Need the real Powerbook skinny

lendaddy · 08-22-2005, 03:06 PM

Mac store and Mac tech say no. But....

Will a Powerbook easily run the following simultaniously?

Photoshop
Illustrator
Quark
Acrobat
And maybe a couple other Office type apps.

I was going to get her a Powerbook, but the Mac geeks at the store say she will DEFINITELY want a tower w/duel processors for this. What say you?

dd74 · 08-22-2005, 03:08 PM

I bet the high-end Powerbook (the silver one), will run all that (at the same time, that is), though not as well as a tower.

bob tilton · bob tilton's Garage

those are pretty much the same programs i have open all day on various machines here at work. did you scare the techs with some huge MB photoshop files? max out the RAM and it should be fine.

techweenie · techweenie's Garage

I routinely run Quark, PhotoShop, a browser, e-mail client, text editor, several minor apps and Word/Excel/Powerpoint simultaneously on a PB with 1.5GB RAM.

Memory management is excellent with OSX.

I think your store geeks are trying to get you to fork over more money than you should.

Note: PBs are very sensitive to RAM quality. You will want to put a lot of RAM in there, but buy Apple RAM or 'guaranteed compatible' RAM. I've had to experiment to find the right stuff. The errors you get with bad RAM look like OS corruption -- a virtual impossibility, BTW.

stevepaa · 08-22-2005, 03:16 PM

I always wonder about the simultaniety question. Usually a person will run one app at a time and then maybe use the product in another app. If she was rendering a large video in Final Cut Pro while trying to do something else then she would be doing two things at once and for that I would opt for a dual processor. But otherwise I think she will like either the 15 or 17 inch powerbook at 1.67 GHz. If she really will have several apps open at once and want to ever compare items then she might go to a tower with two screens which is what I work on at home.

lendaddy · 08-22-2005, 03:18 PM

My wife has a marketing business she runs from a home office, but I wouldn't know about the file sizes. I just asked her what a common palette would look like. So it would be pushing it atleast a little?

lendaddy · 08-22-2005, 03:22 PM

She says these run at the same time as she moves "things" from one program to another. I am pushing for the book as she could take it to clients, etc..

Shaun @ Tru6 · 08-22-2005, 03:31 PM

I ran all of those simultaneously today in converting our PPM to a PDF. With ease, including 2 screens active.

Get the high-end PB, get the faster hard drive, get lots of RAM.

The MacAlly Ice Key keyboard is a treat.

stomachmonkey · 08-22-2005, 05:30 PM

Len,

1st, yes the PB will do all that just fine.

I do it every day on mine.

No doubt the tower will be a faster box.

It's a G5 processor while the PB is a G4.

Unless she is doing video editing a single processor box is fine so you could even get the 17 or 20 inch iMac.

Whether to buy the PB or tower, well that all depends.

Does she have a need to actually do creative work while at a clients location or would she be using the PB mostly as a presentation tool?

Personally I'd go for the 17 or 20 inch iMac and buy Techwennies 15 in laptop. Roughly the same price as the Dual G5.

If you do decide to get the laptop as the primary box then you absoulutely have to buy the Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 HTS721080G9AT00 60gb 7200 mobile drive.

I know I sound like a broken record but for the rest of you guys with the G4 PB's you have got to get one of the Hitachi drives. You really can't believe how much better the box runs.

Scott

Shaun @ Tru6 · 08-22-2005, 05:37 PM

Scott, is this the hot drive?

Capacity: 74.53 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS548080M9AT00
Revision: MG4AA58A
Serial Number: MRL415L4HBAK7B
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
OS9 Drivers: No

Macintosh HD:

Capacity: 74.41 GB
Available: 42.5 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /

bob tilton · bob tilton's Garage

i just bought a 20" wireless imac last week and it is sweet. i work on g5 towers all day at work and this is a nice machine to have for the home for the same purpose. i added the jbl creature II speakers and apple's new mighty mouse. overall an excellent machine for the money. the $1K i saved over buying a tower and matching 20" monitor will go towards a digital SLR.
my point: don't forget the imacs.

87coupe · 87coupe's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by lendaddy

Will a Powerbook easily run the following simultaneously?

Photoshop
Illustrator
Quark
Acrobat
And maybe a couple other Office type apps.

Yes, it will run all of those simultaneously. However, it will not handle working with, say 150MB file that you are working on in Pshop, Illustrator, and Quark simultaneously. I have both the pbook, and a dual G5 and would recommend the G5 for someone who is going to be working with the apps you list. If however, you are not working with large files, then either will suffice. Another thing to keep in mind is how terrible the powerbook is for lap use .. great balls of fire

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

stomachmonkey · 08-22-2005, 06:53 PM

Shaun,

No one is shipping laptops with 7200 rpm drives.

I bought mine seperate and swapped the stock drive out.

The drive from your System Profile drive is a 5400 rpm.

You want the 7200, model # HTS726060M9AT00

Unfortunately the largest capacity is 60 gb.

My 17 came with the 80 gb drive and I opted to give up 20 gb of storage for the higher spindle speed and don't regret it for a second.

The drive is quiet, uses the same power, (actually a bit less) as a 5400 and is really fast.

It's like putting a Steve W chip in your car.

I bought a small USB powered external case and put the original 80 gb in it. Something like this, http://www.xpcgear.com/vantecnst250u2.html
Nice and small, fits in your pocket.

So actually I doubled my storage, I can use it like a Thumbdrive, if you format for Windows it makes a nice shuttle drive.

Scott

dd74 · 08-22-2005, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by stomachmonkey

No one is shipping laptops with 7200 rpm drives.

Actually, several laptop manufacturers ship machines with 7200 RPM drives. It's just an option.

5400 RPM is the standard now.

stevepaa · 08-23-2005, 11:52 AM

So Lendaddy, what is your choice and what was final word on the Mac?

lendaddy · 08-23-2005, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by stevepaa
So Lendaddy, what is your choice and what was final word on the Mac?

Wife is at the Mac Store™ right now

I think she has decided on a 2.3 ghz Dual processor tower. 87coupe and a couple others stated that big files can cause problems and she said she works with a lot of very larg xxx meg files when she is doing trade shows etc.....

Correction... she did not make it to the store today, perhaps tomorrow. Which brings me to this:

The Mac store guy implied that he could do better than the online pricing. What's up with that? Student/educator discount ?

dd74 · 08-23-2005, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lendaddy

The Mac store guy implied that he could do better than the online pricing. What's up with that? Student/educator discount ?

Are you a student or educator? I don't see how the Mac salesman can get away with that and keep his job.

I'd still double-check against an online vendor. Hell, if you buy it online somewhere out of state, you at least may not have to pay state sales tax.

RKC · 08-23-2005, 01:20 PM

Bought 7 macs for work recently and a bunch of software (converting my office from wintel). We're a not-for-profit and Apple CALLED ME after I'd ordered online to tell me that I could save some money. Wound up saving about 10%. They do discount, so talk to a few people.....

bob tilton · bob tilton's Garage

the apple store sold me the student version of MS office.