Imac Or Ibook For Music? Options

So, I'm a pc-man, but SO tired for PCs... I think I'm not the only one... So I've been thinking about a mac. I make music with computer, so I need some power, but also stability (which PCs don't seem to offer...). I can't afford those G5s or even G4 (the one which look like computer, not iMac, eMac, or laptop...). PowerBook is too expensive too. So my choices are iBook and iMac. I thought about the 800Mhz G4 (12") iBook, or maybe the 933Mhz G4 one. How big is the difference in speed of those two iBooks? I would probably take that 640mb memory (which is the maximum) for those. So is the 933Mhz one worth the extra 200-300€ (or something like that in $s). And then the other one choice is the iMac (15") There's 1Ghz G4 processor in that and the maximum ammout of memory is 1Gb, which is more than in iBooks. Also, the memory seems to be a bit faster in iMac, because it's DDR 333Mhz, while it's DDR 266Mhz in iBooks. That iMac would cost about 1600€ (again, something like that in dollars), whit 1Gb memory (if I won't buy that memory from apple, cause they seem to have quite expensive memories). So, which one would be the best choise (price/quality ratio)? And can you say, what kind of pc do those macs match, (I know that the Mhz-ammount is not compareable). If you bother answer, I would really appreciate that, cause I really don't know anything about macs, and I don't believe in salesmans speaks.

[boze]

petronome-
i don't think the decision to get an iMac over an iBook is as clearcut as Metro suggests.

it's embarrassing that folks would be saying, 'you'll want to go with OSX'- embarrassing to apple i mean. do you know that OSX has been out for three years now?! it makes me want to scream thinking that there are old school ppl on this board who think it's even an option to expect a new computer buyer to use an os that was replaced three years ago- and lets not mince words, i know it hasn't been ready all this time but that's just _another aggravation that mac ppl are all to ready to play down imo.

about your specific situation: you may as well disregard everything in this thread if you're not buying for 1/2 a year. right now i think the G4 iBooks are probably the best value in the mac computer line, but that could change.

did somebody actually use installation of a scsi card as evidence that macs were easier to configure? i think that's insane. first of all, neither of the machines petronome is considering even have pci slots and secondly i'd be willing to bet that the likelihood of any new mac or pc person using scsi for audio is about nil. to suggest that macs have an advantage in plug-and-play is pure conjecture and mostly i think it's just folks parroting apples marketing campaign from four years ago. for every story about plugging something in on a pc that causes trouble there are other stories about mac peripheral problems. anybody with a usb printer who used osx in it's first two years knows this. i've plugged apple mice and kbds into my vaio laptop and had them pop up little 'installed and ready to use' windows in xp without doing anything. i still don't have stable drivers for my logitech mouse in panther and my canon photoprinter isn't showing up again after moving from 10.3.1 to 10.3.2. and lets not forget that there are many many more hw and sw offerings available for windows, so it's only natural that more of them will have problems even if it's only the same percentage. and you could easily argue that the hassles with installing peripherals is offset by the fact that mac peripherals all cost more as well.

finally, it must be said that apple computers other than the dual processor G5 desktops are slower than their pc counterparts- meaning that whatever price you're looking at you can get a faster computer that is of comparable build quality in the pc world. for a laptop i'd suggest a Toshiba Satelite notebook as the computer to compare, and for the iMac i'd suggest looking at the world of shuttle PCs with an LCD monitor. admittedly, OSX is a nicer os in a lot of ways than XP Pro, but at least some of this advantage is offset by the fact that the G4 is a slow, under-powered processor by modern standards. you can get a 15" 2.4ghz Pentium 4 M for the cost of an 800mhz 12" ibook G4. folks here love macs, but they're going to have to talk about something other than performance (number of audio tracks, number of plugins, number of virtual instruments, number of software products even..) to tell you that the iBook is a better value, because a toshiba laptop like the one i describe will beat the pants off that iBook at _everything.

oh, and one more thing- that idea that a laptop hd can't run osx or do enough tracks of audio is kinda specious as well. it's the processor that's the bottleneck with the G4 comps, you can still playback maybe 16 tracks of audio on a laptop hd and the incredible values available in fw/usb2 discs make this even a weaker point. certainly not reason alone to choose an iMac. if they were both G5s all this would be different, but that's not the case.. maybe in sixth months when petronome is ready to buy...

good luck p

This post has been edited by boze: Thu 8 Jan 2004, 16:19