Hi,
I’m wondering if I could get some input on my next workstation. Firstly, let me state that I currently work on a PC with the following:
[LIST]
[]Intel Core 2 Duo 4300 @ 1.8Ghz
[]2Gb Ram
[]Ati Radeon X1600
[]Creative Sound Audigy 2 ZS
[]Samsung 250Gb SATA HD
[]19’’ Dell Generic Monitor (absolutely horrible)
[*]21.3’’ Samsung SyncMaster
[/LIST]
Now, I’m in a unique position. While I work on a PC at home, I travel to freelance at other agencies and use a Mac or PC. I’m intrigued by the potential of working with a Mac and installing Leopard when it comes out … and I have always been happy doing all of my creative, whether it be graphics or video, on a Mac. However, in the past couple years I haven’t had to run Flash on OSX, but from what I remember it wasn’t too pleasant of an experience. In design-time everything ran very sluggish, and animations were choppy. Of course, I was using a Mac with a PowerPC, and now Mac’s are equipped with Intel chips. Has this effected Flash performance when working on a Mac?
So here are my questions, and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to answer them 
[LIST=1]
[]I usually travel to 3 different offices (absurd, I know), workstation or laptop?
[]If laptop, I would make sure a second monitor is available to me. Does anyone enjoy working under these conditions?
[]If workstation, what do you think about the new Mac Pros? Scalability?
[]Loaded question: I’m leaning to toward switching to Mac, what are the cons? What if I wanted to run Parallels?
[*]I have a $6000 (give or take) budget that includes either a workstation with two monitors, workstation with a 30", or laptop with a second monitor. Ideas?
[/LIST]
The following programs are always open:
[LIST]
[]Photoshop CS3
[]Flash CS3
[]Dreamweaver CS3
[]Outlook
[]iTunes
[]MSN Messenger
[]Skype
[]Extensis Font Suitcase
[/LIST]
Opened periodically:
[LIST]
[]Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (more than not)
[]Illustrator CS3 (more than not)
[]After Effects (more than not)
[]Premiere (more than not)
[]Flash Video Encoder
[]Adobe Bridge
[]Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint
[]Fireworks (rarely)
[*]Indesign (rarely)
[/LIST]
Hopefully this is enough information to help answer my questions. Again, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to help.
Thanks!
