The smallest computer:

[narc]

Originally Posted by bebu*funfun

^^that i know. i want to get a mac for mainly school/design work purpose, but currently i dont know if an ibook will do, splurge and get a 15" powerbook or even wait for the G5 laptop to come out. i heard the G5 will be almost identical to the G4 but with a better cooling system. hmmmm?

when the G5 is released, the G4 will drop in price after a month on the market

[MarcelM]

Well, my powerbook works fine. I dont know if you should buy a power or an ibook. The powerbook is more expensive. I think for private use an ibook works perfectly. Get it with at least 512 Mb Ram.

[kozmo_jr]

I sporting the power book G3, this thing is tough, runs like a dream, a tad slow seeing that the thing is close to 5 years old, Maxed ran at 512, Panther, EVERYTHING! its only crashed 6 times since I have had it. Its solid through and through. Iwould be happy with a new ibook, it would be a pretty close match match to my G3, aside from the processor and HD.

I want to see how far apple will drop the prices of the powerbooks when the G5s come out. If you are looking to buy, online, you can get students prices, and 12" powerbook, you get close to 500 beans off!

as far as the minimac goes its great, cheap enough to throw onto a network and have a pretty powerful mac to tinker on create. (FYI Macs can run winXP and MacOS simultamenously)(unix base! great if you know how to use it, i don't but its there) or Do want im goin to do its get one of those swtiches that can control to computers. (Mac+PC= heaven)

[Revolver]

Originally Posted by marcelito

Since I bought my Powerbook, I will never change back to Windows again

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

no kidding, since ive bought my powermac and having a g3 i book...my pc has become an outdated spyware infested un deffraged dust collector used solely for the interent....

go mac 0S!

[bebu*funfun]

im so glad to see fellow mac lovers.

well right now im just contemplating between a 14" ibook or a 15" powerbook. i dont know in the long run which would be more useful. and the specs i dotn really understand. all i know is that everyones telling me to upgrade it to a 512mb. i find the 12" WAY too small... handy to carry, but way too small for graphic design/homework. ubc bookstore seems to be the best bet to buy it, because they do the student discount deal there.

[bebu*funfun]

anyone know when the G5s are predicted to come out? maybe i should wait it out cuz narc is right..the G4 pricing would dramatically drop.

[ebbomega]

Here's what I'm going to say.

OSX is the best consumer-grade desktop OS I've ever seen.

Most games have Mac ports these days, and the interface is just outright pretty.

The reason the "I switched" campaign was so good was because you'd actually be hearing people reciting the same stuff everywhere they went.

Basically, the heuristic is: Buy a mac and you won't be disappointed.

As usual, I'm going to wait until the next-gen mac minis come out before I purchase one, but these look exceptionally promising.

Um... am I on crack or are G5 powerbooks already in existence?

[MarcelM]

Originally Posted by bebu*funfun

anyone know when the G5s are predicted to come out? maybe i should wait it out cuz narc is right..the G4 pricing would dramatically drop.

I don´t think the Powerbook G5 will come soon, but I don´t know actually.
I got my G4 Pb in April. I got the 12 inch, it´s very small, but fine for me, and I seriously need to upgrade it to 512 mb.
You should ask in one of the mac forums. Those ppl know everything.

[Crazy Dave]

Originally Posted by revolver

no kidding, since ive bought my powermac and having a g3 i book...my pc has become an outdated spyware infested un deffraged dust collector used solely for the interent....

go mac 0S!

take the spyware off of it. don't let in get installed. simple.

[*K*i*t*t*e*n*]

that things tooo tiny.. Ill stil with windows.. dont macs have trouble with gettin msn? my friends does its kinda a piece of junk

[Crazy Dave]

Originally Posted by Narc

Macs = great for video, audio, desktop publishing etc, word processing etc, limited software variety

PC = great for office, games, system administration etc,

Yes may be true,,, but a $1500 PC would kick a $1500 macs ass for Video and Audio. That PC would kick a $2000-$2500 mac for publishing. Heck why do people keep comparing a $5000 mac with a $2500 monitor to a $1000 PC with a $200 monitor... meh! Also people forget what really does the work. And for the most part as long as an app is running performance has very little to do with the OS, it's almost %100 to do with the CPU power. And more power you have the better the apps run.

The Mac has not been king of the desktop publishing for years, not even by delusional people's standards. Heck Office Apps have eaten up %90 of all DTP. Out of the other %10, %4 is PageMaker mostly PC, %4 is Indesign half and half PC and Mac, Quark with only a little more people running Mac for that. But with Quark it run better on P4 2.2 with 512mb, then on a dual G5 2gb, so you figure that one out.

Now stuff like Illustrator is not really DTP, is more of it's own class. Illustrator once again is more responsive on less CPU(measured in MIPS) while on the Windows platform using Intel chips. Now think about this on top of that, you pay a heck a lot more per-MIPS with the Mac. Plus it's a lot more stable on the PC right now (I've know at times where the other has been true)

Second to the Illustrator is CorelDarw. It's less known then Illustrator but can not be ignored. First off Mac does not run any copy of this. I think Corel 3 back in 1992 was the last time they ported it to there. Corel is still the best app for business orientated design.

