lahuasteca Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 I did a search about iBooks and the last questions concerned those with a G3 processor. I'm thinking of getting an iBook G4, 14 inch screen, 1 Ghz and 640 mb RAM for about $2,000. That is my upper price limit. Basically this will be my field machine for burning CD's and editing in Photoshop. I know the desktop iMac with 17" screen will be more powerful, but it is not portable. Are there any problems with the iMac and Photoshop in terms of speed and image editing with the small screen? I have never used a laptop before, but, to me it seems a much better way to archive digital images when on the road as compared to wallets, portable CD burners etc. My camera is the Sony 828 - the iBook can save me a fortune in memory sticks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_lin Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 why not get a powerbook 12 inch? i think both the 14 inch ibook and the 12 inch screens are the same resolution, so you won't get more working space with the larger screen. plus the powerbook is smaller and is very cool looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven_muller Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 I have the 12" g4 ibook, and find no real problems with using PS. Of course its slightly slower than a desktop, but for portability it works. The thing to keep in mind, is that the screen res of the 14" and the 12" are the same, you are just paying for a 2" bigger screen. Def. max the ram, and keep an eye on the transintl website, they are offering 1 gig mem sticks that will work in the ibook. they are still a little pricey, but from what I have heard, they work just fine. an option for you price wise might be to go for the 12" with the bigger hard drive, skip the ram and buy the 1 gig chip. should be somewhere in the vicinity of 1500 dollars. Good luck and have fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
link Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 Gene, I have the 800mhz ibook G3 12 in. While photoshop runs fine on it, the screen quality makes it impossible to edit photos because the intensity changes so much as you move your head. I have a friend who has a new powerbook with a larger screen. It is much much better regarding viewing angles. I don't know if there is any improvement in the this years model's ibook screens. If you find the ibook screen is acceptable, I would definately get the larger screen if you can afford it. I use my ibook really as a portable typewriter, and not a darkroom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 <i> Are there any problems with the iMac and Photoshop in terms of speed and image editing with the small screen? </i><p> Not really, but the G4 iBook is limited to only 640MB so if you work on big Photoshop images with other apps running, that could result in some slowdowns from swapping virtual RAM pages on the hard drive. (I've got a gig of RAM and am very happy in Photoshop with my dual-processor Powermac.) <p> Consider if you really need a laptop. For $1500 you could get a factory refurbished 17" LCD iMac. If you already have a monitor, you can get a dual-processor 1.8GHz G5 PowerMac (or a refurbed dual 1.25Ghz G4 for $500 less). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_f._stein Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 Here are 3 excellent Mac resources to see what others think of these machines, with user experiences: www.macintouch.com; www.lowendmac.com and www.xlr8yourmac.com. I agree about the 640 MB memory limit on the iBook and although I've done plenty of Photoshop on a G3/375 machine, you really need I believe a minimum of a G4/400 processor to work in Photoshop and OS X. I expect G4/500 to soon be the minimum for working in OS X. System memory and hard disk transfer rate are also important. GOOD LUCK..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
testingname Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 I strongly urge you to look at the PowerBook 12" Why? 1. monitor spanning -- when your'e at home or in the office, you can plug in a DVI monitor and have that much more desktop space, *not a mirror* of your desktop like the iBook would give you. 2. more max ram -- over 1 gig available... iBook can take only 640 officially, although newer chips might raise that 3. G4 chip -- not that big a deal really, despite the buzz... but your Photoshop filter times will be shorter. The faster bus speed will aid Photoshop too. 4. smaller -- that 14 isn't exactly small... my wife has a 12" iBook and it's about the upper limit for what I'd want... but that's just me :-) 5. same price, or less -- copied straight from Apple.com: $1,599.00 12 PowerBook Combo Drive 12.1-inch TFT Display 1024x768 resolution 1GHz PowerPC G4 512K L2 cache 256MB DDR266 SDRAM 40GB Ultra ATA/100 NVIDIA GeForce FX Go 5200 (32MB DDR) Full size keyboard 10/100BASE-T Ethernet FireWire 400 AirPort Extreme Ready Mini-DVI out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirk_thompson Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 I couldn't tell from your message whether this was going to be your main computer for digital photography, or whether you have another computer & it's just going to be a carry-around storage device that also lets you burn CDs & do some on-the-spot editing for the web. If this would be your main computer for PS & printing, then I can't recommend the iBook screen (in any size) for PS work. A PowerBook would work better. An iBook doesn't have as good a hookup for an external monitor. But f you buy a small PowerBook for portability, you can also use it with a good monitor for your 'serious work' (the LaCie CRTs are excellent & cheap). Or are you mainly looking for an on-the-road storage device? The smallest iBook will do the job, with 640 or 768 MB memory for PS. If you don't shoot RAW files, then you could even get by with one of the left- over G3 iBooks w/ CD burner or Combo drive that have been for sale on the Apple website for $799. (The hitch is that the PS CS Raw converter won't work with early versions of OS X - you can't save in 16-bit mode unless you have Panther, or the last version of Jaguar.