People are often debating the merits of a laptop vs desktop - so I thought I'd do a quick comparison in the Apple world of their power line up in either portable (Powerbook) and desktop (Powermac) computers.
As configured (using Canadian pricing, full retail, no tax):
Powerbook, $3,224
- 1.5GHz PowerPC G4
- 1GB (2x512MB) RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 4x Superdrive
- Airport Extreme, Bluetooth
- 15.4" Display, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 w/128MB Video RAM
- Xbench stats here in PDF format
Powermac, $2,650, 20" Display, $999 - total $3,649
- Dual 2.0GHz PowerPC G5
- 1.5GB (2x256MB, 2x512MB) RAM, 160GB 7200RPM Serial ATA HD, 16X Superdrive
- Airport Extreme, Bluetooth
- 20" Display, ATI Radeon 9600 w/128MB Video RAM
- Xbench stats here in PDF format.
Nothing too surprising as the Powermac quite easily scores over double the Powerbook - it does have two G5 chips in it to the Powerbook's single G4. I was more interested in the hard drive scores where the Powermac's serial ata drive which also doubles the speed of the laptop's slower IDE hard drive.
It confirms what I tell people - unless you absolutely need portability, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck with a desktop computer.
