[mysteriousal]

Hey people-

I'm looking at getting my first powerbook / ibook- and was wondering if any of you could give me any advice here.

I use a dual 2.0 G5 and the worlds slowest G4 at home, and am looking for something to use on the road- I make a lot of long train journeys / flights and am starting to have more uses for a portable machine.

Since I have a couple of Desktop machines, i'll be looking for a portable as a secondary machine- I won't be needing it for anything too hardcore like video stuff- Just Photoshop, Flash, Itunes, illustrator, Dreamweaver etc.

You'll have to excuse my inexperience with portables here: But i really need wireless. There are a lot of areas in towns / offices that offer a wireless connection- Is this Airport? And is it standard to ibooks? If not- how much is it to add? I live in the UK. Bluetooth wosuld be good, too.

Basically I have ruled out the tibooks.
What's my best bet for an ibook G4? I have seen refurbs from apple at £725 for a 933MHZ 14"... does anyone have any advice about refurbs? Good? Bad?

I'm also half looking at those old, black-cased G3's. I think they're called Pismo's. I can probably find one fairly cheap off a friend- Can they handle the programs I need on OSX? Can they support airport?

If anyonme can offer any advice here, I'd ve very greatful-

Thanks for taking the time to read this....

[SupahCoolX]

The Pismo Powerbooks are getting old now, so I would avoid them.

The iBook sounds perfect for what you need. The 12" G4 is really portable and has quite a bit of horsepower for the price. The wireless connection you mention is, in fact, Airport (based on the 802.11 standard). This is standard on all Powerbooks now, but you'll need an inexpensive card to add it to your iBook (I'm not sure what the UK price is- check the Apple Store UK online).

Bluetooth can either be added as a Build-to-order option from Apple, or you can get a small USB Bluetooth adaptor. Either option is really cheap. Note, however, that if you do NOT get the built-in Bluetooth when you order the computer, you can not add it internally later. You would then have to use the external USB adaptor.

Refurbs are generally pretty good and come with a full 1-year warranty. They can be a good option if you want to save some money.

[Detrius]

If you think the G4 is slow, you will hate anything with a G3. My dual 533 G4 benchmarks as being literally 10 times faster than my 500MHz iBook. That being said... if you are looking at the PowerBook G3s, the Pismo is the one with FireWire and it's the only one worth bothering with.

Also, I personally don't think you should have ruled out the TiBooks. The iBook G4 though is a pretty sweet machine; it would do significantly better in general than the PowerBook G3.

[Kristoff]

I have a Pismo 500 that I use every day (Panther) for Java development. It works just fine. I wouldn't render any movies with it, but for most things, it works great.

I am considering replacing it with an iBook, but since the current fare has been around for 8 months now, I think that it's due for a speed bump--so I am holding off.

Just my .02

[iREZ]

Get a 12" iBook and do yourself a favor all at once.

[mysteriousal]

Thanks for all your replies!

The only reason I'm rulinmg out a Tibook is the price. With my G5 at home I really don't need the horsepower. I guess I'd feel bad with it just sitting on my shelf when not being used. An ibook would be okay, though- As they go pretty cheap as refurbs.

I think I'm going to get a 14" ibook. What's the deal with a speed bump? Is it likely soon? I bought my 15GB ipod 10 days before they bumped it up to 20GB, and my two month old 2x 2.0 G5 has now been replaced by the (cheaper) 2x 2.5... so knowing my luck Apple will do something amazing with the ibooks right after I buy mine...