Symphonious

So I need a new laptop. My current, battle-worn, tried and true PowerBook G4 400Mhz has developed a large crack down own side and while it’s still running fine, it can only be a matter of time before that crack gets bigger and eventually the LCD falls off, possibly taking half the ports on the back of the computer with it. So I’m starting to look at laptop options - almost certainly a new Mac unless there’s some insanely great deal on a PC laptop, but the prices for PCs look to be as much as or more expensive than the macs anyway.

As such the question really becomes, do I want an iBook or a PowerBook and how cool a laptop can I afford? Since spending more than $3000 is going to be difficult, the iBooks are ahead from the start, but what’s got me baffled is that they are so feature comparable to the PowerBooks. The iBook I’m looking at:

• 384MB DDR266 SDRAM (128MB built-in & 256MB SO-DIMM)
• 933Mhz G4
• 40GB Ultra ATA drive
• DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo
• AirPort Extreme Card
• Keyboard/Mac OS
• 14″ Screen

A$ 2,586.00

The PowerBook:
• 512MB DDR266 SDRAM - (256MB built-in + 256MB SO-DIMM)
• 1GHz PowerPC G4
• 40GB Ultra ATA drive @ 4200rpm
• Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
• AirPort Extreme Card
• Keyboard & Mac OS (default)
• 12.1-inch TFT XGA Display

A$ 3,374.00

So the PowerBook winds up with some more RAM (both machines have been customized from their defaults a little), 77Mhz extra CPU power and a 2″ smaller display that uses the same resolution (1024×768). It costs $800 extra. By the time you go up to the 15″ PowerBook that I really want you’re looking at $4000. Sigh. Powerbooks can also do dual head, but I’ve hardly ever used that anyway, and considering I don’t actually own a working monitor anymore, it’s probably not going to be all that much use in the future.

So I guess the iBook is the best deal for me, I’ll wander down to the Apple Store tomorrow and have a play with both to make sure the different amounts of cache and bus speeds don’t make too big a difference, but coming from a 400Mhz machine that’s still fast enough for nearly all of my needs, I imagine everything will be fine speedwise.

Anyone got comments on any hidden benefits of iBooks v Powerbooks?

There’s been a lot of discussion about Microsoft’s shiny new patent on putting multiple scripts into one XML file - all of it saying how ridiculous the patent is. This however, gets my vote as best retort.

My view: it’s crap, but most patents are. Time to make people go back to having competition I say.