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canon_eos_rules Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 Get the 14" 1 GHz iBook G4. The bigger screen and big hard drive are pluses over the 12" PowerBook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_lin Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 another option is... 2000 bucks can buy you an awesome windows laptop. plus, you get compatabality with majority of software and hardware, and windows isn't any harder to use. the biggest benefit of OS X is the "COOL FACTOR." the cool factor is very important tho. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_su Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 I do all my photo work on an older titanium g4 powerbook. RAW conversion is a bit slow, but you can batch it. I haven't had any other real performance issues with the machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_su Posted February 8, 2004 Share Posted February 8, 2004 Oh. I don't use an external screen either. Just the one in the laptop. The 12" screen would be a bit cramped, but not horribly so for travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_harris3 Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 I have one of the first G4 powerbooks (400Mhz) with 512MB RAM which I use for editing RAW files from my Canon 300D with no problems. They take a second or two to open, and filters take a second or two to run on 16 bit PSD images (36MB), but I haven't had any major problems with speed. What is more of a concern is trying to judge colours accurately on the screen. Even though it has been replaced in the last six months, I find the LCD display to be far more difficult to use than a CRT or even desktop LCD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnagex_carnagex Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 To those that keep saying 640MB is the max for an iBook G4 its rated to 1152MB of RAM, 640MB is what Apple recommends, since they do not sell 1GB chips. You can buy 1GB chips from about 20 different dealers, example: http://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=841&RequestTimeOut=500 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lahuasteca Posted February 9, 2004 Author Share Posted February 9, 2004 I have access to a lot of windowns PC's at the university where I work, but there is a conflict of interest issue if I use them for personal reasons. Just about every PC at our school has been hit hard by virus attacks and it is taking a long time to get them working properly. I've decided to go to a Mac for my personal work to try and lessen to virus liability. Looks like I'll go with an iMac 20" screen and 1 GB of RAM for home. I liked the idea of the portability of the iBook but the ram limitation and the smaller screen for editing mitigate against its use for my main Photoshop work. I really like the idea of picking up a G3 notebook used and using it for the digital wallet and I'll probably go that route. Thanks to all who have responded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott_eaton Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 <I>Just about every PC at our school has been hit hard by virus attacks</i><P>If you can't screw in light bulbs correctly, must be time to get a different ladder, eh? Gotta love school systems and those gifted administrators.<P>$2k for a G4 laptop is absurd unless you have a guarantee it can be traded in in a year or two for a significant return on value, which it likely won't. Personally, I hate laptops and the 50% hit you take on performance and 400% hit you take on reduced task value per dollar. At the least, check out a used/refurb G4 and get a feel for what an equivelant dollar value will give you in a dedicated desktop system vs the $2000 yuppie toy portable DVD player (did I just mention I hate laptops of any brand?). G5's may be sinister, but dual G4 systems are still a bit evil, in a good way. You might not regret the purchase now, but in a year or two when that G4 tower can meet the task and the iBook can't, well, it's your two grand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lahuasteca Posted February 9, 2004 Author Share Posted February 9, 2004 Have definitely decided to go with some sort of Mac desktop for the home, and will look for a used/refurbished notebook for the road. I will be the first to admit - our systems administrators are totally unprepared for whatever comes in through e-mail/internet. And once one machine on campus gets a bug, it's every machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_moon4 Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 I use my I-book to download and burn to CD only I then use my desktop G4 dual to do my PS adjustments. The laptop works great for that purpose but I don't feel that the screen will display the best image especially because a very slight change in angle of view changes the appearance considerably. Also Photoshop takes up a lot of space on the hard drive and is a memory hog to boot. I hope this helps. Bob Moon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 You can use video-out in the iBook to a better CRT monitor for more color-sensitive work, but the Powerbooks permit monitor spanning, which is extremely useful in apps like Photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephend Posted February 15, 2004 Share Posted February 15, 2004 It's worth noting that recent iBook's can do monitor spanning if you apply a patch that can be found from a number of websites. Obviously you won't find any links from the Apple website, but Google should be helpful. --> Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now