I think I am going to by a Powerbook-either the 15" or 17", but I am not sure which yet. I am not too concerned with portability so the 17 wouldn't be a hassle.
I was wondering what people's experiences have been with it. I really want to use the Mac System instead of PC, so I don't want any discussion about that. Just info from those using Mac.
The most common software I will use is illustrator, photoshop,flash and vectorworks.
I went to the apple store and they said the powerbook only comes with a 128 graphcis card-how are things running with this? I know it is a 64 bit system so things would be faster.
How is multitasking, and what RAM would you recommend? the More the better or is 1 gig or so enough?
Basically, I am your typical architecture grad student who is needing to make the investment on a good system so I won't have to for a while. I want it to be fast and be able to handle running various programs at once.
Heck, I am on a Dell right now(pretty slow one) and I can't even get flash to run well after I build a document that is pretty in depth.
So, any opinions please share!
well, the thing with the mac vs pc, i believe macs are converting to intel processors in the next year or so... and the powerbooks may be the first to use these new ones (since they cant seem to fit a g5 in the laptop)... not much info from me other htanthat... anybody else?
If you have enough money, just max it out. You can't go wrong with a Powerbook for all the things you're asking for.
Graphics: the Radeon card is EXCELLENT, and beats the heck out of the NVIDIA, but both the 15 and 17" come with the Radeon, so you're set there.
Memory: 1 gig is probably plenty, I in fact run VWorks, Adobe everything, etcetera on my 15" and I have only 512 at the moment. If you're going to multitask a lot I would bump up to the 7200rpm hard drive, though.
If you want to drop 1gig of memory in there, buy it after your powerbook and install it yourself; it's usually much cheaper than getting it through apple. Buy your memory from crucial.com, they have a lifetime warranty on all products. I would not go anywhere else if I were you.
That's it. Buy it today and you're done. It will satisfy every one or your requirements easily. Enjoy!
P.S. The 17" is enormous and kind of not worth it in my opinion, but I carry mine around everywhere practically. The 17" basically isn't portable. 15" is certainly big enough to do everything you've described.
i have a 15" powerbook, 100Gb harddrive with 1GB ram. i've had it for a couple of weeks now and running the apps that you mention. i don't have any complaints about it and the ram seems sufficient.
personally, i wouldn't want a 17' though. for me, it gets to be an issue of portability. i've had some friends who have bought them and they have also complained about that issue. they have commented that in hindsight, they wish they had bought a 15"
i would not want to have my laptop as my primary workstation to do graphic work for reasons of display size and color correctness. i also have a desktop to do the bulk of my work on.
maybe consider getting a 15" and use the money saved on not buying a 17" and get a cinema display? you'll have the best of both worlds.
: more the better, especially for multitasking, but 1GB is great. On my 12" I multitask pretty much everything (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Word, Safari, Maya etc) and it doesn't bat an eyelid. It is usually cheaper to buy and install RAM yourself (which is extremely easy to do).
Upcoming Intel switch: not an issue. If you want a PBook now, get one now. I very strongly doubt there will be updated PBooks before late 06.
64bit: technically the system isn't fully 64bit. OSX can run 64bit processes if the software is designed for it. To be honest, unless you're sequencing genes, 64bitness isn't a big deal.
HD: 7200rpm is better than 5400rpm, but if you have heaps of RAM, this is less noticeable.
15" vs 17": I would take the 15". Look at the differences in the tech-specs. Unless there are any deal-breaking differences, go for the 15". You could land a harrier jump-jet on the 17". Save some money and some deskspace. The 128MB video card will power a big extra monitor with ease, so if you are working at home or studio, you will have all the screen real-estate you could desire.
my old boss had a 17" and brought it to work everyday, and took it home everynight to use as a second computer at work, and to do additional work at home. I don't think portability was an issue for him, but it is a large machine, so depending on how much movin' around you do, it might be something to consider.
a 15" and a second display would be a good idea. If you can afford a cinema display, you might get one of the dell widescreens. They use the same display with a different coating (?) over it for a much lower price. I know lots of graphic designers that use them. They are very nice.
since it seems as though your query has been mostly covered, i would recommend a few accessories so that your laptop can work for you like a desktop would:
a notebook stand, macally makes a pretty inexpensive one, they allow for better air circulation under the machine (and therefor better performance) and they also put the monitor at eye level, critical for long hours of work
also opt for a full-size keyboard and a mouse. i've got a corded keyboard and a bluetooth laser mouse, no complaints on either part, though since you're switching from a pc, you may want to opt for the mighty mouse so that you can keep the scroll wheel and multi-button features.
