on 9/28/01 5:51 PM, Randy & Cathy Roth at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi, > > I'm in the market for a PowerBook or iBook. Can someone please suggest a > good www site where I can find info on most of the models -- the good, the > bad and the ugly. Any personal preferences, or models to avoid? As yet > undecided if I will get new, used or refurbished. > > Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list.
The =best= place I've found for info to how people feel about hardware, etc are the forums at http://www.dealchat.com/ Do a search for "best powerbook" (in quotes) or "recommend AND powerbook" and you should find a bunch of threads. These are just mythoughts, and YMMV. The first thing you have to do is decide what you want to do with your powerbook. Are yu going to be using photoshop, after effects, imovie, etc? Below would be my reccomendations for different uses. I'll keep it to g3 and up so we're on topic. ;) Office/web browsing/email: Any of the older ibooks will do, just pick a color you like. My brother actually has a tangerine... It's a 366mhz g3. Plenty fast for everything he uses, and you can find them fairly cheap right now. This has an 800x600 12.1" screen, which is nice and sharp but only lets you have so much on the screen. If you're just web browsing and everything else, it all fits fine. Above, plus imovie, basic image editing, etc: The new "Ice ibooks" are just a great deal for this. You have 1024x768 screen real estate on a 12.1" screen (*which is beautiful). You can do professional work on them (it will be tight and you'll be fighting your pallates but you can do it). Has enough speed for digital video, firewire, etc. Some of the older ibooks have firewire also, but the screen size really makes them difficult to do this kind of work on. They have a 66mhz bus (instead of 100mhz in the powerbook g4) which makes them slower for disk access, but you wouldn�t even notice unless you're constantly moving large files. Also, you can plug this into an external monitor, but it only can push that monitor to 1024x768, the powerbook g4 can go much farther. Photoshop, low-to high end digital video, print publications, etc: By all means, if you can afford it, get the powerbook g4. It's wider screen makes pallates SO much nicer to use. Also, there are the pismo models which exist (the black curvy ones). Generally its good to look for the Pismo's that have the bronze keyboard, as these g3 powerbooks have had pretty much all of the kinks worked out of them. You don't get the wide aspect screen, but you have a nice big screen (14.1") and it can drive an external monitor at high resolutions. Hope it helps~ -- Michael Bryan Bell http://homepage.mac.com/michael_bell/ -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
