Powerbook Cost Justified? Options

[darcyb62]

It has finally come time for me to upgrade my hardware. I have been currently been using an old PIII 500mHz with 512Meg of ram and a slow hard disk. I use Tracktion for my host and with a lot track freezing, it becomes somewhat usabe (but just barely)...

Up until recently I had been considering staying on the Windows side, but with the recent introduction of the Mac Mini I decided to take a more serious look at what Apple could offer, so I've tried to do a bit of comparison. I'm committed to purchasing a notebook and I tried to target $2500 (Cdn) for cost.

This is what I have come up with...

On the Apple side:

Powerbook G4 combo drive
15.2-inch TFT Display
1280x854 resolution
1.5GHz PowerPC G4
512MB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
ATI Mobility Radeon
9700 (64 MB DDR)
Backlit keyboard
Gigabit Ethernet
FireWire 400 & 800
Analog audio in/out
DVI & S-Video out

Cost is $2499 (cdn)

On the PC side:
Dell Inspiron 9200
Intel® Pentium® M 755 Processor (2GHz/400MHz FSB)
17" ultrawide xga+
1 gig sdr ram
128MB ATI's™ Mobility Radeon™ 9700
24X CD-RW/DVD Combination Drive
60GB 7200rpm Hard Drive

I might be wrong on this, but it seems to me that from a performance perspective, Dell would be the better option. In addition, there seems to be a greater number of low cost / free plugins for thw Windows side verses the Mac side (but I might be totally wron with respect to this as my experiience to date has been solely limited to the PC side).

I am really trying to justify the move to Mac but its been a difficult journey. Hopefully this forum can help provide me with some added insight.

Thanks.

[Dustan]

Hi! There...

It's always hard to compare these things... but for my own experiece I can try to point out some things..

1- The issue number one is a HUGE thing...and nobody ever talks about this when comparing the 2 platforms... how come pc users..dont' realize that Macs run better and more stable not because of it's charmy looks but because APPLE makes the machine and the system. This is a head start advantage of ..hey.. "this might give apple a better chance to make a better machine to work with demanding things such as audio!".. whenever Microsoft would make a computer or DELL would make a system... it would make the PC world a better place....isn't this obvious?!

2- 99,999% of Mac users are former PC users...and 99,999% of them don't go back, does that portraits a picture?. 99,999% of Pc users that prefer PC... have never ever tried to work with a MAC.... have neer owned a MAC... and most of them until recent times have never seen a MAC...hahah... just kidding...

the serious issues..are tooo long to discuss.. I am just trying to illustrate this discussion with some curious points... as for plug ins and softs.. I leave for the guys with more..blue balls under their forum status..... heheh

Have a nice work on whatever platform you choose...

cheers!

[darcyb62]

Thanks for the response Dustan... Stability is one area that has really pushed me in thinking that a Powerbook might be the way to go. It took a lot of work to tune my current notebook to get it do anything with audio. I tested out a current higher end notebook (Pentium) and saw that it was going to take the same effort it to get it going. I tried the same on my daughters iBook G3 and it worked without a hitch given some processor and memory constraints.

Having asked the same question on the PC side many say they haven't experienced the problems but then again when you dig deeper many have experienced similar problems and those that say they currently have a stable system have had to spend some time tuning.

Given the common understanding on stability between the two platforms and lets say hypothetically speaking they were the same, how much more/less could I do on the Mac platorm verses the PC platform at the price point I am looking at.

Thanks again...

[editbrain]

apple customer care is not really nice to there users, but i have to say that i use apple for the simple fact that when programmers write programs they can optimize it for the apple platform. there is not any guessing on what kinda hardware to write the program for.


this means a lot for stability.

[mfroman]

I bought my first PowerBook back in 2000, after after spec'ing out as close to identical systems (firewire, etc), the Apple came out cheaper by the barest margin.

However, that was looking at _hardware_ only. When you consider the included software, the stability, and the enormous advantage in not dealing with viruses and spyware, you'll be way ahead. I cannot stress enough what not dealing with viruses and spyware does for you.

I now have a PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz, with 1G RAM. It makes a great portable music machine. Meanwhile, the old PowerBook soldiers on serving music in the home theater. I have had _excellent_ service from the Apple customer care people on the two occasions that I've needed it.

Once you buy one, you'll never want to go back. You'll love it.

[peabreu]

IMO it all ends up with what you feel better with. I have been an Apple user since 1990. My studio machine is still one Apple G4 DP1.25 but I have to tell you a couple of things:

1) stability is a hoax, both platforms have their quirks and presently with OSX I find more problems in Macs than on PCs (read windows is a much more mature OS...count the successive updates of Panther 10.3.X)...and before it works they talk about Tiger (10.4.X) and then about this and that... I am really very sceptical about this all Apple attitude and even costumer support...

