qeuestion for macbook people!

[Ben]

I am in the process of replacing my ageing and massive (17 in fujitsu) laptop and I want to go the mac route for numerous reasons that are unimportant to this thread. However I need/want portable so I am wanting a 13.3" macbook with a Apple 24" cinema display for home. The specs are 2.4Ghz processor 4 gig ram and 320 gig HD. After lots of google searching I am still a bit nervous. According to the system requirements of both CS4 and lightroom I should be ok, but I just need some clarification So here are my questions:

1. Will that be sufficient to comfortably run CS4 and Lightroom with D300 or equivalent RAW files (can be upto 27mb each)? I'm not wanting to win a speed contest, just don't want to get frustrated waiting whilst processing photos. There are so many varying and contradicting reports all over the net

2. Can the macbook with it's 256mb shared 9400m GPU run the 24" cinema display at max resolution (1920x1200). Sorry if that's a dumb question, but I can't find a concise answer anywhere.

Any help to settle my nerves would be great!

Cheers, Ben.

[jonty]

I have a D300, 15" MacBook Pro (older one with 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo and GeForce 8600M GT) and the "old" 23" Cinema display. Check some benchmarks for how much faster the new MacBook is in PS and LR (may not be as much as you think) but for me:

1. Plenty fast. So if the new MB is not much slower in PS and LR you'll be fine.
2. Yes. Mine does and so does my brother's old white MacBook so I doubt it'll be any issue.

You could find a cheaper monitor than that, though, as pretty as they are. Also, have read a few forum posts (for what they're worth) that the LED ones are difficult to calibrate properly due to the glossy screen. If this is important to you then I would do some investigating first.

Edit: Don't forget to max out the RAM (just not from Apple! $$$)

[Ben]

Thanks jonty, I have heard the same about that monitor as well, however I really like glossy monitors whilst processing. I'll have to keep researching that one...