SPEAKERS, like most laptops, the built-ins sound tinny
enjoy! i've been using mine for nearly 2 years and have had the display replaced (under warranty) but otherwise it's excellent.
I've been using the same 15" version for about three years and its been great. I cart my home everynight, and taken it on a"planes trains and automobiles". totally impressed with the abuse its seen. I run a 80 g hd and it has been fine. I down load most work to a server everynight. But it has been fine for cad. I would get it set up so that it can be cooled down in the heat of summer. I had a hd toasted one hot summer when it just couldn't keep cool and burned up the hard drive fan. Other than that go with the 15", then save some cash and go get a 30" cinema display for the office work space.
yes dont forget apple care because the powerbook is going to start having issues after the first year.
i know you dont want to have the pc/mac discussion now, but this is coming from a person who was ambivalent about both the systems but is changing his mind now seeing his co-workers' experience
yeah whistler--I dropped mine about 4' onto the floor--it landed on a corner--and didn't blink an eye! I dunno waht you are referring to, sameolddoctor, but honestly not a single one of my friends has had a problem with theirs (we're talking around 20 people, small sample sure, but still)--OTHER than the white spots on the screens which was an issue with the pbook series dating from 2 years ago. They have fixed the problem and fixed everyone's screen for free, anyway.
I'm not saying mac is perfect (i have my issues with tiger) but i just honestly don't think they break much. a friend of mine dropped hers down a flight of stairs and it still functioned.
i just realized that i have now had my 15" powerbook for two years and the thought of getting something new hasn't crossed my mind. frankly it still feels new to me.
i've never had any problems with programs crashing or viruses or anything like that. admittedly, though i don't do much intensive rendering or 3d modeling but i have never had a problem with what i needed it for which includes a fair amount of video work. regarding accessories, my hard drive's only 80 GB and between the video stuff and a growing itunes library i opted to buy an external 160 GB hard drive. i also recommend speakers if you have the desire to play music out loud. and i have a wireless mouse which i find to be pretty handy.
it fell about three feet off of a table once and although i was scared shitless for a moment that maybe the screen had cracked, i was pleasantly surprised when i fired it up and it didn't miss a beat (although the exterior gained a nice dent but thats just character, like all those guys say about their pickup trucks).
in sum, i love my powerbook, i love apple, and, yes, i'd marry them if i could because i love them so much.
so, if portability is not a requirment, why not get an 20" iMac? Which by the way, is actually quite portable. with the iMac you get a G5, 20" screen, built-in iSight, airport, etc. and it's about $800 cheaper than the 17" powerbook. I run VW, Pshop, sketchup, no problem. just a thought.
Well, I guess I am in the minority. I have a 17" and love it. Granted I do not have to move it very often, and when I do, it is not as easy as a smaller laptop. But, when I have to work at home, the larger screen works much better than my wife's 15" Powerbook.
Never had any problems. I personally own the 17", the 15", an old G3 laptop and 7 desktop Mac's at my office. Never had apple care, and never once had a problem (over 10 years or so as a Mac user).
But, yes, I have added ram to every computer that I have ever owned.
17" powerbook here... 1 gig of ram is plenty but I just recently moved up to two gigs becasue one was not enough. stay away from the 120gb hard drive as it will slow you down
the 100 gig is faster and more than enough since you should also have an external to save your documents on. I currently run Maya, Adobe creative Suite, Macromedia Studio 8, Vectorworks, Archicad, Form Z, Sketchup.... With all of this on here it works fine as long as you keep your files saved on an external. Graphics card works just fine. The new powerbooks also have an option for a dual cd/dvd drive which is pretty cool and i would recommend jsut becasue yo unever know. I have only 58 gigs of free space left and it still works so you sholdn't have to worrie. Just always put a protector over the keyboard and trackpad otherwise youll have an scratched up scrteen like me.
15" PB a month old.
I second buying the applecare, an extra battery and adapter.
applecare is extremely important but don't worry about it until the first years warranty is over with, that way you have an extra year on applecare.
HD tend to go bad\logic board and other small issues that happen over the life of the machine.
I'm getting an external drive soon(for many many reasons) and my last investement is another 1gig of memory. I'm running on 512, too slow on rendering.
The rest of it is cake.
i'm writing from it at this moment, i love my little 12 inch...but it is small, and to me it was more an issue of portability.
go for the 15, it's big enough, and i suggest you consider getting an extra screen, a 15 inch tft will not cost you much, and having two displays it's really a great thing for runnin anything from flash to cinema 4d.
i did drop it too, pulling the modem cable and dropping it from a table...the thing has a dent in the corner, but it's been working fine for more than a year now.
get as much ram as possible, i recomend something like crucial.com to buy it, much cheaper than apple. also consider keeping a coopy of panther (os 10.3) handy, as most people i know running tiger (10.4) are complaining about the loss of spped from the system being heavier.
