Macbook Pro 17" is actually cheaper than 15"

it’s also too bad photographers can’t really use these computers yet because programs/hardware we use have not been upgraded for these new models…..

Yes, photoshop wont be coming until spring next year. Quite scary really, if my lappie dies there wont be a machine available to replace it that runs the programs I have. The 12in is still available but the news from my local mac store is that as soon as current stocks dissapear there will be no more 12in… As for the 17in, um that thing is NOT a laptop, no chance on earth of me luggin that monster around.

Where is the Macbook Pro 12” for us photographers?! Davin.

The 17” has 8X double layer super drive. 15” has ONLY 4X Super Drive.

Now this way… with my powerbook LCD flickering and replacement for $ 1000+ and that too in 15 days here in India… what do I do? Move to a PC?

Is Apple listening?
When it comes out with a 12” model, it may be pricing the tech eqv to the 17”, more than it? This is what it has done with the 15”... Smaller LCD, MORE cost, less features!

Nathan, I don’t think you have to worry about the availability of G4’s, there’s a ton out there to be sold. Last time my dealer had a 2-for-1 on iBooks, and they are constantly offering aluminiums with the price dropping every week.

bytheway photoshop is not that bad on macbook with rosetta…

I just got the MacBook 13” .

The new 13” is out, it must be a male thing. Hey you changed from 12 to 13, so …..

Mac on Viagra?

So, it appears that PhotoShop can in fact run quite well on the Intel Macs. Is that right? How about PhotoMechanic? These new 13” models do look gorgeous and very quick. The price is terrific.

Photomechanic has been optimized for the intel processor since 4.4.1 Supposedly completes usual tasks twice as fast. Not that I’ll know for at least another year.

Here are some posted speeds. http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-7891-8185

Does anybody actually have any hands on experience with Photoshop on an Intel Mac? The Apple Store’s in Tokyo have conviniently not installed Photoshop on any of the demo machines in the store and well from what I’ve heard the machines grind the gears pretty heavily trying to run heavy tasks like batch RAW processing. I’m actually really starting to worry as now with the 13in MacBook out Mac have dropped both the 12in iBook and the 12in Powerbook. Agghhhhr

Overview: the linking of photography to the computer industry is a pain in the ass

Overview: the linking of photography to the computer industry is a pain in the ass


Time to buy a truckload “Preparation H”... That pain is already chronic and here to stay… :-)

Yeah, and that Prep H comes in handy when spending hours sitting in front of a screen editing, toning, shipping, etc.

Yeah, and that Prep H comes in handy when spending hours sitting in front of a screen editing, toning, shipping, etc.

Anybody out there actually travel with the 17”?? I have the 12 and love it.

I had a 15” Macbook for a few days before returning it when I head about the 17” release. It had a couple minor defects too, which made the decision easier. Anyway I did use Photoshop CS2 on some of my 5D raw files and without actually comparing it to my 1.25 Alum Powerbook side by side (both with 2 gigs ram), I think the Macbook was clearly faster. I don’t think the progress bar even appeared when opening TIFFs from RAW files, whereas it chugs along for a bit before opening them on my Powerbook.

Yes, PS works just fine in my estimation. Not like a G5 quad, but well enough. And PM was very fast.

I decided on the 17” after reading accounts of several people traveling with 17” laptops and loving them. I find the screen to be too cramped even on the 15”, and have my old powerbook as a backup anyway if I’d prefer to take that on a trip. It doesn’t look like it’s that much difference, side by side in a store.

I had a 15” Macbook for a few days before returning it when I head about the 17” release. It had a couple minor defects too, which made the decision easier. Anyway I did use Photoshop CS2 on some of my 5D raw files and without actually comparing it to my 1.25 Alum Powerbook side by side (both with 2 gigs ram), I think the Macbook was clearly faster. I don’t think the progress bar even appeared when opening TIFFs from RAW files, whereas it chugs along for a bit before opening them on my Powerbook.

Yes, PS works just fine in my estimation. Not like a G5 quad, but well enough. And PM was very fast.

