[fr33daddy]

ok, now ive got about 1300-1400 dollars to spend and i need to find a laptop that will run really well, not give me a lot of trouble, fulfill all of my student needs, but still let me do some cool stuff as well. i cant afford a powerbook, and ive had friends tell me that if i cant get the powerbook, id be much better off spending the money on a nice PC laptop instead of an ibook because "ibooks have terrible buses, so that no matter how good your processor and RAM is, it'll still lag". i know this is the ibook forum, but, i thought considering my situation you might be able to give me some insight.

[wataru]

Your friends are lying. There have been logic board issues with iBook G3s, but nothing matching their vague description.

[Nodnarb]

Go for the iBook. Great machine. I'm trying to convince my sister to get one, but all her windows friends are convincing her to get a p.c. (and I think they might win). I don't know how to convince her to get a mac, but since you seem like you want to, DEFINETLEY go for it!

[rastatero]

The current iBook lineup are all equiped with a 133Mhz bus, while the current powerbooks are at 166Mhz. The iBook's current bus speed is equivalent to the bus speed of the previous generation G4 powerbooks. The minute difference in bus speed will hardly be noticed in performing many of the daily tasks and functions of academia. I am currently running a 12" 1Ghz iBook with 768MB ram and photoshop and office products run quickly and smoothly. Not to mention all of the iLife software. I would recommend it for someone looking to purchase a machine in your given price range. -- Tony

[Red Wolf]

iBook G4, definetely.

$1300 doesn't get you an iBook. It gets you a 12" iBook, AirPort Card, Bluetooth, and an extra 512MB of RAM. Unless you are a hard drive hog there isn't anything else a student needs.

[fr33daddy]

wow, thanks, i'll definitely go for the ibook then!

[wuzup101]

Definitely go for a machine with airport and possibly bluetooth if you think you'll want/need it in the future. I would never recomend buying one without airport, but some people don't need bluetooth. Also get a stick of 512mb or 1gb of ram ASAP. 512mb should be more than adaquate for a student's uses. I'm going to be going into my sophomore year this year and I just purchased a new 15" PowerBook. Trust me when I say you'll love the Mac. They are great machines!

[nJm]

Just to clarify it for the original poster, iBook G4's come with 256mb ram soldered onto the logic board. So if you buy an additional 512mb you will have a total of 768mb which is quite a good amount for a Mac.

Also keep in mind it is always far cheaper to buy the ram somewhere else and install it your self. It is really easy. All you need is a really small screw driver to open up the cover it goes under.

[artaxerxes]

As a long term PC user - I even had a windows laptop - before the joy of owning the new 1GHz iBook. Ultraportable, light with a long battery life. Holds everything you need - though I would recommend a larger hard drive for the inevitable mp3/mpeg collections - especially if there is networking at your Uni.

Enjoy.

[fr33daddy]

wow, thanks, i really appreciate all the input

[Randman]

Originally posted by artaxerxes:
Ultraportable, light with a long battery life. Holds everything you need - though I would recommend a larger hard drive for the inevitable mp3/mpeg collections.

Agreed, get the largest hard drive size you can afford without skimping on ram. And you can always get an external.

Right now, I'm using a G4 1Ghz iBook 14" with 1.12GB of ram. The hard drive is 60GB, but I also have a 120GB and 160GB external hard drive along with an external Pioneer DVD burner and a bunch of other stuff.

[teknopimp]

Originally posted by fr33daddy:
ive got about 1300-1400 dollars to spend...

$1399 (after edu discount) gets you the lowest level powerbook. an ibook is fine, however you will quickly find it limits and may always lust after the powerbook. remember, this is an investment and the powerbook is the better machine. and you can afford it.

[Randman]

Originally posted by teknopimp:
$1399 (after edu discount) gets you the lowest level powerbook. an ibook is fine, however you will quickly find it limits and may always lust after the powerbook. remember, this is an investment and the powerbook is the better machine. and you can afford it.

The differences between PowerBook and iBook are small enough these days that it's worth considering a maxed-out iBook G4 vs a bare-bones PowerBook G4, especially for a student.

[teknopimp]

Originally posted by Randman:
The differences between PowerBook and iBook are small enough these days that it's worth considering a maxed-out iBook G4 vs a bare-bones PowerBook G4, especially for a student.

what IS maxed out? if you add up pricing for 60G HD, BT, and AP your total is $1132 (again, edu price). the difference is only $267. still no DVI, no audio, stuck with 32mb vram, slower bus/ram, etc. and what IS bare-bones for a powerbook: stock ram, that's it, you can't dumb it down. the powerbook already comes with a lot of things a pro might need. the ibook is a fine student computer but the powerbook is better. i had a tibook as a student. the point of the poster is that he has $1400 and is concerned about 'lag'. the powerbook is the solution. check the benchmarks, there's really no comparison. so why would someone who can afford a powerbook buy an ibook?

[brettcamp]

so why would someone who can afford a powerbook buy an ibook?

1. iBook is sturdier if s/he travels a lot

2. iBook is reported to have marginally better AirPort range and battery life

3. If s/he has $1400 to spend, that'll buy an iBook plus a 512 RAM stick and AppleCare and an AirPort card. (The Powerbook, however, comes with the AirPort card bundled free. But then, so did my iBook, thanks to a sale at the store I bought it at.) So you wind up with a possibly superior package for the same amount of money.

As always, what you should buy depends on what you do with it. If you plan on adding an Apple monitor or need the extra hard drive space (double the capacity) or do a lot of graphics, then the PB is a better choice.
I really lusted after the 12" Powerbook, which has got to be the coolest looking maching around, but since I don't really use my Mac for anything that demanded higher performance (just word processing, web surfing, email, a little website building), the iBook seemed like a better value for my intended uses.

[Captain Obvious]

I wouldn't get the 60 gig drive.

I would upgrade to the 40 gig internal and then get an external firewire drive. You don't need to carry all your media files and other nonessential files with you all the time. The iBook drive is slow anyway. I have been able to stick a 120gig 7200RPM drive in a firewire case and I store all the files I don't need on a regular basis on that. Plus I used it to back up my data and installed a copy of panther on it. The 7200RPMs make for a speedier machine when I am at my desk and it seems like a sounder investment then the bigger internal drive.

[fr33daddy]

wait, how does having an external firewire drive make the machine run faster? and how much do those usually cost?

[BkueKanoodle]

In the last 2 years, I've owned and used every Apple laptop out except for the 17 inch, starting from a 700 mhz ibook, up to a 1.25 15 powerbook. I also run a large Windows and Linux network, and a citrix server farm. In the last 6 years I've probalby bought and personally setup up close to 1000 laptops. so what am I using now? A 1ghz ibook.

I found that the ibook does just about everything I want, and i wasn't paying a premium for stuff I didn't use, like DVI. Alot of people seem to think that the ibook is a lowend computer, when it has better specs then last years 12 inch powerbook that everyone was drooling over.

Benchmarks are all finding and dandy for measuring your genital size, but real world, unless your doing heavy duty video editing, or super uber photoshop work, you won't noticed a difference, especially for a college student. Hell, my sister just graduated from college and she's still using a 6 year old 266 Micron laptop.

[nredman]

Apple Certified PowerBook G4 12-inch TFT

PowerBook G4 1.33GHz/256MB/60GB/Combo/AP Extreme Card/E/12-inch/Aluminum - Apple Certified
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Original price: $1,599.00
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you can so get a powerbook.

apple certified (refurbed)