Audio that an odd one. What do you count as audio? Live or post editing? Mac edges out a bit with live audio if you are using a few apps like hardware based protools. But any time you use softsynths it comes down to CPU power and the more you have the better it runs. Protools only does well because easier to design a product if you have less variables in hardware and software you have to work with. With PC your protools has to work with 100's of motherboards, and 4 generations of OS's (win98, winNT4, win2k and winXP) Also the lastest classes of live audio software is way a head on the PC. Mac is fucking joke with studio in a box application.

Now with post production audio it's %100 to do with fast CPU's. Nothing more to be said then PC per-dollar gives more of this.

Video is split up in to many facets. 3d is for editing is %100 hardware assisted, PC has been way ahead of the Mac for years on this. 3d rendering PC has the CPU speed advantage while figuring price pre-MIPS. Video editing, low end PC all the way only because the apps are out there, while that Mac is limited to apples own software. Mid-end PC wins with again with the Adobe sweet. Mac then takes over after that because Final Cut Pro. Now the crazy studio systems are custom hardware so both the mac and PC loose there.

Mac and PC are totally split with VJ software, the market is too new tell yet. But looks like the Mac is ahead for no other reason then people put the apps out first there, and they did that because the Mac is suppose to be better for video. But the only reason it's better is because the apps are out there. I personal don't know of any technical reasons.

Now with as a Media Player the PC is a little more smooth then the Mac. A lot of files types just don't work with the Mac... but DivX, mp3 you are safe.

Now what it comes down to is Mac is hardly better for any real work reason, but that's not to say that a Mac is not right for you. A Mac is easy to use if you don't know shit about computers. Or from what I've seen mac laptops suffer from way less lemons then on the PC side of things. And oddly mac are better matched in priced when compair side by side with PC side of things while looking at laptops, but lets not even go there with the decktop.

[tvmann]

They announced updated versions of all Powerbooks yesterday. http://www.apple.com/ca/press/2005_0...ok_update.html My friend has had a 12" PB for about 2 years, it's perfect for him as it's so portable.

Wintel works fine for me, including music and video, but I wouldn't mind trying out a Mac.

Originally Posted by marcelito

I don´t think the Powerbook G5 will come soon, but I don´t know actually.
I got my G4 Pb in April. I got the 12 inch, it´s very small, but fine for me, and I seriously need to upgrade it to 512 mb.
You should ask in one of the mac forums. Those ppl know everything.

[Crazy Dave]

Just to beat a dead horse.

I'd like to try a $4000 PC, next to a $4000 mac and see which one is really better. I'm thinking of a good raid 5 system, and accelerated firewire/DV system in the PC up against an out of the box G5.

[MarcelM]

I asked on the mac underground index and that´s what ppl said about the new pb g5 comin out:

Not for a while because Apple still needs to work out the over-heating problem.

and


The new Powerbook update kinda says it all... no time soon.

I think you should get a G4 ibook or powerbook ( depends on how much money you want to spend for it ) soon then ;o)

[bebu*funfun]

^^cool.. yea i can afford an ibook right away right now, but its the matter of do i want to spend a bit more and get a powerbook. asking myself if i NEED a powerbook. 12" still seems way too tiny to me.. hmm. wow these "new" powerbooks are perf..already bumped up to 512mb and it costs less than the "old" ones. hmmmm 2500 for a 15 inch powerbook... possible......

[tvmann]

The 12" PB/iBook and 14" iBook while nice are only 1024x768 resolution, not enough for some things. The 15" is 1280x854 but really I'd like even more resolution (like 1400x1050 which you can get on some 15" Wintel laptops).

Apple should rent out demo computers to prospective buyers, lots of people look at them seriously when they are ready to buy a new computer but can't try them out long enough, so they just get another Wintel.

[Leviathan]

I'm no software engineer but I can probably say with a bit of certainty that Daves argument on CPU speed is not entirely valid. Things like bus speed,memory addressing and hard drive speed have impacts on how software performs. Dave talks about linux but OSX is unix, there is nothing stopping anyone from running it without Aqua hell I run matlab under X11.

You talk about price versus performance but you fail to realize that I value my time at somewhere between 25 to 35 dollars an hour or more. I use both platforms and own both platforms and I can say with all honesty that a PC over the period of its lifespan will probably cost you more money in maintenance and upkeep and will also be obsolete alot quicker. Price comparisons will not help your arugment at all if people decide to look into it. You talk about audio work, but you only talk about one aspect, the processing power. Have you seen or looked into the audio setup for OSX, its a dream. Have you seen Logic 7 yet? it allows for distributed processing, I'm not sure of any sequencers on the PC side that allow you to do that.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dave

Just to beat a dead horse.

I'd like to try a $4000 PC, next to a $4000 mac and see which one is really better. I'm thinking of a good raid 5 system, and accelerated firewire/DV system in the PC up against an out of the box G5.

There are lies, damned lies, and benchmarks.

I too, would like to buy $4000 of apples and $4000 of oranges and see which one yields more peels, but I fail to see the purpose

[MarcelM]

The only thing I know is that a G5 2 GH, has the same processes per second like a PC at 4 GH. intel, amd....
It depends on what you need your computer.
If you need it for games, I wouldnt buy a mac.
I need mine for personal use, image editing, videos, internet, music....
That´s why I prefer the mac !