Best MacBook Pro for Phocus?

[christianhough]

Hi Everyone

I'm looking at getting a new MacBook Pro, mainly because my very old 2.4 core2 duo is on it's way out (flickering screen). Okay, so I'm undecided and on a budget.

I use the MacBook purely for shooting tethered and e-mail/ word processing when out and about; so no intense graphics rendering, editing, gaming etc. All editing is done on my MacPro.

I've been looking at the 15" i7 with the anti-glare screen. However, given the fairly limited use it would get (literally a portable HDD with screen), I was also considering the 13" i5. I noticed though, that the 13" MacBooks don't have the additional graphics card. Is this a major issue for Phocus? My current MacBook has the Nvdia 8800GT card; however will it be that much better than the Intel HD3000 on a much more modern machine?

What do you think?

All the best
Christian

www.christianhough.com

[Alex Maxim]

I don't think you can even call Intel HD3000 a graphic card... It's a chip integrated in a CPU that is ok for running some office applications, but it doesn't even have it's own graphic memory. You can try it of course but i am sure a dedicated graphic card will do much better.

[Dustbak]

I would certainly opt for the 15" i7 with the better graphics card (512mb version). Everything you do in Phocus that is screen related (Crop, resize, rotate, etc..) draws upon the graphics card. One thing that is important to me is fluid operation in the field. I don't want to notice the machine I am working on so to speak.

I use a 15" i7 with the high res non-glare screen BTW.

[christianhough]

Looks like the 15" i7 it is then. I too was going to go with the high-res anti-glare screen too, although I haven't seen it in the flesh.

I literally do nothing to the images on the MacBook... it's all transferred to the desktop; however, I don't want it to grind to a halt either and I know Phocus can be quite memory intensive.

Thanks for your responses.

Best
Christian
www.christianhough.com