2.4 macbook and thinking about desktop (nettop), wait for touchmac? or buy more RAM

[Nickisgodofmacs]

I have macbook described in my sig. I have been getting more and more into design work (i.e. Photoshop, sketch up, etc.) and i also feel like i need a little bit more screen real-estate. Its nothing professional (im 15) but i feel like im lacking power for how old the machine is (8 months). I need to have music going to concentrate and make anything look good.

I almost always have itunes, adium/ichat, pages, numbers and safari open on my macbook when its on. I usually have to close pages, numbers and safari to get any real power out of my macbook when i open final cut express, Photoshop or sketch up.

So my question is should i buy 4gb of RAM? Buy a cheap nettop to host my music and other lighter apps and leave the heavy lifting to my macbook? or get a external display and suck it up and use my ipod even though i don't like the quality of the music as much as from my macbook?

Am i really just trying to do more with my laptop than it should be doing?

 

[clyde2801]

Buy 4 gigs of ram (ddr2 is cheap). Also consider a larger, preferably faster hard drive.

You've paid for your mac, you may as well squeeze all the life and use you can out of it.

 

[Demosthenes X]

There's no reason you should be having any trouble. I routinely run Firefox, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, iTunes, Adium, and Mail concurrently on my Core Duo MacBook with 2GBs of RAM. No problems with slowdown.

Upgrade your RAM, and you should be fine.

 

[robindahlia789]

seconded on the above poster. just get the ddr2 ram and it should help on those more intensive applications

 

[Shivetya]

Need more screen real estate? Buy a Dell 2209WA

Still, get more memory, I paid less than 60 for 2x2 for my MBP

 

[brguitarist]

Streamline! I agree with clyde, you bought your mac so you should make the best use of it. I agree with RAM + Monitor.

 

[old-wiz]

More screen real estate - just get an external monitor; they're relatively cheap and easy to hook up.

 

[Nickisgodofmacs]

sorry for taking so long

Need more screen real estate? Buy a Dell 2209WA

Yeah i am kinda sorta broke. so i don't know if i can afford a screen that big. I didn’t technically buy it. My parents bought it for me but there is a reason behind it. I am going to be a database administrator and i felt limited with windows so i made the "deadly" switich as my father calls it.


Thanks for the all the ideas