[cyben]

Hello,
I am a heavy photoshop user and I cannot make a choice between these two machines.Is there a big difference in speed and resolution between these two.
Finally is it worth spending the extra dollars for the superdrive
many thanks for your advices
cyben :

[Quagmire]

First question, do you need the portability of the Powerbook? If not I would recommend the iMac. Seeing how you can afford the 15" Powerbook 1.67 GHz, I would also recommend the 20" model. I have it, and the screen space is so big, you will have no trouble photoshopping and surf the net at the same time. If you get the iMac. I would recommend getting 1 GB of ram. Now I got my 1 GB stick from apple. If you go 3rd party, I would recommend Crucial.com for ram. If you go Powerbook I would recommend getting the 128 MB 9700. The superdrive comes with the 17" 2 Ghz or 20" iMac no matter what. It is also a doube layer SD, while the Powerbooks are still single layer. The iMac also come with bigger HD's.

[Franz Josef]

Portability or not is the first question as Undertaker says. Everyting else follows. Then comes choice of desktop / laptop then timing.

[cyben]

Thank you...
Portability is not a must however I already have a 23 " flat panel Dell LCD so I thought that then I would need a bigger screen I would contect into the DVI .Is there a big difference in terms of performance G4 vs G5 ?
Thanks again

[Quagmire]

While tests have proven the G5 and G4 at the same clock is a tie or the G5 has a small advantage, I would still go with the iMac with the G5 in it. It is just a better overall CPU. The G4 IMO is a celeron competitor not a Pro laptop chip. The Pentium M crushes the G4. Considering the 6 years of the G4's life, Moto could only increase the FSB by only 67 Mhz. The G5 will last you longer. I say get the 20" iMac with 1 GB of ram. That is the best option for you at this point.

[Franz Josef]

If portability is not necessary (ie you're happy you don't want a Mac on the move), then go for a desktop - unit prices are lower and you get more bangs for your buck. On your specific questions:

(1) Superdrive is always worth it - good to be able to burn DVDs. Having a combo which will only burns CDs just looks below par these days. Will work well with Photoshop - more flexible than a combo.

(2) G5 v G4. This is driven by the portability question - if you bought a laptop you will have a G4 if you buy a desktop you will have a G5. More important than processor is RAM. Buy at least 1GB if you really want to spread your wings. If your budget won't stretch to 1GB, aim for 768MB - this is a good practical minimum for letting the marvellous Mac OS10.4 do what it's capable of.

Re overall choice, what Undertaker says - 20" iMac with 1GB RAM ($1.9k)- it is faster than the PB and since you don't need portability. Timing needs to be considered - http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ - and now is not a bad time to buy an iMac, assuming it meets your needs now and going forward.

FJ

[OnStage]

I'm wrestling the same decision, lots of good advice here. I have found benchmarks (Macworld) suggesting that the 1.67 ghz PB is a very close match IN PHOTOSHOP to the the current iMacs. Why not wait till next week? If the ibook/mini update actually happens the PB's have to follow suit (well, they don't have to but the 1.42 mini is already an embarrasment to the PB). Besides the PB could run in extended desktop mode with your existing display.
food for thought
john

[switchr92]

Originally Posted by Undertaker While tests have proven the G5 and G4 at the same clock is a tie or the G5 has a small advantage, I would still go with the iMac with the G5 in it. It is just a better overall CPU. The G4 IMO is a celeron competitor not a Pro laptop chip. The Pentium M crushes the G4. Considering the 6 years of the G4's life, Moto could only increase the FSB by only 67 Mhz. The G5 will last you longer. I say get the 20" iMac with 1 GB of ram. That is the best option for you at this point.

While I'll agree that the G5 is stronger than the G4, and that the G4 is no longer a pro chip, I completely disagree that the G4 is a celeron competitor and that Pentium Ms crush the G4. Thats flat-out BS. Pentiums Ms are slightly stronger, but IMO that will be barely noticable, and a 1.5 GHz G4 could blow away whatever the strongest celeron is. Celerons are lucky to be considered modern-day chips by anyones standard. I literally wouldn't take a celeron PC is it was free, vs. I just ordered an iBook G4 three days ago, and couldn't be happier that I got it, even though I plan on photoshop/final cut express (that's all my budget could allow, despite it's planned uses). To review, Pentium Ms are barely stronger than G4s, which blow celerons out of the water. Well, now that we're all clear...

[Chinney]

The iMac G5's are a better deal right now - considering features and power for the price. I bought one a month ago and have been very pleased.

[huwtj]

Originally Posted by switchr92 To review, Pentium Ms are barely stronger than G4s, which blow celerons out of the water..

For pure number crunching this is simply not true.

My 1.5 GHz PowerBook takes twice as long to process 3D NMR data - essentially CPU limited as disk I/O is small - as a colleague's 1.6 GHz Pentium M laptop. In terms of practical usage though the difference is not noticeable. Powerbook has OS X 10.3.9, laptop has Fedora (FC2). Standard compiler settings (GCC with -O2) used on both.

In benchmarking the various machines in our office a Pentium M @ 1.6 GHz seems to be slightly faster than a Xeon @ 2.4 GHz.