Skim for Mac Skim is a powerful PDF reader for Mac which allows the users view PDF documents and edit then in a user-friendly manner. The application can also be customized according to users’ requirements. Rated 5 out of 5 by brs from Save $1000 and upgrade 8 year old MacBook Pro Yes, it was time to upgrade the 2010 17 inch MacBook Pro that served me so well. It still is in use actually, just not my main computer now. The new 2016 was just too good to pass up for $1000 off. I love the SSD and having 2 TB of space now. Apple confirmed that I.

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Despite the fact that most people have not used one of Apple's new MacBook Pros, there are some creative professionals -- including graphic designers, photographers and video editors -- who are already disappointed by them. For them, it's all about the specs.

Apple's new machines don't feature the latest Intel and Nvidia processors, don't offer more than 16GB of memory, and ditch nearly all the traditional ports -- including full-size USB ports and the SD card reader -- in favor of the new Thunderbolt 3 standard.

Some pros are even considering a switch to Windows instead. But which PCs are worthy replacements for the MacBook Pro? Here are five Windows laptops alternatives that creative professionals should consider.

The all-around creative

The Dell XPS 15 laptop matches up nicely in both price and specs against the new 15-inch MacBook Pro. Its practical design houses a 15-inch 4K display that renders 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space -- a plus for editing photos or color-correcting videos. Its $1,850 US price tag is another win. Check out our full review of the Dell XPS 15 here.

Advantages over the 15-inch MacBook Pro: 4K display, touchscreen, 32GB of RAM and ports including HDMI, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.0 and an SD card reader.

Disadvantages: The Nvidia graphics card is not VR-ready. The battery life is just OK. And the 15-inch MacBook Pro's design looks better than the clunky wedge shape of the Dell.

Photo/video workstation

If you are looking for pure power in a laptop, meet the new 17-inch Razer Blade Pro. This computer has pretty much every spec you could ask for: a giant 4K touchscreen with a wide color gamut, loads of ports, the best graphics chip you can get in a laptop, 32GB of RAM and even a scroll wheel! Read our in-depth look at the Razer Blade Pro.

Advantages over the 15-inch MacBook Pro: 4K touchscreen, Nvidia GTX 1080 (8GB) graphics, an SD card slot, 32GB RAM, and a 2TB PCIe SSD (in RAID 0, which means up to twice the read and write speed by combining two drives together).

Disadvantages: Weight (it's nearly twice the weight of a 15-inch MacBook Pro), price ($3,699 where the 15-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,399 in the US) and it's unable to run Final Cut Pro (which is true of any Windows laptop).

Designers and artists

Recently, Microsoft announced that it was going to offer a premium version of its Surface Book with an i7 processor. In our review of the Surface Book, we gave 'Archie' comic book artist Dan Parent some time with the laptop/tablet hybrid. He viewed the Surface Book as a serious contender to replace his Wacom tablet and stylus.

Advantages over the 13-inch MacBook Pro: A top-of-the-line Surface Book comes with better (game-capable) graphics, more ports (including an SD card reader) as well as both a touchscreen and the Microsoft Surface pen stylus.

Disadvantages: A top-of-the-line 13-inch MacBook Pro is cheaper, lighter, smaller and comes with a faster processor and Thunderbolt 3 ports. It can also charge with a standard USB-C power adapter, where the Surface Book still requires a proprietary cable.

VR and game developers

The new Alienware 13 is basically a 15-inch laptop crammed into a 13-inch body. The quad-core processor, heavy-duty Nvidia graphics chip and particularly the optional OLED display make this an ideal machine for developers previewing HDR game content. You can even buy the optional Alienware Graphics Amp ($199) to boost its performance even further. For more on the new Alienware 13 check out our review.

Advantages over the 13-inch MacBook Pro: A plethora of ports (Thunderbolt 3, USB-3, HDMI, Mini Display Port), a quad-core processor, 32GB of RAM, 2TB PCIe SSD and Nvidia 1060 graphics.

