How powerful is a MacBook for GFX?

[Bio-Gene]

Hey Everyone,

Ok so I have this issue where I want to get a portable Mac, but not sure if I should dish out for a MacBook Pro or just go for the MacBook. I will mostly use it for school next year (university), and most probably website coding or graphics, such as CS3, Flash 8, and Dreamweaver!

Would a MacBook be fine or MacBook Pro be better for such stuff? I will also watch lots of anime/shows/movies on it when I do get the time.

 

[eric2006]

My mom uses a MacBook, and with 1.25 GB of memory, there's no noticeable lack of GFX power. It's mostly used for web & email, web-based videos, but it has absolutely no problem with gfx-intensive sites, or playing DVDs while exporting an optical signal for surround. Another consideration you may want to make is screen size. The MacBook screen is tiny in my opinion, and I would feel crushed trying to do any large amount of graphics work on it. That's just me, though, and the MacBook can easily hook up to an external display.

 

[fryke]

Basically, both will work for that perfectly. The graphics card is basically more important for games etc. However: the MBP 15", for example, certainly gives you a little more power overall, but also a bigger screen with more pixels, which gives you more space to work on in Adobe CS etc.

I'm personally working with a MacBook in similar apps to yours, and it certainly works fine. RAM is key, btw. - so you might want to throw your money at RAM instead of the bigger model...