I'm on about a thousand dollar budget for my christmas gift this year, and I was going to buy an iBook. Then I read this article which suggests that there may be price drops/improvements to the powerbook line. If the prices did drop as suggested I could afford to step up to the 12" powerbook. How much truth do you think there is to this rumor and should I order an iBook now or wait to see if i can swing the powerbook?
Buy iBook now or wait??
- Thread starter DarkAmeba
- Start date
I think you should wait. You know, everytime I read those rumor things on future products on the Macrumors site, they are not wrong. When I started looking into that site, they were right about the iMac G5, and the improvements to the iBook line, and the eMac.
Ooooh, I love those new specs, and the prices!!! I think Apple is finally starting to wake up (assuming this is true)! I always thought that eMacs are crap, but if the new eMac G5 is real, then I'm getting one. It's cheap, and decent. And I hope they're right about the graphics card in the PB 12". Those Go 5200's were getting a bit long in the tooth.
BTW, u should wait IMHO
BTW, u should wait IMHO
RichieZ
Diamond Member
- Jun 1, 2000
- 6,551
- 40
- 91
Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
Yes, Apple does offer student discounts. Which is a good thing.
student discount is nothing since you have to pay tax, usually its cheaper from amazon with rebates and no tax, but amazon only has the standard configs no BTO (when all was said and done I got the newest 1.2g 12" ibook for about $700)
I think the ADC discount might be worth it depending on how much discount you get, I know it wasn't worth it for the ibook.
A student ADC membership is $99 and you get 1 hardware discount, and free updates to OSX for 1 yr
Originally posted by: RichieZ
Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
Yes, Apple does offer student discounts. Which is a good thing.
student discount is nothing since you have to pay tax, usually its cheaper from amazon with rebates and no tax, but amazon only has the standard configs no BTO (when all was said and done I got the newest 1.2g 12" ibook for about $700)
I think the ADC discount might be worth it depending on how much discount you get, I know it wasn't worth it for the ibook.
A student ADC membership is $99 and you get 1 hardware discount, and free updates to OSX for 1 yr
If you are going to put it that way, a student discount is nothing from Dell, Sony, etc, since you have to pay tax.
RichieZ
Diamond Member
- Jun 1, 2000
- 6,551
- 40
- 91
the student discount at dell is worthless, its only like 5% and you must pay tax. most student discounts aren't very good once you factor in tax.Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
Originally posted by: RichieZ
Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
Yes, Apple does offer student discounts. Which is a good thing.
student discount is nothing since you have to pay tax, usually its cheaper from amazon with rebates and no tax, but amazon only has the standard configs no BTO (when all was said and done I got the newest 1.2g 12" ibook for about $700)
I think the ADC discount might be worth it depending on how much discount you get, I know it wasn't worth it for the ibook.
A student ADC membership is $99 and you get 1 hardware discount, and free updates to OSX for 1 yr
If you are going to put it that way, a student discount is nothing from Dell, Sony, etc, since you have to pay tax.
Originally posted by: RichieZ
the student discount at dell is worthless, its only like 5% and you must pay tax. most student discounts aren't very good once you factor in tax.Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
Originally posted by: RichieZ
Originally posted by: Thin Lizzy
Yes, Apple does offer student discounts. Which is a good thing.
student discount is nothing since you have to pay tax, usually its cheaper from amazon with rebates and no tax, but amazon only has the standard configs no BTO (when all was said and done I got the newest 1.2g 12" ibook for about $700)
I think the ADC discount might be worth it depending on how much discount you get, I know it wasn't worth it for the ibook.
A student ADC membership is $99 and you get 1 hardware discount, and free updates to OSX for 1 yr
If you are going to put it that way, a student discount is nothing from Dell, Sony, etc, since you have to pay tax.
Then I guess its best to purchase from Amazon. that is a nice deal for the iBook. One thing that scared me away from Amazon was some people were complaining about Amazon taking a very long time to ship out electronics. Is this true?
I bought a Sony DVD player from Amazon.com and they shipped it about a day and a half after I placed my order.
If you want the best deal, wait about 10 years.
Seriously, if you want a $950 (or less, depending on the coupons, sales, and such) notebook and you want it soon, it's hard to beat the current 12" iBook. There's no way Apple is going to put a G5 in the iBook anytime soon, and even if they do upgrade it soon, I doubt they'll put anything beefier than a 1.4 or 1.5 GHz G4 into it.
If you buy an iBook now and Apple updates it sometime in the spring, the worst you'll miss out on is maybe a 20% speed boost.
Seriously, if you want a $950 (or less, depending on the coupons, sales, and such) notebook and you want it soon, it's hard to beat the current 12" iBook. There's no way Apple is going to put a G5 in the iBook anytime soon, and even if they do upgrade it soon, I doubt they'll put anything beefier than a 1.4 or 1.5 GHz G4 into it.
If you buy an iBook now and Apple updates it sometime in the spring, the worst you'll miss out on is maybe a 20% speed boost.
