Need Mac purchase advice

[RichNY]

My home computer is an old PC from my former business: Compaq 1.8GHz P4, 512MB RAM, 80GB Hard drive running XP Pro with a motherboard that can not accept more memory.

Almost all of the applications I run are virus protection, spyware, registry fixers, and OS patches. Aside from that I'm really only down to using Word/Excel & Explorer (a big difference to its use in the office)

I've decided to go Apple as I've grown tired of the aggrevation supporting a Microsoft client. (Wasn't so bad when I was getting paid to do it for a living but I gain no pleasure from using my time to patch & fix my home computer)

The question is which Mac? Aside from Word/Excel/Web browsing, the only other real application I'm planning on using is Photoshop.

For someone just getting started in Photoshop, is it worth going with the 24" iMac? I probably would be satisfied with a 20" for my other uses.

I'm also wrestling with going with a 17" laptop instead but question whether it will require purchasing a larger monitor for any real Photoshop use?

Suggestions?

[John_Reed]

My home computer is an old PC from my former business: Compaq 1.8GHz P4, 512MB RAM, 80GB Hard drive running XP Pro with a motherboard that can not accept more memory.

Almost all of the applications I run are virus protection, spyware, registry fixers, and OS patches. Aside from that I'm really only down to using Word/Excel & Explorer (a big difference to its use in the office)

I've decided to go Apple as I've grown tired of the aggrevation supporting a Microsoft client. (Wasn't so bad when I was getting paid to do it for a living but I gain no pleasure from using my time to patch & fix my home computer)

The question is which Mac? Aside from Word/Excel/Web browsing, the only other real application I'm planning on using is Photoshop.
I have a Mac G5 in my office, and use a MacBook Pro 17" at home and on the road. I think the only Macs you can buy nowadays have Intel processors inside. Based on recent experience, if you want to run Photoshop and the other things (you may get to liking iPhoto6, as I have for a long time), you should "max out" the RAM in whatever you buy. I just moved up to 2GB in my laptop yesterday, to avoid the virtual slowness associated with not having enough RAM to run CS2 and other apps concurrently. (The "Rosetta" translation program can double memory requirements, I'm told)


For someone just getting started in Photoshop, is it worth going with the 24" iMac? I probably would be satisfied with a 20" for my other uses.

I'm also wrestling with going with a 17" laptop instead but question whether it will require purchasing a larger monitor for any real Photoshop use?

Suggestions?
My office Mac is hooked to a 20.1" Formac display, 1600X1200 pixels. The laptop has a 1680X1050 display. Frankly, I think they're both about equivalent for working on Photoshop images. Also, I'm not sure that a lot of software takes full advantage of the wider screens. For example, open an Acrobat doc on my Formac display, and you get a page at full width. You can juggle the screens thereafter, and make better use of the screen, but the default starts you off inefficiently, so to speak. For looking at a single image, I think my screen sizes are adequate for panning around any images larger than the screen format. Anyway, feel free to ask any more questions, these are from my experience with Macs, which I've been using since they first came out in 1984.

[RichNY]

How do you find CS2 on the Macbook Pro? I was a bit disappointed to see it maxed out at 2GB v. 3GB for the iMac.

How do you find the speed of the current CS2? Are you finding the 17" monitor to be too small to work on?

I've been so used to working on 19" monitor for the last 8 years, and a 23" HD-TV/monitor for the past few months in 1280x768 mode that I want back as a TV.

'Anyway, feel free to ask any more questions'
- Which way would you go?
- Are you going down the Aperature/CS2 path or Adobe Lightroom path?

[John_Reed]

How do you find CS2 on the Macbook Pro? I was a bit disappointed to see it maxed out at 2GB v. 3GB for the iMac.

How do you find the speed of the current CS2? Are you finding the 17" monitor to be too small to work on?

I've been so used to working on 19" monitor for the last 8 years, and a 23" HD-TV/monitor for the past few months in 1280x768 mode that I want back as a TV.

'Anyway, feel free to ask any more questions'
- Which way would you go?
- Are you going down the Aperature/CS2 path or Adobe Lightroom path?
CS2 speed is now fine. Before, the machine was spending its time doing virtual code swaps from disk, agonizingly slow. But now it's pretty snappy.

If 1280 X 768 mode is what you've been doing, as I said before, both my screens have more res than that. Maybe yours were spread over a bigger screen, but you wouldn't have been getting as much info in a screenful with that one as you would with my "smaller" screens. As I said before, I think the screens I have are big enough, but I also know that once one gets used to a larger screen, it's not easy to turn back to a smaller one!

