[PJ G4]

I think I made a big mistake. I previously owned a 17" 1.33 Powerbook. I made the following upgrades: 1.25GB RAM, Apple Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse, and a LaCie D2 120GB Firewire Hard Drive. I had the Powerbook for almost a year and never had any problems. I used the Powerbook as a desktop replacement. I use my computer for database using Filemaker Pro,
audio, Photoshop, and web surfing. I sold the Powerbook to purchase the new 20" iMac G5 which I upgraded to the 250GB Hard Drive, 1GB RAM, Airport, and Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse. I was really impressed with the 20" screen. It is big and bright, and can be viewed from almost any angle.
The negatives are that it is very heavy, and noisy. I was one of the unfortunate ones who has a very noisy computer, certainly not whisper quiet as Apple claims. As I am typing this, my computer sounds like a dental drill.
I have read many posts about this common problem and there seems to be no reliable solution. Some have tried replacing the PSU or midplane with some actually making the condition worse. This is very frustrating especially after switching from a completely silent Powerbook. My question is this. With the release of the next OS Tiger will the 17" Powerbook be suitable for my needs for a while. It seems like it will be a while before a G5 Powerbook is released and even then look at what might happen to a Revision A Powerbook. The current 17" is now 1.5 and will certainly be upgraded soon.
How many of you have compared the 17" Powerbook to the 20" iMac G5 to use as a desktop replacement. Is the extra 3" of screen or other features worth it? The cost of the BTO iMac was reasonable compared to the 17" Powerbook. Any opinions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[iREZ]

I think it's very comparable to the iMac G5. Xbench results show very little difference between the two and a 1.8 clock G5 is not that much faster than a 1.5 G4, only big difference is bus speed and HD speed (7200 internal on iMac G5). Other than that and about $1000 I'd rather have a 17" PB (portable) over a 20" iMac. But hey thats just one stupid guy's opinion.

[narkoreptik]

When considering the purchase of my 15" 1.5ghz PB, the 17" 1.8ghz was interesting, but other than portability the weak GPU was the next limitation. It depends very much on your portability vs. mobility needs. Considering that you already have a computer you can work with and that macs hold their value well, you could always wait for the next powerbook (whatever it may be) and switch over to that.

[El Magnificante]

I faced a similar decision before buying my first Mac.

I am now the happy owner of a 17" PB (1.33/1GB RAM/80GB 5400rpm HD) and couldn't be happier.

I don't do alot of heavy video editing, but for everything I do I find the speed more than adequate and don't see myself upgrading for quite some time.

FWIW,

El Mag

[Randman]

I have a PB17, 1.5ghz rev c with 1.5GB of ram) and recently, I had a 20-inch iMac G5 for an extended review for my newspaper.
In my case, I prefer the portability of the PowerBook while still having a good screen to work with.
But the iMac was nice. Its xBench scores were high (check some recent threads on it compared to the 17) and it only had 256 of ram.
The screen was beautiful, it put the 17's to shame as far as clarity and brightness.
I didn't like the echo-y sound but that was one of the few complaints. You could try adjusting the Energy settings under Preferences and see if it helps with the noise.
Consider you have it tricked out with the 250GB HD and BT options (I'm assuming you have at least a 1GB of ram), you have a very good machine. You could always add an iBook 12 if you need portability.
For me, I'm glag I bought the PB, but if the iMac had been out then, I might have opted for it and a 12.
Come rev B, I may get one.

[wilsonng]

I'm guessing that there wasn't much difference in benchmarks between the 1.5 G4 and the 1.8 G5 was because there are not a whole lot of programs that can fully take advantage of the G5.

There should be light at the end of the tunnel since Tiger is advertised as capable of utilizing 64-bit operations and more time is needed before 64-bit capable programs come out.

I remembered when the G4 came out, that there were some games that required the G4's AltiVec processor. There were also alot of programs that advertised themselves as AltiVec-enhanced.

Just this week, Doom 3 was advertised as requiring a G5 processor as well.

A few years back, alot of companies had to play catchup when migrating their programs from OS 9 to Carbon/Cocoa.

Transitioning is not easy and I'll probably wait for Tiger and some programs that take advantage of the G5 processor before making a judgment.

But in the meantime, you can't go wrong with either the iMac G5 or PowerBook 17" G4.