I am probably jumping the gun a little here, but I will go ahead anyhow in case I can make a decision right now.
At the beginning of October (2005), I told my brother that as an early Christmas present I would buy him a new laptop, within my price range of course, on the condition that he would then give me his iBook G3 500 MHz. One might see that he was clearly getting the better end of the deal.
He is my baby brother though, 11 1/2 years my junior, so I tend to spoil him just-a-leetle, and as a music major, he needed a new laptop while the older model would suit me fine. He had been looking at the iBook G4, which was right in line with what I could afford, the order was placed, and henceforth the great laptop exchange was commenced.
The G3 served me well, if a bit slowly, for just over three months. Last Friday evening though, the machine presented me with a monitor that was black in the bottom 3/4 of the screen. Research led me to suspect a logic board failure. I asked my brother, and he said the logic board had been replaced about a year ago, just before the March 2005 cutoff (the computer is from Oct. 2001), but had not failed prior to that. It hardly seems sound to put $200+ into a four-year-old computer though, even one that has been dependable.
Soooo... I just put $1000 down on a new laptop, and now I am looking at doing it again. I was initially going to get the iBook G4 1.42 GHz with Combo Drive, looking at $1199 plus tax and AppleCare, but then I was clued in that there were rumors of new systems being announced at MacWorld, and that I should not buy anything until after that.
With the announcement of the new MacBook Pro, I am now torn between the possibilities of:
(a) buying the iBook and saving money now but having a worthless product 6 months from now; or
(b) paying an extra $800 for a something that is going to be way more than I need but actually has a chance of retaining its value; or
(c) paying an extra $800 for a something that is going to be way more than I need and finding out that there are bugs or glitches or it just generally isn't quite 'right' yet so the earlier versions don't really retain their value either.
I am also wondering if the price of iBooks is likely to go down in February when the new MacBooks come out. Would it at least be safe to presume that the price of Powerbooks will go down? Under that presumption, would it be better, if I wasn't going to get the MacBook, to suck it up and deal with my busted G3 for another month until the prices do go down, and get the Powerbook instead of iBook?
My primary uses of the laptop will be browsing the internet, listening to music, novice level PSP, and research and doc prep for work using MS Word for Mac, Adobe Acrobat and websites requiring java.
I would appreciate any pros/cons regarding which laptop to go with and when to spend my money.
*Edited because I didn't proofread*
At the beginning of October (2005), I told my brother that as an early Christmas present I would buy him a new laptop, within my price range of course, on the condition that he would then give me his iBook G3 500 MHz. One might see that he was clearly getting the better end of the deal.
He is my baby brother though, 11 1/2 years my junior, so I tend to spoil him just-a-leetle, and as a music major, he needed a new laptop while the older model would suit me fine. He had been looking at the iBook G4, which was right in line with what I could afford, the order was placed, and henceforth the great laptop exchange was commenced.The G3 served me well, if a bit slowly, for just over three months. Last Friday evening though, the machine presented me with a monitor that was black in the bottom 3/4 of the screen. Research led me to suspect a logic board failure. I asked my brother, and he said the logic board had been replaced about a year ago, just before the March 2005 cutoff (the computer is from Oct. 2001), but had not failed prior to that. It hardly seems sound to put $200+ into a four-year-old computer though, even one that has been dependable.
Soooo... I just put $1000 down on a new laptop, and now I am looking at doing it again. I was initially going to get the iBook G4 1.42 GHz with Combo Drive, looking at $1199 plus tax and AppleCare, but then I was clued in that there were rumors of new systems being announced at MacWorld, and that I should not buy anything until after that.
With the announcement of the new MacBook Pro, I am now torn between the possibilities of:
(a) buying the iBook and saving money now but having a worthless product 6 months from now; or
(b) paying an extra $800 for a something that is going to be way more than I need but actually has a chance of retaining its value; or
(c) paying an extra $800 for a something that is going to be way more than I need and finding out that there are bugs or glitches or it just generally isn't quite 'right' yet so the earlier versions don't really retain their value either.
I am also wondering if the price of iBooks is likely to go down in February when the new MacBooks come out. Would it at least be safe to presume that the price of Powerbooks will go down? Under that presumption, would it be better, if I wasn't going to get the MacBook, to suck it up and deal with my busted G3 for another month until the prices do go down, and get the Powerbook instead of iBook?
My primary uses of the laptop will be browsing the internet, listening to music, novice level PSP, and research and doc prep for work using MS Word for Mac, Adobe Acrobat and websites requiring java.
I would appreciate any pros/cons regarding which laptop to go with and when to spend my money.
*Edited because I didn't proofread*