[Riley]

hi Rich
off topic just a tad
the new mac OS X comes out soon, they are hoping for December launch Im told
the advantage that makes it worth the wait is, that it is rumoured to run the windows api, which means it will be able to run windows apps, you may find that usefull

Riley

[coldrain]

hi Rich
off topic just a tad
the new mac OS X comes out soon, they are hoping for December launch Im told
the advantage that makes it worth the wait is, that it is rumoured to run the windows api, which means it will be able to run windows apps, you may find that usefull

Riley
You hear strange rumours. Mac OS X 10.5 will be released in January or February at the earliest, and most probably in spring. It will not "run the windows API". It does however come standard with Boot camp, an EFI boot thing that helps you run and install windows on an Intel based Mac. You can then dual boot to either Mac OS X, or Windows XP. You do NOT need to wait for that though, because you already can download and use the beta of Boot camp for free from Apple's website.

Another way of running windows is a 3rd party product that lets you run windows inside Mac OS X, the name of that product has escaped me for now. So, you either can dual boot Mac OX X and XP or you can run them at the same time. Right now. You do not have to wait for Mac OS 10.5.
There is also a version of wine in development, a tool you know from Linux where they simulate the windows API to run some windows programs in Linux (and then now on Mac OX X).

[Riley]

I hear strange rumours?
maybe....maybe

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9324/

"Now for the interesting part: I believe that Apple will offer Windows Vista as an option for those big customers who demand it, but I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5," Cringely writes. "The wonder is, of course, that Apple could even dare to do such a thing? Oh they can dare. Not only that, this is one dare Apple can probably get away with."

http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/9-mac-os-x-leopard-rumors/

The strangest- and strangely appealing- rumor may be the one about native support for Windows API in Leopard. That would mean that you could run most Windows-only applications in Leopard the same way you would run a Mac application.

http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/osx/2006/04/24/leopard-to-run-windows-apps-via-api-just-like-os2-did/

I’m told Apple has long had this running in the Cupertino lab - Intel Macs running OS X while mixing Apple and XP applications. This is not a guess or a rumor, this something that has been demonstrated and observed by people who have since reported to me.

Riley

[coldrain]

Cringely is a lot, but not a source for mac rumors that have any basis. He just writes whatever comes up into his head. If you really want to know what is going on on the mac platform, just follow things a bit on www.macrumors.com.

[GaryS]

Just one comment on the timing. Photoshop is not yet a native MAC/Intel application, so it runs in emulation mode on the new intel macs. It still runs, but not at full speed and most professionals are holding off on buying intel macs until the native version is released. I'm not sure on Adobe's timing on this yet, but if you buy it now, you will most likely be looking at doing a Photoshop upgrade when the next version ships.

[coldrain]

Well, everyone is looking at a photoshop upgrade sooner or later, whether on Mac(small letters, MAC is a network address) PPC, Mac Intel, or Windows Intel. But yes, if you need the full performance (you most likely do not though) you will need to wait till a new Photoshop based on Mac OS X's Cocoa API is ready. The reason it is not yet native for Mac Intel, is that it has its roots in the Mac OS 9 Carbon API, and that has not been ported to the Intel Mac OS X.

[John_Reed]

Just one comment on the timing. Photoshop is not yet a native MAC/Intel application, so it runs in emulation mode on the new intel macs. It still runs, but not at full speed and most professionals are holding off on buying intel macs until the native version is released. I'm not sure on Adobe's timing on this yet, but if you buy it now, you will most likely be looking at doing a Photoshop upgrade when the next version ships.
In fact, a tech support guy from Adobe told me that it was just "coincidence" if I could get CS2 to run on my Mac at all, though I'm using the entire CS2 suite, and everything thing seems to work, and quickly enough, ever since I doubled my RAM to 2GB.

[GaryS]

We've been hit or miss with PS on the new Macs. Most of the machines work
fine, but other machines are slow and unstable.

Its just that if you are going to buy a new machine just to run PS, I would tend to wait and buy it when you know it will work and you get support.

[RichNY]

Thanks for everyone's help. I just place my order for a new Mac. I went with:

24" iMac, 2GB memory
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7600
Wireless keyboard/mouse
Aperature ($149 education cost)
Parallels
Canon MP830 Printer

Just wondering with this config whether I should run CS2 as a Mac app, or boot up in Bootcamp and run it natively under XP?

[GaryS]

Just wondering with this config whether I should run CS2 as a Mac app, or boot up in Bootcamp and run it natively under XP?

I was talking with one of our designers yesterday, who said that in her opinion, its best to run Photoshop for Windows in either Parallels or Bootcamp, as opposed to running the Photoshop for Mac designed for the Power line. More stable, and much faster were the reasons.

If only Adobe would hurry and get the universal binary out! (I know, not until the next version)

[RichNY]

I was talking with one of our designers yesterday, who said that in her opinion, its best to run Photoshop for Windows in either Parallels or Bootcamp, as opposed to running the Photoshop for Mac designed for the Power line. More stable, and much faster were the reasons.

If only Adobe would hurry and get the universal binary out! (I know, not until the next version)

I appreciate the response. I'll try installing Bootcamp tomorrow and load it up.

[forno]

How are you enjoying the mac environment Rich, dragging and dropping?