Powerbook Pro…glossy screen and other questions…

[Simon Carlson-thies]

Do you mean the MacBook or the MacBook Pro?

For what you are talking about using it for the glossy screen is only a problem outside….

as to the other question 128mb of VRAM for a photographer, is more then enough you could get away with a MacBook which has an integrated graphics card. For most things the GPU will not help in photography or photoshop use.

Simon Carlson-Thies,
Digital Light Graphics And Animation

[Jeff Carpenter]

Also I noticed that you can get the ram split up for a smaller cost…for example you can get a 1gb card or two 512mb cards for a hundred bucks less…whats up with that??

======

If you have 1 chip then you have an empty slot and can buy more RAM later. If you get 2 chips then the only way to upgrade later is to throw away the RAM you already have, thus wasting money. So 1 chip is more desirable than 2 chips. When something is more desirable, it usually costs more.

And I’d go with the non-glossy screen for photo work, but that’s just me. If he can go to an Apple store and compare each himself he may decide otherwise. It’s probably best to judge that in person.

And as Simon said, the V-RAM probably isn’t a huge deal UNLESS this person is eying ‘Aperature.’ If he is, getting the higher card could help although it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker….ALL of the Macbook Pro video cards support Aperature. Anyway, 128 is pretty good by laptop standards, I woulnd’t worry about that too much unless they are a “Motion” person (which they probably aren’t if they’re a photographer).

[Vinnie]

Thanks for the help…I wasnt aware that a 128mb video card was acceptable for a laptop…I am a desktop man myself. I spend enough time infront of it as it is I dont need it to follow me out the door. For the glossy screen I will follow your advice and suggest that he stops by an apple store and check it out for himself…for the ram that makes sense I just didnt know if there was any speed issues with the two compared to one.

Thanks again…
vinnie

[Jeff Carpenter]

There’s no reason that 2 RAM chips work any differently in the Macbook PRO, but since you brought it up, I wanted to mention the “regular” Macbook (non-pro version).

In THAT laptop they say that having 2 chips of the same amount is BETTER than 1 chip because it uses integrated graphics that share system RAM as video RAM. In that case, having the 2 chips match gives it better video performance.

This is NOT an issue with the Macbook Pro model that has its own, seperate, video RAM and video card. So it’s not a problem for you but I figured this was a good time to mention that yes, SOMETIMES having paired RAM chips is a good thing. The regular Macbook is an example of one of those times. (The G5 Powermacs like it that way too, for some reason that has nothing to do with VRAM. I’m not sure why in that case.)