I dont think the G5 will be in the iBooks or Powerbooks anytime soon. I have been reading a lot about dual core G4's though. Hopefully we will be seeing those in the Apple laptops. Not only that, I read something else interesting. Apple may be using a new processor in the high end machines. Sometime later in 2005. The processor is built by IBM and is supposed to be Dual Core, and I think clocked faster than the current G5's. I would love to see that!
Wuzup101
Platinum Member
- Feb 20, 2002
- 2,334
- 37
- 91
Yeah we definitely wont see a G5 iBook anytime in 2005. We might see a G5 powered powerbook if IBM can get the temps down far enough to stuff one in the current powerbook form factor. I doubt we'll see apple enlarge the current machines to accomidate for the extra heat, as their size and beauity is one of their key selling points. I'd say you should definitely wait until mid jan and see what Jobs announces for the new year on the 12th (I believe it is anyway).
I'm guessing we'll see a slight speed bump for the current powerbook line. My guess is 1.7 - 2.0 which is really streaching it for the top chip... and the 1.33s will likely be replaced by 1.5ghz chips. Though the dual core sounds nice, according to the manuf it wont be ready until late 2005, so scratch that... but yeah the dual core would be amazing... I'd love to see it. You'll also probably see a bump up to radeon 9800 pros on the 15" and 17" powerbooks, possibly with 128mb standard and 256mb as an option. Maybe 200mhz DDR400/PC3200 too? I'd also love to see some nicer higher pixel density screans on these machines... only time will tell.
I'm guessing we'll see a slight speed bump for the current powerbook line. My guess is 1.7 - 2.0 which is really streaching it for the top chip... and the 1.33s will likely be replaced by 1.5ghz chips. Though the dual core sounds nice, according to the manuf it wont be ready until late 2005, so scratch that... but yeah the dual core would be amazing... I'd love to see it. You'll also probably see a bump up to radeon 9800 pros on the 15" and 17" powerbooks, possibly with 128mb standard and 256mb as an option. Maybe 200mhz DDR400/PC3200 too? I'd also love to see some nicer higher pixel density screans on these machines... only time will tell.
I am looking to buy an Apple laptop for grad school (hopefully by August '05). Moderate gaming and heavy programming/ technical software usage. I havent used an Apple regularly since 1997 but I used to love them but they cost too much to buy and couldnt custom config desktops.
How is the support on Macs for Engineering software/ C++ (and other programming languages) and games?
How is the support on Macs for Engineering software/ C++ (and other programming languages) and games?
Hi Jassi,
For C++ software engineering, you use Xcode. The good thing is, Mac OS X 10.3 comes with Xcode. You dont need to purchase it serparatly. About games, there are more games available for Windows, but the Mac has some pretty good games. My favorite one I usually play is Halo, and actually runs very well on my 1GHz eMac. Aspyr has some good games you may want to check out. Macsoft also has some good games.
For C++ software engineering, you use Xcode. The good thing is, Mac OS X 10.3 comes with Xcode. You dont need to purchase it serparatly. About games, there are more games available for Windows, but the Mac has some pretty good games. My favorite one I usually play is Halo, and actually runs very well on my 1GHz eMac. Aspyr has some good games you may want to check out. Macsoft also has some good games.
Jassi, I'm a Software Engineering student and I've been using an iBook for the last 6 months (that's when I switched ). It's really good for that sort of thing, imho. I love XCode, and as it has GCC installed, there's no problem compiling c or c++ code. There's even a Sun JVM too which makes Java easy to do. Most likely you'll be using unix/linux at school (that seems to be what happens), and as OS X is unix, you'll have absolutely no problems. I can do all my linux assignments on my mac and they all work
). It's really good for that sort of thing, imho. I love XCode, and as it has GCC installed, there's no problem compiling c or c++ code. There's even a Sun JVM too which makes Java easy to do. Most likely you'll be using unix/linux at school (that seems to be what happens), and as OS X is unix, you'll have absolutely no problems. I can do all my linux assignments on my mac and they all work Who needs MS Access now that Oracle has brought most of their development and DB access tools to Mac OS X?
Wuzup101
Platinum Member
- Feb 20, 2002
- 2,334
- 37
- 91
I'm an engineering student and I can safely say that pretty much everything you'll need to run you'll be able to run. Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, ChemDraw, BioDraw, etc... are all supported on the mac. Also, like lizzie pointed out, Xcode is great and is free with OSX. There's also a $99/year student Apple Developers Connection subscription if you find yourself wanting to code for the Mac platform... it has tons of useful resources (and comes with free copies of all the OSes...) IE if you would buy it now you would recieve tiger free which makes the 99/year a very good deal... that and the large one time hardware discount you get...
What about upgrading the RAM on apple lappies? Apple charges too much for a custom config so I figure I can pop in another stick after I get it.
Apple does charge a lot for their RAM. So I would just buy my own, and it will be a lot cheaper than Apple's.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter