I want to switch, but what model is best for me?

I’m new to this forum and I need help. I have always wanted an Apple laptop to work alongside my PC, even tough I would probably sell the PC once I have found out how to fully use a new Mac. The problem I have is what Apple laptop to go for between the iBook and PowerBook G4. The only real requirements I need would be a 12” screen and a price limit of £2000. I will basically use the laptop for music and photography creation/editing, email/internet, university, DVD/CD-RW etc. I really don’t know what laptop to buy, I am tempted by the PowerBook, but do I really need it?
The only other query I have about getting a Mac is the problem of music downloads etc. is a popular program such as Kazaa available for the Mac? And do you think I would really need a DVD-RW?

the iBook with the 12.1" screen and combo drive should fit you well

$1,299.00

900MHz PowerPC G3
512K L2 cache @900MHz
128MB SDRAM memory
40GB Ultra ATA drive
ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
32MB DDR video memory
Combo Drive
Built-in 56K v.92 modem
AirPort ready
Up to 5 hr. battery life

the best music download app is iTunes with the built in Apple Music store. however it is currently only available to US citizens, im sure it will be global by summer or fall.

there is a lot of 3rd party software available for the mac, at Safe Mac Downloads List and MacUpdate

unless you're working with video editing or need to back up large files, then i doubt you'll really need a DVD-RW

You are probably not going to believe this but the best prices for Apple gear seem to be at John Lewis, they even better the internet sellers (mainly because they are all sourced from Apple anyhow so none of them get any deals).

I notice you are in London and I know for a fact there is a reasonably sized John Lewis shop there.

Price for a 15" Combo drive PowerBook is £1899 btw.

Combo drive is the DVD-R/CD-RW btw, DVD-RW only comes with the SuperDrive and that only seems to be present over here on the 17" phallic symbol model.

Did I seem something about 1Ghz iBooks as well? They may well be worth looking at if they have managed the long swim.

Amen-Moses

the only problem i feel is that the iBook uses the old G3 rather than the PowerBook? if ive got the money for a powerBook why not just get that, as it has the latest technology in it and will last me longer surely?

hill.ed said:

the only problem i feel is that the iBook uses the old G3 rather than the PowerBook? if ive got the money for a powerBook why not just get that, as it has the latest technology in it and will last me longer surely?

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the new powerbook will last longer, and dont call me shirley

hi Amen-Moses, i went into John lewis today! and i looked at the PowerBook. but the salesman said that upgrades couldnt be done eg RAM etc from themselves, if i got a PowerBook i wuld want a full spec 12", and the only place i can think of that is a reputable wholesaler.

If you have the money for the PB, go for it. I switched in February and got the 14" iBook and I love it. In my opinion, by the time I need to upgrade the iBook I'll be able to get the new 970 based systems so I'd rather save the money by getting the iBook now and use the savings towards one of those

With the PowerBook is you need to worry about dents so if you are planning on traveling a lot get the polycarbonite iBook.

when i want to buy a PowerBook, the Apple Portection Care plan is an extra £279. is this really worth getting, and what does it actually cover me for as the apple website doesnt really explain it very well. and also could i get insurance for a PowerBook, that would cover me from accidental damge etc?

theres plenty of information on the apple site about Apple Care

ok, i see, thanks for that. but if i broke my PowerBook, would i pay for the repair under the plan, or will Apple?

hill.ed said:

hi Amen-Moses, i went into John lewis today! and i looked at the PowerBook. but the salesman said that upgrades couldnt be done eg RAM etc from themselves, if i got a PowerBook i wuld want a full spec 12", and the only place i can think of that is a reputable wholesaler.

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What is the etc?

If you want to upgrade the Ram it is dead easy and cheap, 256Mb SO-DIMM from Novatech cost me £29 + VAT, fitted it myself in 10 minutes on the iMac dome-bot. From what I can gather the PowerBook 12" and 15" use the exact same Ram, in fact if you buy the standard model with 256Mb, swap the 128 user replaceable one with a Novatech 256Mb then you can sell the 128Mb one to some poor unsuspecting PC Laptop owner for more than the Novatech one cost!

Or if you have £155 spare Novatech also do a 512Mb version.

So what else would you (or could you) upgrade?

(why on earth did Apple put a 128Mb card on the internal slot???)

Amen-Moses

hill.ed said:

ok, i see, thanks for that. but if i broke my PowerBook, would i pay for the repair under the plan, or will Apple?