Disadvantages: A fully loaded new Alienware 13 ($3,425) costs much more than a top-of-the-line 13-inch MacBook Pro ($2,899). It's also nearly 2 pounds heavier and lacks an SD card slot.

Value and battery life

The 14-inch ThinkPad T460 offers a lot for a relatively low price -- a top-specced machine only costs $2,034 US and comes complete with 32GB of RAM, a touchscreen, and a fingerprint reader. Youtube downloader for mac. One of the nicest features is the tremendous battery life -- Lenovo claims 18 hours on a charge.

Advantages over the 13-inch MacBook Pro: A comfy keyboard, 32GB of RAM, touchscreen, price, dual batteries (the rear one is swappable) for tremendous battery life, an SD card reader and an HDMI port.

Disadvantages: Smaller-capacity slower SSDs, average screen resolution, and no Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C ports.

Final word

It is a great time to buy a computer, even if you're a creative professional. If you were pining for a new MacBook Pro but disappointed by the specs, I'd recommend waiting a bit to read our review on the higher end models with Touch Bar. Specs are just one part of the story. Here's our review of the new baseline 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar.

If your creative workflow allows for a Windows based-machine, these five deserve your consideration. Though, one of the complaints some creative pros had against Apple, was its choice of a sixth-generation Intel processor instead of a seventh-generation version. All five Windows machines in this article also have a sixth-generation Intel processor. So there are some specs, that will take time to make it into our creative machines.

If you can't make that jump to a Windows machine, you should also consider last year's MacBook Pro. While the specs are 2015 (which in computer years is old), a top-of-the-line model costs $2,899 and comes with a 2.8GHz quad-core Intel i7 processor, 16GB of memory, a 1TB SSD and all the ports you're used to (USB-3, SD card reader and Thunderbolt 2).

Take a look below to compare the specs of the new MacBook Pro against these Windows alternatives -- all specs are for the top-of-the-line model of each computer.

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It took six weeks of tech support calls, power usage monitoring and Genius Bar diagnostics, but I'm finally convinced my new MacBook Pro isn't an expensive mistake.

30 time-saving Hotkeys for Foxit Reader. Extensive, exportable, wiki-style reference lists for Keyboard Shortcuts/Hotkeys. Foxit reader for mac.

And what I've learned along the way can help you, too -- regardless of what laptop you're using.

I bought a 15-inch Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro sight unseen late last year, confident that performance improvements, Apple's superior trackpads and better portability would justify the upgrade from its 2012-era predecessor. But my pleasure at the speed-up evaporated when I noticed within the first week how fast the machine drained its battery.

My heart sank when the revamped Mac design lasted only 3 hours, 7 minutes on battery in my first formal test just doing routine work -- chores in Google's Chrome browser, chiefly, but also a few minutes on power-hungry photo editing. This was not supposed to be what happened when one of the biggest reasons I upgraded was to replace the feeble, worn-out battery in the old machine.

I feared my Apple was a lemon. It wasn't just me, though, as evidenced by forum fretting and some cases of customer returns.

But with help from Apple techies and a lot of testing, I reached a different conclusion: The MacBook's terrific new screen, which maxes out at a significantly brighter level, was gobbling watts despite a more energy-efficient design. There are other factors, but dialing down the brightness helped me once again work all day on a single charge.

For full details, check CNET's tips on how to get your MacBook Pro battery to last all day.

Overall, I'm satisfied. Still, the experience made it clear that even top tech companies like Apple, Google and Adobe Systems still have lots of work to do delivering products that minimize power consumption. And it's disappointing how often power-saving techniques mean micromanaging your machine or doing without useful features. A decade after the iPhone launch, it's time to assume your customers will be unplugged from the power socket more often than not.

Hopes dashed

Apple boasts of battery life 'up to 10 hours' on two tests -- 'wireless web' and 'iTunes movie playback.' When my Mac fell far short, I started investigating.

