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Are apple laptops any good?

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CalicoDreams

Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Hi everybody,

I am in the process of buying a new laptop and i am wondering whether the Powerbook G4 15" is a good choice.

Or should i be looking at more mainstream options, i was thinking either the Dell 8600 or acer aspire 1691 WLMI, any other suggestions?

The primary purpose of the laptop is to do uni assignments, play music, edit photos, database/archiving, and playing games (i could use virtual pc on gentoo on a mac can't i?)

Thanks in advance

CalicoDreams
 
if you like os x, apple laptops are really nice, if you dislike it then you probably wouldn't want one. you can game with it, but it;d be much eaier to just get a x86 based laptop and use windows for gaming and gentoo for all your other work.
 
While I don't have one a little while ago I looked into them alot.
But I think iBooks/mac laptops are very well designed and if you stay small (erm... 12in iBook) reletivly cheap and sooo tiny - I like the fact that it's so small. Plus OS X is neat and very nice. You should try asking on a mac forum (google!) to see about what games play on the 15in powerbook. Also find out just what games are for mac already, there are more than you might think, but you don't wanna use an emulator... on a laptop esp :( You mighht think about a PC laptop, I bet the price is comparable - just make sure that there's a nice enough 3d accelerator.
That dell looks like it's probably more whhat you're looking for (again, games...)
 
The laptops are very well built and battery life is excellent - the question is compatibility, the programs you have.

if you plan to put linux on it fine - but how well can gentoo use emulators - aswell the apple laptops dont have as good as video caeds dont think as say a dell 9300 - but a dell 9300 it also a DESKTOP replacement and NOT a mobile latop.
 
However sexy they may look, Apple laptops are definitely overpriced. Also, the quality and reliabilty has been sketchy, with a recent rash of recalls demonstrating the comprimises Apple makes when designing and building them.
Unless you can't live without the looks a Dell is a more practical choice. :thup:
 
Dell's arent even that bad looking. I prefer them over IBM or some other companies. Mac's arent that great for gaming. I'd say that Mac's are really good for audio/video and photo editing and such. Thats about it that I can think of why I'd want one. My friend who goes to Sheridan College in Oakville (which is one of the biggest Canadian colleges for multimedia production and all that sort of stuff) all use Mac's for their movies and digital art and things like that.
 
I like my 12" Powerbook. My mom bought it for me on educational discount (which, sadly, isn't that much). Honestly, had I been in the market for something with a bigger footprint, I would not have gotten the 15" model. I probably would have gone for a Dell 600M with the coupon code I had when I was pricing these out.

The Mac is easily be most mobile machine I have ever seen or laid hands on. It goes to and comes out of sleep in less than a second - no matter how long it's been asleep for. If I turn off the Bluetooth and Airport adapters, it'll sleep for days on a mostly full battery charge. Really nice, since I never have to reboot. Cruising for Wifi hotspots at Logan Airport (when I was on a business trip a couple weeks ago) was way easier than my traveling buddy from work who had one of work's loaner (windows) laptops.

Battery life has been outstanding.

Software wise... my major disappointment thus far has only been the fact that there's not a Linux driver for the Airport Extreme card. Given the lack of PCMCIA slots on the 12" models... I decided not to try Linux on here. At least not yet. I haven't had motivation to move to Tiger, but maybe when I do, I'll repartition and dedicate some space to a Linux install. Yeah, some of Apple's built in apps really blow (iChat being one that comes to mind) but VersionTracker.com is a great tool for getting the apps you need. Contrary to popular belief, there is plenty of Open Source and Freeware stuff floating around to do what you need. I installed Portage for PPC-MacOS on here as well, which isn't altogether too useful yet but it's getting there. Definitely install the X11 user and dev libs on it when you get it, first thing, if you get one. One more thing - iPhoto kicks tail. One unified interface for grabbin' your pics, no drivers or cheesy grabber software to install, no matter what kind of camera they come off of.... definitely an awesome way to interface with your cam.

Have I regretted switching to the Apple? Yeah, at times there's been stuff that I've wanted to do that is pretty straightforward on Windows that's bass ackwards on OS X. But then I grab my machine and head to the coffee shop.... and I just throw the Bluetooth wireless mouse in a pocket and grab the laptop itself - no power adapters, no expansion cards, nothing the plug in - and I've got several good hours of power surfing to do while sipping my favorite latte. And then I don't regret getting the Mac. It's mobility is incredible. A lot of those things would hold true with the 15" model as well....

However, one thing I didn't buy the laptop to do was play games. I loaded Wolfenstein ET, just for giggles, but haven't really tried to play it yet at all (can't find anyone to play with). All my games are Windows games and when I want to play... I sit down at my full-power desktop machine. I find myself using that thing less and less though, bewteen the laptop and the HTPC machine.
 
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