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Which mac for me?

T

thehuggernaut

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hello all,

i'm a junior film student at penn state university. as a film student i need video editing software and mostly we use final cut. thusly, it's time i get a mac. the problem is my cashflow isn't too good. i'd really like to spend <1500 if at all possible. i get an educational discount through the apple store so that may help a little.

my question becomes: which mac for me? i'm running a pc laptop right now, it'd be nice to get a laptop mac but if the price is better/the features are better for a desktop i could do that as well. the new imacs seem quite nice and with the recent ibook update that's also an option as far as price. would the ibook be enough computer for me?

if you guys could help me i'd greatly appreciate it. thanks in advance

adam
 
Dont get an iBook. I dont think it will be good for what you will be doing. I think the cheapest thing you can get is the 12" PB, the PB os better at editing and doing hard work then the iBook. Spending the extra money on a laptop is always a great plus.

The G5 iMac with superdrive is very good but like i said if your going to be in collage then i think a laptop would be better. If your not going to sell your PC laptop you have then get the G5 iMac.
 
you don't think the new 14" ibook compares to the 12"powerbook? also how bad is editing video going to be on a 12 inch screen? just curious, if you don't think bad i'm all for it. i'm just ready to make the jump to apple, i'm so tired of pc problems.
 
thehuggernaut said:
you don't think the new 14" ibook compares to the 12"powerbook? also how bad is editing video going to be on a 12 inch screen? just curious, if you don't think bad i'm all for it. i'm just ready to make the jump to apple, i'm so tired of pc problems.
Click to expand...

I used to have a 14" G4 iBook, it was very good but i think for heavy editing the PB would be doing a better job.
 
thehuggernaut said:
you don't think the new 14" ibook compares to the 12"powerbook? also how bad is editing video going to be on a 12 inch screen? just curious, if you don't think bad i'm all for it. i'm just ready to make the jump to apple, i'm so tired of pc problems.
Click to expand...

The 14" iBook has half the vRAM that the powerbook does. Additionally, you won't gain any screen real estate by getting the 14" or the 12", they have the same resolution/number of pixels. I think that you would be just fine editing video on a 12 inch screen. That being said, I just sold my 12" powerbook and bought a 15" p'book and greatly prefer the larger/wide-aspect screen. If money is an issue, I wouldn't hesitate to go with the 12 incher.

Welcome to the Apple fold. You will be pleased
 
what do you think about the 12 inch PB compared to the 17" imac g5 1.8? i'm just not sure if i should wait for an update on the pb or not, or even if i need the laptop in comparison to the new imac being apparently faster, bigger screen and cheaper.
 
17 inch iMac beautiful

I saw some new iMac's, both the 17 and 20 inch models. They are awesome. For video, I would get the 17 inch model with more ram and final cut express or pro. The twenty inch model is nice too, but the 17 is perfect. Editing video on a 12 inch screen would be difficult. The new iMac would be so perfect and simple.
 
thehuggernaut said:
what do you think about the 12 inch PB compared to the 17" imac g5 1.8? i'm just not sure if i should wait for an update on the pb or not, or even if i need the laptop in comparison to the new imac being apparently faster, bigger screen and cheaper.
Click to expand...

If I were you and wanted to get a desktop, I would stay away from the iMacs. They are beautiful and very fast machines right now, but I would never buy an all-in-one desktop. One of the biggest advantages with a desktop is that you can upgrade it in the future, and for that reason I would get a powermac G5, maybe the single proc 1.8

Although, I have heard that it is easier to upgrade the iMac G5 than it was for the iMac G4
 
Lets get this straight. You need a 64MB video card in an AGP slot to run Final Cut Express 2. The iBook does not meet this requirement.

The 14" iBook has a screen of 1024x768 built in. Same as the 12" PowerBook and for that matter, the 12" iBook. You do not gain screen space with the 14" iBook.

The PowerBook supports dual screens and can also refresh them better than the iBooks graphics card. This is true. Using a hack to get dual screen capabilities is kinda useless if the screen is too big.

I do FCE work on my PowerBook. It runs great. Sometimes I use an extra screen, sometime not. It makes a great editing platform with 768MB of RAM, and it also has a long battery life.

Basically, a sub-$1500 system is going to be a used dual 1.25Ghz G4 tower.

I would recommend getting the 12" PowerBook, with the 80GB drive and also get at least 512MB RAM extra. That is the bare-minimum you get do for a mobile editing station. Well maybe not the minimum... but you get the idea.


OR

I would also recommend a 17" iMac G5 1.8 Ghz with a total of 1GB of RAM. Two 512s will make the RAM bus 128 bit, and that means extra speed. This would make a nice desktop-based editing system, and you can also do upgrades to this computer far easier than the PowerBook or the G4 iMac.
 
i'm thinking now that the imac g5 1.8 17inch is the computer i want. it has all the features and still manages to be cheaper than a 12inch powerbook with somewhat similar features. would it be more worth it for me to pick up a single processor g5 powermac instead though?
 
It would be more expensive, and wouldn't necessarily help you out any more with video editing. I think you'd be very happy with the iMac G5.

Lee Tom
 
if you really need the portability look for a used powerbook thatll probably suit your needs but if you need the power more and can sacrifice the portbaility hello imac g5 itll be perfect for you
 
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