[boomerdang]

Hey there,
I'm in the market to pick up a used 12" powerbook, and I'm pretty new to the world of macs. I was wondering: would photoshop work better on a 1.5ghz, 512mb 12" pb or a comparably priced ($700-900) windows machine? By "better" I mean speed.
thanks!

[Tuoder]

It is hard to tell. I would say that you should check out some reviews. I'll bet they tested that sort of thing on the 12" PB on MacWorld. Macworld.com would help get you benchmarks on the powerbook.
I like CNet for everything else.

My PB G3-333Mhz runs Photoshop well. I guess it depends on how bad you need it how fast.

[sdilley14]

I'll say that I have a 12" PB G4, 1.5GHz, 768 MB, 80GB and it runs PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, and everything else that I throw it at for that matter extremely well! Start up time for Photoshop is quick (about 8 seconds) and operation of the program is smooth (no lag, never hangs, nothing) and it multitasks surprisingly well.

The example I always use is that one night I ran PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, Safari, Fire Fox, iTunes, MSN, and Limewire for literally 12 hours straight and it never froze, crashed a program, lagged, or got hung up at all. In my 12 years of PC use, I'd never dream of running all of those programs so seamlessly at the same time.

Sure, the new Intel Macs are the wave of the future, but if you need a machine NOW and want native applications, I'd highly recommend the 12" PB. Not only for the reasons I listed above, but also for the obvious reasons of excellent portability, eye-catching form factor, and the ability to plug it into an external monitor if you ever need a larger display.

I love my 12" PB and I don't think I'm ever going to give it up until I absolutely need to some day.

[dsidote]

I have a 1.3 GHz machine with 1.25 GB RAM and a 100GB 7200rpm harddive and I can say that Photoshop, Illustrator, Canvas, etc. run just fine as far as speed goes. The only negative is that the screen resolution means that you can't keep palettes open and still see what you are working on. Of course the logical solution is to connect your powerbook to an external monitor with a higher resolution. I have mine connected to a 19" Dell LCD and it works great.

just my $0.02

dave

[StevenWRX]

you can get a decent windows pc for 700-900$ IF that price doesnt include a monitor, printer, etc..

for 700-900, that will buy you a pretty good desktop.

[boomerdang]

thanks for all the help everyone!
b

[wunderkind]

(1) Max out PB's RAM.

(2) Get an external monitor.

The only times I've seen Photoshop crash - actually fail to open - when I was trying to start it while running Virtual PC at the same time and having >1.5GB total swap space.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by boomerdang

Hey there,
I'm in the market to pick up a used 12" powerbook, and I'm pretty new to the world of macs. I was wondering: would photoshop work better on a 1.5ghz, 512mb 12" pb or a comparably priced ($700-900) windows machine? By "better" I mean speed.
thanks!

Wait a month because a range of new Mac and PC laptops (Merom-based and perhaps some new Yonah-based ones as well) will be introduced in late August/September. The landscape and pricing of laptops is about to change.

Personally I consider 12" laptops to be poor Photoshop platforms because the small sized boxes have less power/features that Photoshop demands, including screen real estate. When you look at laptops for Photoshop in September look at 15" boxes and even MacIntels (prices will fall) as well.