First MAC -- buy powerbook or wait

[DJ Forge]

Hi guys,

First off I'm a college student so money is tight. I am a DJ and producer and currently use my pentium based system for music stuff.

However, I am about to be on a tour (crosses fingers), and I'll need a laptop beatmaking away from home.

I work at my college bookstore and we have a new powerbook we need to sell before we can order our new demo models. The specs on the powerbook are as follows:

12"
1 Ghz
256 MB ram
60 GB HDD
combo drive
airport extreme

the price is $1299

a friend of mine who is a mac user says I should probably wait until macworld in july (i think that's the event) because I maybe be able to pay less after that.

As for what I need to run on the laptop, Logic Pro seems like what I would be using, along with a Firewire audio interface...

what do you think? if not this powerbook what are your recomendations. I'm trying to stay under $2000

Thanks in advance!

 

[Apple of my eye]

It's not that great of a deal. Check out these Apple Store Special Sale Deals

Refurbished PB 12" 1GHZw/ superdrive 1299
Refurbished PB 12" 1GHZw/ combo 1199

But stay away from the PB 12" if you want to do any VJ stuff, the video card is weak.

Amazon has this great deal on a brand new Power Book 15.2" for 2149 ( tax free, free shipping ) Specs as follows:

Apple PowerBook Notebook 15.2" M8981LL/A (1.25-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD-R/CD-RW Drive)

 

[grapes911]

They were just updated, now is the time to buy.

 

[thirteen1031]

I would use your educational discount to buy a brand new one (Rev C) even if it's a bit more. The new ones are more powerful and have a longer battery life. Also, the 12" Rev C has, I believe, the same excellent video card as the new Rev. B 15"--so you could buy a 12" without having to worry about the video.

As for the price on those new ones going down after July--unlikely. They just arrived and prices on the new ones, boxed and out the door, will likely hold. That doesn't mean there aren't some really great deals out there. Certain stores have specials and sales. And include the educational discount in those.

 

[DJ Forge]

thanks for the info guys! I think will indeed go with a new powerbook. now to decide, 12" or 15". I think i'd rather have the 15" for the 1.5 Ghz.

I'm gonna go to the apple store tomorrow and play around and see what I like

 

[DJ Forge]

well, I went to the apple store and I definitely want a 15"

does anyone have experience running virtual pc? more specifically running windows xp. I still want to be able to use fruity loops, so I guess the only option is virtual pc. I know i'm going to need at least 1 GB ram for it to run smoothly. Can files be shared between the virtual machine and osx?

if I can't run virtual pc smoothly I may end up with a Dell

 

[Macmaniac]

Files are very easily shared between Mac OS and VPC, I'm not totally sure but I think you can simply save your files on VPC onto your HD so you can open them in OS X. VPC is no speed daemon, get as much RAM as you can afford. Is Fruity Loops a recent program because if it is it will probably be slow in VPC, someone may know more.

 

[DJ Forge]

nah, it's not recent, and it's not a memory hog or anything like that. it would just be best if there was little to no latency

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

never used VPC, but I would expect the performance won't be all that spectacular. i think you could built a better PC for the cost of VPC.

 

[dragula53]

vpc

runs much more nicely on my 1.33 12" pb than it ever did on the 1ghz machine I had before..

xp is actually usable if you turn off the visual effects

meeps

 

[DJ Forge]

word...

well what I really need to be able to do is run fruity loops (uses 10-30 mb ram) in win 2000 or xp, chop up my samples, and export those wav files to a folder osx can read (to put into logic)

is that feasable?

 

[DJ Forge]

looks like the student bookstore I work at is getting a special back to school program this summer

i'll wait on that