Powerbook advice for PC guy

[joshc]

So my friend is in the market for a notebook and wants to buy the 12" powerbook. The only Mac I've ever owned was a PowerPC 6100 desktop a long time ago. I did some brief research into the OS X and the Powerbook and it seems that contrary to my long-held belief Apple computers may not be overpriced compared to their x86 counterparts.

Would you guys recommend the powerbook or would a similarly spec'd x86 notebook be better in terms of price and otherwise. It seems that the only thing driving my friend towards the powerbook is its design so I'm trying to see if the powerbook is a good choice overall.

Thanks.

 

[Wahsapa]

if you can manage the student developer discount you can get the base 12" PB for something like 1200. which is a pretty good deal. other then software theres no reason not to get a powerbook.

 

[DarkAmeba]

I absolutely would recommend the Powerbook. I made the switch to a 15" powerbook not long ago. The hard part about switching is not the switch, it's having to go back to windows to play games It was the design that got me at first, but now the operating system is really what I like. Plus Wahsapa is right, with student discounts, powerbooks are reasonably priced nowadays.

 

[dclive]

The 12.1" PB was $900 ($1099, minus $100 MIR, minus $100 MIR if you get a VISA card) at Microcenter about a week ago. Even now UCONN's edu store has it for $999 + $20 s/h, if you're a student at any university. (That may be expired by now.) Anyway, it's possibel to get them for less than $1200.

 

[jdiddy]

The only laptop manufacturer I can put in the same sentence with Apple is IBM. I own both a 12inch powerbook and a x31 Thinkpad. You can do just about everything you could on a Windows based laptop on the powerbook to me it came down to comfort level. I'm a fast learner but OSX takes a little time to get used to if you've been a Windows only person for a while. Now that I've had the PB for a few weeks I'm getting to be real comfortable with it and not have to jump out to google every time I get stumped on how to get similar results in OSX. Virtual PC with Win2k is a life saver on the PB though. If he wants to try something different tell him to go for it. If not have him take a look at the Thinkpad X series.

 

[joshc]

Cool, yeah I saw your pic with your 2 laptops in another thread when I was searching on this issue. I tried comparing the powerbook to a dell inspiron 700 for pricing comparisons and it seems the powerbook is a bit more expensive but I suppose not having shared video memory and integrated intel graphics is a big advantage for the powerbook.

I guess would my friend be losing out too much in terms of value by buying a powerbook? It seems an acceptable cost would be under $1400.