a shed) right next to where I set up the scope outside. That works fine. I would not want to use my Mac outside. So I would probably go for a cheap MS lappy in those circumstances instead of, or possibly in addition to, a Mac. Personally and in my circumstances I prefer using one machine for everything.

[mbalkham]

So any suggestions on a cheap MS Laptop? What sort of specs will I need?

Cheers

Matt

[Davey-T]

Not much if you're only using it for capture, my obs'y laptop is running XP Pro from way back when it was flavour of the month, If using a video camera you may need a big hard drive otherwise any old thing will pretty much cut it.

Dave

[mbalkham]

How about running off a windows tablet?  Anyone tried?

[mbalkham]

something like this maybe? http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/dell-venue-8-pro-3845-intel-atom-z3735g-1gb-32gb-8-inch-ips-windows-8.1-tab-3845-0290/version.asp

[Davey-T]

Yes, a few threads on here about it, do a search as I seem to remember some discussion about which version of Windows you needed, probably al changed now with Win10

Dave

Here's one http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/234107-anyone-using-cheap-windows-tablet-with-apt/page-1?hl=tablet