I decided on the 17” after reading accounts of several people traveling with 17” laptops and loving them. I find the screen to be too cramped even on the 15”, and have my old powerbook as a backup anyway if I’d prefer to take that on a trip. It doesn’t look like it’s that much difference, side by side in a store.

i have a 17’’ since it came out 3 years ago. Can’t really complain about traveling with it, since i am pretty much always on the road and haven’t caused me big trouble.
In my opinion it has a great advantage which is the screen is really fantastic and if you can’t connect your laptop to a bigger screen this is a great option.
The two big disadvantages are the weight and the size to carry. Right now i need to use two bags on the airplane (one backpack with the computer and one carry on suitcase with the camera) which could be avoided with a smaller computer. Also i rarely need to transmit from the exact place were i am taking pictures, so for me is fine to go back to the hotel and work in the room instead of going to a starbucks to transmit.
Right now i am thinking seriously on buying the new macbook 13” so if you might be interested in a 17” inch powerbook with 1.0Ghz and 1GB RAM 60GB disk trow me a PM or an email.

Yea the 17” is great for car based junkets but stuff lugging it around Uncle Ho’s place or Bullamakenka Looks like the 13” will replace the aging tired ibook in a year or so

What REALLY bugs me about the new MacBooks is the lack of PC card slot (to download pics using my speedy Delkin CardBus PC adapter) ...... and the new MagSafe power cable thingy (so I can’t now use my trusty Kensington car/plane/AC power supply) .......... and no built in modem (so when you ARE in the middle of bloody nowhere and simply have to use any old land line to file – you now have to add a bloody seperate modem to join the mountain of gear already lugged!).
These little “tweeks” by Apple are damn annoying !!

Well,now for 2499 USD, you get a 2.16 processor in the 15” as well…

some improvement on pricing of 15”

15” still has a slower super drive, a smaller hard disk, only firewire 400, and yes a USB less then the 17”.

My pick for now is the 13”... its great on pricing… and for the future… 15” macbook pro

I need 2 of them so I can stagger it a bit.

cheers

Amit

Has anyone compared the new glossy screen on the 17” macbook with the old matte finish screen?
Just curious.
Ken

Kenneth,

John Siracusa’s comment on the glossy screen deal was “Glossy screens: bad. People: idiots. Steve Jobs: insane.”

he’s referring to the regular macbook, but you can assume that the problem is magnified by the size of the display (more surface for reflections). I’m waiting for my macbook (regular), and a bit wary of what i’m going to see. the first thing i’m doing with it is calibrating it, i’ll be happy to post comparisons between it and my ibook if anyone would like to take a peak…

totally off topic, but Just Another War is one of my favorite books, really happy to see you on here.

brian, have you tried the newer lexar firewire readers, which are rumored to be extremely fast ? re: magsafe, it’s a mixed blessing, since it’s possible to short and torch the computer if a small enough piece of metal touches two of the contacts. on the other hand, it’s also a good thing – no more broken power adapter bits inside the computer, which could sometimes happen. the lack of built-in modem is both cheap, short-sighted, and dumb. my REAL gripe with the box is that it doesn’t officially run Aperture. THAT is completely idiotic. throw an officially supported video card in the higher-end model, fer chrissakes, and don’t force that crappy-built in thing that eats ram like there’s no tomorrow and will likely result in crappy performance for the people who chose to adopt your solution.

So,

now that i have one of the boxes to play with, a couple of thoughts.

the glossyness isn’t really an issue to me – the screens are bright enough to compensate and make the computer perfectly useable.

The main problem i see is a progressive hue shift on the vertical axis when you’re off-center : blue looks like it’s taking about +25 points and goes purple, from bottom to top. if you’d like to try this at home, make a solid blue document the size of your screen in Photoshop, add a hue/saturation adjustment layer and quickmask a top to bottom gradient.

All lcd screens do this to an extent, but for some reason the tech apple uses on this display makes it more bothersome to me. It still isnt’ too much of an issue on the 13”, but i’d see it as becoming quite problematic on a bigger display, and adds to the fact that color-critical work is going to be more difficult on a display like this (i’d encourage anyone with doubts to download the profiles at http://www.boring.ch/matt/goodies/icc_profiles.zip which will give you an idea of gamut differences between a halfway decent desktop display and a laptop one), although i feel you’d get used to bobbing your head around to make sure that your grass isn’t yellowish and your sky isn’t purple.

it also feels like there’s more ghosting than on the other displays i have around, might be due to the glossy thing, or not. pixel structure is also more visible, someone moderately short-sighted like myself will see the pixel structure, which i wasn’t accustomed to on the ibook or on a cinema display – this is clearly a sharper display, and as has been stated elsewhere, that will force you to re-evaluate your sharpening habits, since what you’re seeing on screen is too sharp compared to what you’ll be printing. Text also looks a bit weird with the auto-aliasing features turned on, going to have to play around with that a bit as well.

