Best laptop for web design and image/video editing - Mac users welcomed

[Jingleheimer]

I'm looking to purchase a laptop within the next month. I have no more than $2000 to spend on one. I am a web designer and network administrator at my full-time job. I am also a student at a university with wireless internet. Here is what I would like to do with it:

1) General web design using Macromedia products
2) Image editing
3) Video editing
4) Watching movies (DIVX, not DVDs)
5) Word processing
6) No games, I do not have time to play games
7) Use a laptop as a laptop. I already have a desktop. So I would like it somewhat mobile but not "Japanese Tiny".

I have been reading the forums but it looks as though many people want to play games on their laptop. I still need power because I do video editing and image editing. I was looking at the Dell 8200 (of course) but it seems a bit large and heavy. Like I said, I want to be able to take my laptop with me everywhere I go. Next, I looked at the 667 MHz Apple PowerBook G4 which I can get for $1999 at my university computer store. This seems like a really good deal. Any recommendations?

Thanks,
Jingleheimer

P.S. My desktop computer is a 1700 XP with 512 RAM, 200 Gb of hard drive, and an ATI Radeon AIW running Windows XP.

 

[TimeKeeper]

You might want to read those replies in my tread.

You might be surprise what you can get and still got money for a top of the line PDA. 😉

 

[Funyuns101]

get the powerbook, it's so nice and pretty, but also comes with the apple suite including idvd, imovie, itunes, iphoto etc
great for image, video editing
but it depends if you know how to use mac's os10 and perhaps spend an extra $130 for jaguar, unless your school's version has it preloaded
also you might have to purchase extra software like ms offce, besides that i think you should definitely go for the 6lbs TITANIUM powerbook
unless you want to carry around a dell, which is still a nice pc

 

[Erasmus-X]

I second the Powerbook. Apple's forte has always been content editing, and their notebooks have excellent layouts and great software. My next laptop is definitely gong to be a Powerbook G4.

If you're on a budget, don't count out the iBooks. They're a great bang for the buck. There's really not a lot of PC-based laptops that give you the same kind of features at the same price level.

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Jingleheimer]

OK...it sounds like Apple "SWITCHED" another PC user. My next question is this -- does the 667 MHz Mac work just as quickly as a 667 MHz IBM-compatible PC or actually quicker? I don't understand the how the specifications for the Powerbook are slower than a comparable Dell but can actually run faster. Is this solely because the software works better with the hardware? Does anyone have any links that can explain this? Or can anyone explain it to me? Thanks for the responses so far. They have helped me make a decision.

Regards,
Jingleheimer

 

[GremlinHater]

I"m going to get burned badly if I say something wrong but here I go anyways...

Basically PowerPC (Apple) processor's are based on a RISC technology where as x86 (Intel, AMD, Cyrix) are based on CISC technology. RISC processors can handle 4 times the amount of data that CISC can so even though it's clocked much lower, it can handle much more then the same clocked x86 counterpart. I think essencially you can think of it as CISC handling 8 bits of data a cycle when RISC does 32 bits of data.

Well, I'm done. Flame away on my ignorance you lovable tech heads.