[Elevin]

Long time reader, first time poster-
I just finished my first term of college. I brought with me my ~55lbs PC box and the ~20lbs monitor. I grew up on macs (I vividly remember playing lots of Glider on one of those old desktop macs with about a 9inch built in black and white screen). I really just moved to PCs for the games. So I've been building them for the past few years and I kinda hate 'em. Also, turns out I hardly played any computer games this term, and the lack of computer mobility kinda sucks. I didn't really think about going back to macs, but really, it makes since doesn't it? So I'm looking at mac laptops. I went to a compusa and checked out the powerbooks and ibooks. I decided on a 12inch powerbook but that 12inch ibook is looking more and more attractive. I'd be using this for writing papers, mail, web surfing, games (not expecting anything more graphic intensive than escape velocity, nethack, and maybe some macmame), and I might mess around with final cut, photoshop, and midi softsynth a little. How does the ibook handle those last couple things? In the configuration I would get there seems to be a solid $300 difference in price between the two. That $300 bucks could be spent on the ibook for extra ram, an airport card, software, cool macskinz, etc, etc. I could get that stuff with a powerbook, but it would definitely take some time. Another note: I'm one of those strange people who like the the aesthetics of the ibook more than the powerbook. Is the performance/longevity gonna be that different with the powerbook? Is final cut/photoshop performance that much better on the powerbook? I don't need DVI or a superdrive. I can use the spanning hack. Ibook built in bluetooth cost was considered when figuring out $300 difference. So really, the only two things worrying me are the processor speeds and the memory cap. I'm not gonna be buying a 1gig stick of ram (I'll stick with a 512mb stick on top of the built in). Seems like I've kinda been rambling. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks for the help though.

-Ezra
ps: I'm posting this in both the ibook and powerbook forums to get both biased opinions. If thats bad, mods feel free to remove one of em.

[dracoleb]

You know what, i was in the exact same situation you are now. I wanted to get a laptop, and I was looking at Dell a lot. What happened was that I realized that I really wasn't using my gaming rig much so why was I focusing on gaming power in my laptop? It took a bit to convince myself that I'm not as big a gamer as I used to be, Then my priority was to get something portable and reliable. I wasn't really thinking of a mac but while doing research I began to realize how amazing OS X really is. After much debating I decided that a 12" Powerbook was right for me and began saving. Later came the Powerbook revisions and I was even more excited. Later came the iBook G4. This was almost exactly the same thing as the first revision Powerbook 12". At first I just ignored it an focused on the Powerbook, that is until I had enough to buy the iBook with money left over. What finally prompted me to get the iBook was the fact that it was the same for the most part to what I was going to get in the first place , I saw both of them in person at the Apple store and found the iBook more appealing, and the fact that I am extremely impatient. I now am very satisfied with my iBook and do not regret my decision one bit. Sorry for the long response but hope I was of some help.