What should I buy and when?

[Coca-Cola]

Okay, I have a 867 12 inch powerbook. It is great. However, the power adapter is shot and the battery is dying. I am using my wife's 12 inch iBook 1.2ghz power adapter. Her laptop is great, but she needs more room. The 30 gb hard drive is full.

Those are the main problems we have. I use my laptop a great sum. She uses her iBook rarely. We rarely take our laptops anywhere. I use my laptop for email, internet, iTunes, iWeb, iPhoto, and iWork. The biggest project, huge keynote presentations. I am not a power user. However, I do enjoy having the possiblity of running a game at high resolution. I am not a gamer. Starcraft and wingnuts 2 keep me happy. I do watch television shows via iTunes. I am considering getting rid of my television and just watching iTunes.

My wife does a little photoshop, budget, and email. We are both artists so handling images and photos is important.

Entertainment via music and movies is important. Running HD movies without stuttering would be very nice.

So what should I do? Should I sell our laptops and consolidate everything? Where should I sell them, and what should I buy. I am a teacher and not very wealthy. I won't be able to make a purchase until after February.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[iWinnipegger]

One of the higher-end MacBooks,,,

But, you said that your going to buy it in Febuary 2007??? I'd wait,,who knows what MacWorld will bring us,,

 

[ironjaw]

If your solely looking to watch HD content then I recommed getting a new mac.

I've got a 12" 1.33Mhz PB and it runs swell (actually when I upgrade the 1GB ram it will). I bought some ram off ebay - kingston (£70 - i know not cheap but I went for the lifetime guarantee) and that should be enough. You can also opt for buying a new ATA hardrive - they are going cheap these days. TOTAL: £70

I've also got a 12" 800Mhz iBook with 640MB. It's battery has died and the hard drive is full at only 30GB. I've just bought another battery for around £30 and a 60Gb Toshiba hard drive off ebuyer.com for £35. TOTAL: £65

That's a quick and cheap way of still giving some life to your ibook and power book. I've made some savings and I could also just sell them on ebay - they fetch around over £300 each with the Powerbook getting crazy bids of around £400+

You could upgrade them both and/or sell them - you'll have enough for a Macbook CD2 but just the one I would guess.

But hey - I'm typing this off my PB 12" so I've got no probs and with the soon-to-be-upgraded-1gb-RAM it'll last 6-8 months more - well until I decide on a MacBook CD2 or something.

 

[pianoman]

if you need portability, go with a high-end MacBook with everything upgraded (RAM, HD). if you don't need portability, go with a 20" iMac with everything upgraded (RAM, VRAM, HD - depending on how much space you need).

 

[Abstract]

Since you said you rarely take it out, buy a low end iMac. It would do everything you need it to do very well.

It doesn't sound like you have any speed complaints about your current machines, and if you do they're minimal. A new iMac would totally kick ass.

I'd sell the PB and iBook, and buy an iMac.

Alternative.......you keep the iBook for yourself, and you buy a used iMac G5. Either way, you're in business.

 

[Coca-Cola]

I just returned from CompuUSA in Spokane

I looked at the iMacs. The 24 is huge and a bit too expensive. The twenty inch is very big and would be awesome.

However, the 17 inch would work and the price is great. The MacBooks are actually nice as well. The 13 inch screen would be a big improvement. I think my wife would be very jealous if I bought a new MacBook.

I think having a big 17 inch screen would be a welcome change. I really like the size of the iMac hard drives. That is a major selling point right now.

I am so close to buying one right now. How much do you think I can get for my PowerBook?

 

[Ugg]

Keep the iBook and get an external hard drive. They're pretty cheap and you might need one in the future anyway.

I agree that the 17" iMac is a great deal and would work fine for what you would use it for.

Not sure what the Powerbook would get you, maybe $4-500?