Older Pro vs. New Macbook

At the risk of being yet a another misinformed newbie, I'm after a bit of advice.

After getting three years worth of use out of my 12" powerbook its finally time to move on. I was happily looking at getting the new macbook with the intel 2 processor. However, i've now discovered some ex-demo first generation macbook pros, which are for sale at the same price.

To my knowledge the specs are very similar. So it comes down to faster processor vs. better graphics card and bigger screen.

I'm a designer by trade, so it'll be used for, photoshop, indesign, a bit of final cut, and wee titbit of audio.



Any help would be much appreciated. (and apologys if this has already been discussed)


Thanks, Simon - New Zealand

Well adobe has their software written in ppc code so it will be slower on a intel machine. If you need to do all that i would wait a little longer untill adobe releases in universal code but thats just me.

On my Core Duo MAC, Adobe software works like on PC with Pentium 2, wery wery slow

Thats a tough choice. I actually now wish I'd got a Pro, but that's not to say I don't love my MacBook black to bits.

I think the difference between a CoreDuo and a G4 is significant enough to warrant purchasing an Intel machine, regardless of other things. If you were planning to get CS3 when it's released, it might be worth the pain of seeing a reduction in performance for a short while. I have read mixed things though, some reviews say a 2ghz CD machine will be about the same speed as a 1gz G4 on CS2 under Rosetta, but I cannot comment really because I have not used it.

Having just read your post again... is your choice a Core2Duo MacBook vs a CoreDuo MacBook Pro, or a Core2Duo vs a G4. If the former, get the pro. The Core2Duo on the current motherboards is not that much faster anyway. If the latter, I'd get the MacBook.

Zoolook said:

it might be worth the pain of seeing a reduction in performance for a short while.

Click to expand...

Correct, I'm tossing up between the Core2Duo MacBook vs an CoreDuo MacBook Pro. So do you think i'd get more usable life out of the Pro?

I was in the situation, toss up between a MB C2D of MBP CD. I went for the MBP and havent looked back. Its fast and the graqphics card seems to make a big difference. But you need a 1GB of RAM out of the box to see it really fly.

Barefeats and MacWorld did the tests:

Read these articles before you procede:

http://www.barefeats.com/mbcd8.html

http://www.macworld.com/2006/11/reviews/13inmacbookcore2/index.php

RJT1000, those were great links...especially the barefeats one.

My 2 cents. In my mind its just a matter of how long you think you will be using this machine. If you want to use it for more than 18 months, you may want to go with the MacBook as its 64 bit capabilities will serve you in the long run. If that doesn’t matter to you and/or you change machines quickly, I would go with the MBP.
-d