Have iBook, thinking of buying Macbook for Work.

[Dynamyk]

I have an iBook G4 as seen in my sig. I got an offer for $600 CAD for it, and I was just wondering if I should sell it and go for a Macbook now.

I use Photoshop and Dreamweaver a LOT as I work as a graphics/IT guy for my university. My iBook handles it kind of slow but it only has 512 RAM.

Should I sell it at that price and wiat for Santa Rosa or should I just buy a stick of RAM and keep it?

 

[66217]

If you don't mind spending some $800 for a new MB I would certainly recommend buying a MB. It would handle Photoshop and Dreamweaver perfectly.

As for waiting for Santa Rosa, I don't think it is a good option. It may be a long time for Santa Rosa MBs to ship. Maybe the best option would be to buy a C2D MB.

 

[Dynamyk]

I don't mind buying a refurb, but I just want to know am I going to see a considerable difference in running Photoshop/Dreamweaver if I max out my iBook to the same RAM specs.

 

[mkrishnan]

Are you going to be running CS3, CS2 or earlier?

You're probably going to see notable differences in CS if you use CS3, because it is Universal. With CS2, probably not so much.

 

[Dynamyk]

Well I have CS2 now, but it's a matter of time before work buys me the license for CS3.

I will eventually upgrade.

I wish I could just lug my iMac around

 

[mkrishnan]

What will the upgrade cost you overall? You'll want more than the stock memory on the Macbook -- I'd think you'd want 2 gigs if possible, and at least one in any event, so you have a good chance of needing to upgrade. So it'll be the cost of the MB plus the memory upgrade. Another thing to consider, though, is that memory sticks for the MB are quite a bit less expensive than for the iBook at this point. There have been ridiculous sales of $75US for two 1GB modules for the MB! That's less than one module for the iBook.

If Santa Rosa is the big thing you're waiting for, I'd consider how little it's likely to impact Adobe products. It's not like they're using coreservices to deliver image processing. The new Intel graphics will help, but they're not going to revolutionize CS3.

If there are also issues such as size of the Macbook, battery life, etc, then that's a different matter. I say that to avoid being hypocritical... as my setup is an iBook G4/800 and an iMac G5/2.0, and I've been hedging at figuring a good time to upgrade the iBook to a C2D system, but I don't like the physical size increase.

 

[devilot]

I actually sold that same revision iBook Feb. '07 and got a 2.0GHz C2D MB. So worth it.

I mean, I don't do anything of importance. Browse the web. Sype. Chat. Do use PS7 on my iMac but don't have anything newer (yet) for the MB. Once I do, I will be fiddling with it very casually.

Sorry, I'm rambling. Point is.. I hardly ever used my iBook. And it still felt sluggish at times. The MB? Really impressed me. Snappy. And recently upgraded from the stock 2x 512MB RAM to 2GBs. So nice.

The MacBook is a fantastic machine. It really is. My favorite Apple machine I've ever owned.

 

[Andrew D.]

I'm planning on snagging a refurb MacBook soon. From what I have learn, it can run most if not all graphic-dealing programs (excluding video games) very well. RAM is also important since there is no dedicated VRAM on board. Cheers!