Laptop suggestions to run CS4

[timmy1729]

I knew it would happen eventually, but my HP ZD8110 is dying a slow death. I’m surprised I’ve gotten nearly 4 years out of it.

Anyway, I need a replacement. I am looking to do a MAJOR career change and learn Photoshop well enough to start a photo retouching and restoration business. Not any time soon, since I’m learning in my free time, but still a consideration.

I’m looking for a laptop that will comfortably run Adobe CS4. I’m not too concerned with battery life since I wouldn’t use it for more than an hour or so anywhere I took it where I would need the battery. My main requirement is running Adobe CS4 efficiently. I will use a Wacom tablet when possible. Any suggestions on brand & model?

[Markzebra]

In computing there's actually no such thing as a 'slow death' - there's either a fast death, your hard drive goes, or there's software problems - conflicts, buildup of junk, and Microsoft deciding to automatically upgrade your operating system to beyond what your processor and RAM can cope with.

I suggest buying your first mac, you'll never regret it.

[timmy1729]

Not so.
Slow death = LCD gathering vertical lines… slowly. It’s too expensive to simply replace the LCD. It’s been out of the extended warranty for 7 months. There’s no telling what will fail after the LCD.

Yeah, I had an iBook for 4 years and it was the best computer I have ever had, hardware-wise. I also collected older Macs. I didn't switch to Windows, BTW. I'm a linux guru. I’m guessing to comfortably run CS4 I would need a MacBook Pro. If the MacBooks of today are as high quality as that iBook I bought in 2001, I am already sold on one. Now my bank account… that’s another story :-)

[Markzebra]

Remember also when factoring in price to take into account what you will save in terms of pain, hassle, the increased durability, wear and tear, and your ease and pleasure in using it. Your MacBook pro screen most probably won't pack up after four years. By the way, the one problem I have with the current MacBooks is that the screens are too reflective so you need to check that this doesn't bother you, especially if color is an issue. The way things stand at the moment (April 2009) hardware, and more importantly than that in terms of software (OS and provided software) you'll be a lot better off with a mac.

The only qualification to this advice is I suppose if you wanted to use your computer to play games.

[Janko]

You can run windows on macs so you could play any game you want provided your hardware can handle it.

I would also recommend getting a mac. If you're planning to make it your career you can make it your first big tax write off.

[timmy1729]

I am torn between an iMac and a MacBook Pro. What would you recommend? If the MacBook Pro, should I get the 17" or would the 15" be sufficient? I may get the iMac since you get a bigger screen and good graphics and memory. Suggestions?

[jtd131]

Get the 15'' and upgrade the RAM to 4 gb (not necessary, but definitely faster and smoother). Later, when you can justify it, get an external monitor to plug in the 15'' for space if nothing else. the extra 2 inches won't make enough of a difference in the meantime compared to the advantage of an extra monitor. Just buy the RAM off the internet and install yourself (it will come to like 80.00 or so).

[Markzebra]

Depends on what its for. Don't buy a macbook if its going to sit on your desk all the time, you are paying a premium for portability. If you are doing imaging work then as the last poster said it might be better to consider another monitor.

RAM is the main thing that will contribute to speed of use. The new imacs I heard can be upgraded up beyond 4 gigs. The only thing against the imacs in my opinion is that I've seen some of the last generation who's screens were inconsistant, I mean slightly different gamma top to bottom, so watch this. Consider also a mac pro, or even a mac mini where you can have a separate monitor.

Remember that Photoshop CS4 is now MORE efficient than older versions, on machines but needs decent graphics cards to use the new Open GL features.

[Wanergard]

Running two different laptop setup.
1: Macbook pro 15". The new one with 4gb ram. Great if you got the money and can live with OSX. The downside is if you running a lot of apps that aren't avalible for mac.
2: Thinkpad T60 Workstation. PC with top end performance, as expensive as the macbook but with a quality feeling that are next to excellent. I like them both and with CS4 they are both great performers. But for more qualified jobs, I still use my desctop PC, just for more memory and better screen.

BAW

[Markzebra]

" and can live with OSX" that's a very typical ignorant comment from a PC user who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about, hasn't bothered to learn OSX properly, or doesn't actually own a mac at all.

