Which Mac to buy

[Antonio Corcuera]

I also need a new mac and have been thinking of waiting for the new Powermacs... problem is, Adobe has informed it WILL NOT make a universal binary version of Photoshop until it releases CS3, which should be at the end of the year... too long to wait. I have tried PS under Rosetta and is a royal pain for files over 200-300 Mb...
check out http://www.adobe.com/products/pdfs/intelmacsupport.pdf

[Ted Harris]

The previous posts have said most of it. Let me try to summarize and categorize for you:

1) With regards to Photoshop, starting with the current release CS2, Photoshop can now recognize and access up to 3.5 GB of RAM making file swapping and image manipulation much faster. In order to take full advantage of this ability you will need to have somewhere in the range of 5 to 8 GB of RAM installed in your machine. With the lower limit, 5 GB, you can set your Photoshop memory allocation to access the full 3.5 GB and still have 1.5 left over to run your system and MAYBE a couple of other small, non memory intensive applications. The closer you move toward the high end, the more applications you can run in addition to Photoshop.

2) Only the Mac G5's and comparable 64 bit PC's can break the '4 Gig' barrier so you need one of those if you are going in this direction. Further, you need a machine that physically has slots for more than 4 Gigs of RAM, some do not (e.g. iMac's and the first generation entry level G5). With regards to Photoshop this RAM bottleneck is far more important in terms of improving the speed of your work than any other hardware consideration, including the speed of the processor. So,if you can get a good deal on a closeout or refurb, of one of the current or last generation G5's, as you often can at the Apple Store online, you may want to save the money that way and spend it on RAM.

3) Next in importance as far as Photoshop is concerned is the scratch disk. Many folks report significant speed increases by fully dedicating a scratch disk to the program. My findings agree with this. I have a small (in this day and age read 20GB as small) external drive that is totally dedicated to Photoshop.

4) So which machine to buy? IMO if you try to keep up with technology you will go nuts. I buy where I can afford and what matches my needs, generally the middle of the range as Frank suggests, and plan on hanging on to the machine for two years or thereabouts. The tradeoffs between the middle of the current range and the top of the last generation may swing you toward the older machine sometimes. Right now with the shift to the Intel processor you probably will want to wait to make your purchase if you have no urgent time constraints. I would expect we will see Intel based G5 PowerMacs sometime in the next 6 months. OTOH, I am not sure I agree that current software will be orphaned as rapidly as paul suggests. I believe you will be safe in purchasing a Power PC based machine in terms of software updates for at least two years .... after that one can asks, who cares if you are using the machine for business .. i fit is not then you may well care but you may also be happy with what will then be older generation software but software that serves you quite well. Bottom line is that while the chip supplier is different and the chip architecture itself is different the changeover has been made with as much attention as possible to not disadvantaging the current installed G5 base.

[Andy Liakos]

I have learned more, and obtained enormously better information in two hours than I have found, or could have dreamed of finding in days of online research. This, plus the other discussions on this board, have inspired me to become passionate about my photography again. Thank you all very much.

[paulr]

"I am not sure I agree that current software will be orphaned as rapidly as paul suggests. I believe you will be safe in purchasing a Power PC based machine in terms of software updates for at least two years "

i completely agree ... in fact, it may be over a year before we see intel native versions of photoshop. i mentioned the orphaned software issue because Andy said he didn't want to buy another machine for a long time.

[Kirk Gittings]

"I buy where I can afford and what matches my needs, generally the middle of the range."

As Ted said....

I actually use PC's but I buy Macs for my kids who are both grown now and design professionals. I also always buy Mac's reconditioned from the Apple website. They are cheaper. They have the same warranty and I have never had a problem with any of them. Not once.

[Frank Petronio]

I've bought a lot of refurbs for my businesses too, and Smalldog is a great place to find refurbs with Apple warranties too. They are a real small business where you communicate with a thinking human being, unlike the warehouse stores. But I've also by direct from Apple and in the mall Apple stores and have had excellent service, although they charge more for RAM and add-ons. For that reason I like Smalldog, because they'll install and test before shipping, and their prices are better than Apple's.

If you buy a refurb (and maybe a new one) it is a good idea to reformat the drive and do a clean install from scratch. Sometimes I've gotten a refurb that still had remenants of prior use and corruption. It also gives you a clear benchmark to evaluate that it is working correctly. I have needed to return a few Macs over the years - the turn around is good but I still hate to do it.

The "out of box" experience is nothing like the PC laptop we just got. That took nearly a day to uninstall all the bloatware and junk that came "free" -- using them side by side, even though the PC is slightly snappier, the interface slows me down and strains my eyes.

Finally, consider a loaded laptop with a second display, so long as you aren't working on super giant files. I moved from big towers with dual 21-inch monitors to a laptop and second desktop monitor - it isn't as fast a machine as a tower but the convenience of only maintaining one computer instead of a fleet is well worth it to me.

[robert_4927]

I'm not very computer savvy. But we bought one of the super mini macs and we like it a lot. It probably doesn't have all the bells and whistles as a G5 but it serves it's purpose very well. I actually don't know what this little thing is capable of. I'll have to ask one of the kids.

[Doug Dolde]

Check out "macman812" on Ebay. His name is Brian.

I have bought from him and he's trustworthy. Excellent prices and he will load them with software if you wish.

[Brian Ellis]

" . . . without waiting 5 minutes for Windows XP to process a filter in Photoshop CS."

I have a 1 gig Windows XP Dell computer with an 80 gig external hard drive that cost about $120 IIRC. I scan my 4x5 negatives at 2400 ppi. I've never waited five minutes or even close to it for anything.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Hi there,

Andy, go to ebay, at the top right is a logo 'Java powered by Sun', just click on it to find the computer you really want.

Just a thought