Ti or i ?

[troiszero]

Hi,

I have to buy a Mac. At the university I can get a iBook for $1699 or a TiBook for $1799 :

item #101024
Apple iBook G3 700MHz 256/30GB Combo 14.1(n) OSX
$1699

item #100983
Apple PowerBook Titanium G4 550MHz 256/20GB Combo
$1799

What do you think about that ? It's only a $100 difference.
I would like to work with MS office and Photoshop, and Mac OS X.
Should I get the "new" G3 700 iBook, or the "old" G4 550 TiBook ?
What would you buy and why ?

Thanks for your help !

[edesignuk]

I would go with the iBook 700Mhz, I've been hearing good things about them, very nippy little machines.
The old 550Mhz TiBook is still a good machine and if you want a higher res display go for that, but appart from that I'd go for the new iBook.

[drastik]

Overall, you're not going to see much difference in the two. If you want to hit Altivec enhanced programs, and you very well might, get the ti. You also get the bigger screen and more cool factor. I say get the Ti. If your just doing the average paper/email/web stuff, take the iBook. That is a good price for the Ti, though, and you might end up in same serious classes and wnt more firepower.:)

[iGav]

I'd go for the TiBook...... apart from it being far cooler looking, and having a widesscreen..... it also has the G4 that makes Photoshop and the like run much sweeter...... and remember that OSX is altivec aware, so at the moment it runs sweeter on that G4 than on any G3...... although how much difference the G4 will make once Jaguar comes out is anyones guess......

I'd still go with the Ti's looks though over the iBooks... but hey I am a designer after all......:p

[AlphaTech]

I hope that they just failed to update the TiBook spec's since that would be a rev. b... IF they update it to the rev. c (667MHz and 800MHz) definately grab it for that price.

I would always go for the pro line, since you will get a long life out of the item. You will be able to use the new TiBook with the next release of OS X, where the iBook will be able to run it, just not as well. You can also jack up the RAM in the TiBook to 1GB, where the iBook maxes out at less.

For the few extra $$, go titanium... it's one svelte laptop, :D and well worth the extra $100.

[troiszero]

Thanks all !

They also have the new TiBooks, you can see all what they have here :

http://www.uis.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/tpc/view.cgi?type=macLaptop&button=computer

The $1799 one is of course an old one, and in "Limited quantities - while supplies last" !

[Grokgod]

This is a toughie!

If the Ti is by the rev c specs then GET that!
It has great video specs and an L3 cache!

but if its the rev b version of Ti. then ~

i would say to get the iBook. !
The iBook has a better screen than the older Ti for brightness and a 16 meg video. SOme of the older Ti has 8 megs i think.
And they did increase the specs for the iBook this time so that it will take advantage of QE to some degree....

[rootuser]

if you're gonna do a lot of work with Photoshop, stick with the Ti. Its G4 will rip and it can render much faster. Also, with altivec-coded programs, the G4 will help a lot with a major speed boost. The G4 is also much faster and more stable, snappy, etc. in Mac OS X. But maybe the new iBook can fix that problem. But I wouldn't get the University Ti because it will be even more out of date really soon, and the chip number (something like 7420) isn't as good as the old TiBook 7410 chip or the new chip architecture in the DVI TiBook (7450, I think). So if you want/have to buy from the University, then get the iBook because it will still end up almost as fast as the TiBook in most programs.