Just Starting Out...a Few Questions. Options

[darkside]

Hey all,

I just subscribed to this place 30 seconds ago, so i thought i'd post this.

I havent actually bought a macintosh yet, but im seriously considering it. I'm applying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts: Sound Design degree at my university, i think i stand a decent chance of getting accepted too. If i do, its a 3 year bachelor degree learning programs like reason, logic etc. backwards fowards and inside out. I've written a couple of songs so far already, just on my home PC (celeron 700 mhz!!!) running FLStudio 4 (and dont say it sucks coz i can make this program do whatever the hell i want and it kicks arse so far, though i accept that other programs are probably much more powerful).

So first question... why mac? Ive started to use the macs over the PCs at uni lately, i love OS X... so much nicer than windows!!! But why is it that every music artist ive seen seems to buy macintosh? Are the programs better? Is the hardware better? And whats this stuff about core audio and core midi?

Also wondering what to get in the first place. I want a laptop, which at this stage rules out G5, and plus considering i'm a 20 year old student with no money, rules G5 out too. I can get 1.5 ghz G4, and can afford to slap 1gb ram in there, with 80gb hard disk. Would this be sufficient for music creation? I'm going to be making electronica mostly, either hard dance, electro, or chillout. I know the G5's are latest technology etc, but is G4 still sufficient for my purposes? And what about the clock speed? 1,5 ghz is quite slow compared to 3.2 ghz hyperthreading P4's.

I dont think i can afford logic. What's reason like? I can probably afford that. I've heard from some people it's terrible but i had a play on it at uni and it rocks.

mmm anyone that can answer this stuff for me is a total legend and i hope you become a super rockstar one day

Dave