Which spec's would suit?

[diginik]

I am currently in the position where I am thinking of switching to a Mac Powerbook. I have a beast of an Alienware Desktop which I am using at the moment, primarily for gaming. Obviously as a gamer I'll be keeping this, despite all the associated problems that come with a PC.

I grew up on the Amiga, and absolutely loved it to bits, and the vibe I get from old freinds and forums is that a Mac has always been more suited to Amiga users than a PC could ever be.

I feel that I am a very creative person, a potential as yet untapped, and I want to get a Mac to start exploring that side of me. When I say creative, I mean primarily writing, and messing about with photographs. (Am an incredibly basic photo shop user). Also very basic web design etc.

Therefore I was hoping for a wee bit of advice on which Powerbook to plump for. I would like to go for maximum portability, with enough oomph to do any arty stuff I can think up. (Thats a tecnical term BTW : arty stuff)

Bearing in mind that I am a 16 year PC veteran (read walking wounded) - go easy on me!

Thanks in advance

 

[MacHeadCase]

Welcome to Mac-Forums, diginik!

When you say you want a PowerBook, you mean you will buying it used? In which case you have to make sure you will be getting from the previous owner the disk set that came initially with this Mac: they always come in handy.

 

[TheCustomer99]

Welcome diginik! Well, if portability is what you want, I'd opt for a MacBook Pro 15". However, I have a regular MacBook with a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo and 2 GB of RAM. I have no doubt that it would be able to do all the things you mentioned. The reason I recommend the MacBook instead of the MacBook Pro is because the MacBook is more portable.

 

[diginik]

Thanks for the responses... Powerbook?!? Errm. Told you I was green around the gills. I did of course mean MacBook or Macbook Pro.

Sounds like the MacBook would be what I need then. Could I just ask what would be the difference between the two. Obvioulsy I am guessing that the pro would be more powerful, but does it have additional features such as software and such?

Thank you!

 

[MacHeadCase]

Get the model with SuperDrive (burning DVDs is supported with the SuperDrive), and, like TC99 says, get as much RAM as you can afford.

 

[Sachsr1]

The basic difference between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro (MBP) is that the MBP has a 15" or 17" screen the Macbook has a 13". Also the MBP has a dedicated video card and the Macbook has shared video ram. Also the two have different keyboards and people are split on which one they like better.
I have a 15" MBP and I play World of Warcraft on it just fine. I also found that the MBP really is a desktop replacement it runs every bit as fast as my iMac, and they have the same processor speed (2.16ghz) and ram (2 gig). I don't find the 15" MBP that hard to carry around, but I've never tried to carry around a 13" to compare. One other added feature of the MBP is that if you get 1 gig of ram it comes in the form of 1 1gig stick, and the macbook has 2 512mb sticks.

 

[gilesjuk]

TBH, no laptop is ever a desktop replacement. The hard disks are slower.

Either a Macbook or Macbook pro will be a good machine.

I have a Mac mini as my main computer at the moment and my Macbook is faster than that! (1.66Ghz Core Duo vs 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo).

Integrated graphics are only a worry if you play games.

For the record my second computer ever was an A500 and I was using Amiga computers right up until 1999 when I moved to Windows.

I would say Linux is the logical replacement for the Amiga as there is lots of free software and many GUI engines (Amiga had MUI and ClassAct etc.. Linux has GTK and QT).

But Mac OS takes a lot of the pain away and lets you use your computer instead of spending hours getting everything setup right.

Friends said I would be back on Windows/Linux after a week of using a Mac. No chance of that happening

 

[diginik]

Once again, thanks for the replies! Nice to see another Amiga user...

I think I may end up with the MacBook. I've been trying to think why I would need a graphics card, considering what I need to do with it and can't come up with any reasons. My biggest problem is I tend to plump for more power simply for the reason that it is more powerful. I seriously need to stop doing that.

Reading some other posts, I notice that there may be an issue regarding the screen size. Some people think that for photography, editing images and stuff, 13" may be too small to be effective. Is there anyone using a MacBook for photo editing etc that may have an opinion on this?

(With regards to Linux being a better replacement, I had a good friend who did all the tweaking/programming for me and all I did was play with the pretty interface :dummy: That was my point about the Mac being the more logical replacement. The amount of time I have had to spend getting my PC to do what I wanted it to do has more than alleviated any need for me to tinker! For example, I got rid of my last rig as it kept crashing in every game, regardless of any fixes I tried. The day I got rid of it and got my new one, I had a response on a forum that it may have been my broadband modem. I checked and it was. Now in what screwed up world does a modem cause conflicts with a graphics card? How does that work??!!?
I love my games, but GAH do I hate PC's...)

 

[gilesjuk]

The resolution isn't too shabby, depends how good your eyesight is and how far away you intend to sit from the laptop.

If you are going to use it on the move then weight and size considerations might be important.

You can't really use a laptop for serious editing without an external mouse/tablet anyway. A good Wacom will have hardware zoom buttons.

Photography is a hobby of mine and I don't see the screen being a problem. I have a 22 inch widescreen monitor hooked up to the Mac Mini I own and I have to sit a distance away from it and many of the Mac fonts are too small from that distance.

 

[Village Idiot]

Meh....almost any laptop will do what you want. You could probably find a used pc laptop for $300 to use PS and Word.

If you want a mac, you should really look at why. Because if you want to just use it for photo shop and a word editor, you'd be better off with some thing besides a laptop, or atleast a place where you can plug it in to a large screen with much higher resolution. Most of my photo editing is done on my laptop (which has a hard drive as fast as my desktop and a better video card and processor, even though both are fairly new) but I have a 17" Dell with 1920x1200 resolution. Trying to edit photos on a Macbook with the small amount of screen realty is going to suck. If you're not planning on doing anything besides adjusting RAW levels it may be fine, if you plan on getting nit picky and making printable quality photos or ever want to do it for money, you're going to want a larger screen size. The 15" MBP may be better (unless of course you have it hooked up to a 30" monitor), but the 17" would be best...or of course, a 20" imac or so.

Just my opinion, but most any photo editing is best accomplished on a larger screen, unless of course you're using a 2mp P&S.

 

[Village Idiot]

The resolution isn't too shabby, depends how good your eyesight is and how far away you intend to sit from the laptop.

If you are going to use it on the move then weight and size considerations might be important.

You can't really use a laptop for serious editing without an external mouse/tablet anyway. A good Wacom will have hardware zoom buttons.

Photography is a hobby of mine and I don't see the screen being a problem. I have a 22 inch widescreen monitor hooked up to the Mac Mini I own and I have to sit a distance away from it and many of the Mac fonts are too small from that distance.

But the higher resolution monitor lets you get more viewable area closer to the image's true size, rather than a scaled down version. Editing will always be better on a 1:1 view of the image rather than a 33:1 view or anything similar.

That's why I'm glad my 17" notebook has jacked up resolution. I still do a lot of scrolling though.