13 inch versus 15 inch macbook pro for a freshman designer

[silentnite]

As a matter of fact I am not able to get any BTO upgrades like matte screen or hdd upgrade or 3.06 upgrade since apple does not have direct service here and we dont have apple online store. we have a third party distributor which charges ridiculous markups (essentially doubles the price, something like %80 price increase with taxes)

If for example I came to New York, Would I be able to buy a customized top-top-end 15" right away, or would they ask me to wait three weeks? any ideas?


As for the install I did the SSD in about 25 mins from start to finish and the memory was less then 15 min. Having the correct tools is the key. a solid open work area. Very simple to do and very well worth it.



How hard is it to change the hdd and the ram? I mean, is it something I can do at home? (I'm pretty much tech-savvy) This is a very good idea, a SSD would almost double the performance.




Well, to be honest I don’t know My course is called Visual Communications Design, it encompasses all of the new media, video, graphic design, web design and anything that may pop out in the future. It’s a very heavy programme as far as I can see. In addition I have scholarship which means I have to work for school. School is good, one of the best in Turkey, and they are probably not going to accept sloppy work, which means I will (and the hardware I have will) be forced to the bleeding edge.

Do dual video cards really make a difference in CS4 Suite? I mean, did photoshop(and any of them) start to fully utilize the GPU yet?(except video-oriented ones of course, they are already using that)



oh god. the last sentence? they exactly said that. I'm freaking out.




Are you sure that they are coming in three months? I mean, if I could be sure I would wait but i guess nobody's sure about that, and I can't afford design school without a mac for 3 months, without a very solid reason.



I was talking about that. I am a very petite person (1.62m, 50kg) and every pound and inch I carry extra will cost me dearly. You’re right that going into the store won’t help, as it didn’t. You can’t see how hard will it be while carrying, at the store.



very nice point, but when I will be at the school I have access to 21" external monitors, and when I'm out, I have a 24" iMac at home. My point of concern is processing power right now.

beatledud has a nice comparison right there. But you forgot that I may have no customizations while doing the list. If I strip these out, there’s not much difference left except video card and and CPU. CPU comparison: 2.53 vs 2.8, GPU comparison is 9400m versus 9400m+9600. if you scale both in ten-scale, what do you think, how would they compare? I mean, 2.53 6/10 2.8 8/10 or so. If the gap is narrow enough I’m going to buy 13”, if there’s a huge difference in the GPU, I’m going to get 15” top non customized.

and thanks

As for the install I did the SSD in about 25 mins from start to finish and the memory was less then 15 min. Having the correct tools is the key. a solid open work area. Very simple to do and very well worth it.

As for the install I did the SSD in about 25 mins from start to finish and the memory was less then 15 min. Having the correct tools is the key. a solid open work area. Very simple to do and very well worth it.

 

[beatledud]

Has anyone had any experience using Premiere Pro CS4? I do the ocassional video editing (although starting to use iMovie more and more), but would like to know if this is going to be a real issue before I purchase a 13".

Ugh, this is why it's frustrating that Apple has slowly extended the "Pro" moniker to most of the laptops. Pro was for Professionals. AKA for those that needed a laptop but had to have desktop power. Many consider only the 17" to be Pro worthy anymore.

I would consider the 2.66 and up 15" of the Pro model. 2.53 15" and all 13" aren't Pro. Apple seemed to say all unibodies are Pro to eliminate confusion but I think it's more confusing. Unless they do updates of the 13" MacBook AND add a 15" MacBook that are certainly of lesser quality and cheaper to their Pro counterparts.

 

[MacFanUK]

Ugh, this is why it's frustrating that Apple has slowly extended the "Pro" moniker to most of the laptops. Pro was for Professionals. AKA for those that needed a laptop but had to have desktop power. Many consider only the 17" to be Pro worthy anymore.

I would consider the 2.66 and up 15" of the Pro model. 2.53 15" and all 13" aren't Pro. Apple seemed to say all unibodies are Pro to eliminate confusion but I think it's more confusing. Unless they do updates of the 13" MacBook AND add a 15" MacBook that are certainly of lesser quality and cheaper to their Pro counterparts.

I don't understand why you quoted my previous post in this post because I don't see it's relevant at all. I'm not looking to buy the 13" because I want a 'Pro' machine, nor do I consider myself to need a 'Pro' machine. Yes, it would be nice to have a 15" model, but not everyone can afford it.

Going by your comparison, the only thing that differentiates the 'Pro worthy' models to the 'non-pro worthy' models is the dedicated GPU. Back when the Powerbooks were the 'Pro' machines, there was also a 12" 'Pro' machine which was great.

My question was relating directly to a comment someone made about Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 not fitting on the 13" screen, not whether it can be classed as a Pro machine or not.

 

[beatledud]

I don't understand why you quoted my previous post in this post because I don't see it's relevant at all. I'm not looking to buy the 13" because I want a 'Pro' machine, nor do I consider myself to need a 'Pro' machine. Yes, it would be nice to have a 15" model, but not everyone can afford it.

Going by your comparison, the only thing that differentiates the 'Pro worthy' models to the 'non-pro worthy' models is the dedicated GPU. Back when the Powerbooks were the 'Pro' machines, there was also a 12" 'Pro' machine which was great.

My question was relating directly to a comment someone made about Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 not fitting on the 13" screen, not whether it can be classed as a Pro machine or not.

I don't want to get into semantics and my frustration wasn't meant towards you. To clarify what I meant, Premiere Pro is a professional program, er go you should be using a professional caliber machine. It probably runs ok to some degree but you really need a high end (Professional) laptop to do right by it, let alone a CPU intensive desktop with lots of HD space.

Also I interpreted your question as being more a Power issue, not screen size, didn't fully read who you quoted and make the correlation, sorry.

 

[MacFanUK]

I don't want to get into semantics and my frustration wasn't meant towards you. To clarify what I meant, Premiere Pro is a professional program, er go you should be using a professional caliber machine. It probably runs ok to some degree but you really need a high end (Professional) laptop to do right by it, let alone a CPU intensive desktop with lots of HD space.

Also I interpreted your question as being more a Power issue, not screen size, didn't fully read who you quoted and make the correlation, sorry.

No worries. I don't do a lot of video editing (most of the time it's 2-5 minute advert style videos). As I said, I would love to be able to afford a 15" 'Pro' machine, and while I could go out and buy one, money's hard to come by at the moment, and I don't see my needs to require more than the base 13"....maybe in the future though