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by Wanergard

Running two different laptop setup.
1: Macbook pro 15". The new one with 4gb ram. Great if you got the money and can live with OSX. The downside is if you running a lot of apps that aren't avalible for mac.
2: Thinkpad T60 Workstation. PC with top end performance, as expensive as the macbook but with a quality feeling that are next to excellent. I like them both and with CS4 they are both great performers. But for more qualified jobs, I still use my desctop PC, just for more memory and better screen.

BAW

I'm getting a Mac this time around. I owned a G3 iMac and iBook for 4 years and I never had a single hardware issue. If I had known what kind of trouble my HP Pavilion zd8110 would cause me, I would've kept the iBook. I don't think it was 3 months before I had to have the motherboard replaced. Then, I had to have it replaced again a year later because the one they replaced it with was not working properly. Now, my extended warranty has been done with for 9 months and I'm getting vertical lines on my screen. For what I bought this thing for, I could've gotten a brand new MacBook at the time and I'm sure that it would still be perfect. I used to collect Apple computers. The cool thing is that all of them still worked flawlessly! Even my 3 Apple II's!
So, now that Apple is using x86 processors, I might just stick with a Mac for good. Right now, the only question is what should I get. Price isn't THAT big of an issue since it will be financed anyway, but I'm not going to be able to get into the Mac Pro or 17" MacBook Pro. Well, possibly the MacBook Pro. But, here's exactly what I want, and I hope one of you can give some outside perspective for me:

1. It will be used at home, sitting on a desk... a lot. Unfortunately, I'm not able to use it outside much because of the climate and current work schedule. BTW, never... EVER... move to Alabama. Now, if you like scorching heat for 5 months out of the year and winters just cold enough to make you not want to be outside, be my guest. Anyway...

2. My plan is to become proficient enough in Photoshop CS4 to start a business on the side doing photo retouching and restoration. Eventually, I would like to make that my full time career. So, I need something that will run Photoshop CS4 efficiently. I'm not wanting blazing speed here, I just want all features of CS4 to simply work.

3. No gaming required.

4. Playing DVD's, watching downloaded shows and movies are important.

So, what say you?

[holgaman]

Hi Timmy,
I'd go with the iMac, especially if it's just sitting on your desk. The bigger screen is nice, and you can really trick out an iMac for cheaper than a Macbook. The new screens on the iMac are LED rather than the LCD of the older ones, haven't had any experience with those, but they look good. Just make sure any screen calibrator you use will work with those, I believe the latest Spyder version will. The shiny surface of the new screens can be a pain as Markzebra mentioned, I painted the wall behind me a dark gray, even with a matte screen and it helps.
Obviously get it with the minimum memory and upgrade yourself to what you need - they will take up to 8GB I believe. I'm sure you will love it. Just remember no computer is perfect. I have both, a custom-built PC and and a dual-quad Mac Pro and they both weird out every once in a while.

[Wanergard]

Still think the Macbook pro is the natural choice for you and if you are well financed, invest in a external screen for serious work - like a NEC 26" Spectra View (it's what we call it here in Europe anyway). The mac book is quiet and the overall performance is good enough for Hi Res RAW images.

[timmy1729]

Hey, thanks everyone! Keep the opinions coming!
I’m 29 and am the local alpha-geek among everyone I know :-) I’ve built my own systems and tricked out Macs and run every OS at one point or another and tried many programming languages in all of them. Sorry, Windows is NOT an option. Given a choice, I would much prefer to downgrade to CS2 under Linux than run Windows as my main OS. To me, Windows is like paying $25 for a McDonalds hamburger. Yeah, it serves a purpose, but it is poor quality and way too expensive for what you get. For me, it is easier to finance one purchase for an iMac than to gather all the parts for a new desktop. I have never heard more than one person every couple of years tell me that they have ever thought their mac was not worth the money. It’s not the interface, I assure you. I can make my Gnome desktop in Linux look like any version of MacOS from 1 – Leopard and any version of Windows 1 – 7 with more eye-candy than you can imagine at a lower memory footprint than Windows or OSX. I can do this for free, so I am not paying for the interface. I am paying for the quality of hardware and quality of software. Plus, if something does go wrong with the hardware, I don’t have 20 different companies in my desktop. My deal is that I can’t run the latest Photoshop in Linux yet, so I have to run it in either Windows or OS X. Now, if Adobe would like to develop a native Linux version of Photoshop CS4 or in the future CS5, I wouldn’t even be typing this right now. Actually, I might because I still like Mac hardware better. Yeah, it’s more expensive. But, you pay a premium for premium hardware.

