Input on Adobe CS4/CS5 on MBA 11.6/1.4/4/64

[osequis]

Hi, I already have enough desktop power and a huge MBP 17 to manage the Adobe CS suite, but I been thinking in getting a MBA 11.6"/1.4GHz/4GB/64GB for visiting clients and doing in situ quick changes to InDesign/Illustrator and Photoshop docs.

I don't want to buy the maxed out version (yet) because of budget reasons and I don't care about the small screen size because I can always have the chance to connect to a bigger display, but I'm interested in hear from this model owners about how they "feel" the performance of those apps in this machine in particular. It is painfully slow? it's kinda acceptable? better than expected?

Any input will be appreciated, thanks!

 

[Kenrik]

Works perfect.

Keep in mind even the base model 1.4GHZ is faster than the fastest G5 Apple ever made.

I don't know about you but I was using a G5 Mac Pro for Design Production working on ads that would print a million+ copies weekly up until May of this year. (Now I have a i7, 27' iMac)

so yeah.. works great.

Photoshop opens in about a second. seriously it's lighting fast because of the SSD. And unless you're applying 5 filters at the same time you will not notice that the processor is any slower. Indesign and illustrator also work really well, with hundreds of photos in a indesign document it still keeps going.

Cinema 4d runs great, the fact that it has a real video card helps with a lot of things.

 

[rebby]

CS5 works great on my 11.6"/1.6/4gb/128gb. I don't use it for heavy edits though. Don't see why it wouldn't work in the situation that you describe.

 

[a2applegirl]

CS5 works great on my 11.6" ultimate edition. I don't think the small difference in cpu speed between the ultimate edition and what you are considering purchasing will matter. I think CS5 will work great on that version of the air as well.

I can edit in raw in photoshop with no problem, and I can have complex vector graphics open in illustrator and have photoshop also open and be working in both with no problem.

 

[HLdan]

Works perfect.

Keep in mind even the base model 1.4GHZ is faster than the fastest G5 Apple ever made.

I don't know about you but I was using a G5 Mac Pro for Design Production working on ads that would print a million+ copies weekly up until May of this year. (Now I have a i7, 27' iMac)

so yeah.. works great.

Photoshop opens in about a second. seriously it's lighting fast because of the SSD. And unless you're applying 5 filters at the same time you will not notice that the processor is any slower. Indesign and illustrator also work really well, with hundreds of photos in a indesign document it still keeps going.

Sadly you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, period. The fastest G5 (last version made in 2006) was a dual processor 2.5Ghz and it could hold up to 16GB ram so for you to say the slowest MBA is faster is complete nonsense.

BTW, there was never such a thing as a G5 Mac Pro.

 

[osequis]

Thanks guys

I appreciate all the comments, this weekend I will visit my local Best Buy to take a look at the Airs in person but your input was very helpful to make a decision.

@ HLdan: Having a bad day?

 

[nicoritschel]

Sadly you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, period. The fastest G5 (last version made in 2006) was a dual processor 2.5Ghz and it could hold up to 16GB ram so for you to say the slowest MBA is faster is complete nonsense.

BTW, there was never such a thing as a G5 Mac Pro.

Processor frequency is not comparable across architectures. Additionally, there was a quad core 2.5GHz Power Mac G5. Thirdly, processor performance has nothing to do with memory capacity.

Here is a geekbench comparison between the (second most powerful Power Mac) 2.7GHz and an 11.6" MBA

I have used Photoshop CS5 on my MBA and it runs great. With that said, I'm not processing any huge raw files or anything....

 

[Cagle]

CS5 works great on my 11.6" ultimate edition. I don't think the small difference in cpu speed between the ultimate edition and what you are considering purchasing will matter. I think CS5 will work great on that version of the air as well.

I can edit in raw in photoshop with no problem, and I can have complex vector graphics open in illustrator and have photoshop also open and be working in both with no problem.

do you think an older version of PS, say CS2, would run faster on the MBA 11.6 or are the newer versions just more efficient with resources available to them?

 

[bcaslis]

do you think an older version of PS, say CS2, would run faster on the MBA 11.6 or are the newer versions just more efficient with resources available to them?

CS5 I believe is the first Intel 64 bit version so it should be the fastest. However the oldest you would want to run is CS3 which is Intel compiled. CS2 would run in emulation mode in Rosetta and will be much slower than later versions.

 

[Perdification]

In that case, then i think even a 2GB baseline model would be alright too.

 

[a2applegirl]

do you think an older version of PS, say CS2, would run faster on the MBA 11.6 or are the newer versions just more efficient with resources available to them?

I agree with bcaslis, that you would not want to go with CS2 because it runs in emulation mode. I think CS4 and CS5 would both run fine. As bcaslis says, cs5 is the first 64 bit version of adobe to run on the mac so in theory it should be faster, but 64 bit architecture really only comes into play when you are working with very large files, so for smaller jobs you won't really see much of a difference between cs4 and cs5 in my opinion.

In that case, then i think even a 2GB baseline model would be alright too.

No, the OP should go with the 4 gigs of ram. For adobe, that extra 2 gigs of memory is important as it allows you to have multiple apps open at once and swap things more easily between photoshop, bridge, and illustrator, etc...

 

[osequis]

You're right a2applegirl, the only thing I considered to upgrade was the RAM, I know there's never enough RAM for Adobe Apps.

 

[nfl46]

2GB is fine, too! Trust - I have MULTIPLE apps open, including Windows 7 while using Photoshop.