Iwan

I've almost decided to upgrade my PC by getting a Mac.

Still weighing up my options at the moment but have always fancied a decent Mac after years of PC hell, i.e. building/fixing my own and for other people.

I also want to free up some space in my house by giving my folks my P4 3.2Ghz tower, and getting a PowerBook which doesn't need half of the spare room to live in.

I'm mainly going to use it for email, web, documents, uploading/storing/editing photos and videos, managing my iPod and its music etc. Having compared specs/options/prices i'm looking at getting a 15" Superdrive Powerbook (1.5GHz G4 with 512Mb RAM, 80Mb HDD, DVD-R drive etc.) which is £1699 all-in from Apple.

Good choice?

Should i pay the extra for 128Mb upgrade for the ATi inbuilt graphics card (£40), faster HDD (£40) and 1Gb of RAM (£280 - £350 )?

I remember hearing about a Mac guru on here who worked for Macwarehouse, do we get a Scoobynet discount there?

A mate of mine may also be getting one so could we negotiate a discount for 2 at Macwarehouse (or anywhere else)?

Cheers, sorry for all of the questions.

Iwan

Figment

I think AllanB is the man you're looking for

ozzy

Mac's love RAM. You could probably upgrade using 3rd-party rather than via Apple direct. Check the CRucial site for prices.

angrynorth

More Ram = Happy Mac

Wait until after the 18th Jan before purchasing just incase there are any new product announcements.

marklemac

Iwan,

I've been selling/supporting Mac's since 1988. Certainly the only computer one should own.

Today Apple dropped the price of the Powerbook. Check out their online store. Still one of the best places to buy one from.

Unless your going to be playing high spec games, you won't need the extra video upgrade. (I actually use the 1.5Ghz 15" inc Superdrive Powerbook).

Best bet, is to hold off buying anything until next week. Next Tuesday will see Apple launch a slew of new products...

We might even see them launch a sub £300 Mac.... mmmmmmm tasty. Aimed directly at PC users wishing to switch. I've read it could be as low as £260..

marklemac

oh, and yes, if you get any Mac, you will want some more ram. The Powerbook G4 will work just fine with 768mb's....

Towers and desktops - go for at least 1gb.

Iwan

Cheers guys, i'll wait and see what comes out on the 18th then. Maybe they'll drop the price of current models if anything new appears...

marklemac

Iwan,

like I said check out the applestore. All products where dropped in price yesterday. They even lopped £450 off the price of their 30" displays.

I sold two of these to a client before Xmas. He'll be gutted when he see's the price drop :0

The MacWorld Expo is next Tuesday (11th) at around 5pm GMT. Keep an eye out on www.macminute.com or www.macnn.com for the live news.

OR, Apple should be streaming the event live over Quicktime. Check out their website for more info.

Iwan

Cheer mate. Just had a look on CRucial, they're doing an extra 512Mb of memory for £57 compared to Apples £210!

Handy

angrynorth

Apple Ram = Bankrupt

Go Crucial

marklemac

I agree, Apples ram prices are terrible.

I always supply/fit Kingston Ram...

Crucial is ok too.

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

I am the other mac resller on here as well as AllenB and any help you need just yell.Marcus, angrynorth etc will all be along in a wee while ..oh they just have

Not a bad deal £1699 all in, fairly standard as margins are non existent on apple kit.
Advice for upgrades:
Easy.MEMORY and loads of it.Crucial or kingston are the best for price and a lot cheaper than on apple's website.Go for as much as you can afford now, as the powerbook has less slots than the desktops and so it is false economy to skimp now when all you end up doing is swapping out memory later.
From what you said, the graphics card and hard disk upgrades are not essential right now, 80GB should be enough for you for all your music and pictures, but it will get eaten up like crazy when you start any video work (and believe me you will when you start playing with iDVD and imovie !!)
Best bet is to budget now or later for an external firewire lacie portable drive (120GB models etc) which are so small that you can just chuck in your bag as well.Also a good source of backing up your data.

as to when to buy it, well though the guys have suggested waiting until mr jobs does his thing on monday, i think that you wil be waiting for a long time before anything else appears.slashing prices before an expo usually spells new products, but since we are unlikely to see the Powerbook G5 for a while, the price cuts will be here for a while and even if there was anything else, it takes blooming ages before it arrives in the UK

Like i said all sound advice from the mac guys on here and when you do purchase the kit, come back on here and lets us know how you like the laptop and dont forget, the response time for helpful replies from mac guys on here is faster than my scoob can do the 1/4 mile

Swiss