Okay, seriously. What can the Macbook handle?!?! Apps!?

[-Josh-]

I keep hearing, "The Mb is absolutely great for surfing the web and instant messaging, checking your email, ect"..

Seriously? a $1,500 blackbook can do just that?
I don't play games, so that's not an issue. but how about making music? Music band, garage band, photo editing, photoshop? is it JUST casual things?

Thanks,

Josh

 

[Osarkon]

It's fine for photoshop, I use mine for it. It handles music and all that too. The only weak spot it has really is gaming and programs that require a dedicated graphics card.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I'm just going to talk about Photoshop...

Fact is, is that using Photoshop can mean anything from making a small little avatar or some web graphics — something you can do on an iBook or Mini — to making huge 16bit CMYK layered high-res files that can run into many hundreds of kilobytes, if not gigabytes.

I have a MBP 2.33, 2gb RAM and it's not great for the kind of Photoshopping I need to do as a professional designer. However, that's mostly due to not being maxed out on the RAM and having a slow drive in there, something which will be fixed.

I think the Blackbook would be a great machine, but you need to get plenty of RAM in there and if you can afford to wait for a bit, we might see new releases either very very soon, or early next year.

 

[juxtaposer]

As far as Audio apps go, I have Logic Studio 8 running on a C2D Macbook and it does everything just as well as you would want. The HDD might need an upgrade to 7200rpm if you're recording a lot of live instruments at once. But other than that, all of the plugins work perfectly well. With Logic audio editing on these newer machines I think the only thing that can give you any problem would be getting a sub-par audio interface.
Hope that helps

 

[Cerebrum]

If you use photoshop often, it'd just be best to run with 2 gigs always.

 

[Roessnakhan]

I used my MB (before I upgraded to MBP) for the following:

• Final Cut
• Motion
• Shake
• GarageBand
• Photoshop CS3
• Call of Duty 2

Performed like a beast, I was actually quite impressed.

 

[JNB]

Pretty much anything short of serious pro apps will run just fine, and even those will, but just a bit sluggishly or with some other (mostly just annoying) limitations.

My rule of thumb: If I require everyday use of more than a couple apps that cost more than $500 each, then I'm going Macbook Pro.

My 2.16 Blackbook is my everyday road machine, doing light audio & video production, running dedicated custom Windows apps in Parallels for demo & training to multiple shares, and managing a stupid amount of multitasking without breaking a sweat.

 

[quigleybc]

My blackbook hasn't had a hick up with anything i've used it for.

I have used Logic Pro 8 and Abelton Live with no problems. Plug ins and Virtual instruments like Stylus RMX and Absynth 4

Games like Lego Star Wars and Civ IV

PhotoShop for all normal tasks.

So far i've yet to be held back at all with the Macbook, other than some games...