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What to buy

S

Shagmeister

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 18, 2006
15
0
Hi I've read quite a few of the threads here, but I thought I'd post my own, seeing as I'm still quite unsure about a few things.

I need to get a new computer. It must be a laptop, and it must allow me to do video editing and photoshop. I would also quite like to play a windows game, Armed Assault, but that's not vital.

The videos I'll be making will be wildlife films, so I want them to be a little higher quality than family movies. Probably the semi-proffesional bracket. I'm not interested in HD right now.

One of the things I'm unsure about is the graphics card. I won't be using much 3D (apart from maybe a few games if i can, but they won't be deciding factor). I'll be doing a bit of graphic design in photoshop, making illustrated stories, graphic novels, comics etc.

I'm looking at apple because I've currently got an iMac G3 and have enjoyed using it. Also I have a lot of apps that I could use on a new mac, whereas with windows I'd have to get a bunch of new software. My external harddrive is also formatted with mac and doesn't seem to work with windows, and there's a lot of stuff on there. The HDD is 7200rpm so is good for video editing.

I was dead set on a mid range Macbook Pro 15" 2.5GHz, but I've also started to look at the upper range Macbook 13" 2.4 GHz. The only severe difference i noticed was the graphics card and a big price drop. Which might not be that important unless I want to play games. (I'm not concerned about screen size)

I've also looked at some windows equivalents Dell m1530, Rock Pegasus 670, Mesh GX600 and some HP models (although their website is terrible).

So really, i'm swamped with options and I was hoping to get some help with the mac side of things.

Many thanks.
 
If you are going to go the MBP route I think you would be fine with the baseline model that is $500 cheaper than the mid range. The MB is not a good laptop for playing games on, but if you don't care about that too much go for the MB. Either laptop will be fine, now it just comes down to your decision.
 
if you are concerned about price , also take a look at the refurb store. Last models macbook pros are going for GREAT prices and will suit your needs just fine as well.

I'd stick with the macbook pro. The extra screen size will help, you can play your games on it, and it'll probably last longer. With photoshop and movies all that I think it's the best computer you can get for it and it will handle it very well.
 
Thanks for all the replies, pretty helpful. I looked at the refurb store, they've got some good deals, the only problem is with the 15 "MBP's, they've only got 128Mb graphics card; if I was going with the pro, i'd have hoped to have more. Can they be upgraded? But like I said it's not priority. I'll seriously think about one of those refurbs. So just to confirm, the main specs I should be looking at are CPU, RAM and HDD speed, right? My external HDD is 7200rpm, so I'd have it connected by USB or Firewire. Would this affect matters when compared with the speed of an internal HDD at 7200 rpm?
 
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