iMac, Early 2008 17" MBP, or Late 2008 15" MBP?

[dabirdwell]

Well, I have decided to not get the Mac Pro I was thinking about and have a new crop of likely candidates that all fall into a very tight price range.

Either:

The new iMac - 24" 2.93 C2D with the Radeon HD4850

The current MacBook Pro 15" 2.4 C2D Unibody

The previous gen MacBook Pro 17" 2.6 C2D w/Hi-Res display

I do not have either a working portable or desktop at home right now. The old MDD power supply finally gave out.

I know the iMac with the Radeon card would certainly outperform the notebooks, and I love the display, but I can do most of what I need without that power. The heaviest thing I might be doing is editing some DVCPro HD footage from an HVX200. The books can do that, although render time is going to be longer.

I guess I'm interested in feedback from anyone who has had to choose between a Macbook and a desktop. I'm also interested in which notebook of those two you'd go for and why..

Thanks a ton!

 

[PuckDaddy]

been going through something similar
had the iMac refresh been legitimate, the money would already be gone

I've seen both MBP's side by side, and I like the clarity / color of the Unibodies, however, I don't like the reflections AT ALL
I love the new trackpad, but did not like the keyboard as much as the older units

I like the older 17" MBP's with the Hi-Res screens
the 2.6's on the refurb page only have the 256vram

I think the best deal is the fb766ll/a ($1999)
2.5ghzC@D / 4gb RAM/ 320gb HDD / 512mb Vram

they had a 995 ,which looked like the same unit except it was anti-glare
from what I've seen, the old glossy screens were nowhere near as reflective as the new ones


still balking at spending $2000 on an older generation notebook
however, these laptops were $2800 a month ago

 

[Cboss]

All three machines will do what you need them to very well, so the main issues I see are size and portability. If you have no need/desire to use your computer on the go then I would definitely get the iMac as it will perform the best and therefore last the longest. If portability is an issue then you need to decide if the 15" screen is big enough and if you want to lug a 17" around all day. Personally I wouldn't want to carry anything around that is much bigger than my 13" MacBook, but that's for you to decide. If you know someone with the 17" maybe you could try carrying it around for several hours and seeing if that works for you.

 

[dabirdwell]

been going through something similar
had the iMac refresh been legitimate, the money would already be gone

Agreed, a quad-core would already be on the way if it had been available.

I like the older 17" MBP's with the Hi-Res screens
the 2.6's on the refurb page only have the 256vram

Looks like this 17" has 512MB video memory and the Hi-Res display.