I'm thinking of buying a Powerbook instead of G5 for my Video editing so I can carry my work anywhere. Would it be powerful enough? Are Powerbooks upgradable to a 1GB of RAM, Is the HDD upgradable as well? I read that the highest HDD in powerbook is only 80GB.. Can it be like 120GB? :D Or it would be possible only if I use an external HDD?

I'm thinking of installing FCP4, DVD Studio Pro in it..

Any opinions? MAc People? smile.gif

[ October 29, 2003, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: Blood_Lust ]

Hey,

I just bought a new 1.25 GHz 15" PB and it seems pretty snappy. It's currently in the shop for repairs (HDD problem), but in the brief few days I've used the machine, I've been pleased with its performance. While I don't work with video, I'm running animation, 3D rendering and CAD software on it (MAYA 5, Form Z and PowerCADD) and so far the results have been excellent. Buying a laptop is a trade off: high-end performance for portability. You will never get desktop performance/value in a laptop (not currently anyway), there is always a faster desktop (e.g. dual G5). However, if you're after portability, the PowerBook G4 is probably the most powerful. I just switched from PC to Mac because Apple makes the lightest, fastest, most beautiful laptop around and they offer it at a great price. The graphics card is quite good and really screams (I've read it's the best mobile graphics card available). As for storage, 80 GB is currently the biggest drive (one of the biggest in world of portable computing), which I know is small for video work. I've been using Lacie external firewire drives (@ 7200 rpm) and I think they're great. These drives are small, portable and come in a variety of sizes (I use a 120 GB). At home or work, you could always connect the PowerBook to a large storage array or RAID configuration. The PowerBook G4 is a great portable workstation unless of course you define the G5 as portable (it does have handles after all)!

and...the new PowerBooks will accept up to 2 GB of SDRAM (333 MHz DDR).

If you want a 'recommendation'... Who wouldn't say YES to a G5. smile.gif

On the G5 side; I bet the G4 iBooks are a nod to the future, G5 Powerbooks must just around the corner.

Just read that LaCie makes a new 400 GB external drive that runs @7200 rpm. It has Firewire 800 connectivity. That should work as storage for a portable video-editing workstation!