OK all you Mac users...

[hellziggy]

I need advice.
Apple will finance a computer for me, cuz I is a college student.
What kind of Mac should I get/do I need?
G5 desktop = way more powerful for the money.
Powerbook = portable & cool.

I am studying Graphic Design. It's a 2 year program, but I'm gonna take a bit longer than that since I'm only part time. I would assume that whatever Mac I get will be with me until I finish school at least. I'm leaning toward the Powerbook for the sheer portability issue. I would be able to do my homework pretty much anywhere. Also, it would have the wireless internet connection. But will it be powerful enough to deal with Photoshop, Illustrater, Quark, etc.? Or will these things require me to go desktop? Remember, I'm just a student, so I won't be doing massive amounts of designs like for customers or such. It will mainly be homework assignments.

minervacat, what are Wes's stats? What do you like & dislike about him? chebutykin, same questions for the TiBook of the Dead.
I'm feeling so computer illiterate. These Macs are strange creatures indeed!

Comments

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

Yay for Macs!!!

I do a lot of design work on my Mac; I regularly have 18 programs open, including Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator and Acrobat, not to mention my font program and Word and my browser and my e-mail client and my LJ client and my TV show program andandand.

My Mac is ... uh, three years old. It's a dual-533 MHz G4 tower, and currently has something like 448 megs of ram and a million gigs of hard drive space. (I mod it all the time.)

So. A powerbook, especially since they just upgraded them, will be plenty of power to run your programs. It won't be as fast, but it will be able to handle everything.

However. I've found, doing design stuff, that I need to have a pretty big desktop area to work with. A giant monitor is a must for me, which is the big advantage to going desktop. Unless you've already got a giant monitor and can hook it up to your laptop as an external, in which case you should be fine.

The other issue with doing design work on a laptop is that the cursor is more difficult to control. You can, of course, hook up a mouse or trackball, but pretty soon you're lugging around 18 peripherals and it's a pain in the ass.

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

Oh! The other advantage to going desktop is that it's more moddable. You can add RAM to a laptop, but that's about it.

Suggestion

[qob.livejournal.com]

well, you can do more than change RAM... Well I can, I'm a trained professional you shouldn't try. Changing out the hardrive is a chore. I'd look at the new powerbooks they look tasty.

[hellziggy.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks for the info. The main thing I was worried about was if it would be fast enough/big enough. I just ordered it last night & I'll have a 1.25GHz G4, 60GB hard drive, and a 40GB ipod (which I am pretty sure hellbob will be comandeering for his music) I figure that if I really need access to a desktop for something specific, there are 60 macs on campust that only Graphic Design students can use, in addition to all the open mac labs.