2) OSX is IMO a real mess, its nor meat nor fish...meaning it is not the old simple and efficient MACOS (read up to OS9...that I still use daily and prefer it to the OSX by very far), nor is it a windows (XP or 2000) platform...it falls somewhere in the middle and surpassing both in many areas but force you to the mind set of a Windows user with unnecessary complexity to things that should be simple...authorize this and that, and password to delete this and that...what a complete crappy mess...

3) Yes its true you have more of everything on the PC side...also more options on hardware...and more headaches when tuning a system, but don't expect much less problems to fine tune one OSX station

4) I do believe that Apple powerbooks are way to much expensive for what they offer...

This is the opinion of an "old" Apple user (RIP StudioVision Pro and great midi timming) and currently using both platforms... but still I would not be able to tell u that, given the chance, I would exchange my studio Mac setup for a PC one, as for me midi and audio on computers has always been Apple so old habbits dye hard...this is also probably true with OSX...that I trully hate!!!!

[lepetitmartien]

Peabreu, are you saying that FreeBSD is not a mature OS? (I can hear the linux hordes from here coming for the kill

Right now, all the instability onto OSX can be traced to faulty instals, USB quirks (from 3rd party hardware), and buggy software. OS X is rock solid. I don't say XP is less solid, it has also its quirks and given the broad hard and soft possibilities, a hell more prone to come.

OS X is elegant in its own way, if you don't feel at home yet that a question of time. The UNIX base means there's a lot under that is not running as it was so to compare is irrelevant. Right now, the old OS is XP, you mind . the authorize thing is mandatory on a UNIX platform, you can do without but you're trashing a lot of the security. It's a bore yes but it has its advantages too. And in a clean set up, it won't be obstrusive.

the few following rules help a lot:

- have RAM!
- separate files from the OS/app drive
- start with a clean OS
- don't upgrade as soon a new version of the S is out, especially with peripherals in the low end market. The drivers can get nuts.
- After installs: repair permissions!
- try to keep your music set up on an admin user.
- try to keep all your plug-ins in the same library folder.
- uninstall demos when dead or unneeded.
- avoid K (they can do a mess in a set up, really)
- learn OS X! (there are a few sites/books out there worth a read)



I was an OS 9 defender (and I have still an OS 9 set up for graphic work in case) but OS X after 15 month is maybe the greatest experience i have had on a computer to date (about 16 years, windows still give me the creeps). Most of the problem people have is usually related on their habits in Classic. OS X is NOT Classic. And Classic is dead, time to move on (save if your set up runs in OS 9, smoothly, and you don't need more power or features).

[jeffca]

The biggest reason you buy an Apple laptop is build quality. Most other laptops feel like and look like they're made out of recycled milk cartons.

If you have the chance to get you fingers on a PowerBook, give it a test drive. It's as capable as any laptop when it comes to real world performance.

I've got a 1.25ghz 15" PowerBook and a dual 2ghz G5. Quite frankly, if I could own just one, the laptop would be vapor. For the $2500 you have to spend, very few computers even get in the same league as a G5. It's a beast.

While running a Mac isn't the cheapest way to go, there is a good reason why half of all Avid editing suites and about 90% of professional ProTools systems are Macs. It's not because the tech heads that use them won't learn a new OS. In fact, Avid was fazing out Mac development until they received a backlash from its customers. And Alias sells almost one third of its seats for Maya to Mac users.

Personally, I have never once felt hobbled by the Mac OS when it came to audio. Since I also do 3D, it would be nice to have SoftImage or Houdini on the platform, but you can't have everything.

Best of luck and I hope you enjoy whatever you get. You can do great work on either platform. It ain't the tools, baby...

Jeff

[Narayan]

Hi, I have been using PC and a music composer who has been using Cakewalk all my life, that is, almost 15 years. In fact from Cakewalk 2 now till cakepro audio 9 I never needed to use any other software. Especially with the EMU's sound font technology, ably supported by Creative sound cards, I have been very comfortable creating professional music compostions incorporating a lot of ethnic sounds from all over the world. Right now, I am using a Fujitsu 1.8 GH notebook with creative USB sound card and 512 MB Ram (the maximum possible). Earlier (till Windows 98 SE) it was very nice. But with XP, lots of problems have cropped up. For one, the upgrades that keep coming are just frustrating, as your OS size keeps on increasing and thereby eating up your resources and slowing down the computer. Further, one gets very frustrated with the viruses, adware, spyware etc. and when the system crashes, you do not even know what caused it.

Now I am seriously considering buying am IMac G5 with at least one GIG RAM. With the added music software, it is coming to $4000 plus which is really stiff on a person like me, who is a freelancer. Further, I am not sure whether one needs some kind of special audio card to support the music software.

I would be thankful if one of you, who is a serious music composer enlighten me and suggest whether it is worth the switch and the money.
Thanks, Narayanan

[editbrain]

Jeffca,
I own a 12" powerbook 867mhz, and a dual G5 2.0 (which i use for running logic)
i would say that if i had a choice i would vapor my Powermac G5. Had nothing but trouble. The little powerbook does everything asked of it.

editbrain.