Could i settle for a cheaper ibook? instead of powerbook?

i am going to be doing some med/heavy Photoshop work and using a wacom intous3 a5 tablet, and a **** of a lot of word processing.

i was thinking of a 15" combo with 1gb of ram

but could i settle for the cheaper 14" with 768mb of ram instead.

What would be the better buy for me, i am planning to use this as my main computer to put me threw a graphic design degree and start me in the world if work.

any recommendations.

Go with the PowerBook since you're going to be doing a lot of Photoshop, and the more RAM in it the better. The PowerBooks have better graphics cards than the iBooks and that will certainly help if you decide to use some of the features that Core Image (a new graphics rendering system) provides.

The overall plan was to do all work on a laptop and eventually get a powermac in a couple of years later, will a better graphics card make any difference?

and you say more ram is better, well wouldnt i be better gettin the ibook then with 1.256mb, which will still be cheaper

I'd second the powerbook especially if you're taking it on to the workplace. RAM + graphics cards are key

mr..nemo said:

The overall plan was to do all work on a laptop and eventually get a powermac in a couple of years later, will a better graphics card make any difference?

and you say more ram is better, well wouldnt i be better gettin the ibook then with 1.256mb, which will still be cheaper

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No, you wouldn't be better getting the iBook with more RAM, because the graphics card on the iBook still sucks. For graphics design work, you need the extra horsepower that the PowerBook provides. Even if it would have 256MB less system memory, the PowerBook has double the dedicated graphics memory (64-128MB vs. 32MB) - and that will make more of a difference.

Why not find a used PowerMac G4 and iBook G3 and use those?

Use the iBook for taking notes in class and writing papers and then go home and use the PowerMac for the real work.

i have always looked at second hand computers as being crap, every computer i ever get eventually gets slow and sluggish and i was told that formatting the hard drive would help. if i formatted a used mac would it be almost as fast as the day it was brought?

i might consider a g4 mac if i am convinced that a 2nd hand one will not be slow and useless to me, otherwise i might aswell keep my pc at the moment and save spending the £500.

but im going to definitely stick to a powerbook then and not an ibook because i need something portable to work with on the move because i spend alot of time at my partners house, where i will be doing most of the work.

Mr..nemo, it's good that you got with the PowerBook with the load of RAM because it will be lasting you a lot longer than the iBook because of it's specs as mentioned above. I am personally getting a PowerBook 15" 1.67GHz with 1GB of RAM to start with. Mine will have 128MB of video memory as well. I will be getting my PowerBook for the soul purpose of web and graphics design.

why is a better graphics card better? apart from games which i have no interest in, what else will it help?

mr..nemo said:

i have always looked at second hand computers as being crap, every computer i ever get eventually gets slow and sluggish and i was told that formatting the hard drive would help. if i formatted a used mac would it be almost as fast as the day it was brought?

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The reason Windows computers get slow is because of all the spyware, trojans, viruses and crap that gets in - plus the lack of a journaling filesystem. OS X has a journaling filesystem called HFS+ that never needs to be defragged. Plus, OS X has no malware of any sort. My PowerBook is as fast as the day I've bought it.

If you buy a used Mac and format the drive, it won't get slow and you won't have to format the drive every 6 months like most people do with Windows.

mr..nemo said:

why is a better graphics card better? apart from games which i have no interest in, what else will it help?

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Because it will do this:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coreimage.html

If you think graphics cards are only good for games then you're dead wrong.

isnt a mac still able to get spyware tho, trojans and viruses are obious.

mr..nemo said:

isnt a mac still able to get spyware tho, trojans and viruses are obious.

Click to expand...

Nope, all spyware as of this point is Windows-specific.

meltbanana314 said:

Nope, all spyware as of this point is Windows-specific.

Click to expand...

thank god for that, thats reason enough to switch
thanks

No problem, mate.

deus_ex_machina said:

I'd second the powerbook especially if you're taking it on to the workplace. RAM + graphics cards are key

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Powerbooks are more for the business professions like you, they're ur best choice... also dont forget you can upgrade your ram along the way

I considered an iBook, but my main focus is graphic design. So, since I had the budget, I bought the 17" Powerbook and bought from a third party (apple is way overpriced) an additional 512mb Ram stick for $75, which brought me up to a gig. I havn't gotten the Creative Suite in the mail yet (I only have the PC version right now, and just ordered the Mac version), but I downloaded the 30 day trials of Photoshop CS and Illustrator CS and they run very fast.I have a powerful PC, so what I really wanted was a "desktop replacement" for a Mac. Something I could be mobile with, as I fly a couple times a month. I looked at the iBooks, but the graphics memory was too puny. I eventually decided to go all the way, get the top Powerbook, with 1 GB ram. Now, I could work on less. Yesterday, just for fun. I had 47 different applications running at the same time. The PB didn't even skip a beat. The Mac OS is efficient on it's own. The more power you give it, the better it will work. My advice, get the best you can get. Ram is cheap, for $75 USD you can have a 512 chip to go with the standard amt. Plus, with the new 1.67 Ghz processor, you should be clippin along nicely with the 15" (or maybe find one of the slightly older slightly slower processor models for cheap)

if you are goign to be graphic intensive and you need portability i would go with the better system (read: buy the powerbook)... the name describes it..."power"

it appears you need portability so the powerbook would be better. as to why you would need the better graphics card....simply stated, you are doing graphic design stuff...you will need a better graphics card (aka video card)

macs basically have no virii or spy-ware

i would suggest you obtain firworks and photoshop to do all your work as a very begnining step

i would suggest you load the PB with as much ram as possible


although i would suggest to wait a little longer and get a powermac if you are going to be doing a lot of really graphic intensive stuff it may suite you better...you can always leave it at your partners place or another central place where you can be on it more often than not. if you were to get a powermac you can always upgrade it slowly (i do believe you can not upgrade the processors on the g5's though)

-chris

i am considering getting the powermac, and getting the powerbook at a later stage, although my income isnt significantly high at will take quiet a bit of time to purchase them both. so that is why i was thinking of buying the powerbook first, to use as a main workstation and then eventually get the powerbook.

although all logic is telling me just go for the powermac first, i guess i just cant wait.