Next year I am going to be a college student; I want to buy an Apple. I will listen to lots of music, write papers, take digital pictures, surf the internet, and chat using AIM. What would be the best bang for the buck setup?

Well if you want to save money you can get the 12" iBook. Get alot of RAM and you can do all those things you have suggested with ease. If you can afford that but may decide to spend a bit extra for the 2", forget it. The screen resolution is the same, the pixels are just a bit bigger.

Ofcourse if you are going for looks then the Powerbook will be a very very nice choice. They are costly when compared to the iBooks but look so much nicer - however getting a case asap would be a wise choice.

If you are one to take the laptop into classes then it would be a good idea to invest in a 12" laptop for the ease of portability!

Hope that helps!

how much ram and harddrive room?

eMac.

It will do the job?

ah am sorry, I completely mis-read what you had written.

Well in the case of having a Macintosh for your reasons then for most bang for buck the eMac should be your choice. If you want a portable option then you should consider the iBook or the Powerbook range of laptops.

iBook would be just fine for your needs.

absolutely not. besides the fact the emac is the bottom of the line apple (it even has a rather poor quality CRT monitor), you will quickly find being a college student that you want a laptop, esp if you want to take it to class. and assuming you live on campus, sometimes you'll just want to go out to the library or cafeteria and do some work there. if you're not living on campus, well it's nice to be able to bring it to work between classes and all that if you have any downtime.

heres your two most viable options:

ibook 12", pimp out the ram
powerbook 12", pimp out the ram
pimp out the ram from crucial, not from apple

What nuggetman said.


The iBook 12-inch model would probably be the wisest choice for you, considering you don't spend tons of thousands of dollars of money... on a computer for school. And it seems to be a nice laptop. I don't have one, though, yet...?

I got a 12" PowerBook with more RAM and it is now my primary PC. I can hook up an external monitor, keyboard and mouse and it's ultra-portable. Highly recommend either an iBook or PowerBook.

iBook and max out the RAM if you can. Perhaps 1GB at the very least.

if you are not 2 picky about the screen on the ibook it is prefect for you as uni student i think you shoudl nt think about desktop , they are simply not portable and you need to move alot and work with ur computer in lots of places and ram as others say is really importany goood luck ( )

I go to University of Central Florida and I have an iBook. Great for doing the stuff I do (internet, email, notes, IM). I also have a Minolta Dimage G400 which is great in combination with my apple. My iBook is a G4 800mhz w/60gig HD. Good stuff.

Powerbook = Good

I have a new stock iBook and I do all the tasks you mentioned without any problems.

granny smith

OS X loves lots of RAM; being UNIX'ish in nature. Get at least 512MB, 1GB would be best

For HD, based on what you want, get the 60GB!

I like Fiji apples. the Red ones are OK If you get them fresh

^ Don't try and be funny But yeah, Fuji Apples are great

Back to the topic:

Get at least 512 MB RAM, but 1 GB be very nice and ensures smoothness of applications.

For HDD room, get at least 40GB.

eMac - Cheapest (enough)

iBook - Better (more portablle, wayy more portable)

PowerBook - even better (but I'm sure a PowerBook is also wayy more than enough.)

Check the Apple Website, It'll help.

60GB is a LOT, go for it.

At least 512MB-2GB of RAM, RAM is cheap.

Might consider an Airport for the iBook/PowerBook, they are very light and portable.

The title of the thead is " Recommend me an Apple "

so i did. i wasnt trying to be funny

Get whatever the newest 12" powerbook is with the fastest hdd (currently you can upgrade to 5400rpm), buy 512mb of ram from a 3rd party (for a total of 768), and buy yourself a nice lcd for when you aren't on the go. That would be my ideal apple.

The 12" iBook is probably what you want.

If I were in your position, I would get a iBook with minimum 512MB of ram (if you buy from Crucial or another RAM supplyer it's a LOT cheaper. ( Here is the link for Crucial's iBook memory page....It's 63$ cheaper to buy a 512 upgrade from them).....Only do this if you are sure you know how to replace the RAM in your iBook (not a terribly difficult thing once you have the instructions, but none the less)

As for the hard drive size, that's up to you. If I was in your situation, I would upgrade to the 60GB hard drive since you may accumulate a lot of data in college. As I said though, this is your choice.

The reason I reccomend the iBook is because of its durability and overal functionality/portability. As a college student, you'll probably find that there are many cafes around campus with open WiFi networks, and your iBook would be ready to use those networks. You can take the iBook to class if you need to, and it will last longer than a powerbook (and be cheaper) due to its rugged form factor.

I hope this helped Good luck with choosing a computer. I'm sure no matter what you get, it'll be right for you.

Oh yeah....If you're looking at the eMac as a possible solution, wait until January to make your choice. New eMacs are coming.