Looking for a mac. g4 or g5

[kaylamay]

Hello all, I am new to the community and I hope I am posting this in the right forum.
I was computer animation major in college and have since graduated and I am in search of a decent art job.
I have a Pc which has been beefed up, but I want to go back to using a mac like we did in school. the only problem is, I have huge student loans and macs can get pretty darn expensive. I don't want to break the bank to get a mac.
I am wondering if I could get a ibook and still be okay or would you all reccomend getting a new mac book. I plan on using flash, photoshop and illustrator with it and I just don't know since I hardle see ibooks, if that would be an okay route to go. I can never make a decision on my own. I would appreciate any advice anyone could give me. thank you

 

[Daydreamer]

Well, the one thing that the MacBooks lack (as far as I've come to understand, though I don't have a portable mac at all myself yet... I'll be getting a MacBook Pro when I feel I have enough money to use on such a replacement for my ThinkPad T21) is a powerful 3D accelerator, but you most probably won't notice that anyway unless you try playing 3D games (I'm sure most will be okay, but seeing how the non-top-notch Intel 3D chip in the minis, MacBooks, and cheapest iMac use part of the RAM for its graphics memory, performance in those situations will be a bit worse than with dedicated video memory and more powerful ATI and nVidia 3D chips as in the MacBook Pros, other iMacs, and Mac Pros).

For everything else though, I'm sure the MacBooks are up to speed.

 

[kaylamay]

well I only plan on using the mac for my 2d animations and that's it. I will not be playing games or anything on it. that's why I really don't want to break the bank. it will be used most of the time for just art and motions graphics. But will the ibook, the lower grade still run ilife and all of that?

My question is, can I still get an ibook and still be okay. or will my best bet be getting a mac book which are super expensive.

 

[Daydreamer]

Oh... I was thinking you were deciding between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro, not an iBook and a MacBook... but yeah, the late iBooks should handle iLife, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc quite well (I can't imagine them being much worse than my Mac Mini G4, and it can handle those programs just fine). The only thing I'd hold against the iBooks though, is that (if I remember correctly) they only have a resolution of 1024*768 pixels (unless you plug in an external screen), which may be a bit small if you have many tool palettes visible in Photoshop or Flash and still want some space left for the actual work.