/Edit, sorry should of posted in advice forum...wrong tab in firefox, user error.
Hi all,
A good few months back I decided to consolidate my pc hardware into one. I'm not using half of it effectively anyway. With vmware issuing a mac beta and of course parallels, well the writings on the wall.
A very short bio of what I use my pc's for at the moment, for this forms the crux of my problem betweena macbook and macbookpro: *I promise there is a valid question below*
Photo's, general management and very light editing, I shot digital but still use filters, if it's not right on the memory card I don't use it...wrong I know, but hey makes me think about the shot. I do and possibly will revert to shooting in raw format. I have used on the pc, pixmantec rawshooter for this part of my workflow. I don't sell my pics and print for friends and family, so raw is not totally essential.
Web Dev I try to develop apps in java, ruby, php, most are light weight apps. However my day job draws me onto developing for IBM portal, which is far from light weight; but a vm sort's that out from running it, developing, well rational studio etc, either a vm or native as a linux app.
Graphics I don't own or use photo shop, I get lost in gimp to be honest; hence the shoot it right don't mess about with it approach as above. So I don't have a huge graphics requirement.
Games World of warcraft is about it, the rest I'll get a 360 at christmas for, way to busy to game on top of WOW anyway.
Movies Done very little with wndows movie maker, have lots of home ones to do and one wedding for a friend, so hardly worth mentioning. Have a dvd player and telly with soft chair for watching films, when I can peel myself away.
Reason for mobility
Now I need a laptop as I either infrequently or frequently travel with work, I lug there laptop around and I don't like using it for my own needs. The rest of the time this new single machine will be in my home office, with or without keyboard and 24" dell monitor.
So far
Now up untill this week I was hanging out for a 17" mac book pro, because..., but thinking really hard about it; thanks to the nice wait for the new one. I'm now not certain this is actually right for me. Certianly it has the processing power graphically, a small processor difference 2.16 v 2.0, although this may change
So take a white or black 2.0ghz model, bump it to 2Gb of ram and maybe bounce the disk to a decent 160Gb.
My musing thought
If we take it in it's desktop role, I can hook upa usb2 dvd burner and FW disk, I have a 1Gig lan with NAS unit too so not fussed about FW drives. For all of the above items I think in this mode it's going to be quite capable, although I know I'm risking aperture and photoshop not running.
If we go mobile, at most I'll plug my memory card in, suck photo's and look at them, do some coding, I can live with the 1280 res just if I'm in an ide, textpad is fine on 1024, works laptop is I get used to it eventually after leaving my 1920 dell
So on the road it's still portable and packing a reasonable punch for non graphical intensive work, gaming, which is really only WoW, I know it will and it will look better than my current PIV 3.2 1024 and nvidia TI4200 in linux on cedega.
So if you've read all that, firstly thank you, secondly do my ideas hold up?
As I see it in desktop mode I loose little compared to a 2x cost mbp 17" with it's lid closed, graphics and .16ghz per core.
Mobile I loose the most, screen space, but I gain in portability.
As a foot note I have an A5 mini note book, cracking thing, PIII 800 256mb of ram, but it struggles now XP has updated it'self over and over...it fits in a suit pocket, very neat when you give a presentation and of course ultraportable, it was also quite capable of developing java and php 4 years agowhen frameworks were small.
Since I've had a Centrio dothan 1.7 15" laptop with the ati mobility 9700 card, 64mb of ram, it did okay...now the macbook is equal to this I would say, would you say also or ahead slightly...ati 9700 mobile v the intel 950.
Right sorry for rambling, but I think I need a sanity check before wasting a grand.
If I get desperate when travelling with work or the car for a long engagement, I'll pack a screen, 17" tft's are cheap as chips in the uk at the moment.
So if any body has some views on the above usage and suitability I would really appreciate them as I'm in a window where I must get on with my work and get settled on an os for autumn and winter projects.
Hi all,
A good few months back I decided to consolidate my pc hardware into one. I'm not using half of it effectively anyway. With vmware issuing a mac beta and of course parallels, well the writings on the wall.
A very short bio of what I use my pc's for at the moment, for this forms the crux of my problem betweena macbook and macbookpro: *I promise there is a valid question below*
Photo's, general management and very light editing, I shot digital but still use filters, if it's not right on the memory card I don't use it...wrong I know, but hey makes me think about the shot. I do and possibly will revert to shooting in raw format. I have used on the pc, pixmantec rawshooter for this part of my workflow. I don't sell my pics and print for friends and family, so raw is not totally essential.
Web Dev I try to develop apps in java, ruby, php, most are light weight apps. However my day job draws me onto developing for IBM portal, which is far from light weight; but a vm sort's that out from running it, developing, well rational studio etc, either a vm or native as a linux app.
Graphics I don't own or use photo shop, I get lost in gimp to be honest; hence the shoot it right don't mess about with it approach as above. So I don't have a huge graphics requirement.
Games World of warcraft is about it, the rest I'll get a 360 at christmas for, way to busy to game on top of WOW anyway.
Movies Done very little with wndows movie maker, have lots of home ones to do and one wedding for a friend, so hardly worth mentioning. Have a dvd player and telly with soft chair for watching films, when I can peel myself away.
Reason for mobility
Now I need a laptop as I either infrequently or frequently travel with work, I lug there laptop around and I don't like using it for my own needs. The rest of the time this new single machine will be in my home office, with or without keyboard and 24" dell monitor.
So far
Now up untill this week I was hanging out for a 17" mac book pro, because..., but thinking really hard about it; thanks to the nice wait for the new one. I'm now not certain this is actually right for me. Certianly it has the processing power graphically, a small processor difference 2.16 v 2.0, although this may change
So take a white or black 2.0ghz model, bump it to 2Gb of ram and maybe bounce the disk to a decent 160Gb.
My musing thought
If we take it in it's desktop role, I can hook upa usb2 dvd burner and FW disk, I have a 1Gig lan with NAS unit too so not fussed about FW drives. For all of the above items I think in this mode it's going to be quite capable, although I know I'm risking aperture and photoshop not running.
If we go mobile, at most I'll plug my memory card in, suck photo's and look at them, do some coding, I can live with the 1280 res just if I'm in an ide, textpad is fine on 1024, works laptop is I get used to it eventually after leaving my 1920 dell
So on the road it's still portable and packing a reasonable punch for non graphical intensive work, gaming, which is really only WoW, I know it will and it will look better than my current PIV 3.2 1024 and nvidia TI4200 in linux on cedega.
So if you've read all that, firstly thank you, secondly do my ideas hold up?
As I see it in desktop mode I loose little compared to a 2x cost mbp 17" with it's lid closed, graphics and .16ghz per core.
Mobile I loose the most, screen space, but I gain in portability.
As a foot note I have an A5 mini note book, cracking thing, PIII 800 256mb of ram, but it struggles now XP has updated it'self over and over...it fits in a suit pocket, very neat when you give a presentation and of course ultraportable, it was also quite capable of developing java and php 4 years agowhen frameworks were small.
Since I've had a Centrio dothan 1.7 15" laptop with the ati mobility 9700 card, 64mb of ram, it did okay...now the macbook is equal to this I would say, would you say also or ahead slightly...ati 9700 mobile v the intel 950.
Right sorry for rambling, but I think I need a sanity check before wasting a grand.
If I get desperate when travelling with work or the car for a long engagement, I'll pack a screen, 17" tft's are cheap as chips in the uk at the moment.
So if any body has some views on the above usage and suitability I would really appreciate them as I'm in a window where I must get on with my work and get settled on an os for autumn and winter projects.
