Much Needed Computer Upgrade

My old Windows laptop was struggling with video work for a couple of years and so I have been saving tp buy a new machine. Luckily my friend Andrew gave me some excellent advice and I have now moved to an Apple Mac. This video is just to let you know what I have been doing - it is not a review but just a simple account of my efforts over the last couple of weeks.

[@duncanstreet4955]

Peter, You’ll be forever glad you moved to Apple - everything just works together out of the box! Good luck with the purchase!

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Hi Duncan, Many thanks and I am appreciating the brilliance of the Apple Mac already. Cheers. Peter

[@ScrewThisGlueThat]

Welcome to the Festool of computers. I made the leap several years ago and have been very pleased too.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

That is a good analogy - mind you, the Windows machine with the equivalent spec was about the same price. One of the key factors was that Final Cut Pro can be bought as a one off purchase but Adobe wanted to raid my bank account every year - I hate subscription software. Cheers. Peter

[@gavjav1]

Nice purchase Peter, but my favourite part off your videos is always the music at the end 🎶🎼

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Thanks 👍

[@manuzach]

Peter you got the festool of computers !

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Haha, yes I know and I love it. I have only made 2 videos since making the switch and I can appreciate the improvement already. Cheers. Peter

[@chrishb7074]

Looks like a well chosen specification. Happy to see a real 3.5mm audio socket on the back and not forced into using Bluetooth audio.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Yes, Bluetooth audio is rubbish for video editing due to lag. I have just bought a very cheap stereo sound bar with a 3.5 mm connector. Cheers. Peter

[@MINGLE2008]

Congratulations. Thanks for the demonstration of your new computer.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Thank you!

[@Cianan-vw1lb]

Mac user since 1989. Laptop now. Had to add a dock to mine. Good to see your's has more than Thunderbolt! Enjoy!

[@ashleycox432]

Excellent choice Peter. I've been a Mac user for 15 years and haven't looked back. They are the best computers for creatives.

[@davidsteele3037]

Been a Mac user for over a decade. Will never go back to Windows. Takes a bit of getting used to. The mouse is very different.

[@mikebashford8198]

I hope you are pleased with your purchase. I personally (unlike almost everyone else on the planet) find all Apple products extremely difficult, infuriating, and non-intuitive to use. I suspect my brain is wired differently to most people.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Hi Mike, I thought that I might be in that camp until I took the plunge. It is so easy and so intuitive. Cheers. Peter

[@charles1075]

Independent thought does not interface well with Apple products

[@bruceroaf5750]

Peter once you have had a bit of time with it your wonder why you had not swapped sooner. I use Final Cut pro and can highly recommend it. This old wooden boatbuilder who has used Apple for the last ten years. For editing there is nothing that beats Apple. Love the videos you put out. I dug out my old Leigh jig the other day but it’s not as accurate as I remember it to be.

[@cuebj]

​@charles1075 Weird comment. Most creative types I've known over past 40+ years have used Apple. I've used Amstrad, Apple, Acorn, Windows, Linux, Android. Acorn Archimedes RISC OS was probably best. All function OK for donkey work, data development work, arts and film

[@troyboy4345]

Boys and Toys, best times, we all love shiny fings !

[@cuebj]

Never understood that, especially with computers. Avoided them in 1960s, 1970s, got Amstrad PCW8256 which I soon upgraded to 8512 spec in 1985. Read manuals cover to cover and made it work for me. Acorn Archimedes probably best system I used. Apple Mac to PowerMac. Windows 3, 95, NT, 98, etc to Win11. Linux various flavours. Mostly data development solutions with relational database management systems, data mining with Oracle and Microsoft, spreadsheet workbooks, some photography, no video, layout in Quark, PageMaker, drawing in Aldus Freehand. The tool was a tool. Flaws and virtues of them all. Apple build quality was best but PC was easiest to modify hardware. As for tools - currently loving a little 3.6V drill screwdriver badged Sealey from Euro Car Parts. Where has it been all my life? - and just £35 inc VAT. Exact opposite of shiny pricey gear

[@travismansfield8604]

Hi Peter, just wanted to let you know that across the pond here in the United States you can now pre-order the csc sys 50 table saw. So excited. Shipping out September 6th.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Thanks for that. Cheers. Peter

[@kylereed3577]

I’ve used , Windows, Linux and Mac extensively and Apple products are by far my favorite. Great choice Peter, you’ll love it.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

I agree - brilliant. Cheers. Peter

[@manuzach]

Best review for a mac ever 😅

[@neilgillies6943]

Good move, you'll never regret it ! Also worth purchasing the Satechi Type-C stand and hub from Amazon (lots of extra ports like SD cards etc - you can even stuff a 1Tb SSD into it - _much_ cheaper than having it gynaecologically installed by apple at birth 🙂. Logitech is always a great choice for mac peripherals too - especially their mouse offerings - just fit the hand like a glove and really well made.

[@derekgibbs8966]

Best of luck Peter I swapped to Apple Mac 5 years ago and I hate it it’s now running very, very slow and I’m considering switching back to a Windows desktop.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

The trouble is that system updates put great strain on older hardware which was the key issue with my old Windows laptop. Peter

[@russellwebb3672]

Hi, thanks for this. Elderly guy here also considering a move over to Mac from windows (30 years +) Finding it hard to see anyone on KZbin that uses these small form computers for image editing seems mostly video games and video work, I use On1 photo raw and DXO pure raw along with some other small apps so anyone out there do the same.? Again thanks for the video.

