12" Or 15" Powerbook Options

[zakary]

Hi everyone,
i'm new in the forum and a prospective powerbook user, my dilemma is the 12" or 15" powerbook?

I am aware of the differences (the 15" has more screen res, 1Gb ethernet, up to 2Gb of ram, pcmcia slot, 800 firewire)

The only reason i would prefer the 15" is the pcmcia slot since i already own the exellent RME multiface card, the other options do not tempt me that much, since i can still use an external monitor with the 12" at any resolution.

If i get the 12" (with 1.25Gb ram) would i be able to use the MOTU 828 (mkI), in the specs of the card i read that the connection is with standard 1394 FireWire.

Has anyone tried this with the 12" powerbook ?

thanks in advance
zak

[zakary]

Thanks everyone so far for your replies,
after a lot of research i see no difference in performance between the 12" 1.3Ghz and the 15" 1.3Ghz powerbooks, provided that they both have the same amount of ram. I forgot to mention that my needs are not so heavy duty, i'm into deep-dub house, so i'll be using something like max 26 tracks (mixed audio tracks, softsynths, soft effects, buses) and occasionaly record some vocals or guitar. I think logic could cover all my needs. I wont be recording many external stuff simultaneously and playing back at the same time, just record 1 external source, then process it and then bring it in the arangement and sequence / arange / process with soft effects along with other softsynths (kontakt, etc). Is anyone else into similar music style and workflow ??? Would i need an external firewire drive for this ?

Even though i don't really need the portability of the 12", i would prefer it to the 15" BUT i would have to change my RME Multiface and it's kind of difficult right now since this is a brilliant card, no problems AT ALL, not only me but anyone else using it, plus i have read a lot of problems about chainning firewire audio interfaces & firewire drives which i would have to do if i was to go for the 12".

I must admit that the RME is tooo much for my needs, the only other interface that i could go for is the motu 828 mk1 since everyone using it is very happy with it, plus it has the pre-amps that i'll need, knobs for headphone/volume control, firewire connection (is it powered from the firewire bus or does it need external power supply?)

I'll do some more research and if i can see in practice (get to use it) a 12" 1.3Ghz/1Gb ram with a motu828 mk1 chainned with a firewire hard drive, doing what i need i'll go for that, if not i'll go for the 15" 1.3Ghz / 1Gb ram with my RME multiface.

thanks so far
z