whole can of worms....which laptop will run CS2 the best NOW

[Cathpah]

powerbook g4 12", macbook pro 15", or sony vaio sz series (1.83 ghz dual core)? can the nicer vaio tx-series (ultraportable 3 pound notebooks) even handle CS2???

I'm going on a 6 month backpacking/photo trip to asia next year and then moving down to central america (panama specifically) for the forseeable future.
I want to carry the least amount of laptop possible (in size and weight) but still be able to run CS2 just fine. The primary use of the laptop will be for photoshop (i know, i know, the monitor won't be perfectly calibrated) but I'm basically looking for something that I can do minor changes on CS2 and then just burn to DVD so I can ship the DVD's home in case anything happens to camera, computer, or any type of storage (e.g. theft or exposure to elements).

I think I am now finally ready to make the move to mac (what better time to make a computer move than when I am making a geographical move as well?) but am still not deadset on that. If I can get a significantly smaller windows laptop, then I will certainly stay with windows pc's since weight is one of my main concerns.

I know that CS2 doesn't take advantage of the dual core technology yet and macbook pros use "rosetta" to convert it to intel chip-friendly software. I heard that they won't be making it dualcore ready until CS3. Which would run CS2 better today....powerbook g4 running it mac-natively or macbook pro with rosetta? should i be looking for non-dual core windows laptops as well because of this feature?

Sorry, I know this post is long and has many questions....but so do I.

oh, and I can't wait until next year to buy the new cs3 or a new laptop, because I'll already be gone by then.

thanks ahead of time for the help.

[nomorebs]

My old HP nc6000 1.6GHz Pentium M is running the complete Adobe CS2 Premium without any problems. A little slow when doing lots of stuff at the same time, but I attibute most of that to having 512MB ram instead of 1024MB or more.

I think you should be able to do just fine with an ultraportable 3 pound laptop with a decent processor and enough memory.

[Cathpah]

just did a bit more research and it looks like the powerbook knocks the pants off of the macbook pro when it comes to CS2 actions. this is because of the MB pro's need to use rosetta to convert Mac software to intel chip. so no more macbook pro. looks like my only good mac option would be the 12inch powerbook.

as far as windows native machines are concerned....I'm very interested in the extreme small size of the tx-series and am wondering if it can handle CS2 at all. I'm certainly not planning on doing any images with more than 2 or 3 layers, but I want to be able to use ACR and Bridge without too much lagging. Anyone here have any experience with the tx series vaios?

also, is the same thing true about dual core vs single core for windows native machines as with macs? Meaning should I stay away from windows dual core processors as well because CS2 was programmed for single core processors, not dual cores?

I would appreciate any insight you may have.

[JCR]

dualcore is a natural progression. The material used to make cpu's is nearing it's physical limist in terms of speed (electrons being forced through it), only way to go is doubling/quadrupling+ up on the cores or maybe lightpath materials such as glass. More and more software will be becoming available that takes this into consideration.
SMP (symetrical multiprocessing) has been around for a long time but usually reserved for the backroom servers, no longer.

If you buy a machine with a view of 3-5 yrs usage buy a dual core, if you like to buy/replace every 12 months then it's not such an important issue, just bear in mind as programs are rebuilt to factor this 'new' technology, programs will near double in speed on a dualcore, not so for a unicore architecture.
Sony laptops are way overpriced for what they are, they look nice but the hardware is standard, nothing special or radical in design.

AMD v Intel
This is a can of worms, some people like AMD some Intel, my personal preference for DCC (digital content creation) is intel, they usually have the edge on speed for these functions and are more 'compatible' However AMD are making good thermal advances nowadays so maybe they will run cooler/more efficiently. (big plus for a portable device)

A solution for you?
I am hesitant to recommend any specific machine to anyone. Everyone has a different need/expectation. Be aware of heat issues, does the under side of the laptop look well ventilated? will you block vents by using it? how hot does the unit in the store get if you peg the cpu out for 20 mins?
Don't be fooled into buying a name brand, pretty much the internals will be the same across the board, but do pay attention to ventilation and build quality.

edit
Some filter functions of cs2 are already smp enabled

[Mathiau]

Sony's are over priced for what you get and a large part is cause it say SONY on it, you have better options.

any system can run CS2, it is a matter of how fast - Photoshop is multithreaded so the more cores / cpu's, the better. along with ram, i dont know where tyou heards CS2 is single threaded but that is incorrect.

and go with a 7200 RPM HD for laptops would also help alot.

AMD has no place in laptops - Intels Mobile CPU's are much better then AMD's the Pentium M, the Core Duo's. - better battery life and just more powerful period.

[René Damkot]

MacBook pro vs. Quad G5 (http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/MacBookPro/index.html)
Furthermore, a friend of mine has the MBP, and says it's almost comparable to a dual G5, which is a helluva lot faster then a powerbook G4 12" ...

[Cathpah]

yeah I'm certainly not interested in the vaio because it's a sony. That means nothing to me and I've actually heard some horror stories about their customer service. I'm just interested in it because of its form factor....it's ridiculously small!

so what should I get? recommendations would be wonderful, and I certainly won't bite your head off if it doesn't suit my needs. I just want the smallest/best photospecific laptop I can find to carry around for 6 months straight.

[Cathpah]

MacBook pro vs. Quad G5 (http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/MacBookPro/index.html)
Furthermore, a friend of mine has the MBP, and says it's almost comparable to a dual G5, which is a helluva lot faster then a powerbook G4 12" ...

huh....that's interesting.

I read quite a few benchmarks where the powerbook destroyed the MB pro.

Obviously, the G5 is still faster than both....but somehow I don't think it'd be great for backpacking ;)

[Mathiau]

As much as many people put them down i do recommend Dell alot.

Toshiba has always been good for me as well, we own several of them for work and only one had a heat issue solved by a bios update.

IF Sager made smaller laptops i would say they would be my #1 choice - i mean laptops with RAID set ups :)

i am looking to get one of dells 14" XPS m140 i beleive it is, but i want a duo core, which they havent released yet.

Toshiba's core duo systems are nice, compact and very light, got one for a marketing person core duo 1.66 / 1g of ram / 100g HD / dvd burner / 14" widescreen / wireless, cant recall the resoltion but it was about $1400 US, which is a good price for the hardware - when i bought it i ebven gave Windows Vista Beta 1 build 53 something on it , and it actually ran very well!

[René Damkot]

huh....that's interesting.

I read quite a few benchmarks where the powerbook destroyed the MB pro.

Obviously, the G5 is still faster than both....but somehow I don't think it'd be great for backpacking ;)

Dunno. it's all hearsay for me, I still run a G4 1GHz ;)
OTOH this is 6 months. I'ld rather work a bit more slow for six months, then buy a Mac thats allready 'out of date'. The MBP will benefit from CS3 (a lot hopefully) the G4 won't.

[blackviolet]

since CS2 is still native PowerPC code, not universal binary, therefore it uses rosetta to translate machine level instructions on the fly. but it's still quite a bit faster than the G4. until CS3, which is currently planned for sometime next year release, you could run Bootcamp, and boot XP natively and run the windows version of CS2 :) i just bought a 17" MBP, which should be here in about 2 weeks. we also have Dell D620 dual-cores on order.