'Serious' Audio on iBook 700? Options

[Tim]

I am switching to Mac and generally want a laptop. I actually have already bought an MBox from digidesign. Initially, I intend to use ProTools LE, Absynth. I envision myself running mostly MIDI, with half of a dozen audio tracks. I intend to also get a glyph drive in the future.

So, knowing that, will the iBook 700 suffice. The debate of course between it and the PB (maybe 550). It seems like the iBook will be fine, especially when packed with 640 of RAM, but I've read comments here and there on the net about how it isn't for the 'Serious' audio production. No, I'm not recording the next Puff Daddy album, but I want something that I won't outgrow for 2-3 years.

Any opinions are great, especially from current iBook owners...

Thanks,
Tim.

[Synthetic]

But on the brighter side.... I have a 350mhz Blue and White g3 (320 mb ram) at home running a Digi001 with ProTools 5.2 LE (and glyph x-project 30gig firewire drive) and I actually am able to do quiet a lot on it. My only limitations are the amount of plugs I can use. I usually can run about 4-5 plugs before the cpu craps out but some reverbs suck it up so much that 2-3 plugs may be max. I work around this by using plugs last and then bouncing my tracks to free up cpu cycles.

So yes the 700mhz ibook can do serious music... I don't see it being to overwhelmed by any app unless you just love to go crazy with the plugs. But, I just passed on that ibook for a refurbished g4 550 because I always try to get as much power as I can afford so that you may be willing to keep current system longer before the need to upgrade again. That's my theory anyway. Good luck.

Ohh... even though Mbox uses USB.and USB speed is slow but since the Mbox is only handling 2 inputs and ouputs... its enough speed to keep up with that amount of data and should work fine.