New Macbook or imac

[hdsalinas]

Hi I am starting on my own as a freelance designer. I was thinking of getting a 20" imac but I was advised to get the new Macbook (not the pro) since portability could be useful when making presentations to clients.

How would this 2 compare? I am not a gamer but would the intel GPU hinder my work?

My current PC has a ati radeon 7000 so anything will be better I think.

 

[trueheart78]

I would think you would be stationary most of the time, but need portability occasionally. The biggest difference will be the screen size, and that's where I would recommend the macbook pro. A 15" isn't so bad everyday as a 13", especially if you don't travel with it everyday.

 

[whawhat]

i'm a graphic designer and have been using a powerbook g4 ti for the past 3 years. was going to get an imac as well (24" screen is nice!), but decided portability was more important so i ordered a 200gb hard drive/2gb ram black c2d macbook yesterday. plan on getting a 23" lcd display when they are updated in january D )

 

[chicagdan]

I would think you would be stationary most of the time, but need portability occasionally. The biggest difference will be the screen size, and that's where I would recommend the macbook pro. A 15" isn't so bad everyday as a 13", especially if you don't travel with it everyday.

No no no ... what this guy needs to do is buy the Mac Book and a monitor (don't bother with an Apple display, they're too expensive) ... just connect up the computer to a monitor and use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse ... you can get a huge monitor these days cheap. Then, just disconnect one wire when you need to take it on the road, you can keep the laptop closed and won't even notice it's around most of the time. Believe me, as a fellow small biz owner, this is a much better work from home or small office scenario than working entirely off a laptop.

 

[jessep28]

How much are you willing to spend?

Let's run some numbers:

White 2Ghz Macbook (no mods) $1299
Wireless Keyboard $ 59
Wireless MM $ 69
Display* $ 369
Subtotal $1796
Taxes (7% assumption) $ 126
Total Cost $1922

*Random 20" Samsung Monitor off of ecost.com

Here's a 20" 2.16 Ghz iMac with no upgrades

Base Cost $1499
Taxes $ 105
Total Cost $ 1604

Your paying a $300 premium to have the laptop/desktop setup. If you want the best of both worlds, this is a good option. However, the iMac comes with 3x the hard drive space, which will be crucial for people in the design field such as you.

It's up to you. I say, if you ABSOLUTELY need portability and do not have the option in the future to get a desktop, do the combo.

Sorry if my price quotes are wrong/unrealistic. But you get a general idea.

 

[chicagdan]

How much are you willing to spend?

Let's run some numbers:

White 2Ghz Macbook (no mods) $1299
Wireless Keyboard $ 59
Wireless MM $ 69
Display* $ 369
Subtotal $1796
Taxes (7% assumption) $ 126
Total Cost $1922

*Random 20" Samsung Monitor off of ecost.com

Here's a 20" 2.16 Ghz iMac with no upgrades

Base Cost $1499
Taxes $ 105
Total Cost $ 1604

Your paying a $300 premium to have the laptop/desktop setup. If you want the best of both worlds, this is a good option. However, the iMac comes with 3x the hard drive space, which will be crucial for people in the design field such as you.

It's up to you. I say, if you ABSOLUTELY need portability and do not have the option in the future to get a desktop, do the combo.

Sorry if my price quotes are wrong/unrealistic. But you get a general idea.

I think this is a fair characterization. Owning a small business, especially in graphic design, I really think you have no choice but to have a portable option and that's why I recommended the Mac Book + accessories. I think the $300 premium is a small price to pay. (By the way, a FW or USB2 HD is a pretty cheap add-in for later.)

 

[hdsalinas]

My Budget is set at $1500 (about the price of an imac 20")

I already have a Samsung standard VGA 17" LCD (does the Macbook comes with the VGA adaptor?) Hmm, I could get an airport express later on and the only cables That I would need to connect would be the monitor and power


I would go with the base macbook but I need a PC with at lesat 1 Gb ram and a DVD burner. The black macbook does not add anything earth shatering and besides I would not like for it to get confused with a black generic windows laptop.

Now, if I go with the white macbook, should I get a black wireless
mouse and keyboard to match my black LCD? Or go all white and match my MB?

HDD space on the imac would be awesome considering that I am currently working on a PC with 40GB hdd. If I need more space I guess I can always add an external HDD. The harddrive speed is my only concern here.

The other advantage the imac has over the MB is of course the GPU. Is the one on the macbook good enough for Adobe applications? I am not going to work on professional video editing but I would love to edit my homemovies on it, would this be slower on a macbook?

Thanks by all your support!

 

[chicagdan]

My Budget is set at $1500 (about the price of an imac 20")

I already have a Samsung standard VGA 17" LCD (does the Macbook comes with the VGA adaptor?) Hmm, I could get an airport express later on and the only cables That I would need to connect would be the monitor and power


I would go with the base macbook but I need a PC with at lesat 1 Gb ram and a DVD burner. The black macbook does not add anything earth shatering and besides I would not like for it to get confused with a black generic windows laptop.

Now, if I go with the white macbook, should I get a black wireless
mouse and keyboard to match my black LCD? Or go all white and match my MB?

HDD space on the imac would be awesome considering that I am currently working on a PC with 40GB hdd. If I need more space I guess I can always add an external HDD. The harddrive speed is my only concern here.

The other advantage the imac has over the MB is of course the GPU. Is the one on the macbook good enough for Adobe applications? I am not going to work on professional video editing but I would love to edit my homemovies on it, would this be slower on a macbook?

Thanks by all your support!

The Macbook has VGA out, but you will need to buy the adapter (a DVI out adapter comes with it.) I think it's an extra $20, but I'm not sure of that. The Intel graphics works just fine with everything except games ... you'll be fine with it.

I highly recommend that you buy the mid-level white Macbook, the black one really isn't worth the extra cost.

I should mention that I have a home-based business (PR firm) and run it off an iMac, but I feel okay doing that because I have an old PowerBook G4 that I can haul out when I need the portability. If I had to start all over from scratch, I'd definitely buy the new Mac Book.

 

[Mac'Mo]

get both, one for home and one for on the go

 

[roland.g]

get the mid-level MacBook C2D, esp. because it comes with 1GB RAM. I would recommend the mid-level refurb but it only has 512MB RAM and you would want to upgrade. Get a white Apple wireless (BT) keyboard, but for a mouse I wouldn't get a Mighty Mouse for graphics, shop around. Most people think you will want an ergo two button scrolling mouse, BT of course. I have MacMice Mouse BT aluminum, also comes in white. I would get that over the BT II which has a mini-usb docking cradle for charging. I think you can still get the original white one for $49. I don't think they even sell them in silver anymore. But it is the shape of the Apple mice, not particularly ergo, but I like it. Ergo mice tend to offer more feature sets, like 4th and 5th buttons you can program. Any scrolling mouse can program the wheel to push as a button. OS X defaults to having it activate dashboard, which is a nice feature.