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Hi Russell, I used to use Photoshop (CS5) for my photo editing and illustration work but discovered it would not be possible to migrate it to the Mac. So, I did some investigation and discovered Pixelmator Pro. I have bought it having enjoyed the free trial and find it very easy to use. It allows all of the tricks that I used regularly with CS5 and is great value. Cheers. Peter

[@cuebj]

256GB SSD in that Asus should be fine - bad practice to have your working files on the laptop drive. Only question is if it's new enough to run Windows 11, which is mire resilient than Win10. Easy to upgrade RAM and SSD, if needed (Curry's PC World or any local PC repair shop will do it for you, if you can't). You coukd probably get a new, longer life battery too

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Hi Stephen, Many thanks. Peter

[@cuebj]

If you need to keep Windows, uou can run it on a Mac as virtual machine. Plenty of info and Apple Stores will advise.

[@ronboe6325]

It would be interesting to follow up this video after you have edited some videos so you can tell how your experience with the new Mac compares to the old laptop. Solid state drives have a limited read/write (mainly write) lifetime so I will strongly suggest that you get a good one (two is better; one for backup) SSD external drives (Thunderbolt) and make that your working drive. Save all your videos to them, work from them, save the wear and tear on internal drive. The "SSD" inside the Mac is really some memory chips soldered on the main board so there is no replacing it if it goes south. Now I roll my roll, buying Samsung EVO NVMe drives, then choosing an enclosure with really good write speeds (Andrew can be a big help there). Backup drive can be your typical commercially made external drive (again Samsung seems to be one of the better bands) as all in out speed is not that critical for back ups. Retire your old external drive for now. I made a good living supporting Windows machines at work, but for home use, while I use both, a Mac Studio is my main computer. I suspect learning how to use it will be a bit frustrating at first but in a few weeks you should be humming along nicely. In the mean time, if the budget allows, perhaps a new internal hard drive for the old laptop. Always nice to have a laptop around for sitting in an easy chair checking emails - or watching your videos. :^)

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Hi Ron, Many thanks for your wisdom. I do intend to get the drives sorted (cash flow) in due course. Cheers. Peter

[@Bragon974]

SSD management has improved a lot in recent years. Size matters a lot since APFS will write all the available cells and come back to previously used ones only when it has no other choice. Add overprovisioning which keeps a fraction of the disk unallocated to replace the dead cells and you can hope that the SSD will last as long as the computer. On my Mac Studio after 14 months I see 99% life left, with a 2Tb disk that is 60% used. But to be on the safe side I did connect an external SSD on which I put my video files and Final Cut libraries. A small SSD, filled to the brim and with no or little overprovisioning, will die very fast: I had one used for cache in a NAS that lasted less than two years.

[@cuebj]

SSD has improved but I've been let down far more than by spinning discs. Get NAS box with relevant RAID for mimicking 2 or more drives. Get server grade drives, whether had or ssd. Keep your data on that mini server, not on the computer SSD

[@michaelblackmore883]

Hi Peter, did you have much trouble moving all the stuff from your old laptop to the MAC? I have been looking for a decent Office suite for my iPAD for ages. I did find something I thought would work well but it's quite flaky and not nearly as easy to use as Office on my PC. Did you find one for the MAC which is as good as Office for PC? Mike

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Hi Mike, Not looked for any Office replacement software but I can use the built in apps for word processing and spreadsheets with no problem. Migrating from the Windows laptop is a work in progress with an amazing number of file formats compatible with Mac built in software. The only thing that I am finding takes a bit of getting used to is the way that Apple do not let you see every file - maybe I have yet to learn how to do this but I have lost track of one or two items which then appear again. All in all I am really pleased. Cheers. Peter

[@michaelblackmore883]

Apple certainly has quirks Peter. I use my iPad most of the time and generally it's excellent but attaching files to Gmail emails is far from simple as they can't just be picked out of MyDocument or Pictures and either have to lifted from Photos or Drive which can be very tiresome. In the end I can't use the iPad for everything and need to resort to the PC for certain things.

[@AmauryJacquot]

is that final cut pro ?

[@NewBritWorkshop]

Yes, I had only been playing with it for a day - sorry for the rubbish results. Peter

[@AmauryJacquot]

@@NewBritWorkshop that's perfectly fine 😀

[@Bob_Burton]

How is it that you had devices with Thunderbolt connections when you previously used a Windows PC ?

[@NewBritWorkshop]

USB 3 and USB-C use the same connector and there is some compatibility. Peter

[@Bob_Burton]

@@NewBritWorkshop Sorry, but I don't understand your reply. USB 3 and USB C use different connectors and both are different to a Lightning connector

[@NewBritWorkshop]

You are right - my old laptop had both but my portable SSD had a USB-C interface which not only worked on the old machine but also on the Mac via the Thunderbolt port. Cheers. Peter

[@jackwosullivan]

​@@Bob_Burtonthunderbolt typically uses USB-C these days.

[@Bob_Burton]

@@jackwosullivan That makes no sense. All it does is to add to confusion

[@pctatc66]

lol rooter

[@cb6171]

I bet after a couple of months now, your loving that you've moved to apple , Its like Festool peter , costs a bit more, but it all works seamlessly

[@NewBritWorkshop]

I am delighted already. Video editing is so much easier with Final Cut Pro and the Mac is very quick and easy to use. I wish that I had changed years ago. Cheers. Peter