mac questions

1) Is there any estimated time for the G5 notebook? I am really looking into that, but I don't wanna buy the G4 and then have the G5 come out in 2 months.

2) What are some good sites for deals on Macs? Not used.

3) Can you reccommend any good community/info sites for macs?

4) If I am going to buy a seperate monitor for PS and such, should I go with a 12 in or 15 in monitor. Is the 12 in big enough for most everyday apps?

Thanks in advance.

I would guess g5 laptop/ powerbook in a year and a half to 2 years. Good deals....well if your a student apple.com ;)

Good info site.... well osx is not hard if you use a gui currently you will be a pro in 2 days max.

12 inch designing will prob not be so fun, a nice 17 inch flat screen to plug into help

A1): I think it may be sooner than 18-24 months for G5 laptops. Pay attention to ArsTechnica, Slashdot, and regulare MacCentric news sites.
A2): http://www.dealmac.com
A3): http://forums.maccentral.com/wwwthreads/wwwthreads.php?returnto=none
http://www.macfixit.com
http://macpulse.com
A4): I'd recommend a 19" CRT, minimum; 2 if you do big Photoshop/Illustratorwork or want to work with InDesign, lots of real estate for the buck, and still more color-manageable than all but very high-end LCD monitors.

If you're talking about going with a 12" or 15" laptop, I haven't really had any problems with working in PS on my 12". The only problem is when you try to do that and have some other apps open as well. then a second monitor would come in handy. Expose' makes switching between apps really easy, so you don't really notice the small screen most of the time.

www.dealmac.com is good. Apple's Refurbished models are cheap, student discounts, etc.

www.maczealots.com has some good in-depth tutorials.

www.macmerc.com has some info...

there are dozens of news sites... I usually go to www.macminute.com the most...

The G5 OR Dual G4 Powerbook May be coming out sooner than some think, given that the newly updated iBook G4 is only marginally less powerful than the existing Powerbook line, thus insinuating that Apple would not be likely to have 2 synonomously powerful products, that are intended to be very different. That isn't to say that the next step taken in the evolution of the Powerbook line will be G5, but it's now more likely that the G4 Powerbook will be retired in the very near future.

I think the sheer engineering challenges is what's holding them back, not the fact that the iBook is almost the same speed. I mean they're just now getting them in Xserves, and even then Steve made a note of the huge fans on the front to keep them cool. So they are going to have to pull off something pretty amazing to get one in a powerbook.

90nm PPC970 & PPC980 (Power5-based) manufacturing.

Smaller, lower power requirement, less heat.

Look toward MacWorld in July 2004, you may be pleasantly surprised.

right, my understanding was that the g5's run too hot to work in notebooks in their present incarnation. what they'll come up with, who knows

µ23 (or any other mac notebook owners), what would you say the minimum specs are for a usable apple notebook for ps, illustrator, flash, and maybe some light 3d?

chris

Me, personally, I couldn't (or, more correctly, really wouldn't want to) work on anything smaller & slower than a 1 GHz/15 inch Powerbook, stuffed with RAM.

I really don't mind my 12" with 768mb of RAM, but I only work in photoshop for web design, never any hi-res print work or anything, and I don't use InDesign or any 3D stuff either.