Powerbook

Scráib

Hey,

I'm just looking for a bit of advice here. I'm a student, and this year I'll be going on paid work placement. Since its paid I've decided to get a laptop for myself, and since the iMac I have at home is 7 odd years old and still ticking over, and our 4-year-old Dell is riddled with viruses I've decided to get a mac.

I'd love a powerbook, since I'll be able to afford top dollar gear I'll be going for as high spec as possible. Now here's the problem and the point at which I need advice;

Should I, with mac changing to intel chips in the new year, but no sign of an intel-powered powerbook (sounds terrible doesn't it? ) being released for some time, buy a G4 powerbook, or should I wait until whenever for the new breed to come out?

I know the limitations, that PowerPC software won't work with Intel software unless it has a translator that only gives 80% performance... so I don't know..

Advice? Tips? Thunderous denunciations of the windows platform? I DON'T want to buy a PC!!

Dr_Teeth

You might as well buy a powerbook now, it will be 6 months at the earliest before there will be intel macs (and who knows if the first ones to market will be notebooks or desktops).

Besides which, unless you're going to be playing games or doing video editting you're not going to need the extra speed of an intel machine. So, buy it now and get the use out of it.

Hugh_C

Dr_Teeth wrote:

You might as well buy a powerbook now, it will be 6 months at the earliest before there will be intel macs (and who knows if the first ones to market will be notebooks or desktops).

Besides which, unless you're going to be playing games or doing video editting you're not going to need the extra speed of an intel machine. So, buy it now and get the use out of it.

Rumours abound that there will be intel iBooks announced at MWSF in January. So that may be of interest to the original poster.

Aluminium PowerBooks are already fast enough for video editing - FCP works fine, and although I wouldn't try anything too render-intensive, FCP on PowerBooks is fine for cuts-only or minimal effects.

The general principle is that if you need it now, buy it now, otherwise wait for January to see what comes.

Scráib

Rumours abound that there will be intel iBooks announced at MWSF in January. So that may be of interest to the original poster.

Yeah I did hear that alright. Call me a snob though, but since I'll be able to afford a top-end powerbook when I start work experience, and since I can only afford it this once I'll be going for the full package.

I'll be hoping to get MS office and with luck some macromedia gear. Mostly though I want to get it for playing games! Maybe playing an MMOG like lineage. I know there are more games for the windows platform, but the mac package is just so much more stable I can't seeing myself buying a windows laptop.

Hugh_C

Scr&#225 wrote: »

Mostly though I want to get it for playing games!

This is probably not the best reason to want a Mac. Just my opinion of course.

Scráib

This is probably not the best reason to want a Mac. Just my opinion of course.

Yeah there are disadvantages to owning a mac for gaming rightly enough. But you can get any number of good games for thr platform even if its a bit behind having the games released for it.

When I got my old 233mhz iMac, games for the mac weren't as plentiful as today, but I still found some class ones!