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NY152 · Apr 29, 2003, 05:33 AM

Hello everyone.

Here is my situation. I am looking at purchasing a new mac. And I am looking at the new 17" powerbook. However for the price of one of those babies with a 1 GHz G4 I can get a dual 1.42 GHz powermac and 17" monitor.

What do you all think?

DrBoar · Apr 29, 2003, 08:02 AM

It really depends on your needs.
The dual gives you a lot that the PB does not have like more CPU hores power for the buck, far more expansion and upgrades. On the other hand the Dual tower will be outdated as soon as the 970 towers arrive (as far as being a leding edge power mac).

The PB is more of a fast enough portable computer with one heck of a screen and as such will age more gracefully than the tower. A year from now assuming a second revison of the 970 towers is out then the dual 1.42 will be as trounced as the beige G3s are by the current G4s....Even the low end tower will kill it by a wide margin. The 17" PB on the other hand is likely to hold its own better against at least the iBooks and still be acool computer with a heck of a screen

If you do a lot of CPU GPU intensive stuff get the tower as it is better in absolute terms. If you do light stuff web browsing Office email etc get the PB as it probably will keep its rellative value better

Westfoto · Apr 29, 2003, 11:33 AM

Do you value the ability to go some where with your computer? Is the 17" powerbook screen big enough for what you do? As you can always get a bigger screen latter for the G4 tower. At present I have a Dual 533 and a 19" crt sony monitor. I would love to get the 20" flat from Apple, but other things are higher on the list right now.

It realy comes down to if you need to take it with you or not.

geekwagon · Apr 29, 2003, 01:12 PM

Obviously, the Powermac is going to be way faster. It has faster video, a much faster hard disk, and obviously way faster procs. If you don't need the ability to take your computer with you, I would just get the Powermac.

That said, I bought both.

Well, my Powermac is the 1.25 because the 1.42 wasn't shipping when I bought it...

asagoo · May 1, 2003, 05:23 AM

Unless you actually need to take your computer with you, you should get a PowerMac. If you work mostly at your desk, a laptop will be very bad for your back and shoulders, because the screen and keyboard will always be in the wrong position. Also, after two or three years when it starts "feeling slow", you will wish your machine was more extensible.

I used a Powerbook as my main machine for three years and bought a PowerMac last year. Now that I have nice big display, a separate keyboard, and I know I can put in a new graphics card in two years, I don't want to go back.

Amar

Kyle Dreaden · May 1, 2003, 06:22 AM

Here's an idea. I recently purchased a new 1.25Ghz MDD powermac. I choose it over a decked out 15" powerbook. I did this because of all the reasons the first post pointed out. i.e. Expandability and speed. True, the 970's will dwarf my system, but to me, I don't need to replace a computer just because a new one is out. Once it becomes too slow for me I'll replace it and that shouldn't be for a few years. On the other hand there are many times where I do wish I was portable. The solution? Get your powermac (you'll love dual processors if you're coming from a single) and then save up another 1000 and buy a low end iBook for your portable needs. Do all your intensive work on your powermac, and your lightweight productivity when out and about on the iBook.

Xterratop · May 2, 2003, 01:02 PM

Originally posted by Kyle Dreaden:
Once it becomes too slow for me I'll replace it and that shouldn't be for a few years. On the other hand there are many times where I do wish I was portable. The solution? Get your powermac (you'll love dual processors if you're coming from a single) and then save up another 1000 and buy a low end iBook for your portable needs. Do all your intensive work on your powermac, and your lightweight productivity when out and about on the iBook.

I totally agree with you as well. I was in the same situation months ago and decided to get a powermac over a powerbook. After months of research, I realized that having a powermac is the best way to go. Since my powermac purchase, I expanded my configurations even more- added more ram, added an extra hardrive, etc. With a laptop, you can't add much internally- everything is external which would cost more in the end.

After the powermac purchase, I had a nice income tax return and purchased myself a Titanium Powerbook 867 15". I chose not to purchase a 17" AlumBook because they are so new and plus I really didn't need all that screen size.

I'm really happy that I purchased a Powermac though because I know that I can expand it over time and when I feel that its slow for what I do, then I would look into purchasing a new one. Before the Powermac, I had a 233mhz iMac (the one in different colours). I had a green one that had a 6gb hardrive. It was enough for what I did at the time as a graphic designer. Also, it was the only computer I could afford at that time. I had that computer for 4 years and after maxing out the ram, I realized that having a G3 computer running OSX on a 6gb hardrive was not enough- everything was slow because OSX was made for thhe G4 processors and that I was only running on 233mhz. So, thats when I decided to upgrade my hardware.

Hope this helps!