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You throw it out the window and claim it on house insurance like any normal person of course!

In all my years of buying electronic equipment I have never paid for any of the gimicky insurance plans and so far have never needed to get anything fixed outside the standard 1 year warranty period.

I find that Video recorders tend to pack in around the 6 year mark (with all my children they get a hammering I can tell you). All my TVs still work and the oldest is coming up to it's 20th birthday.

The only devices that do not survive at least double the extended warranty period are washing machines (in use every day) and printers (they tend to last about 4 years on average).

Course that's just me!

Amen-Moses

nice plan. thats what i was thinking. just out of curisity what system do you own and has anything ever gone wrong with it?

its nice to have the apple warranty cause if something DOES go wrong, youre SOL. if its under warranty i think all you have to pay is labor, and maybe shipping if there is not an authorized apple maintenance/dealer in your area. of course all apple machines come with a 90 day warranty through apple

yeah i suppose that if i do break the laptop from dropping it or something, it would be covered under household, and by also having the apple protection plan, i would have the best of both worlds, right?

yep. you can have your cake and eat it too

hill.ed said:

nice plan. thats what i was thinking. just out of curisity what system do you own and has anything ever gone wrong with it?

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Systems plural.

I have a P3-500 Linux router (now getting a bit long in the tooth), an Acorn Risc-PC even longer in the tooth but over ten years old and never gone wrong, 2 2 year old XP-2000 systems that have also never gone wrong (apart from the OS of course - Win98-SE, possibly the most unstable OS ever created), an IBM Laptop (7 years old and still going strong since given a new lease of life courtesy of Linux) and now a beautiful iMac dome-bot 1Ghz G4 17" flat panel.

I have been long mourning the passing of Acorn (ooh, I forgot the A3000 system upstairs, 15 years old and still working fine although it is on it's second SCSI HD) and when I bought the iMac (was it really only 3 weeks ago) I found an ample replacement for my loss.

Honestly the only thing that ever kept me away from Apple was the price, they always seemed overpriced for the spec but with the switch away from SCSI and the unix basis of OSX (plus the addition of the SuperDrive) I ran out of excuses not to switch.

I also have a fully working Phillips CDI, several Nintendo's, several Sega consoles, 3 Playstations (one a Plus One) and a PS2. You can play several video games at once in every room in my house if you so wished!

Would I qualify as a "cutting edge geek" I wonder?

My ambition is to one day open a museum (somewhere in the attic I have an original boxed Atari, a Sinclair Spectrum and possibly even a XZ81 (prolly in the same box as the BetaMax and V2000 VCR's and the Laser Disc system), I just wish I hadn't sold the QL!).

Amen-Moses

On the Ram front I initially purchased the iMac with 256Mb and then upgraded (for approx £34) to 512.

The only difference I could see was that after the upgrade heavy Ram users like iMovie and iDVD stopped complaining quite so readily but from what I can gather most of my initial Ram problems resulted from always running in 1440x900 screen mode (why isn't it 1600x900?). The reason appears to be that the system defaults to using OpenGL mode for the windows renderer (hence all games can run in windows or full screen with no delay in switching, a major plus for OSX imo) which also means that the OpenGL client, in this case OSX, keeps copies of all windows contents in system Ram as bitmaps. On a 12 or 15 inch monitor you would be running far less intensive screen resolutions so would not require nearly as much Ram.

As an estimate I would think 256Mb entirely sufficient for a 12" PowerBook and 384Mb sufficient for the 15". (especially as with both models iDVD and iMovie will probably not be heavily used).

IMO Apple have seriously ****** up by not providing 256Mb in the internal slots on these models, in fact given the low cost of Ram at present they should have installed 512Mb on all models in the entire range.

btw, please consider the extra inches of screen real-estate, 12 inches sounds great when talking about penis size but when converted to pixels it is paltry. (for <insert deity here>'s sake don't try out Real-Myst on a 17 inch or you will break countless laws in order to purchase one! )

Amen-Moses

[ADMIN EDIT] Watch the language. There are rules here. I will let the the rest of the post stand because it technically does not constitute porn, but keep it clean....[/ADMIN EDIT]

thanks for the advice, it really will be the 12" or 15" powerbook, rther than the 17", as that seems just a bit big for my needs! will some games run okay on a powerbook such as medal of honour, ghost recon etc, beacuse if so i will toally switch and ditch the PC.