Should I get a 800mhz G4 Power book?
I was wondering if anyone has or has used the new G4 powerbook. I am a graphic designer and I am interested in purchasing one for work purposes. How do do the power books compare to a regualar G4 tower? I will primarily be using the powerbook for 2D work in photoshop and illustrator, and I will also use it for some video editing. Do you think this powerbook is worth the money. If so, where do you think I should buy from? I have seen some on E-bay for fairly cheap but I don't know how reliable those sources are.
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[runs as fast as possible from death mob]
If you're into graphics, this is the ultimate toy/tool you could ever hope for.
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Do you think this powerbook is worth the money. If so, where do you think I should buy from? I have seen some on E-bay for fairly cheap but I don't know how reliable those sources are.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They are BRAND new. I would be pretty weary of a cheap offer on Ebay.
Where to buy one? Heck, if you got the time and there is one close by, go to an Apple Store and ask all the questions you want and play around with the thing too.
Worth the money? Yeah.
What Apple do the best is laptops : they are even appreciated in the PC revue (never the case for the desktop line).
As to the comparo between a laptop and a desktop: expect to loose a fair percentage performance-wise next to a similarly clocked tower.
Your best quick and dirty comparison of relative MAC performance is in MacWorld UK. They put all their machines through a series of popular tests and each month rank them all from fastest to slowest. Just about everything from a 233 Bondi iMac up to a dual Ghz PM is present (in standard config)
It's telling. The VGA-out 667, which untill recently was the fastest powerbook you could buy, performed about on par with a 466 graphite tower. None of the books at that time performed better than a 533 graphite tower -- i think the 533 edged the 667 by a point. And the same was true on down the line, generally for a laptop you gave up about a third of the performance relative to a desktop with the same chip.
But this new 800 is faster still. The cache, video, and up-coming quartz extreme should make for a noticeable closing of the performance gap with similarly clocked desktop cousins. Spec a 5400rpm drive and you'll be closer still.
The desktop 800 doesn't have an L3 cache. I'd like to see a comparo between them. I don't think that the PowerBook will beat it, as there seem to be other limiting architectural factors which I don't understand and thus can't explain. I only see what the trend has been so far.
For the money, a PM is still faster-cheaper-more expandable, but the new PB's are the fastest macs on the road. Do you really need a laptop?
And one more thing... hehehe
Jaguar is due in Sept. If you have a functioning computer that runs the apps you currently use, you might want to wait untill then and at least save yourself the cost of an upgrade.
I still have that 'amazement' feeling that's hard to describe. I also have a G4 tower, but I wanted to make everything smaller, more compact but have the same power. I think the TiBook does it nicely. I work primarily in Photoshop, Golive and illustrator (all of which I have running natively in 10.1)
Now, I wouldn't advise purchasing one on credit, not at $3200. I was lucky enough to pay cash, but I had been saving up for a while with plans to purchase a 933mhz tower w/17" LCD monitor (which would have been $100 less than the TiBook!!), but again, I wanted a smaller unit that was quite and without cable clutter. I suppose I live a zen-like lifestyle, with everything as minimal as possible. Works for me.
Personally, I don't see the point of losing out on 2 months worth of use on a nice fast new PowerBook just for the 10.2 release. What will end up happening is the PowerBook won't have had any changes to it by then (2 months is too short for a speedbump... IMHO, anyway) so you'll get ready to buy your PowerBook with 10.2... but you'll be reading rumors everywhere that if you wait just another 2 months, you can get a GHz PowerBook with a 60 GB HD, 1 GB of RAM, blah blah blah.
You can end up waiting forever. These new PowerBooks are awesome. Buy one and enjoy the hell out of it this summer, even if you have to buy 10.2 for $50 - that $50 got you 2 months of great laptop use.
The guy starting the thread talked himself (with the help of a few others) out of the 800 and got a 667 with a few upgrades.
Personally, I would do the same thing.