Choosing between MB/MBP for production.

[Satchmo]

I'm going to need a Mac notebook before the end of the month.

It needs to be powerful enough to be a production machine. Nothing major. Mostly Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, Dreamweaver.
My current 2ghz iMac Duo Core 1 is fine, but I see the day coming soon when I'll need to go beyond it's 2gb RAM limit.

I know the refurb 2.4 or 2.5 Penryn MBP would tie me over for a good 3 years and would actually be the workhorse in my home.
But I love the size, sturdiness and price of the refurbished MB at $1199.

My concern is whether or not the 2.0 MB would be that much more powerful than my current iMac. Any suggestions?

[curiousuburb]

Have you got an external monitor, or will screen real estate on the notebook matter more (i.e. 15 or 17?

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Not to mention screen quality. When I checked out the new MB and MBP last Fall there was no question the MBP's LCD was superior to the MB's. I'll mention it only because I've seen a few "Really, I didn't know that!?!" reactions; the MB has no Firewire port, which would affect external HDD requirements if you use one.

[Satchmo]

No external monitor yet. But even with the 15" MBP, I think I would still need to get an external.

My thinking is to continue using my iMac as the main production machine (given the 20" screen), but eventually get a larger 24" external for the laptop.

It may be more of a power and dedicated GPU issue.

[psmith2.0]

But I love the size, sturdiness and price of the refurbished MB at $1199.

Are we talking the aluminum models? Because those are $1,099 (for the 2.0GHz model). Even better!

[Satchmo]

Yup, the aluminum ones. It's $1199 up north here. :)

I just want enough of a performance jump from my old white iMac 2.0ghz. If not, I was thinking of the old MBP 2.4 or 2.5. The new MBP's even at refurb prices is out of my range.

[scratt]

MB : If it's got a 9400M GPU in it then it's all good.