That said, the display looks absolutely fantastic and is miles above the ibook, which is enought to make me happy, especially now that you can get DVI out on it when working tethered.

One would be almost better off with the 15.4” pro, not a huge jump in size. Is the screen better on the 15.4 Matthais? Given the choice, the 13 or the 15.4 the better option on the road?

Drop that Mac crap. Buy an IBM.

Drop that Mac crap. Buy an IBM.

Not possible Misha as I have too much invested in mac, screens, software etc. Still I like your photos

Yeah… while you’re at it, drop that Audi crap and get a Fiat. Consistency matters.

A Fiat! Did you say a Fiat? No

Imants,

a friend has a 15” mbp – matte screen and i can do measurements on it later this week if you’d like – i’d expect it to be moderately different, but nothing major, i’ve seen them side by side and the thing that popped out (both screens were uncalibrated) is that there’s better separations in the blacks on the 13” screen. i mean, the screen on the 13” is great, it’s just that there’s enough of a hue shift to make color-critical work tricky, but issues like that you’d probably find on any laptop. It all comes down to what compromises you’re willing and able to make. I’m into minimizing problems, so have calibrated lights and a grey floor on top of a medium gray desktop background, because it’s a luxury i can get at home, but that doesn’t mean i can’t do without it or that it’s mandatory to computer work.

“down the road” depends on what you mean by that – i’d rather have something small “on the road” and a nice screen at home than dealing with a laptop screen everywhere : you can get an entry-level macbook and a 20” imac (moreso a previous gen g5 imac, which you can get either refurbished or off of ebay) for the price of a 17” mbp, the combination of which is by any accounts better than a single 17” : you get portability and an extremely capable desktop machine, at least as far as photo editing is concerned. It’s also as future proof as a 17” right now (minus the graphics card on the laptop), and pretty much as fast or much, much faster as far as photoshop is concerned. Another element in favor of the smaller laptops is that since they’re half the price, you can update them twice as often for the same initial amount, which is another way of future-proofing your investment : there’s good odds that next year’s macbook will be much faster than this year’s macbook pro.

hope this somewhat answers your question…

Fiat )) Dave, it’s too emotional, you should know.

I run a 17” with a 20” cinema display at home(s) as it is easy to shift from one to the other. Most of my work is book related so I don’t need the instant image and all the road warrior gadgetry.
It is nice to play with images on the road though my wife doesn’t think so. She is right in a way, concentrate on taking photos not making them up. You seem to enjoy your macs and put an effort in understanding what makes them tick as a visual tool, so I may take your advice and go for the 13 and view the situation as one of updating periodically as you indicated, that was my gut feeling as well thanks for the information, Matthias
“As an example the fact that Apple’s display has no controls other than
backlight is actually a very good thing for an 8-8-8 LCD if your going
to use calibration.” Didn’t understand this part in another thread.

Imants,

my understanding is that not having contrast / gamma / color temp controls on the display diminishes the chances of errors of the meatware variety between it and the keyboard : if you were to modify values at the display level with that kind of signal path, you’d be diminishing the odd of correcting them elsewhere since you’d be clipping values. This of course is negated if you have a display that can address more colors than the DVI signal itself (which is what he’s referring to as 8-10-8 signal paths), as it could provide for smoother transitions in case of non-native gammas, for example. Then again, i may have missed the point entirely and likely don’t get some of the more subtle points of his argument. i’m a simple man : Apple, NEC, good. Others, too expensive or bad.

Something i forgot to add earlier is that a hardware calibrator (the spyder/gretag eye-one/pantone huey) is a good thing to have.

Matthais Got that but there is still brightness to contend with when calibrating the screen (spyder) and a huge difference between the 17” and the 20” moniter 17 is green 20 magenta

I can only get emotional over an Audi or a Mac. I can’t for a Fiat or any PC. It’s like the difference between a Rembrandt and a chalk-on-velvet crying Elvis.

ok, go on in that fashion

Good thread. Thanks Imants and Joao for comments on traveling with the 17”. I have a year old 12” Powerbook which is fine, but feels a bit limiting at times for working with photos on the road. Anybody else have 17” that travels? I’ve spoken with people who have dumped their 17” because it’s so big and difficult to travel with. They say they can’t even use it on an airplane (which isn’t important, cause I’ve given up on that with even the 12”). thanks—hope nobody miinds me digging up this old thread.