getting a new 12" notebook, but which??

[quiksan]

ok, so I'm going to be getting my wife a new apple laptop, and it's gonna be a 12". but I'm not sure if I wanna get her a powerbook or an ibook. I know that for her, an ibook would more than suffice, but I suppose it's the man in me that just wants more power. though the ibooks and powerbooks are fairly close at this point. so ...???

let me know your thoughts? should I get a barebones pb or ibook? or should I get a decked-out pb or ibook?
Thing is, I might end up using it myself for some of my coding/graphics/movie stuff...maybe. so I'm torn.

would love to hear your thoughts. I'm really in kind of a quandry. if I had my way, it'd just be a G5, but she want's a small notebook. so my options are somewhat limited.

thanks for your input!!

[Giaguara]

Take your wife to a store selling them, and let her try them and have a look. What does she want?
What does she need? If iBook is enough for her needs, I would opt for iBook (combo).
But let her try them first/

[quiksan]

no way, she gets no say in this!

kidding of course. i'm leaning toward the ibook. practicality says that's all she needs, and save money for a G5 later...

unfortunately tho, to her, a computer's a computer (kind of, she at least prefers macs to pcs), just like a car's a car. (now that I think of it, I'm not sure how we ever ended up together. lol)

she'll probably go the frugal route, not basing her decision on the machine itself. oh well, save me money. I do appreciate that!

[Lycander]

For the money of a 12" PowerBook, you could get the 14" iBook and deck it out. You want to preserve that sparkle in her eyes don't you? Don't make her squint to a 12" screen.

[dlloyd]

The only real reason I got the 14" iBook was for the extra battery life (about an hour). I personally would prefer a 12" or a 15", because a 14" display that only does 1024x768 really sucks.

[Decado]

I have the same dilemma:
Either i buy a 12' ibook with extra hard-drive space, bluetooth and airport extreme card.
Or i buy a bare-bone powerbook. in sweden the price-difference between them is about 350 US Dollars. i don't realllly need the extra speed of the powerbook so it all comes down to one (or 2 things):
The keyboard and track pad.
How big is the difference? is it worth 350? any other advantages with the powerbook?

[symphonix]

Let her decide on the model, and then deck it out ... you know you will want Bluetooth and Airport Extreme anyway. The specs aren't really that different now, unless you're doing some very processor intensive tasks, so you might as well choose based on personal taste!

[cellfish]

Screw the iBook, it's a shit laptop. The case scratches like there's no tomorrow, past iBooks have had logic board failures and the base ram on it cannot be removed. Personally, I'd tell you to ONLY consider the 15" and up but if you're getting a 12" either way, go for the metallic exterior.