So, i haven't actually added anything to the discussion, but as a proud mac user in a unit of PC freaks, i had to share the mac love!
does anyone have a good link for the discussion on the intel chip? what's gonna happen? will I be able to run rhino? have both windows and os installed (yeah, i know it's a crime!)?
if it were me I'd wait. the (very likely) possibility of running OSX and windows at the same time and switching between them (even reboot one while working on the other) is just way too cool not to wait for.
i dunno, there is always a lot of speculation happening when there's a new apple product in the line, and usually most of it remains just fantasy.
plus there are always flaws in the first generation of any new mac product, i'd get a pb now, see what happens in a couple of years and then change it
hey.. i've just ordered a powerbook g4 15'' for my graphic design work. it comes with 512 ram, but i'm adding another 1gb to it. i guess that should be enough. i've tried a 17inch and i just about shat myself using it.. such a beauty.
i have the 15" with still only 1/2 gig RAM, and this christmas i'm definitely going for another gig on there. max out your ram, since apple is taking forever topping their 1.67 processor.
With virtualization technology you'll probably be able to run both at the same time. that type of thing would be a killer selling point for intel mac hardware.
What they'll kill puppies to stop is people running OSX on any cheap PC machine. (which by the way you can pretty much already do with the leaked OSx86 builds)
intel's already released two chips with VT, and it's been demonstrated several times. the software may not be perfect at first, but it seems very promising.
This demo was to showcase isolation between the virtual OS partitions, where Pat made one OS crash and noted that crash's independence from the other two running OSes.
Powerbook G4 Questions
I think I am going to by a Powerbook-either the 15" or 17", but I am not sure which yet. I am not too concerned with portability so the 17 wouldn't be a hassle.
I was wondering what people's experiences have been with it. I really want to use the Mac System instead of PC, so I don't want any discussion about that. Just info from those using Mac.
The most common software I will use is illustrator, photoshop,flash and vectorworks.
I went to the apple store and they said the powerbook only comes with a 128 graphcis card-how are things running with this? I know it is a 64 bit system so things would be faster.
How is multitasking, and what RAM would you recommend? the More the better or is 1 gig or so enough?
Basically, I am your typical architecture grad student who is needing to make the investment on a good system so I won't have to for a while. I want it to be fast and be able to handle running various programs at once.
Heck, I am on a Dell right now(pretty slow one) and I can't even get flash to run well after I build a document that is pretty in depth.
So, any opinions please share!
well, the thing with the mac vs pc, i believe macs are converting to intel processors in the next year or so... and the powerbooks may be the first to use these new ones (since they cant seem to fit a g5 in the laptop)... not much info from me other htanthat... anybody else?
If you have enough money, just max it out. You can't go wrong with a Powerbook for all the things you're asking for.
Graphics: the Radeon card is EXCELLENT, and beats the heck out of the NVIDIA, but both the 15 and 17" come with the Radeon, so you're set there.
Memory: 1 gig is probably plenty, I in fact run VWorks, Adobe everything, etcetera on my 15" and I have only 512 at the moment. If you're going to multitask a lot I would bump up to the 7200rpm hard drive, though.
If you want to drop 1gig of memory in there, buy it after your powerbook and install it yourself; it's usually much cheaper than getting it through apple. Buy your memory from crucial.com, they have a lifetime warranty on all products. I would not go anywhere else if I were you.
That's it. Buy it today and you're done. It will satisfy every one or your requirements easily. Enjoy!
P.S. DO NOT FORGET TO BUY APPLECARE
P.S. The 17" is enormous and kind of not worth it in my opinion, but I carry mine around everywhere practically. The 17" basically isn't portable. 15" is certainly big enough to do everything you've described.
i have a 15" powerbook, 100Gb harddrive with 1GB ram. i've had it for a couple of weeks now and running the apps that you mention. i don't have any complaints about it and the ram seems sufficient.
personally, i wouldn't want a 17' though. for me, it gets to be an issue of portability. i've had some friends who have bought them and they have also complained about that issue. they have commented that in hindsight, they wish they had bought a 15"
i would not want to have my laptop as my primary workstation to do graphic work for reasons of display size and color correctness. i also have a desktop to do the bulk of my work on.
maybe consider getting a 15" and use the money saved on not buying a 17" and get a cinema display? you'll have the best of both worlds.
yeah, don't forget apple care. that will set you back a few hundred more though.
