[haycyn]

I am fairly computer illiterate. I work in Adobe cloud for work and use those applications on my own computer. I work for a small business from home and have been informed I can purchase my own computer for at home since I work from home. Essentially they will comp me for my new computer and pay for cloud on it, I can use it for work and play etc, but it is mine. I hope this makes sense. Anyway, I have a $600 allowance from them, I can add whatever money I want to get the computer I want or I can get a $600 computer.
But I don't know anything at all about them. I have a Dell Inspiron laptop now that crashes frequently. I like Dell but this was a $400 computer from Walmart a couple of years ago before I got into anything in photoshop/lightroom world.
Can someone give me some tips on what to look for.
Mac vs PC- is the jury out. I currently run a dual Ubuntu/Linux system alongside Windows and I love that but I have go into Windows quite often, more than I like.
Anyway, any wisdom in this is appreciated very much.

Thanks!

[damianc]

Any decent $600 computer will run vmware with ease. You can run windows in vmware and not worry about dual boot. It's very easy to install, and if you have a licensed copy of windows (that may well be the version you have installed on you old computer), it's a doddle.
I've been almost exclusively linux since the mid 1990's, though on occasions I've been forced to run M$ by some corporate or other. VMWare does the job perfectly.
Macs are really nicely built, but you do pay a premium. OSX is built on top of BSD Unix, so if you are familiar with command line Linux, you will feel (halfway) at home with a mac. There are some oddities which make one feel like it's nothing like UNIX at times, but on the whole I like macs.
Buy a desktop, and you'll get more bang for your buck. Laptops are usually a compromise on space and battery life. Unless you are on the road all the time desktops win hands down.
Dell are not that bad for the money. As PC's go they are pretty good value, and generally quite well built. Whenever I've bought dell I've always tracked down their good offers and upgraded memory etc from independent stores. Never get the added extras at Dell, they're often twice the price for things like extra memory.
If you buy new, chances are it will come pre-installed with windows. Check to see if you can get the installation CD. Format drive, install Linux, Install vmware, install windows as a virtual machine.

[godavari]

As you have Linux background, I think iMac works for you better. All popular applications run on iMac (OS X) and it needs only one single cable and that is power cord. Comes with keyboard/magic mouse bundle. No clutter of wires. But, it is definitely above the budget of $600.

[GUB]

Presumably you are thinking of a "bang for bucks" computer majoring in graphics.
Then think desktop rather than laptop.
Think dual core rather than multicore and spend money saved on maximum ram . ( I am running a pentium 3 ghz dual core with 8 gigs of ram) This gives heaps for a virtual XP on virtualbox which I use only for printing.
I think linux is supposed to handle multiple cores better than M$.
To utilize linux you have to master gimp, so that is a priority.
Linux is free so that is more dolleros to max out the computer specs.
A good trick with linux is to find someone with a good up and running OS and clone it with clonezilla. This way you don't need the learning curve of setting it up.
Another bang for buck trick I have is to use a small (60gb) solid state hard drive dedicated to the OS and keep your archives on a standard hd. This gives a great performance boost.

[mee]

If you don't need portability then I'd also say get a desktop.. generally cheaper, easier to upgrade/repair, and more powerful. The Intel processor in a desktop is more powerful than it's counterpart laptop version. The laptop has heat and power limitations while the desktop not so much. But you lose out on portability... so you have to decide what is more important.



For Photoshop and work style apps (on desktop)

Intel Core i5 or better (there are different models with varying performance)
8 Gigabytes of RAM or better
1 Terabyte of hard drive space or better
Any video 'card'

For gaming, add a dedicated video card (the model matters so it gets a bit more technical and would require more research) but with 1 GB of ram or better. But to get a high powered video card, the computer will then also require a more high powered power supply (the giant metal box in your computer that you plug the power cable into if using a desktop)

If getting a laptop, I'd get an i7 since IIRC the i5 on laptop are really dual core with what they call 'hyper threading' which fools the operating system into believing it has 4 cores (core essentially being a processor -- your processor is comprised of multiple processors!)

The desktop i5s are all true quad core processors.

[wildman]

New Computer needed, are there any recommendations?

Yes - don't over-buy.

I have been building my own (2 at home and 2 at the local newspapers) since about the mid 1990s.
Hardware has gotten so good and cheap it's just not that hard nor costly to get good performance out of a desktop anymore even for fairly demanding work. I am speaking as someone who has only worked with Windows desktop systems and only for serious office use and not for gaming.

I recently upgraded one of the stations with a new MB+dual core AMD CPU+8gb+120mb SSD as a dedicated scratch disk for PS and the publishing program - just a shade over 250 bucks from Newegg. Running under Win 7 home premium they are stable and fast. The only thing I'd watch out for is the power supply both for size and quality. I use 450 watt Antecs.

[TER-OR]

Keep an eye on Woot for a good deal. Then add your own card reader. That's if you don't build your own.
There are a number of existing threads with great component advice, you'll need to to a short search to find them.