Great Escape Publishing

Posted June 15th, 2011 by Lori Allen & filed under Travel Photography, Travel Writing.

I can’t help but notice that more and more of our workshop attendees are traveling with Mac laptops instead of PCs these days.

iPhones and iPads are certainly helping to promote Apple products. And, for photographers, there’s something to be said about Mac’s color-calibrated screens and monitors.

I reviewed both Mac and PCs some time last year and basically concluded that if you spend as much money on a PC as you do on a Mac, you’ll find them on equal playing ground – each having its own set of pros and cons. The difference mostly is that people tend to compare cheap PCs with expensive Macs and, then of course, the more expensive Macs, win.

My advice last year was to go with the best model you could afford – Mac or PC. If you had an extra thousand dollars you could put down on a Mac, great. If not, today’s cheap PCs blow away what used to be available at any price just a few years ago. So, if a $500 Acer, Toshiba or HP is all you could afford, then that’s what I recommend you get.

Do I feel different now a year later?

As the proud owner of an iPhone and an iPad… maybe. Apple has introduced a few cheaper models, and prices have come down across the board making them a more competitive option.

In addition, Apple is about to announce a new operating system that will automatically keep your iPhone, iPad, desktop, and laptop in sync without having to transfer documents, calendars, and pictures from one machine to the next.

So which is better?

I asked my friend Mark Kellner, a tech columnist for the Washington Times, for his thoughts…as well as a few of our photography and writing experts for their preferences. I’ll share them all with you this week.

[Editor’s Note: Learn more about opportunities to profit from your travels (and even from your own home) in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.]