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antizero · Mar 2, 2004, 06:26 PM

I work as a web designer, and I'm thinking about selling off my Toshiba Satellite 1955-S805 in lieu of purchasing a new 15" Powerbook. I just wanted to hear of any complaints running typical graphics & web-related software. I primarily work in Macromedia products, but occasionally use Photoshop. I'm looking for the optimum balance between speed, power, battery runtime (client meetings), screen size/resolution, and heat dissipation. Basically, I want this thing to handle the basic graphics needs of web design just as easily as my Toshiba beast. I don't need intense video editing capabilities, or a DVD burner. I was looking at the 17" model, but I think that might be excessive. The 12" is definitely too small, though.

Thoughts on the 15" for my work?

ingeniero · Mar 2, 2004, 08:10 PM

Originally posted by antizero:
I work as a web designer, and I'm thinking about selling off my Toshiba Satellite 1955-S805 in lieu of purchasing a new 15" Powerbook. I just wanted to hear of any complaints running typical graphics & web-related software. I primarily work in Macromedia products, but occasionally use Photoshop. I'm looking for the optimum balance between speed, power, battery runtime (client meetings), screen size/resolution, and heat dissipation. Basically, I want this thing to handle the basic graphics needs of web design just as easily as my Toshiba beast. I don't need intense video editing capabilities, or a DVD burner. I was looking at the 17" model, but I think that might be excessive. The 12" is definitely too small, though.

Thoughts on the 15" for my work?

First, i'm shocked that being a web designer, you're using a PC....I'm glad you're coming to senses and getting a Mac.

anyhow a Mac will definitely exceed your needs quite nicely! You'll have no issues. The 15" would be the happy median between a 12 and 17....the average battery time is 2-3 hours depending on usage.

p.s. congragulations on your future purchase!

antizero · Mar 2, 2004, 08:29 PM

Well, I was raised a PC guy (except for my first machine, a Tandy) and Photoshop, Macromedia, Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc are all readily available on PC. When I first got into programming and then web development, PC was just about the only way to go (so I was taught

). Then I got into graphics work and design-oriented jobs (which now assumes the vast majority of my time)...at first I stuck with what I knew, but I'm really being drawn into the Mac realm, and willing to give it a try with an open mind...

ingeniero · Mar 2, 2004, 08:38 PM

well you certainly won't be dissapointed! and the folks on the forum are very helpful.

Macola · Mar 2, 2004, 09:41 PM

Macromedia programs will run like drunken slugs on either platform, so you won't notice much difference there

If you do a lot of layout work, consider getting a 12" and with the extra cash buy a good monitor (21" CRT or 20" LCD). That way, you have the portability of a laptop but can do serious design work using the external monitor.

Otherwise, the 15" is an excellent compromise.

anaphora68 · Mar 2, 2004, 10:45 PM

I would have to say go with the 15'' and get a second display. That's the setup I have, I have a 15'' hooked up to a sony trinitron 17'' CRT. The 12'' is simply too small with too low a native resolution to be of much use for graphics/web-design. I know I might get flamed for this, but the 15'' is a much better choice.

Battery life is decent, I'll get between 2 and 3 hours on a full charge depending on what I do.

I do the occasional spot of web-design, but I do a lot of photo-processing in photoshop as well.

mishap · Mar 2, 2004, 10:49 PM

If you are mainly using Dreamweaver--use a PC. The interface is far superior on the PC.

Why? i have no idea.

nate_02 · Mar 3, 2004, 12:27 AM

I use a 15" for graphics work and I think it's the perfect size. For the more intense stuff, I usually plug in an external monitor for more space. I think if I had a 17", I'd still have to plug in an external. I only have 512 ram and I wish I had 1gig.

You could get a 23" for your external monitor

MountainMac · Mar 3, 2004, 12:32 AM

One thing you will love about the switch is how the ability to effectively multi-task in OS X will boost your productivity. The 15" PB will definitely be fast/powerful enough for what you do. And I second the suggestion of an external monitor.

MM

mania · Mar 3, 2004, 02:31 AM

well, I am a web developer using photoshop and a bunch of other stuff - the 15 is perfect, I plug into a crt when i am at work and even have a kvm switch to switch the second monitor and usb keyboard and mouse to windoze desktop when I need it.

when I am at home i can work without the second monitor but still like to plug in a mouse - but i have a d-link wireless router so no other cables are needed (except the power cord if its gonna be on for awhile).

anyways you should have no regrets with the 15 - i even bought a refurb from apple to save a few bones and it seems perfect to me. no need to wait for the mythical g5 powerbook.

antizero · Mar 3, 2004, 04:20 PM

Here's another question or two about useability...

Could I get a 12" Powerbook, then plug in a much larger external monitor, mouse, keyboard...and run it with the Powerbook closed? Can I set the resolution higher to better accomodate the larger external monitor?

MountainMac · Mar 3, 2004, 09:15 PM

Originally posted by antizero:
Here's another question or two about useability...

Could I get a 12" Powerbook, then plug in a much larger external monitor, mouse, keyboard...and run it with the Powerbook closed? Can I set the resolution higher to better accomodate the larger external monitor?

Yes (I'm pretty sure) and yes. Do a search on "clamshell" in this forum and in the Apple KB and you'll get a definitive answer.

MM

Macola · Mar 4, 2004, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by antizero:

Could I get a 12" Powerbook, then plug in a much larger external monitor, mouse, keyboard...and run it with the Powerbook closed? Can I set the resolution higher to better accomodate the larger external monitor?

