Which MBP would you keep for these needs:

We have two MacBook Pro's. One of them is an 15" Aluminum, late 2008 model with a C2D 2.54 Ghz processor and I upgraded the RAM to 4 gigs of DDR2. The other one is a 13" 2.26 GHz C2D with only 2 gigs of RAM, but it's DDR3.

The main thing I do with my 13" is process photos in Lightroom and sometimes PS4. This new 13" was supposed to be for my wife when we bought it, but somehow, I managed to commandeer it, and gave her my 15". Originally I thought this was fine, because I was hooking up the MBP to my Samsung monitor and did processing that way. But I haven't used the monitor in a long while, due to it really making my eyes burn for some reason. That never happened back home in the States, but here in EU for some reason, I can't stay on the monitor for more than an hour without my eyes and head burning.. crazy.

So my question is, what would you do ? I've been thinking about taking the 15" back because of the bigger screen and more accurate color renditions, but what I'm wondering about is this:

It seemed that my 15" was faster with Lightroom and CS4. The 13" isn't horrible,l but I do notice a difference. If I upgrade the RAM on the 13" to 4 gigs, will it make that much of a difference over the 15"'s faster processor ? I was thinking maybe, or maybe not. I don't usually run other apps when I'm processing photos in LR, so would it really matter ?

I'm sure my wife wouldn't mind having the smaller, shiny MBP, but I just want to make sure I'm not sqrewing myself in the process. What's the general consensus on this ?

Doug

You had me at the 15" with the 4GB upgrade

Thanks for the input. Anybody else care to chime in ? The info I'm trying to ascertain is whether or not a new MBP with 4 gigs of DDR3 and a 2.26 GHz C2D should out perform an late model 2008 MBP aluminum with 4 gigs of DDR2 but slightly faster C2D processor when doing photo processing in either LR or AP3 (I use LR but if Apple ever decides to optimize AP3 it might be worth switching).

Doug

I am wondering if the 4GB VS 2GB Ram is causing the difference or it's the faster CPU in the older 15"? I know Applications like Photoshop eat all the ram you feed them.

That's my question too, sort of. Because on the other hand Aperture 3 (or any version) tends to rely a lot more heavily on processing power as it just eats through CPU cycles like American's eat McDonalds ! Some apps are coded very well in that they don't task the cpu very much. That's efficient writing. While others are just the opposite. From what I've seen with Aperture 3, it's the opposite, while LR 2 is quite fast, and is very easy on resources from a cpu standpoint.

Maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much, and just wait and save for the next iMac release. I'll probably upgrade the RAM on the 13" anyway.. so I'll see what happens with that. Was just curious to know what you guys thought.

Doug

The image quality on either screen will be the same, except for the size difference. If you're doing any real editing, I wouldn't waste time doing it on a laptop monitor as they're just not that great... I edited many photos on my laptop, and then when I got my new IPS display realized that they looked nothing like the way i wanted them to (yes, this was after burning and calibrating the monitor).

Tripped said:

The image quality on either screen will be the same, except for the size difference. If you're doing any real editing, I wouldn't waste time doing it on a laptop monitor as they're just not that great... I edited many photos on my laptop, and then when I got my new IPS display realized that they looked nothing like the way i wanted them to (yes, this was after burning and calibrating the monitor).

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I hate to sound like a d*ck but.. it would be nice if you would actually read my posts. Thanks.

Doug

P.S. IPS monitors are great and all, but realize that the point of a properly calibrated monitor is so that it matches the color profile on your printer. One doesn't need an IPS monitor to achieve that. If color matching for the sake of PRINT is the purpose, then it could be a moot point.

Doug b said:

I hate to sound like a d*ck but.. it would be nice if you would actually read my posts. Thanks.

Doug

P.S. IPS monitors are great and all, but realize that the point of a properly calibrated monitor is so that it matches the color profile on your printer. One doesn't need an IPS monitor to achieve that. If color matching for the sake of PRINT is the purpose, then it could be a moot point.

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Considering that I don't know enough about the different types of RAM and how different programs use RAM and the CPU, I decided it would be better to leave those questions to someone who has more knowledge.

Therefore I decided to answer a question that I do think I know something about. While I am by no means a computer guru, I know from personal experience that some of the photos I've chosen to edit on my laptop display have turned out looking quite bad on any other display, specifically my external monitor which I got specifically for editing photos.

Just my 2 cents mate, sorry it wasn't helpful.

Tripped said:

Considering that I don't know enough about the different types of RAM and how different programs use RAM and the CPU, I decided it would be better to leave those questions to someone who has more knowledge.

Therefore I decided to answer a question that I do think I know something about. While I am by no means a computer guru, I know from personal experience that some of the photos I've chosen to edit on my laptop display have turned out looking quite bad on any other display, specifically my external monitor which I got specifically for editing photos.

Just my 2 cents mate, sorry it wasn't helpful.

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It's not that I don't appreciate your help, but I simply thought you chose to disregard what I was asking for help with. It was kind of weird to see your reply, given that it had nothing to do with the topic. FWIW, I usually do my editing on my external monitor, but since having moved to EU, the monitor seems to be giving me headaches and burns my eyes within an hour of usage. It never did this to me back in the States. It's rated for both 110/220V and 50Hz as well as 60Hz, so it's very strange.

Anyway, sorry to have come off the way i did. Cheers.

Doug