Want To Buy My First Mac... Don't Know What I Need, trying to solve ignorance Options

[impl0dr]

well... i need some major help. i have been making music on my piece of crap pc for a couple of years. it is really slow, so i don't have many options as to what i can run on it. anyway... i'm looking to get serious about the whole music making thing and know that MAC is the way to go. i know some basics of what i want, but don't know enough about macs or making REAL music using REAL equiptment. so... on to what i know i want:

g4 laptop 12" or 15"
-i need a separate hard drive for my music. my wife intends to use this as her computer for her job too.


i know ABOUT firewire, but don't know anything about it. i do know that i can only get firewire 400 on the 12 and 15".


i have some synths, a 12 track mixer, a drum machine that i will adding to (of course) and would like to get to start really using them.


anyway, i don't know what's available as far as specs go or what i want/need to get in order to sucessfully create music.

so, as you can see... i need a lot of help here. i would like to make this purchase sooner than later and really appreciate your time. thanks

[boze]

hi implodr-
i just read your post and i wanted to chime in about the whole mac laptop purchase idea. put simply, i think mac laptops are not a very good value these days. apple has a reputation of being the comp of choice for serious producers, artists, and graphics people- and it's true that macs are very popular in these areas. that said, i honestly believe you'll have a better experience with a pc laptop at every pricepoint the applestore offers.

i sometimes get castigated for making comments like this, but keep in mind i'm not saying that powerbooks aren't good machines. i'm just saying that they're overpriced, underspec'd, and underpowered these days. i think this will likely change in about a year when G5 laptops exist. at least i hope that's the case. not a good value- that's all i'm saying.

let me break it down one time:

for $1299 you can get an ibook G3 900mhz with a 12" screen and 128M of sdram. the only cheaper laptop at the apple store is an even slower ibook with a CD-ROM instead of a burner or combo drive.

skipping the fancier ibooks for now, the 12" powerbook starts at $1600 and features a 12" screen, 256m of ddr ram and an 867mhz G4.

ibook- 900mhz/128/40 - $1299
12" pbook- 867mhz/256/40 - $1599

you can argue that these are well-built machines that would be adequate for all sorts of uses, but it's much harder to argue that they are a good value.

if you watch these two websites: dealnews.com and for dell stuff gotapex.com you can see laptops every week that have really high end specs for good prices and you can find deals by companies like sony and toshiba that have a really good reputation for pc laptop build quality as well.

my best friend (who owns a ghz tibook and is an electronic musician and cold fusion programmer) recently bought a toshiba 15" 2.2ghz Pentium 4 with 512m of ddr ram, combodrive and built in wireless for $1050 after rebate. i was a bit disappointed because it only did 1024x768 but it does have a 32m ATI videocard and is a good machine for that price. you can get 3ghz dells for $1300 if you watch for a few weeks, and you can get pretty tricked out sony's and toshiba's if you want to spend $1600. no way will these laptops have soldered in ram and 12" screens either. but remember when mac coined the term 'megahertz myth' about how their machines weren't really slower? well you haven't heard anything about the 'gigahertz myth' and that's because there isn't one. if you put a 2.2ghz P4 or 3ghz P4 up against an 867mhz G4 it's going to get outperformed at everything. add the dippy screen size and skimpy ram that you can't take out and it's hard to say that the 12" pbook really compares to other laptops that cost $1600.

it's a tough situation that apple got into as a result of having the G4 chips made by motorola who needed to make lots of small slower chips for other bigger clients and can't make the kinds of hot big computer specific chips that intel can do. the G5 is a big step in the right direction, but G5 laptops are long ways off.

in the meantime you'll get way more for your money with a pc laptop.