iBook or Powerbook? Need advice fast!

oxygen said:

Hi! I'm in the process of buying a used notebook and need advice really fast, Monday i'm buying!

I have the choice between a Powerbook 876 12" or an iBook 1Ghz 12", perhaps a 14" 933 iBook.

Which one of them is the best buy, alos long term? I'm a graphic designer, and need the notebook for on the field work and presentations. I use adobe and macromedia products, no video editing or sound editing!

Oh, or a Powerbook 15" 667?

I'd really appreciate as many comments as possible!

Oh yeah, whichever I get will have 640 MB RAM.

Thanx!

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if this is the only computer you will have and you do not have an alterantive screen i say the 14" ibook because screen real estate is key for designing, and that is the best balance of speed and screen from what you have written above. The diff. betwween 933 and 1 ghz. not so much a big deal. I say go with more ram if you can. It is crucial. I use a dual 1.2 with 1.25gb of ram at work and for large print files its really slow. but that could just be the unit because i had an 800 tibook, with a GB of ram and that was awesome.. I recently sold it for an 12" ibook. But thats my two cents.

I would say go with the iBooks because they have the faster processors. It's up to you on the screen size. I would probably take the 14", although slower then the 12", it has a bigger screen and it's not that much slower.

mashinhead said:

if this is the only computer you will have and you do not have an alterantive screen i say the 14" ibook because screen real estate is key for designing

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isnt the resolution in the 12" and the 14" ibooks just the same so in reality you do get a bigger screen but no more space!

personally i would get the 1ghz 12" ibook, but if it doesnt have airport/bt i would get the pb - mainally as they look nicer! and if you are giving presentations you want to impress people!

iBook

With the same RAM, the 1GHz ibook, which has a 512k cache will certainly be the fastest machine by far. The 867 and 667 powerbooks only have 256k cache and, with the slower clock speeds, will be significantly slower. The 15" 667 did have a model with 1MB L3 cache, but at such a low clock speed, it won't be nearly fast enough to keep up with a 1GHz iBook.

The graphics chipset in the ibook is also comparable to the one in that model powerbook and is certainly better than the either chipset you could get if you pick up a 667.

The hard drives will all be about the same if you get a stock model, although I think the 867 12" may have had a 40 Gig drive. The rest had 30Gig.

The only feature the 12" powerbook has over the iBook is that it supports dual screens, that is you can plug in a monitor to it and use both the LCD and the external screen for a big desktop. The iBook can only mirror the two screens, although there have been some hacks out there to make some model iBooks able to do that. As for the 15" powerbook, you would get a larger screen and, if you got the later model 667, you could get a much better resolution screen. Upgrading the harddrive in the 15" powerbook would also be much easier.

One thing I just remembered is that the 12" powerbook could hold a superdrive. The later model 667 powerbook may have had the ability as a build to order, but I don't recall offhand. I'm not sure if that matters to you.

One thing you may want to consider, however, is RAM. 640MB is really a bare minimum for doing anything in OSX, I would even personally consider it too little. The 15" powerbook is the only machine that would economical to increase to more than 640 since the only option for the other two machines would be to buy a 1GB SDRAM chip, which would run you a considerable amount of money. That said, they other two can max out at 1152MB while that model 15" powerbook can only hold 1024MB. If you were to find yourself starved for RAM at 640, the faster CPU will do you no good. I would rather have a 667 at 1GB than a 1GHz at 512MB.

mashinhead said:

if this is the only computer you will have and you do not have an alterantive screen i say the 14" ibook because screen real estate is key for designing

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All the laptop choices listed have a screen res of 1024x768 🙄

edit: oh, except for the old 667 15", but it's a 667, it shouldn't even be an option here 😀

give prices, it may be cheaper to get a refurb ibook or something, if i could choose from them i'd take the ibook which has a faster cpu more durable.

Between a slower PB and a faster iBook, I'd say go for the iBook. It sounds like you're going to use 640MB RAM regardless, so you should be fine in that respect.

You will be missing out on the very nice PB keyboard, but you will get the extra "ruggedness" that the iBook's casing provides.

oxygen said:

now the question remains, powerbook 12" (dvi) 876, or an ibook? Anyone ever used this screen spanning hack? wouldn't want to fry the logic board!

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works like a dream. no frying involved. do it (the ibook that is).

iBook

I was on the same train months ago and decided to get the iBook, it's amazing beautiful... get more RAM and the screen hack...

for you the ATI video card would be better as they are know to be better for 2D use and video quality the only downside is that it's not a core image card.

Hector said:

for you the ATI video card would be better as they are know to be better for 2D use and video quality the only downside is that it's not a core image card.

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If he is getting the machine (iBook) at a great low price I would say go for it, use the hacks to make it next to par with the powerbooks save the extra money and buy some ram.

I also do the same type of work on and off and its great to have an iBook option since if it gets lost or falls on the ground at least you will not kick yourself than if you have an much expensive powerbook.

We have to factor in that no every person will be taking full use or even some use of Core Image. Its a nice thing to have however when Tiger is released I don't think people will jump to use it just yet it will have some bugs and at present the drives that Apple has are not taking full advantage of the GPU capabilities. Thus the focus on better drives for the video card since it factors in with Core Image.

I say buy the iBook. 🙂

By the time Tiger and all its feature are full exploited it will be another 6 months from release so late 2005 to see some great things come about.

By that time who knows what power an iBook might have. 🙂

oxygen said:

Think i got all the info i need! Looks like it'll be the 12" 1Ghz iBook. Found out the 933 also max's out at 640 (damn). And i will be loading as much ram into the machine as possible within the next 6 weeks! So, double the ram is better.

Besides, anything will be better then the iBook i bought a year ago (and sold three months later)=a 600 G3. Yikes, PC-100 SDRAM, scarry thought these days. And that dreaded 8 MB rage card........

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That machine is not THAT BAD. 🙂

dongmin said:

works like a dream. no frying involved. do it (the ibook that is).

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what screen spanning hack 😕 fill me in i'd like to check it out.