IBook or Powerbook?

[MikeMike]

for my college years ahead, will be purchasing this before school, so in a little. Was wondering which you would reccomend, Powerbook is faster, slightly bigger, but costlier, the Ibook is lighter, not as powerful and cheaper.

so which would you chose? i will upgrade the memory myself.

MIKE

 

[swanky]

All depends. What will you be using it for? Writing papers and watching movies? Go with the iBook. Anything more demanding I would suggest a Powerbook. The prices are actually quite good right now. Oh,and I presume you've decided against a "PC" (ie. a Windows/Linux based machine)

 

[way]

Originally posted by: nourdmrolNMT1
for my college years ahead, will be purchasing this before school, so in a little. Was wondering which you would reccomend, Powerbook is faster, slightly bigger, but costlier, the Ibook is lighter, not as powerful and cheaper.

so which would you chose? i will upgrade the memory myself.

MIKE

Which models are you comparing? The 12" PowerBook is smaller and lighter than a 12" iBook.

2 weeks ago, I was choosing between the 12" PowerBook with SuperDrive and the 12" iBook. The differences between the two are:

(1) Airport Extreme
(2) 33% faster processor (1 GHz to 1.33 GHz)
(3) 25% faster system bus (133 MHz to 166 MHz)
(4) Double the video RAM (32 MB to 64 MB)
(5) SuperDrive
(6) Double the hard drive (30 GB to 60 GB)
(7) BlueTooth
(8) lighter weight (4.9 lb. to 4.6 lb.)
(9) DVI video out
(10) Audio line in

The difference between the two in price was $600 with academic discount. I decided on the PowerBook.

 

[littlezipp]

Love my 12" powerbook. Used to have a Dell 600m and have to say the powerbook is much nicer than the pc.
As far as an iBook Powerbook decision, hands down the Powerbook. It is more durable, nicer looking and his a higher re-sale value, not to mention is much faster. If you do get the 12" or any other for that matter, I would recommend the 5400rpm drive. Well worth the $100 extra in my opinion.

 

[wifi4lyfe]

hmm I'm in kinda in the same situation except I'm pretty tight for money. I'm looking at getting a G3 powerbook. Are there any noted problems with these somewhat older models? Its a G3 800mhz, 640MB, DVD/CDRW, 30gb, 12.1". Will I be able to play any games such as warcraft 3, c&c generals, etc? Its mainly for school work (word/powerpoint/excel) and watching DVDs though. Oh and how is the battery life. I would be getting this used for about 680 shipped. good deal?

THANKS

 

[thraxes]

Originally posted by: wifi4lyfe
hmm I'm in kinda in the same situation except I'm pretty tight for money. I'm looking at getting a G3 powerbook. Are there any noted problems with these somewhat older models? Its a G3 800mhz, 640MB, DVD/CDRW, 30gb, 12.1". Will I be able to play any games such as warcraft 3, c&c generals, etc? Its mainly for school work (word/powerpoint/excel) and watching DVDs though. Oh and how is the battery life. I would be getting this used for about 680 shipped. good deal?

THANKS

I am a little leery of buying used Macs. The hold their value for a very long time and the cost for performance is insanely high on old macs. I would only buy 3 types of Apples: Brand new, relatively new or as a collectors item: really old.

For everything else I would seriously look at a x86 machine. You may find some very nice used P3m laptops at 1GHz or more. They would probably fit into your budget very well.

 

[frazzled]

wifi4lyfe,

FWIW, if I were you I would try to save up a little more $$ and maybe go for one of the refurb 800Mhz G4 iBooks from Apple. The refurbs come with a full warranty and earlier this evening they listed a nicely configured G4 12" iBook for around $849. The video and CPU are definitely better on the newer machines and you will have a better chance of being able to play some games.

The iBooks are quite nice, I'm about to buy one for my daughter for high school, I fully expect it to last for 4 years. Nice and rugged, good battery life and WiFi reception.

If you plan on having the machine for awhile definitely worth it to get the very best config that you can.

Oh, and to find the Apple refurbs go to the Apple Online, hit the Store tab and look down the left-hand side to the red "specials" tag. If you see something you like don't wait, they go quickly. Also if you have an Apple Store nearby they often have refurbs or demos for good prices.

Good luck,

fraz

 

[wyvrn]

I purchased a 900Mhz G3 Ibook a couple of months ago for $699 after rebate, with free Canon printer included. I could not be happier. It's about as fast as a 1Ghz Pentium or Duron system. I can do email, photo editing, watch DVD's and use the Internet fine. It crashes rarely. Since I don't game on the computer, I didn't need the extra processing power. Add in that the lappy came with 640MB of ram installed at no extra charge (thanks Apple) and Airport wireless included free, and I am very happy.

 

[wifi4lyfe]

wyvrn - thats a damn good deal!! mine was 700 shipped (no rebates) and its the G3 800mhz and no printer (dont need anyways heh). I was going to get a G4 but realized this is my first apple product ever basically, and I didnt wanna spend xtra money not knowing if I was going to like it, keep it, or sell cause too hard to use/not enough compatibility. it should be here friday, cant wait!

 

[meatyocre]

The updated PowerBooks are the "bang for the buck" PB's of all time...Especially the 12" G4 1.33Ghz. @ $1399.99 - with educational discount. I would not get the iBook... do the math and weigh the trade-offs. It is is clear which machine comes out on top.

 

[Frightcrawler]

Aren't ibooks built with plastic and powerbooks with aluminum or some other metal?

 

[thraxes]

Yeah. Powerbook have an Aluminum shell whereas the iBooks are plastic.

For budget reasons (German Apple prices are high ) I got myself an iBook (arrived Tuesday - YEAH!!) and so far I am really loving it! The difference would have been almost 300 Euros if I had chosen the Powerbook and I just couldn't justify spending that much more money for a performance increase that I would barely notice. I got my with Airport, Bluetooth, 60GB HDD and the TV out adapter. I added a 512MB module and that nice Logitech Notebook mouse myself and so far I have not regretted it one bit.