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ricgnzlzcr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
802
0
Hi. I'm in the market for a 12 inch powerbook for school next year. The apple store is selling a 1.33 powerbook for $1,099 (256 ram) while theyre selling the refurbished 1.5 powerbook for $1,299. I am using this notebook for garageband intensive tasks and I hear that the 1.33 powerbooks with 60 gig harddrives (like the ones being sold refurbished by apple) come with a 4,200 hard drive while the 1.5 comes with a 5,200. Would this affect me a lot during garageband intensive tasks? Which is the better deal? Here are the stats:

PowerBook G4 1.33GHz/ 256MB/ 60GB/ Combo/ AP Extreme Card/ E/ 12-inch/ Aluminum - Apple Certified Refurbished

or

PowerBook 12-inch 1.5GHz Combo Drive - Apple Certified Refurbished
512MB DDR333 SDRAM
60GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 (64MB DDR)
AirPort Extreme
Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rates

I wouldn't mind the .2 slow down in speed but I wouldn't want anything saying garageband can't perform a task because of the hard drive. Thanks.
 

kant

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2004
337
0
here are the stats on them:

1.33 http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/stats/powerbook_g4_1.33_12.html

1.5 http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/stats/powerbook_g4_1.5_12.html

According to that, the hard drive is a 5400 vs. 4200.

If you can afford it, I'd say get the 1.5 - the hard drive speed probably makes it worth it.

But either way, you'd do well to get a 1gb stick of ram and put in it. If you get the 1.33, you're definitely going to need to put more ram in - 256 is bare minimun for the OS.
 

eleveneastgate

macrumors 6502
Jan 23, 2005
284
0
Good Choice!

Yeah, I went the refurb route too, and with the CA$H I saved, I used it on more RAM. :D

Good Luck!
 

tsk

macrumors 6502a
Jan 14, 2004
642
0
Wisconsin
The HD will make quite a bit of difference for drive intensive tasks (and I think that would describe garageband). I'm guessing you probably should get the 1.5GHz.
 

ricgnzlzcr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
802
0
I definately knew I was going to max out the RAM, but I was hoping the hard drive speed wouldn't be a great difference in the long run. If I put an external hard drive at higher speed for when I'm at a desk, would that also improve the speed?
 
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