What's the purpose of Firewire?

[Warelin]

I've been debating on whether or not to buy a Macbook/Pro. After hearing the updates, I've been left in quite a jar.

I'd be using the Mac for occassional Photoshopping, listening to Itunes, word documents, surfing online and an occassional game of spore.

What would be recommended?

 

[J the Ninja]

I think the MacBook will do the job for you, although you might like the extra screen real estate.

FireWire is a standard used for connecting peripheral devices. It has a higher sustained transfer rate than USB (especially FireWire 800), so it is often preferred for things involving big files/a lot of files or speed critical stuff, like connecting camcorders, audio interfaces, and scratch disks for audio and video work.

 

[Warelin]

I think the MacBook will do the job for you, although you might like the extra screen real estate.

FireWire is a standard used for connecting peripheral devices. It has a higher sustained transfer rate than USB (especially FireWire 800), so it is often preferred for things involving big files/a lot of files or speed critical stuff, like connecting camcorders, audio interfaces, and scratch disks for audio and video work.

So the Firewire has no effects over recording videos? I got a bit confused about its function after browsing the forums for a few hours today.

 

[J the Ninja]

So the Firewire has no effects over recording videos? I got a bit confused about its function after browsing the forums for a few hours today.

I'm a bit fuzzy on my digital camcorder formats and interfaces, go check with the people on the DV forum for that. You said you didn't do video editing though, so I didn't take that into account.

 

[Bubbasteve]

Basically Firewire 400/800 are different versions of the USB -- I don't see what the big hoop-la is that they were omitted

but then again I never imported large HD videos to my Macbook that much, but when I did I felt that USB 2.0 was suffice.

Long story short -- you seem to be fine going with the Macbook route