Yes, I'm doing exactly that. I do keep the lid a couple of inches open, though, since I have a rev A PB and it used to get pretty hot. It's much better now in Panther, though the fan runs a lot--that's an acceptable trade-off for me.

selowitch · Mar 4, 2004, 04:44 PM

Originally posted by mishap:
If you are mainly using Dreamweaver--use a PC. The interface is far superior on the PC.

Actually, that's true. One of the rare instances where the PC version is truly superior.

Lucidwray · Mar 4, 2004, 05:42 PM

I completly disagree. I use Dreamweaver MX on a day to day basis for my job and the Mac version is great, plus the integration with BBedit is second to none. There is no equivalent text editor on the PC side that can match BBedit, or even come close to it.

The advantages of using OS X to do web design and graphic design far outweight any advantages the PC world might have. I have a new 1Ghz 15" powerbook and it is by far the best machine for web design. The ability to use all the unix resources for PHP programming is unbeatable.

I run the full Macromedia MX suite on my machine and it rocks. Fireworks runs excellent as does Freehand. Dreamweaver is the perfect App for OS X because of its multu window nature. On the PC, trying to multi task in Dreamweaver and say a browser and Fireworks possibly an FTP program (i use Transmit for its SFTP capabilities) it sjust about impossible. On OS X you can open just the windows you need and then use Expose to sqitch fast between any number of windows, its a total life saver.

The 1 Ghz has a nice balance of good power and battery life. Perfect mobile web design/graphic gesign platform, espically with the ability to connect to to a 23" Cinema Display very easily.

antizero · Mar 4, 2004, 07:11 PM

All the info is good, guys - but I really don't want this to be a "PC sucks, Mac rules" sorta thing.

For what it's worth, I've had this machine since last May...I use it roughly 8 hours a day for work, and then it's just sitting in sleep mode or being used for surfing for the remainder of the day. It has never crashed once (except when I accidentally wrote an infinite loop) despite the gazillions of hours it's logged. My previous computer was a system I built myself, and lasted over three years with similar usage before I decided to get something new. It crashed alot at first (Windoze ME), and then I moved to XP and it ran like a dream. If I had to come up with one complaint, it would be the excessive fan noise in every PC I've ever owned. I can acknowledge plenty of people have problems with PC - I'm just not one of them.

I'm just looking for a change, not out of necessity or frustration, but out of boredom and curiosity - don't want to limit myself to what I know (and what I think I know).

The Dreamweaver argument doesn't really concern me - I used it once for five minutes - just long enough to realize I was far more comfortable hard-coding everything in UltraEdit. My real concerns are for FireWorks, Flash, and Adobe PhotoShop - but even my old Athlon 700 ran then-current versions of those just fine as far as I'm concerned. Going on the assumption that current Mac's can outperform a four-year old PC, I don't think I'll be disappointed.

Commodus · Mar 4, 2004, 07:30 PM

I've used Dreamweaver MX 2004 on both a Windows PC and my Mac, and the interface is fundamentally the same on both. It's just things like navigating local folders and the cosmetic appearance of the buttons that change.

The program itself runs quickly enough once loaded - it's the loading time for content that makes the difference. I would strongly recommend custom-ordering a PowerBook with the 5400 RPM hard disk and/or getting lots of RAM from a 3rd-party such as Crucial or Kingston.

crystalthunder · Mar 4, 2004, 07:41 PM

If you are planning on hard-coding BBEdit is your friend. Goto BareBones, Inc. NOW. All of your software requirements will run fine and I think you'll find that Panther's Expose feature is great for switching on the fly to check on source changes between BBEdit and your browsers. My only gripe with using a Mac for web programming is the inability to run the most used browser on the Internet natively, but a copy of VirtualPC (or a real Windows box) fixes that problem rather nicely. I use an old 233mhz Dell laptop to test code against IE6 and it works great.

paully dub · Mar 7, 2004, 12:47 PM

My friend you will be able to run all those programs, and at leave them running at the same time -with no problems. Lots of windows? You're gonna love expos�. Just makes sure you got yourself some RAM.

My TiBook has some fan noise - I have heard the Alu's are better.

workerbee · Mar 7, 2004, 02:13 PM

I work on a TiBook 800 day in day out, mostly with external keyboard, multi-button mouse, Wacom tablet, but without any fancy big screen, using the Macromedia MX 04 suite, Photoshop, BBEdit, Style Master, the Omni apps, M$ Office X, and Virtual PC with win 98, win 2k, win XP, and Linux.
Except for MX 04 being remarkably slow and, in the case of Dreamweaver, buggy, I've so far been very happy with this setup. It should work well with a 1.25 GHz 15" or even better with the 17" PowerBook (remember that OS X really likes lots of RAM, the more the merrier). You may want to consider rumors that new, slightly faster PowerBooks will be out by the end of April.
Also, do yourself a favour and install LaunchBar before anything else. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it after a day.

iMan · Mar 8, 2004, 04:52 PM

I have a 15" Titanium PowerBook. I love it! It works great! Dreamweaver and all the other apps like Photoshop work great!

Here is a website I built with my PowerBook:
Point Medical Corp.

Its not very high-tech but building web sites is not my job. I am a 16 year old High School Student.

selowitch · Mar 8, 2004, 05:06 PM

Originally posted by iMan:
I have a 15" Titanium PowerBook. I love it! It works great! Dreamweaver and all the other apps like Photoshop work great!

Here is a website I built with my PowerBook:
Point Medical Corp.

Its not very high-tech but building web sites is not my job. I am a 16 year old High School Student.

Not bad, kid. Lots of guys twice your age make websites that don't look as good. You have a bright future ahead of you.