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mcperk · Mar 23, 2005, 01:40 AM

I currently have a 1.42 Mac Mini with 512 of Ram. I am planning on buying a Powerbook 15" with a 1.5 and pumping the ram up to 1GB. What, if any (other than video) performance increase would I see? I plan on running Photoshop, Illustrator, and Macromedia Studio MX 04 on it. I am a newly addicted "Apple flavored crack user" that still is a very big PC person. I know in the PC world, .8 MHz isn't that much of an upgrade, but I can't get enough of these Apples. I don't want to fork out the extra $$ for the 1.67 proc right now, since I'm getting a killer deal on the 1.5.

Any info or real life experiences on this subject would be greatly appreciated. I plan on putting the order in for the Powerbook tomorrow.

SEkker · Mar 23, 2005, 08:07 AM

The PB will sure run better than the mini when it's not plugged into the wall!

I just took the mini for a spin this week, the real difference is the hard drive speed. OS X is an abuser of the HD for extra temporary storage, and going from the 4200 to a 5400 (or even a 7200) rpm drive makes a noticeable difference, especially when you are using memory intensive applications.

Otherwise, the beauty of the mini is it is basically a mac laptop minus the screen, keyboard and battery.

You should expect your PB when plugged in to function as well or better than the mini in all tasks, especially with the 1 G RAM.

iREZ · Mar 23, 2005, 10:45 AM

I'd say there are only a few things to compare that would give a PB the edge. First is HD speed, mini has 4200RPM while PB has 5400RPM stock, second is the few extra MHz, PB has .08 more (but I know you won't see a difference because of that), and the PB has FW800 and a PC slot, whereas the mini doesn't have either. I really like the mini and might consider picking one up if the next bump has a faster HD and 512MB stock, we'll see what Apple has in store for us, but as for you (mcperk) you won't notice too much of a difference but enough to know that the PB is indeed faster.

mcperk · Mar 23, 2005, 10:50 AM

Thanks for the replies.

Another question...If I were to wait, when would we start seeing G5 laptops come out? I know Apple is very tight lipped about future upgrades, but you all must have some small inclination on when this might occur.

iREZ · Mar 23, 2005, 04:59 PM

I'm hoping Sept-Oct of this year, but most like sometime next year. Ofcourse I'm basing this on just pure speculation and refresh habits of Apple.