I will be going back to college soon and I was wondering what kind of mac I should get. I am a windows user as of right now, but I've been swayed to the Mac side. I really just don't know what the performance difference is like between an iMac and a Power Mac. Really all I want to be able to do is run Office(or Office-like apps) and Adobe Photoshop well. I'm sure, it being an art college, I may end up doing video stuff at some point. Price does and doesn't matter too much. I mean I can hold off and save forever to get the hottest Powermac out, or I could just buy what is needed to do what I want right now. So what exactly would be the right kind of mac for me?

A 20" iMac would provide a good load of grunt and plenty of screen real-estate at a really good price point. Personally if i were in your shoes, when it was my time for a new Mac, that's what i would of gone with...

What he said. ^^

Consider also buying the PowerBook as it can handle Photoshop well, and gives you the added portability you might need while attending college. If you go with either the 12" or 15" (to a lesser extent) you can just hook it up to an external screen at home if additional screen real estate is needed.

Yep.

what about the ammount of ram i'll need? i thought i had read somewhere that apps like Photoshop aren't as memory intensive, but apps for video editing are. photoshop uses the hard drive more than it uses ram. any thoughts?

I'm going into Graphic Design next year. Now I don't know about their stance on using your own computer for the work, I'm sure they'd rather you learn on systems that they've pre-configured with all the tools you'd need, but if you want to go the desktop route, I'd get a new iMac. They're really fast (and I only used the 17" 1.6GHz version) and have a great display giving a lot of working space. Plus, they start out cheaper than a 15 or 17" PowerBook.

If you want to get a portable, the PowerBook is still a great tool and plenty fast for Photoshop and such, and looks great when presenting client work (I have experience in this already... they fell in love with it). My 15" has a good amount of working space that really helps out in those late night design and code sessions where I can see all my work. Widescreen displays are definitely a plus!

If you want to max the RAM on those, they can take 2GB, I STRONGLY ADVISE that you do NOT order your RAM from Apple. They charge DOUBLE for what you can get online through a site like Newegg or through DealRAM. I can't believe people would pay that much...

Anyways, it's all up to you. I'd advise checking out your local Apple Store and trying out all the machines and get a feel for them since they have all the Adobe, Macromedia, and Apple applications installed on them, along with a lot more third party ones.

thanks for the tip on buying ram, that'll be a great money saver. do macs use the same type of ram pc's use? if so, what kind? i will definately have to find an apple store around here. i really need to try out one more extensively. Also, what happens with the warranty and all if i add my own ram? I am used to doing with a pc and never worried about the warranty when i worked with them cause i could always go out and get the parts i needed. But with a mac, i dunno if thats gonna be a viable solution, so I'm a little worried about voiding the warranty.

Also, whats the deal with using a twobutton scroll wheel mouse on a mac? If i use one, what would the right click work like? I really dunno if I'd need one, I'm just used to using one as a windows user all these years. And my wacom tablet should work just fine on a mac?

edit: i just saw wht type of ram it uses on the mac site...

You can get a Two-Button Mouse with scroll if you like. Mac OS X has contextual menu's just like Windows, the difference is that unlike Windows, you don't necessarily HAVE to access these menu's to achieve results. You'll probably come to realize you don't need to right click an awful light - if at all if you really wanted to! This is why Apple continues to ship one button mice, and personally i prefer it.

I have a Graphire2 mate, and its no problem. You will also come to see 'Inkwell' which is a handwriting recognition technology embedded into the OS. Think something like what's probably on Windows XP Tablet Edition. Pretty cool stuff.

RAM? If you're unsure, when the time comes, if you go through Crucial.com, you pick your computer manufacturer and then the model and specs, so in truth, you wouldn't even NEED to KNOW the spec of RAM, Crucials' database would have you covered - as long as you know you have an iMac, and not a PowerBook for example!

Installing RAM won't void your warranty.

http://www.apple.com/retail is your best bet for finding local Apple Retail Locations.

You can use a two-button mouse with OS X if you like. I use a Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 with mine and it has 4 buttons. I only use 3 though (left, right, and back... forward is configured too but I don't use it).

Yea, I hate the one button thing so I still use a two button mouse on my powerbook...

installin the RAM is really easy. All you gotta do is unscrew 4 screws, switch, and you're done. Plus, the RAM is in it's own little panel, so you don't need to take off a large section of the bottom.

err.......a G5 would be nice......