Hello, trying to make a decision on what to buy is turning into a very painful process . I'm leaning towards the apple powerbook once tiger comes out, I don't have experience with mac OS but I'm sure it will be an easy switch, and my desktop runs windows so I'm covered there. The main reason for the apple aside from wanting to try something new and the look is the features for the price. Can you guys think of any other notebooks that can compete feature wise? I'm after something 12-13" . With the Education discount from Apple I can get the following

1.5GHz PowerPC G4
NVIDIA GeForce FX GO 5200 with 64MB DDR Video Memory
512MB DDR333
80GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400rpm
8x SuperDrive
AirPort Extreme Card

FOR $1889 Canadian ( $1450 US)

Can anything else in the 12-13" range compete?

I would get one in a heartbeat if I had any use for it...

Kind of expensive.. I can get one for 1299 from my school.

That seems like a pretty good price! I've been kicking around the idea of picking up a Mac, but I haven't convinced myself to abandon Wintel quite yet. If Mac's the direction you want to go, I don't see anything wrong with the specs and price.

If you're not sure about Mac, you might want to consider the Sony S series. You can get the S360 for $1649 US ($1899 - $100 Sony rebate - $150 Amazon.com rebate). It uses a 13" widescreen WXGA (1280x800), weighs 4.2 lbs, and is supposed to have great battery life (4-5 hours). HD is 80 GB, CPU is Pentium M 1.7, video is ATI 9700 with 64 MB. It would probably better than the Mac if you're looking to play games, but the only downside would be the slower 4200 RPM HD. Good luck with your decision!

The exact same one I'm talking about is $1499US in the US apple education store, so the price of $1885 Canadian is not expensive at all

Yeah, that's a good price.

But it is 1299 in my school's apple store

Thanks for the reply scott, the problem with the sony is buying from the US gets expensive after shipping,taxes ect. The same computer up here in Canada is about $2500. I play all my games on the xbox . I was looking at a fujitsu S6231 but it was $1900 canadian with a 40GB harddrive and intergrated graphics....I think I'm going to get the powerbook, learning a new system will be fun

WELL...WELL....you're lucky

The price looks pretty darn good. You will enjoy that rig. The Mac OSX is quite easy to get use to.

If you think about it, you may choose to opt for the ATI MR9700 128mb. Other than that, it looks sweet. Enjoy!

a good setup for a good price, mine has served me just fine. you may want to consider upgrading the ram through newegg or something though

Thank all, I'm probably going to get it. Just going to wait it out for Tiger to be released. Unless something else pops up windows based for 1800 with a similar feature base, but I don't see that happening

I switched to Mac in August and I don't think I'll ever get a PC again except to play some games that I can't get on Mac, and even then...About the only games I miss are Startopia and SimGolf (which I might be able to play with VPC since it's not too graphics intense).

You might want to consider an iBook instead, if you're thinking about price. If you're getting the 12" powerbook rather than the 15" and aren't too concerned about graphics capabilities, the iBook really offers excellent specs for its price.