I've been meaning to get myself a laptop for a while now and can finally afford a pretty good one. Was hoping to get a Mac G4, but its a bit out of my price range and wouldn‘t allow me to buy any additional equipment. Anyone suggest the best alternative? One that handles music software well.

Thanks, any advice is welcome.

try smalldog.com

they have select used and refurb and new apple laptops

i've been happy with their service--bought a g4 laptop from them and like it a lot

tm

Some factors to consider:

The 12" PowerBook is certainly priced lower than the 15", nowadays has plenty of room for additional RAM (first ones maxed out at 640 MB; now you can put over a Gig in them), and is small and light. But depending on the interface of your main digital recording environment, you could run out of screen really fast. When I open a bunch of channels in Ableton Live, I'm really glad I have the 15" screen. The Flash authoring program (a source of income) uses that 15 right up, and wants a lot more. I'd imagine that this would get frustrating a lot quicker on a 12".

If you go used/refurb, check what warranty policy is available to you. Laptops lead hard lives; stuff needs to be replaced; and laptop repair is more expensive than desktop repair when you consider how packed in everything is, and how difficult it is to get to. If you can get a deal anything like that on new equipment (1 year warranty, option of buying an extra two years anytime within that first year), go for it.

Good luck!

You may also consider an iBook. They have G4 processors as well. The apple website sells refurbished computers at discounted prices. You can get an 14" iBook G4 with a 1.33ghz processor, and superdrive for 1299.00.

I just frivolously purchased a cinema display for my Powerbook, as you can operate through an external display with the lid on the Powerbook closed. I figured I'd do it now, because there is a good chance I will purchase a Power Mac in the future. This way I get more screen real estate AND the portability I already had.

i'm on the 14" iBook G4, 1.2GHz (i got mine in sept. just before they put out the 1.33... bastards..)

mine's got the superdrive and 768mb ram.

it's nice, but sometimes i wish i had just gotten the 12" powerbook.. it's the same resolution, things are just a bit more magnified on the 14", and for the price, powerbooks are way more powerful.

damnit.

I got the 14" iBook in Jan. I really love it. I had spend $90 on an extra half-gig of RAM for it, as the default 256MB was a terrible idea. I can't believe they ship it with that little.

All in all, I really love it. It's the best computer I've ever owned.

-russ

Upgraded iMacs today and they easily look like the best computer Apple is selling right now - better than even the Power Macs.

Germ War wrote:I just frivolously purchased a cinema display for my Powerbook, as you can operate through an external display with the lid on the Powerbook closed. I figured I'd do it now, because there is a good chance I will purchase a Power Mac in the future. This way I get more screen real estate AND the portability I already had.

This is good advice, and worth considering with the post above re running out of screen space. Some things to consider:

- You will almost certainly run out of space with a 12" display if you are using software with lots of panels, and the need for decent central screen space.

- In addition to the above quote, you can also run the powerbook's display alongside the external, with the external being an extension of the left, right top or bottom of the screen. This can be exceptionally useful, as you can use an entire screen for palettes and dedicate a screen for your workspace. Or, you can use one screen for work, whilst displaying pornography on the other. If you work on pornography, I'm not quite sure what you'd do.

- Be aware that 12" powerbooks are much harder (but not impossible) to upgrade than the larger models, due to how they have been squeezed together. Replacing a hard drive or an optical drive requires a stiff whiskey on a 15", but it's at least straightforward. It's a bit of a bastard with the 12", I'm told. I think the memory's easy to up though.

iBooks seem like great value for money too, although I've never used one of the G4 ones, so I don't know for sure...

i'd say, being the owner of an ibook g4, that they are well worth the money but only if you get additional ram so you can run more than two programs at once without slowdown. They are good value and by far the best for making music (unless your a fat cat buisness man who can afford a powerbook g5). Although the software for it will leave a dent in your wallet!

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