Sorry for the rant. And, no offense intended to anyone’s OS of choice. I’ve used them all for years at a time and these are my personal opinions.

So, I’m not building my own this go around. I’m going for the simple, yet more expensive, Mac route. This is so I can learn Photoshop/Illustrator on a system that takes advantage of all the features so that I may learn them and not make me have to worry about hardware problems. Besides, Macs have a great resale value if you sell one after 4 years or so of usage.

iMac: Is the display on these LED backlit now? I thought they were still the old style. I’d prefer to avoid glare, but using old black sheets over the windows and putting lights behind the iMac should allow me to live with it. Should I get the ATI or Nvidia card? I’ve heard of problems with the ATI at the moment. Is that a firmware issue or hardware? I would get the 24” iMac.

MacBook Pro: I’d have to get the 15”. I don’t know if we could hang with the 17”s price-tag. But, I’ll definitely try :-)
If I got the 17”, I wouldn’t get an external display. A 17” screen is what I have now and is sufficient.

[Markzebra]

Photoshop CS4 is quite demanding on graphics cards (or more likely they only wrote GPU code or whatever for the best cards). Here is Adobe's list to make sure you are getting what you need…
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...nalId=kb405711

Of course you can still disable open GL altogether of you are having problems, but whether this flexibility will also be a feature of CS5 I don't know.

Another point to bear in mind, on mac Photoshop engineers are having to recode the entire interface because Apple forced them to move to Cocoa. This issue combined with moving to 64 bit for mac, will lead to glitches in my opinion in the first release of CS5. So in practice it may well be a while before any of us can upgrade.

[GerryB]

I have an older iMac that is maxed out on RAM and needed to upgrade. I recently purchased a 15" MacBook Pro with 4gB of RAM and a 340gB hard drive. I have installed CS4, LR 2, Photomatix Pro, Nikon Capture NX2, and FotoMagico. I have run all with no problems at all. I quite frequently run 2 or 3 programs at the same time and switch back and forth between them without problems. This computer is going to replace my iMac as my main computer so I am currently looking for a 24" monitor to use at home. When I travel, I will unplug it from my setup at home and bring it with me. It is a great machine and I would recommend it to anyone.

[timmy1729]

Hey GerryB,
Thanks for the info! I'm thinking about either the 15" MacBook Pro or the 24" iMac. Is the screen size on the 15" sufficient for Photoshop work?

[GerryB]

Originally Posted by timmy1729

Hey GerryB,
Thanks for the info! I'm thinking about either the 15" MacBook Pro or the 24" iMac. Is the screen size on the 15" sufficient for Photoshop work?

I would like a little larger screen but in reality, the 15" has been sufficient for my Photoshop work, at least while I'm traveling. I am looking for a 24" monitor for my work at home. It will replace the 20" iMac I presently use. When I have my system set up to my satisfaction, I will re-install the system on my iMac and configure it for my wife. Currently, she is using an old PC and can't wait to start using the iMac.

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by GerryB

I would like a little larger screen but in reality, the 15" has been sufficient for my Photoshop work, at least while I'm traveling. I am looking for a 24" monitor for my work at home. It will replace the 20" iMac I presently use. When I have my system set up to my satisfaction, I will re-install the system on my iMac and configure it for my wife. Currently, she is using an old PC and can't wait to start using the iMac.

I am thinking that I might get the 15" MacBook Pro or the 24" iMac. I am a little weary of the 24" iMac because I've read on Apple's discussion forums that there is a widespread set of display issues. But, I'm pretty sure the 15" MBP will work. I might hold off on the iMac until they start shipping them with LED backlit screens. They use LED backlights in the new 24" Cinema Display so I don't know why they don't have them in the iMac, since they are pretty much the same thing with the only difference being a motherboard and drives. If there were a bigger price difference I would get the MacBook, but you can just spend a couple extra hundred and get the MBP. Anyway, off to rest my eyes for a bit...