OK, so I'm buying a iBook/Powerbook. Which one should I get?

[northzax]

should I get he 14 inch iBook, and save some moeny, or pay the additional 4-500 for he 15 inch powerbook? I don't see that I will really use the superdrive, I can't see myself burning DVDs anytime soon.

anyone have either or these and a strong opinion?

[Foehammer]

1. Whats a iBook/Powerbook? nt

[northzax]

6. apple's laptops

the iBook is he iMac of laptops, cheaper, self contained and plastic. the powerbooks are titanium, wickedly good looking, fast and expensive.

[gun_toting_liberal]

2. I bought the PowerBook.

without the superdrive, and I now regret it. I like music. A lot. And now my 60 gig hard drive only has about 5 gigs left and I would love to have a DVD burner to back my files up too.

Go with the 15". It's worth the extra cash.

[northzax]

3. does Apple support and external DVD writer?

and I carry a 40 gig iPod, that will raise my data storage to 100 gigs...that's a hell of a lot of bits.

[gun_toting_liberal]

10. I do too

The bottom line with storage is no matter how much you have, eventually you're going to need more.

I bought my iPod thinking that I wouldn't need more space for a long long time. What ended up happening is that owning the iPod made me search even harder for new music and I filled the space up even faster.

You could get an external. I suppose that is an option, and it would probably even be faster than the superdrive when writing DVD's. It will be much more expensive than the superdrive though.

[Xandor]

5. Get an external firewire drive

edited because I originally had "USB" (oops) instead of "firewire" in the title. There's quite a difference.

I, too, need many gigs to manage my music collection. I added to my iBook's capacity by getting an 80GB LaCie external drive. Works flawlessly (and FAST!) with the iBook. I believe you can also get a 200GB LaCie if you want to spend the bucks.

[ursacorwin]

17. i totally agree

i'm poor so i got the 12 powerbook w/o the superdrive, and now i want one really bad.

splurge! with a mac is always worth it!

[Kellanved]

4. Maybe you should wait a little

At the moment Apple seems to have severe quality issues. Especially the iBooks have a very bad name at the moment.

[northzax]

8. really? I've only heard good things

from people who have them. do you have any more info?

[Kellanved]

9. look here

http://www.blackcider.com/ ; It was pretty big after the media picked up the i-pod battery stories.

[ourwinter]

11. This is obviously a

Slam on Dean, I wish you'd just get over it!



....



oh sorry, what was it we were talking about?

[Ready4Change]

16. 15" had some screen issues

Many of the 15" screen had "white spots" which were being cause (from what I've heard) by inconsistent pressure from their supporting frames.

Last I heard those issue had been cleared up, and Apples been good about replacing the screens of the machines that were affected.

[cjbuchanan]

7. I had to make the same choice

I ended up getting the 15" powerbook. However, I do use the DVD drive a lot (I use it more for data then for movies). You can always buy a 15" without a superdrive.

Anyway, the reason I got the powerbook was I needed more higher end stuff. I work with audio and video for a living, so I needed the extra power and ram. If I only needed a machine for the basics (word, email, web and such things), I would go with the iBook. One downside to the iBook, it is easier to scratch the outside cover (a friend has one). If you get one, make sure to get a good bag to carry it in.

Happy Macing

[ourwinter]

12. Honestly

My mom has the G4

My brother in law has the ibook

They start up the same speed, and there
is nothing that they do differently.

At first I was going to get the G4, titantium
pimp it out, etc. But though better - when
I heard that there wasn't much difference.

Personally to me, you gotta get the super drive
hook it all up before hand spend the extra cash
and allow it to be used to its full extent.

I am personally, putting my money where my mouth
is and buying an ibook within the next two weeks
as well. To me, Apple is the only way to go
and my next step will be to max it all out.

Hope this was helpful.

[gun_toting_liberal]

13. there are some differences

That you'll only notice depending on how you use it.

They are mostly geeky things like bus speed, and I don't think that the iBook has Firewire 800, only 400.

The main dif that is easy to see is that the display on the 15" is better for watching a movie on a airplane in wide format. :)

They both are good computers though.

[MR. ELECTABLE]

14. Definitely the PowerBook

Have you actually compared the two in person? The PowerBook has the NICEST keyboard I've ever seen on any laptop, and I think it's nicer than a lot of desktop keyboards. The iBook has a pretty standard laptop keyboard, which means its pretty flimsy and not very ergonomically sound.

[Ready4Change]

15. Will you miss the money?

If you won't miss the money, go for the Powerbook. But if money is tight, or if you have other things you'd like to spend that $500 on right away, get an iBook.

I've an iBook and love it. It's my first Mac, so I didn't want to make a big investment, just incase I found I didn't like the Mac world. No problems there, but money has gotten tight, so I'm glad I got the iBook rather than the Powerbook.

If money weren't tight I'd be thinking in terms of a Powerbook replacement in summer '04. But that would be a luxury, as the iBook meets my needs fine.