: more the better, especially for multitasking, but 1GB is great. On my 12" I multitask pretty much everything (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Word, Safari, Maya etc) and it doesn't bat an eyelid. It is usually cheaper to buy and install RAM yourself (which is extremely easy to do).
Upcoming Intel switch: not an issue. If you want a PBook now, get one now. I very strongly doubt there will be updated PBooks before late 06.
64bit: technically the system isn't fully 64bit. OSX can run 64bit processes if the software is designed for it. To be honest, unless you're sequencing genes, 64bitness isn't a big deal.
HD: 7200rpm is better than 5400rpm, but if you have heaps of RAM, this is less noticeable.
15" vs 17": I would take the 15". Look at the differences in the tech-specs. Unless there are any deal-breaking differences, go for the 15". You could land a harrier jump-jet on the 17". Save some money and some deskspace. The 128MB video card will power a big extra monitor with ease, so if you are working at home or studio, you will have all the screen real-estate you could desire.
my old boss had a 17" and brought it to work everyday, and took it home everynight to use as a second computer at work, and to do additional work at home. I don't think portability was an issue for him, but it is a large machine, so depending on how much movin' around you do, it might be something to consider.
a 15" and a second display would be a good idea. If you can afford a cinema display, you might get one of the dell widescreens. They use the same display with a different coating (?) over it for a much lower price. I know lots of graphic designers that use them. They are very nice.
since it seems as though your query has been mostly covered, i would recommend a few accessories so that your laptop can work for you like a desktop would:
a notebook stand, macally makes a pretty inexpensive one, they allow for better air circulation under the machine (and therefor better performance) and they also put the monitor at eye level, critical for long hours of work
also opt for a full-size keyboard and a mouse. i've got a corded keyboard and a bluetooth laser mouse, no complaints on either part, though since you're switching from a pc, you may want to opt for the mighty mouse so that you can keep the scroll wheel and multi-button features.
SPEAKERS, like most laptops, the built-ins sound tinny
enjoy! i've been using mine for nearly 2 years and have had the display replaced (under warranty) but otherwise it's excellent.
guys. thanks so much for your posts. It has really helped a lot. I'll let you know how the purchasing goes!
I've been using the same 15" version for about three years and its been great. I cart my home everynight, and taken it on a"planes trains and automobiles". totally impressed with the abuse its seen. I run a 80 g hd and it has been fine. I down load most work to a server everynight. But it has been fine for cad. I would get it set up so that it can be cooled down in the heat of summer. I had a hd toasted one hot summer when it just couldn't keep cool and burned up the hard drive fan. Other than that go with the 15", then save some cash and go get a 30" cinema display for the office work space.
yes dont forget apple care because the powerbook is going to start having issues after the first year.
i know you dont want to have the pc/mac discussion now, but this is coming from a person who was ambivalent about both the systems but is changing his mind now seeing his co-workers' experience
yeah whistler--I dropped mine about 4' onto the floor--it landed on a corner--and didn't blink an eye! I dunno waht you are referring to, sameolddoctor, but honestly not a single one of my friends has had a problem with theirs (we're talking around 20 people, small sample sure, but still)--OTHER than the white spots on the screens which was an issue with the pbook series dating from 2 years ago. They have fixed the problem and fixed everyone's screen for free, anyway.
I'm not saying mac is perfect (i have my issues with tiger) but i just honestly don't think they break much. a friend of mine dropped hers down a flight of stairs and it still functioned.
i just realized that i have now had my 15" powerbook for two years and the thought of getting something new hasn't crossed my mind. frankly it still feels new to me.
i've never had any problems with programs crashing or viruses or anything like that. admittedly, though i don't do much intensive rendering or 3d modeling but i have never had a problem with what i needed it for which includes a fair amount of video work. regarding accessories, my hard drive's only 80 GB and between the video stuff and a growing itunes library i opted to buy an external 160 GB hard drive. i also recommend speakers if you have the desire to play music out loud. and i have a wireless mouse which i find to be pretty handy.
it fell about three feet off of a table once and although i was scared shitless for a moment that maybe the screen had cracked, i was pleasantly surprised when i fired it up and it didn't miss a beat (although the exterior gained a nice dent but thats just character, like all those guys say about their pickup trucks).
in sum, i love my powerbook, i love apple, and, yes, i'd marry them if i could because i love them so much.
so, if portability is not a requirment, why not get an 20" iMac? Which by the way, is actually quite portable. with the iMac you get a G5, 20" screen, built-in iSight, airport, etc. and it's about $800 cheaper than the 17" powerbook. I run VW, Pshop, sketchup, no problem. just a thought.