I was not encouraged by posts like the explanation from developer Jeff Geerling on why he returned his MacBook Pro or the dozens of pages of commentary on Apple's support site. I spoke to others, too. Duarte Cunha Rosa, a lawyer in Portugal, was distressed when his new 13-inch MacBook Pro wouldn't last more than 5 hours, and Apple tech support couldn't help. 'When asked if I wanted to return it, I did,' he said, pulling his 6-year-old Mac back into service. 'I'm seriously blanking on what my next move is.'

I ran daily tests for weeks to try to understand what was happening. They weren't the most rigorous, since my daily work habits fluctuate, but most days I use the same thing: one or two dozen browser tabs for Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, blog posts and other information sources; Slack for work chitchat; and Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for short bursts of photo editing.

Apple's Safari browser fared a little better than Chrome, which did better than Brave, which did better than Firefox, but none did well. I edit lots of photos outside work, which is why I bought such an expensive machine in the first place, but Lightroom lasted only three hours on the battery.

Things were bad enough that I started carrying a Microsoft Surface Book when I knew I'd be working out of the office. It's slower at photo editing than the Mac, but it lasted all day on battery.

The MacOS 10.12.3 update that fixed Consumer Reports' complaint didn't help. But Apple did.

My initial interactions with Apple, including hours on the phone with tech support and two trips to stores to get my hardware evaluated, yielded only comic relief: One Apple-authorized repair store asked if I had a USB-C dongle so it could run a test, and Apple's own Genius Bar had to hook two dongles together to connect my Mac to their network cable.

Eventually, though, we got to the heart of the problem.

Hopes restored

Screen brightness turned out to be the biggest factor in getting my battery back -- much more than I'd expected. The new 2016 MacBook Pro screen is 67 percent brighter than its predecessor's, and I'd been running it bright. Sure enough, dialing it down made a world of difference. I get 10 hours most days at a brightness setting of 8 to 10 out of 16. When using Safari and an uncomfortably dim setting of 5 or 6, I got 12 hours.

Screen dimming isn't a new idea. But it may make more of a difference here. Although the new MacBook Pro's screen is 30 percent more efficient, it can run brighter, and the new model has a smaller 76 watt-hour battery, compared with 99.5 watt-hours on the 2015 model and 95 watt-hours for my 2012 predecessor.

I learned more from Apple -- like avoiding USB devices when possible. For me, the guilty parties were my Ethernet dongle, memory card reader and external hard drives -- even though the drives had their own power supplies. The problem is that any of these devices wake up the parts of the computer's communication system that otherwise snooze in a low-power state. Stick with Wi-Fi when you can.

Also on the list is the keyboard backlight -- dim it or shut it off -- and dongles with built-in chips, for example to convert video signals to HDMI. They might not consume much, but it all adds up. After all, the glowing Apple logo on earlier Mac laptop lids didn't consume much power either, but efficiency is one one reason Apple scrapped it.

Also, when possible, avoid software that uses the separate but more power-hungry high-performance graphics chip that's now standard in 15-inch MacBook Pros. Adobe's Lightroom, Photoshop and Acrobat each demand this high-performance GPU (I monitored with the handy gfxCardStatus utility) even when they're idling in the background, and non-Safari browsers are more likely to fire it up. Some sites, like Google Maps, keep it on and leave it on, while others only flip it on for a few seconds. So close browser tabs and software you're not using.

Apple doesn't let Safari use the high-performance GPU, a battery-saving restriction. That can cause problems with graphics-intense sites -- a rougher time moving around in Google Maps' 3D view, for example, or slower frame rates on the ShaderToy site. But it's easy to see why Apple made the decision it did.

Chrome is working to deliver the best of both worlds, with updates to be gentler on the GPU, for example by using the lower-power GPU more often and switching tabs to it when they're in the background.

Reducing power usage is a 'top priority for Chrome in 2017,' said Chrome product manager Rachel Popkin. 'We have a bunch of people working on it.'

And Adobe expects improvements that will optimize how its software uses graphics chips to improve battery life on Macs, the company said.

That's great news. For me, the improvements can't come soon enough. Because I may be happier than a month ago, but I'm still not leaving my laptop charger at home.

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