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

[dixiechicken]

I'll agree with you that the powerbooks are overpriced, underpowered depends on what you want to do with them.
You will always pay a premium prices for MAC:s because of small market share & higher developer costs.
( although the last years Apple have reduced their prices quite a bit - this is still the case )

However if you factor in support costs and life expectancy the TCO on Mac is much lower than for a PC.
These days in flattened organisational structures and the expectation that every employee should do everything themselves - ( this is typical of academic institutions, universitys and the like ) you'll find that the hidden costs for using PC:s in any company are substantial.
( by hidden cocst I'm talking about lost productivity time,
when users are sitting around asking themselves and workmates for help trying to figure things out )

I'll further agree that I would perhaps have to test-drive the G5 1,6 model on a regular basis for a week or so to back up my glib statement.
( I really dont think I'll have to retract it - hopefully I'll have one of the G5:s myself in Januari-2004 and we'll see )

However the fact that the "this Xeon server" or "that G5/G4 box" does fare well in benchmark tests or applaying phoshop-filters to giant graphics files, is just marketing hype.
I says precious little about how that same "box" will behave in everyday use.

That said I'll have to stick up for MAC OS X, in one respect,
it is actually very good at copying lods of files over the network.


Cheers: Dixiechicken