Well, I guess I am in the minority. I have a 17" and love it. Granted I do not have to move it very often, and when I do, it is not as easy as a smaller laptop. But, when I have to work at home, the larger screen works much better than my wife's 15" Powerbook.
Never had any problems. I personally own the 17", the 15", an old G3 laptop and 7 desktop Mac's at my office. Never had apple care, and never once had a problem (over 10 years or so as a Mac user).
But, yes, I have added ram to every computer that I have ever owned.
17" powerbook here... 1 gig of ram is plenty but I just recently moved up to two gigs becasue one was not enough. stay away from the 120gb hard drive as it will slow you down
the 100 gig is faster and more than enough since you should also have an external to save your documents on. I currently run Maya, Adobe creative Suite, Macromedia Studio 8, Vectorworks, Archicad, Form Z, Sketchup.... With all of this on here it works fine as long as you keep your files saved on an external. Graphics card works just fine. The new powerbooks also have an option for a dual cd/dvd drive which is pretty cool and i would recommend jsut becasue yo unever know. I have only 58 gigs of free space left and it still works so you sholdn't have to worrie. Just always put a protector over the keyboard and trackpad otherwise youll have an scratched up scrteen like me.
15" PB a month old.
I second buying the applecare, an extra battery and adapter.
applecare is extremely important but don't worry about it until the first years warranty is over with, that way you have an extra year on applecare.
HD tend to go bad\logic board and other small issues that happen over the life of the machine.
I'm getting an external drive soon(for many many reasons) and my last investement is another 1gig of memory. I'm running on 512, too slow on rendering.
The rest of it is cake.
i'm writing from it at this moment, i love my little 12 inch...but it is small, and to me it was more an issue of portability.
go for the 15, it's big enough, and i suggest you consider getting an extra screen, a 15 inch tft will not cost you much, and having two displays it's really a great thing for runnin anything from flash to cinema 4d.
i did drop it too, pulling the modem cable and dropping it from a table...the thing has a dent in the corner, but it's been working fine for more than a year now.
get as much ram as possible, i recomend something like crucial.com to buy it, much cheaper than apple. also consider keeping a coopy of panther (os 10.3) handy, as most people i know running tiger (10.4) are complaining about the loss of spped from the system being heavier.
So, i haven't actually added anything to the discussion, but as a proud mac user in a unit of PC freaks, i had to share the mac love!
does anyone have a good link for the discussion on the intel chip? what's gonna happen? will I be able to run rhino? have both windows and os installed (yeah, i know it's a crime!)?
Best discussions of Apple's Intel switch are found in the Mac Achaia at Ars Technica
A good place to start here
thanks alpha, great resourches
if it were me I'd wait. the (very likely) possibility of running OSX and windows at the same time and switching between them (even reboot one while working on the other) is just way too cool not to wait for.
i dunno, there is always a lot of speculation happening when there's a new apple product in the line, and usually most of it remains just fantasy.
plus there are always flaws in the first generation of any new mac product, i'd get a pb now, see what happens in a couple of years and then change it
hey.. i've just ordered a powerbook g4 15'' for my graphic design work. it comes with 512 ram, but i'm adding another 1gb to it. i guess that should be enough. i've tried a 17inch and i just about shat myself using it.. such a beauty.
MANAMANA apple will never allow for windows to be run on a mac. That's just crazy. There is no possibility.
i have the 15" with still only 1/2 gig RAM, and this christmas i'm definitely going for another gig on there. max out your ram, since apple is taking forever topping their 1.67 processor.
Zeth:
They've said they won't do anything to stop someone from installing windows on an intel mac, they just won't support it.
proof? google gets you many sources, here's just one:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121437,00.asp
With virtualization technology you'll probably be able to run both at the same time. that type of thing would be a killer selling point for intel mac hardware.
What they'll kill puppies to stop is people running OSX on any cheap PC machine. (which by the way you can pretty much already do with the leaked OSx86 builds)
If you can install Windows on an Intel Mac, it will be via good old-fashioned dual-boot.
Vanderpool (Intel's virtualisation technology) has not even been demonstrated yet (AFAIK).
intel's already released two chips with VT, and it's been demonstrated several times. the software may not be perfect at first, but it seems very promising.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2507&p=3
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2508
Quote:
This demo was to showcase isolation between the virtual OS partitions, where Pat made one OS crash and noted that crash's independence from the other two running OSes.
Oh, yeah, I remember we had this discussion already!
I'm still doubting that Apple want people simultaneously using windows and OSX. Interesting links though.
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