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which would be better? (iBook vs PBook)

S

sen_almighty

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 18, 2003
41
0
What would perform better in the end and be the better deal

an ibook, 900mhz 640mb RAM and airport card

or

the 12 inch powerbook with 384mb RAM

and say these were priced the same


-sen
 
I'd take the powerbook, it might not be faster but leaves open a lot more as far as the g4 and the future, you could always upgrade it later, and it will have a high resale value.
 
Well I guess it depends on what you are doing. Each laptop has its strong points. I love my iBook and have played around with a 12" Powerbook. To compare apples to apples however, you need to equip them the same and look at the price differences. You can't just say they are the same price, because they are not.

an iBook 900 combo drive with 640MB of RAM will cost $1,499

a 12" Powerbook combo drive with 640MB or RAM will cost $1,749

Now $250 difference is probably pocket change to a lot of people, but think what you can buy with that $250 and you still will have a computer that will run right with the Powerbook. It just depends on what you are doing with it. Take away the G4 and the Powerbook is the same computer. The G3 has some advantages and I would be willing to bet in some areas the better L2 cache and a tad more Mhz might actually help it beat a 12" Powerbook. Also better battery life and less heat. Both are good computers, it just depends on what your use will be. Both have decent performance.
 
i'm betting on the powerbook, infact mine should be here on tuesday.
 
Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
Well I guess it depends on what you are doing. Each laptop has its strong points. I love my iBook and have played around with a 12" Powerbook. To compare apples to apples however, you need to equip them the same and look at the price differences. You can't just say they are the same price, because they are not.

an iBook 900 combo drive with 640MB of RAM will cost $1,499

a 12" Powerbook combo drive with 640MB or RAM will cost $1,749

Now $250 difference is probably pocket change to a lot of people, but think what you can buy with that $250 and you still will have a computer that will run right with the Powerbook. It just depends on what you are doing with it. Take away the G4 and the Powerbook is the same computer. The G3 has some advantages and I would be willing to bet in some areas the better L2 cache and a tad more Mhz might actually help it beat a 12" Powerbook. Also better battery life and less heat. Both are good computers, it just depends on what your use will be. Both have decent performance.
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with the educational discount i can get, the difference is only $30 (canadian) when the two laptops are configured as mentioned before, and the ibook is also the 12inch model, i'll be using it for office x and photoshop and some java programming
 
How much Photoshop will you be doing? If you're only doing some light Photoshop work, I'd get Elements instead of Photoshop and then I'd get the 12" iBook. The battery life is longer and you'll save some money to boot. The iBook also runs much cooler.

Whatever you choose to get, definitely get AppleCare. While it's optional for desktops, it's a MUST for laptops.
 
Get the PowerBook w/ 384MB, I think you will only regret getting the iBook. 384MB is a good start and you can always add more RAM @ a later date, you can't change the G3 in the iBook for a G4 ;)
 
get the ibook unless you're doing a lot of photoshop. The poster who said that the ibook with its bigger cache and faster clockspeed would win out sometimes is correct. Add the extra RAM to that and the ibook will beat the PB on any task except for altivec tasks (such as photoshop). So I say go ibook unless you plan to use a lot of photoshop (btw, I use an ibook 900 with 640 RAM for Photoshop Elements sometimes and it works fine).
 
As you can see, you clearly need the PB G4 with Velocity Engine:

processorvelocity01072003.gif


You want all your little squares to have ample flow space, otherwise they may overflow onto the carpet and eat through the floor.
 
g4 is on the way out,g3's are out & g5's where just born. i hope this answers your questions but g4 can run everything,g3 can not. 1- year from now i expect to see g5s everywhere so ask yourself if a g3 is for you.
 
if you are comparing the ed. prices on an official site, take the 128 mb upgrade (to bring the total ram to 384 mb from the default 256 mb) off and save some $$$. apple's ram are expensive.

live with 256 mb pb 12" for a while, save a little more and get the 512 mb stick.

obviously, i'm recommending the pb. the only thing better about the ibook as you had listed is the airport card. you'll need APE card for the PB, so that's another $100...
 
