ok, help me decide...youngest daughters birthday coming up...
she is going into 9th grade...my eldest has an iMac DV in her room and we have the iMac FP in the computer room...thinking of getting her a computer for her birthday (though i am not sure we need a third freakin computer in the house)....so do i go with an iBook running a G3 or go with an eMac running a G4?? the eMac was just updated to really nice specs, but a notebook might also be a nice edition to the house....or maybe i should wait to see what is happening with the 970...arrrrgh, i hate this....
and my birthday is coming up too...should i get myself the 15 or 30 gig iPod....
too many purchasing decisions, not enough money nor brains...sigh....
leaning toward a iBook, but it is hard to get a G3 at this time...
g
and my birthday is coming up too...should i get myself the 15 or 30 gig iPod....
too many purchasing decisions, not enough money nor brains...sigh....
leaning toward a iBook, but it is hard to get a G3 at this time...
g
Comments
Sounds like you must be pretty loaded if you're getting your daughter a brand new computer or an iPod for her birthday... although I'm sure she would love to have an iPod (assuming she has her own computer and music as well). They seem to hold pretty universal appeal.
As for the iPod, $100 more gets you twice the storage. Go for the 30.
Let us know what you do.
doesnt have to be direct...
Anyway, a year later, my kid brother (with the french horn already) decided he needed a computer, too. And I don't know how in the heck he managed this with my parents, but since dad was still two years away from college expenses (which, it turns out, he doesn't even have since I'm full-ride), my brother somehow convinced him to buy a PowerBook G3 (pismo) for him. My then-computing-power-supremacy was trounced.
Then again, you've got girls and they probably don't care who has the better computer. But wait, to be feministic, they probably do in this day and age or else will figure out who's got the better machine sooner or later.
Ha, what a dilemma. Get her an old iMac like her sister's while they're still available.
anyways.....lots of great points and suggestion (as for my daughters, they are wonderful young women and actually get along great and share very well...so one having a portable and one a desktop wouldn't be a problem).
the way i see it is this:
1) eMac is a great value for both specs and price at this time...i could get her a computer that is faster than my iMac FP and that would either have a faster superdrive than i have or a blazing fast combo drive. this eMac would last her through high school and probably into college (we run our computers 5 to 7 years before we "retire" them). it has a G4 that will run what she does forever...she iChats, emails, uses word, excel, powerpoint, plays iTunes and games like the sims and tropico and such other non-fps type games)...the downside is that this would be the third desktop computer in our house, and does anybody really need three freakin desktops in the house?? still a great deal and very much in the running...
2) the iBook is a great value for price, is cute as hell, portable as all get out, but is (like all laptops) lacking in specs. still she could have a computer that is mobile that will do iChat, email, word, excel, powerpoint, iTunes and probably all her games and be usable for many years (not as long as the eMac for a variety of reasons: laptops don't last as long, the G3 chip will limit it has programs ask for more and more, she could lose or drop it, she could loan it to that idiot john at the macnet2 site and he could kill it with the black cloud that follows him like a curse...so lets say 3-4 years instead of 4-6 years...still it should last her through high school)...so the iBook is a good laptop that is very much in the running (and it will be faster than the iMac DV that is also a G3 but at only 400 mhz---of course that iMac is 4 years old and due for retirement in a couple of years)....
how is see it:
eMac--
Pro: Great Value
Con: Desktop
Pro: G4 chip
Con: Heavy as hell
Pro: 4-6 years of use
Con: fan noise
Pro: superdrive or fast combo
Con: not easily upgraded
and the eMac will play all current programs and probably will have the specs to play programs that are released for the next couple of years
iBook---
Pro: PORTABLE
Con: PORTABLE (can be lost or stolen easily)
Pro: PORTABLE
Con: G3 Chip
Pro: Light and mobile
Con: 3-4 years use max
Pro: quiet and mobile
Con: not easily upgraded
the iBook will play almost all current programs (some are starting to call for G4 minimum) and will always be able to do what it can do today....it will never "lose" abilities....but it is hard to buy a older chip when a newer one is out....and soon the G3 will be two chips behind when the 970 comes out....i suspect that fewer programs will support the G3...as i said, it will not lose abilities and it will do everything she wants it to do today....but will it do everything she needs from it in 2 years? 3 years??
anyway...the best suggestion is probably just to let her decide, but that takes some fun out of it....heavy sigh...oh well, if this is the worst problem i have, my life if pretty ****ing easy...
g
(ha, i had a french horn when i was in fourth grade...i had to walk almost a mile to school every day and that dang case was beating me in the leg the whole way...i had a perminent bruise that year....but it was worth it to play an instrument that you played while shoving your fist inside it...i miss that "freedom" horn)
Its very affordable and portable!!
Happy birthday to your daughter!
Portable (we all fight over it trying to surf the web in the evenings)
Small
Goes on trips for games and DVDs
Kids don't mind the small screen
Can be used for school projects
It's cool!
No, it's not a graphics workhorse but for what it gets used for 95% of the time it's perfectly fine. Surfing the web, school reports, listening to iToones, Chatting with friends, playing games.
Cheers,
Chas
if your daughter really needs office functionality then a g4 would probably be more usable, i dont know if office is coded any better than appleworks but when i type in appleworks it seems very sluggish to me which is in my mind counter productive.
just my 2c
i love my ibook but i decided to buy a powerbook (hasnt arrived yet) to do actual work with. my ibook will be relegated to a portable dvd player/web browser that i use while travelling.
What are the needs NOW? Sound like the portable win over the G4. Worry about college later.
Originally posted by AsLan^
i have a ibook 600 and i love it to death but i really dont think its good for much more than web browsing, email and itunes.
I have to put in another vote for the iBook. I beat the figurative hell out of my poor 600 mHz G3, and it holds up beautifully. It's simply disingenuous to say it's only good for email and web browsing. It runs all office apps (Office, Keynote, Filemaker, EndNote) like a champ. I routinely bust out 15MB Excel files and run them through plastic-melting calculations, and the iBook has no problems. Ditto for the multi-dozens-of-megabytes Keynote and PowerPoint presentations. And I maintain a 200MB (and growing) MySQL database of gene expression data which I spend all day mining through, with not a hiccup from the iBook. So speaking as someone who uses an (older) iBook for REAL work, it holds up nicely. It still won't crunch iMovies as fast as a G4, but it certainly won't leave you pulling your hair out - and can you take a G4 eMac on the road with you?
Re: Appleworks - yeah, it's a dog. I'm not sure why it would seem slow while you're typing, but it does load slower than MSWord, and the font display is awful. Mostly for the latter reason I quickly ditched it for Word, while I wait for iWrite.
i kinda dislike buying a computer that doesn't meet minimum specs for current stuff...i know it won't play so things that come out in a year or two...but not playing stuff that is current?? oh well, like everyone points out...it will do 95% of what she wants it to do...the other 5 she can use my iMac (or the 970 ultra cube i buy for christmas with the nice 20" lcd)
g