Ever since I bought my PowerBook G4 in march 2005, I’ve been a huge Apple fan (more like since I drooled over termie‘s when Dries and I were in Vancouver for OOPSLA2004). Not a zealot, mind, but a huge fan nonetheless. I particularily like the OS, with it’s unixness under the hood of Aqua. And I like the hardware that powers the Macs. Thus the premise for this rant.
For a time now, I have been considering buying either an iBook or a Mac Mini for my wife, delaying due to money accumulation being required prior to purchase. Sadly, the new Mac Mini has removed the G4 line from the Apple store, so even if I assemble enough money in the next month(s), I’ll be left with the chance that the local Apple Centre G4 Mini stock has not been exhausted. The reason I’m not immediately jumping onto the Intel Mac bandwagon is twofold. First of all, I dislike the pricing tag. The machines are more costly than their G4 counterparts. I find this to be a drawback especially for the Mini-series. Second, choosing a shared memory graphics chip seems like a bad decision, even though the Intel 950 supposedly packs more punch than the Radeon 9200. I means that for a good game, you should probably equip your mac with at least 256 more MiB than it would otherwise have needed. Furthermore, I really do not believe that the increase in performance is a factor 3 to 4. For one, the benchmarks used come from SPEC Rate – and thus it’s possible to run two benchmarks simultaneously on a dual core, but this does not mean a single benchmark will run significantly faster. Second, I have no plans on falling into the megahertz myth.
Additionally, what is particularily bothering me about the withdrawal of the G4 Mini from the store is the meaning it has for the upcoming iBook replacement. I assume it will arrive shortly, unless Apple wants to burn up the parts it still has floating around. Then I’ll be forced into buying an Intel Mac if I want an iBook or a Mac Mini. And I’m still unsure I really like them.
Tags: apple