Indecisive PC Convert needs Help

[Flipsidejones]

Ok. I guess my crisis is the same as just about everyone else here hoping to get a new mac laptop.

I am looking to go Mac, and I want to do it via a laptop. I am planning on selling my only pc in order to finance this transition. I am excited about OS X, and using something that isnt windows, and hopefully doesnt suck. And everytime i see one of these things at a store, i get pumped.

And now i have a problem. The new notebooks are amazing, but all miss something.

Basically, I was planning to go with a fully-loaded Ti Book, with the rumored combodrive. I figured that would be the perfect desktop replacement system. It would let me play games (radeon), hold my mp3s (48gigs), work in photoshop (g4), watch movies and burn dvd's (combo drive) and do web design.

Then apple goes and releases the new models without the combo drives. DOH!

So now i find myself wondering if the iBook wouldnt be a better choice. Its got the combo drive i need, and has nearly the same resolution on it's admittedly smaller screen. Not only that, but it has mostly the same ports, and can get pretty close to the rest of the tibooks config. Except of course, for the chip.

So the question is this: Which way do i go? Do I get the iBook and upgrade in a year or two when apple sorts it out? Do i get the tiBook and an external cd-r (/not/ something i want to do, btw), or do i sit around and wait with my only computer being a VERY old pentium 233 running linux (badly) until apple sorts it out?

I suppose the last option could "build character" but who the hell wants character from pc/linux when they are trying to go mac?

Anyway.. I guess this was just a rant about apple screwing up my plans by not including a dvd/cd-rw combo drive, but i would still appreciate any feedback you can all give me about the iBooks / tiBooks in both new and old models.. especially how it fares in OS X, because i honestly don't plan on using OS 9 in anything other than classic mode. Please help me decide on a course of action so i can get away from the dark side as quickly as possible. Thanks.

[jdog]

Don't forget the new TiBooks also have a 133mhz bus compared to the 100mhz bus of the ibook.

-jdog

[themacko]

I own an iBook, don't get me wrong, I love it. But for you, I'd suggest going with the Ti. If you need the HD space and the speed .. the Ti is definately for you. Go for the DVD and then get yourself a FireWire CD-RW if you really want that, too.

I use my iBook as my desktop as well, and it definately serves it's purpose. But I don't really need a computer much. I post in these forums, download a little music and burn CD's .. and do all my homework. I don't need the extra HD space, big screen or fast processor like it sounds like you do.

[AdmiralAK]

If you have the dough, TiBook
SOme places even have promotions that give CD-RWs with tiBooks. I saw that a while back

[symphonix]

I chose to ditch my dated PC for an iBook as soon as they were released, mainly because my PC was sitting at home on my desk while I was off flitting from town to city to beach, scribbling my notes on the road and entering them if and when I got around to it. And when I did use my PC, it would always let me down, crash, or have some niggling little software problem that I just couldn't deal with.
I went to sell it for a trade up, and found it was only worth $300Au. My friends iMac, bought at the same time for the same money and with similar specs is still worth about $1500Au. I'd heard the macs hold their value, and after checking the ads carefully, I'd agree that this is true.
I ended up just giving my computer to my sister as a present, dug deep, and made the leap to the mac. It meant trading in my serial Wacom and parallel scanner for USB models, among other things, but it was every bit worth it.

In short, if you are on the road a lot, and you intend taking it with you everywhere, the iBook is a little gem and suprisingly powerful. A TiBook would probably be even better, even if you do end up with an external writer. You'll probably leave the writer at home anyway, and if my experiences are anything to go by, you'll end up lugging around an MP3 walkman, Digital camera, headphones, AV-cable and a mouse anyway, so what the heck? Another gadget in the backpack won't hurt.

You won't regret the switch to Mac, whichever you choose.

[AdmiralAK]

Plus with a mac you can run almost any x86 OS ... I have some 20 x86 OSes in VPC images lol --> I know, I am crazy, but I am who I am