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Buying a 12" PB very soon. Need Help.

T

TRi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2004
4
0
Just about to finish school in Audio/Video and I've decided to get a new computer. I've dreamed of having one of these ever since they came out. I want the 12" specifically because of it's size and portability. It'd be nice to get a new desktop, but I'm not home very much, so a laptop would be of greater use. If everything works out OK I'll be buying one as soon as tomorrow.

Now my main concern is whether or not to get a Superdrive or a get an external DVD drive. The superdrive would be nice to not have to carry around extra and I will be dealing with clients, so it would be nice to be able to give them a copy of our current work. The Superdrive is just too slow and only uses -R. Now for the same price or even cheaper I could get a dual-layer 8x +R -R drive and an external enclosure. My main source of income right now is editing wedding videos, so the dual-layer would be a great feature to have. The client wouldn't have to wait as long burning either. Also microcenter has one now for $70 after rebate. The drawback of that is having to lug it around and looking for a power source for it.

The next thing is, should I get the 80GB 5400rpm drive or put that money to an external drive? Is the performance significant enough to upgrade or would I be happier using that money towards a 250GB drive?

I also plan on using FCP, AE, and possibly motion. So what would be a good amount of RAM? I'm pretty sure I want to get a 512. Will I be able to fit another 512 in there after that?

That's pretty much it. Didn't expect it to be so long, sorry. Just wanted to see people opinions before I throw my money at apple or microcenter or whoever. Being the student I am, I wanna get the most bang for my buck. Thanks in advance.

-TRi
 
do you happen to go on yahoo chat? Someone in there asked a similer question a while back.

Id say go for the combo drive and get an external dvd burner (macsales.com has great deals) and AT LEAST 512 megs of ram
 
Never been on yahoo chat. Will snoop around there though.

Will the external act as if it was a Superdrive?

Aside from using them in school, I'm still quite an apple newbie.
 
Convenience VS Money

The external DVD burners are more bulky and about as heavy as the 12" PB itself. To me personally I am looking at getting the PB with Superdrive just so I won't have to carry the external around. I do all my backup and storage on DVD-R's so its alot more convenient to have it on the laptop. And then if you find it too slow or need some fancier equipment then get an external, no law saying you can't have 2 dvd writers. Though the MPAA might like to pass such a law!
 
Get the faster HDD since it offers the best performance upgrade for the dollar, plus a 1GB stick of RAM from Crucial, OWC, or anywhere else from Apple.

Secondly, get the external unless you actually planned on using iDVD. But if you don't and your needs are greater than what iDVD has to offer, get the external. Why couldn't you just burn DVD's at home, right? If you plan on burning DVD's when clients are sitting there in front of you, then the Superdrive may be a good idea. It really depends on how important that is to you.
 
I would get the Powerbook with 1 512MB chip and combo drive. Use any other money to get a fast external hard drive, dual layer dvd burner and another 512MB or 1GB RAM chip. I highly recommend OWC for all of that. They have great prices and good products.
 
TRi said:
Awesome, thanks. What about DVD Studio Pro?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I wouldn't know that, since I don't do any DVD burning, or use any kind of DVD creating applications.

Though I do make the occasional VCD. :cool: :cool:
 
full gig

Definitely go for a full extra gig of RAM. We bought a 12" PB a couple of weeks ago with the stock 256mb, used it like that for a bit, marvelled at how slow it was switching between applications, ordered 1 GB from datamem.com for $250 ($700 from apple!), installed it today, and have been watching it scream ever since.
 
Speaking of OWC

They have the Samsung 1 gig module that apple uses or another 1 gig for 100$ less. Anyone use the 100$ less one? Any idea what the difference would be?
 
I would consider getting the superdrive so that i wouldn't have to hunt for a plug and set up an extra device everytime i wanted to burn something. You are putting too much importance on a relatively small overall time difference. Picture the elagance of just opening your book, showing the client whatever on the screen, then sit back and chat while it spits out a dvd anywhere anytime, no wires, no setup.
I would be considering a larger screen too, i'm often wishing for more res. and screen realestate on my 14" ibook.
get as much memory as you can afford, my 640 megs is barely enough, ( i should get the 1g stick)

-Kevin in Canada
 
The only thing I can comment on, and this is from pure experience... You're not going to want a slow harddrive in there, ESPECIALLY if you do video editing. Granted, if you do a lot, you might want to lug it all on an external drive as that's what most video editors do cuz they have so much data. I had a 4200 rpm internal hard drive... I didn't realize how slow it was til i upgraded. The biggest speed gain i got was in video editing too. Just make sure to get a good amount of RAM and the faster HD option. If it were me, I would get the slow hard drive and the minimum of RAM. Then I'd grab another 7200 rpm hitachi drive for the internals and buy 3rd party RAM so I don't get screwed by Apple prices. But if you're not computer friendly, the HD switch might prove difficult... Anywho... best of luck!
 
May/may not be a problem for you but I read a review in MacUser (UK) that said DVDs burnt on the LaCie dual layer DVD writer cannot be read by the standard Apple DVD-ROM drive.

BTW I have an internal writer in my PB and, althought it is slow, I find it is ideal for backup etc. External is too much hassle. Keep it internal if you can.
 
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