why was this topic brought back a month after the last post? and btw, there's really no advantage to the powerbook unless you're doing a lot of altivec-aware work, like photoshop. people who think the G4 is simply flat-out better than the G3 in all, or even most, cases are misinformed.
 
not to start g4 vs g3 but many apple apps use this in the g4(iapps) also some games but if you use photo's,movies, then g4 is better. some games wont run on g3 at all,has to be a g4 so i just cant recommend one to most people though my wife is very happy with her 500imacg3 and she plays with photo's all the time.
 
i've used both a 12" ibook 800 w/384 MB of ram and a 12" powerbook 867 w/256mb extensively and i must say that the powerbook runs circles around the ibook. If your ripping cds in itunes the powerbook will go at about 7x with no other apps sometimes 8x and with the ibook it will go 5x...no matter what u do. Slot loading drive is much nicer than the tray. The keyboard feels alot nicer. The powerbook does not scratch hearly as easily...no swirl marks or anything like the ibook. The powerbook does get hot but its tolerable to me. and when my ibook would do similar tasks it got almost as hot just not as fast. you get a mic jack on the pb....nice to have.
 
Originally posted by Kwyjibo
i've used both a 12" ibook 800 w/384 MB of ram and a 12" powerbook 867 w/256mb extensively and i must say that the powerbook runs circles around the ibook. If your ripping cds in itunes the powerbook will go at about 7x with no other apps sometimes 8x and with the ibook it will go 5x...no matter what u do. Slot loading drive is much nicer than the tray. The keyboard feels alot nicer. The powerbook does not scratch hearly as easily...no swirl marks or anything like the ibook. The powerbook does get hot but its tolerable to me. and when my ibook would do similar tasks it got almost as hot just not as fast. you get a mic jack on the pb....nice to have.
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Macspeedzone.com did some in-depth tests of the iBook G3 900 (14 in.) and the PB G4 867 (12 in.), and, surprisingly(?), the iBook beats out the PB in most of the desktop tests (by a narrow margin). In most other tests though, the PB won (by a narrow margin), and showed it's Velocity Engine power in the Photo shop Altivec filter test (1.87 x's faster), and in the Altivec Fractal test (5.34 x's faster). But, in the cd-ripping/encoding test, the PB only won by about 6%, so it doesn't look like cd-read speed has much to do with performance here, if it does read faster. Check the tests for yourself, they really seem to contradict what you hear about G4 dominance (except in Altivec tests).

You should buy your memory from someone else than Apple. You can get a stick of 512 for either machine for ~$100 from OWC and other online companies. Here they have some ibook memory , and some powerbook memory for about the same price, saving you some money for the PB.
 
well as i said i used the 800 mhz iBook and if you were to review those tests the powerbook was superior b4 the 900mhz edition in nearly all tests....the biggest gut check in the world is when u launch an app and it says this app requires a "g4 or higher" processor trust me you'll be pissed too...also half of my comments were about actual ownership not speed.
 
Originally posted by Kwyjibo
...the biggest gut check in the world is when u launch an app and it says this app requires a "g4 or higher"...
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Agreed. But how often is that happening?
I remember back in the day when I had my aging 68040, and I'd launch something and it would tell me I needed a Power PC. People like me never catch up.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
Thanks, for making that order. We've all been waiting now we know the new 12" will be out in just over 2 weeks.:p :D
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i got my powerbook in the beginning of august, this thread is quite old...my powerbook is almost a month old now and i couldn't be happier...
 
They're both good machines.

What would sway me is the iBook is way more rugged and durable, things to keep in mind if you plan on using it outdoors on a picnic table or grass, or want to toss it into the back of your vehicle or backpack. The AlBooks are beautifully designed machines, but they're not built to take abuse. - j
 
Originally posted by Kwyjibo
i got my powerbook in the beginning of august, this thread is quite old...my powerbook is almost a month old now and i couldn't be happier...
Click to expand...

Well then the PowerBooks should be coming any day then. I guess since the iMacs just got upgraded that means the PowerBooks aren't going to be using the 7455 G4 anymore. Maybe the 7457 and if we are really lucky the GV.
 
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