Is It Worth Switching To Mac?, Will a 1GHz iBook G4 handle it? Options

[Skylit]

Hello everyone,

I've been using Emagic Logic on PC for years, and now am absolutely used to it. However, as it is now owned by Apple and future support has been limited to Mac only, I find myself at a really stupid situation (and I guess many Windows Logic users are)...

I need to get myself a laptop (moving abroad for a while), but can't decide which way should I go. I'm on a really limited budget, and I have only two options available:

1. Get a 14" iBook G4 1 GHz (or 1.2 GHz at most) with 256 MB RAM, and continue working with Logic.
2. Get a Portable 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon XP 2400+ with 512 MB RAM and switch to a different sequencer (Cubase SX perhaps).

I can't decide on this, and this dilemma has been killing me for the last couple of months. I've thought of many variants. These two choices are all I can afford at the moment. I would like to save for a better Mac, but I simply can't.

Keep in mind that I mostly use soft-synths and plug-ins. Only vocals are audio tracks. I don't mind "freezing" tracks time to time, but I wonder if a 1 GHz G4 iBook would be a wise choice in my case?

I want to stay with Logic, I need power, and I need it to be portable. And I'm on a budget.

What would you suggest?
I thank you all in advance!

[dixiechicken]

If Logic is your personal favourite tool it MIGHT be wise to continue using the workflow you feel comfortable with and thus switch platform to from PC to Mac.

I dont think you'll REGRET the os/platform switch per se but...
I have two observations (there might conceivably be more)

1) 256Mb ram is skimpy working with OS-X and audio and/or video.

2) On the Unicornation BBS (when it was up) there was fair number of posts from people (proffessional/powerusers) that had performance troubles running Motus:s DP-4 on G4-PowerBooks. (not iBooks)

This may not be TOO serious (the issue is complex but...) consensus seems to be that DP-4 is rather more processor & resource hungry - than Logic is - on the Mac OS-X platform.

Part of the performance bottleneck is probably in the internal 4200/5400 rpm
harddrives that Apple insist on using - in the "books".

If you have the opportunity/possibility to actually - test out/borrow an iBook to testdrive Logic on it - it might be wise to do so.
Nothing lika hands on experience to help you make a more informed decision.

Cheers: Dixiechicken