MacBook or Imac or Pro?

[Wyoming Paul]

Age old question, this is my situation: I have a 2year old MacBook Pro that is maxed out along with my 500gig external. I have a 24 inch Apple Flat as well. I rarely use the laptop around the house, which is to say it stays in the office. I do move my office half the year in Wyoming and the other half in Oregon so I move the equipment. It is nice to have the laptop when I travel. Major program use: CS3, Final Cut Express. My digital shoots large 21megPixels and doing more home video, which explains the storage issue.

So do I?

1) Do nothing and upgrade my external storage. I see no advantage in upgrading to a new MacBook Pro, this one is much the same.

2) Buy an Imac 24inch with 1T and add at least one 1T external, and keep the laptop. Looks like it will transport easily. I'm not crazy about the glossy screen.

3) Pull all the stops and buy Mac Pro and lug the monster around when I move my office, and keep the laptop.

Others thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[motox25]

So I was actually dealing with the same question last month. After much thinking and research I actually decided of going with a MBP when snow leopard comes out. I use my mac for every day tasking (music, movies, email, websurfing), occasional gaming, photo editing and very occasionally editing a video. I also stream content to my Xbox 360 like videos and music. First I considered a mac pro. The ability to add HDDs freely is nice, but its not worth the price difference to me. I am in no need of an 8 core beast for my use and I don't need any PCI cards so the mac pro is ruled out because of the cost and my needs. Then I considered the mac mini, however I occasionally like to take my mac places and I can't live off a 320 GB hard drive. Then I considered the macbook. I currently own a last gen macbook with an intel processor and graphics chipset. Im happy with it after some much needed upgrades (2.5 GB ram, 500GB HDD), but the unit lags when I hook it up to my 24" display and run windows via fusion. So I need more power. The MacBook is nice but if I'm dropping $1499 I might as well spend a little extra and get the MacBook pro which is $1999, then Ill upgrade the ram and HDD. That should (hopefully) give me enough power for my 24" display and tasking. The decision is yours though!

 

[js81]

If all you need is storage, don't waste money on another machine. Max out the internal hard drive (you can get a 500GB) and buy a 2TB external. Would that suffice? Maybe even consider a backup server of some sort (just a cheap machine, or even a NAS) with even more storage. And wow... 21 megapixels - so that's the level of pro. photography today, huh? To me, that's just crazy... lol.

I currently own a last gen macbook with an intel processor and graphics chipset. Im happy with it after some much needed upgrades (2.5 GB ram, 500GB HDD), but the unit lags when I hook it up to my 24" display and run windows via fusion. So I need more power.

I have the same machine and it runs an external and windows via fusion just fine. However, I've got 4GB and a 7200 RPM drive. If your drive's not 7200, get one - and definitely go to 4GB - I personally think Leopard is sluggish on 2GB (never used 2.5) - 3GB+ seems to be the sweet spot.

EDIT: Just FYI - Windows is still slow with 4GB (2 given to fusion, 2 to OS X), but Leopard runs fine. Windows (virtualization) will always be slow.

 

[ZunePod]

Ruling out price, you are more than worth getting the Mac Pro, as it would slip straight into your setup.

 

[miles01110]

I second the "increase your storage" solution. Storage is dirt-cheap these days.

 

[J&JPolangin]

...EDIT: Just FYI - Windows is still slow with 4GB (2 given to fusion, 2 to OS X), but Leopard runs fine. Windows (virtualization) will always be slow.

...what version of win are you using?

2 GB RAM on winXP should be more than enough (unless the VMF eats it up)?

 

[Wyoming Paul]

Thanks

Thanks everyone. I have listened and done my homework. I'm keeping the 24 inch Cin monitor as a second and buying an iMac 24 inch 3.06 with the video upgrade. Also keeping my 2007 MacBook Pro for on location photo shoots and travel. The new MBP is not enough different to make a difference, but the iMac has much more storage and speed as well as the video rendering is much better. Also adding an additional 2T of external storage to the 500GB external that I have. This gives me two 24 inch monitors at my workstation and TONS of storage and speed while maintaining the portability with the 07 MBP when needed. Can't think of a better system. The only concern is having one matt screen next to the glossy screen that comes with the iMac. Thanks for all your advice.

 

[js81]

...what version of win are you using?

2 GB RAM on winXP should be more than enough (unless the VMF eats it up)?

Just updated Fusion (don't know the version number). Its not that XP is dog slow, but its just WAY slower than running it natively (which is blazing fast). I think its the (lack of) graphics chip, the X3100. OTOH, my iMac (w/3GB RAM, shared 1.5 each) runs much smoother - it has the ATI X1600.