I am in the process of buying a new computer to assist me in creating music; it will be running protools, acid and probably rebirth or something of the sort. I want a laptop due to how portable they are; many of them are now capable of running as well as my three-year-old HP Pavillion, and it’s time to upgrade. My question is this: what platform is better? If anyone who has experience in creating music on a computer could compare the differences between, say, the apple G4s and some of the windows-running laptops, i’d be most thankful.
You want the PowerBook G4, most definitely.
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The PB is the fastest laptop on the market, bar none. Don’t let the bogus 1Ghz Pentium laptops fool you, those CPUs are throttled and run at an average of 300mhz. If they weren’t throttled, they’d melt.
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The PB has a huge, wide screen and this is a big bonus when you’re editing waveforms or have a screen full of sliders.
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The G4’s Altivec unit is designed for digital signal processing. Altivec-enhanced programs (which means, almost all audio apps) absolutely FLY.
However, I would personally wait for about 3 weeks, as there is a rumor of a 600Mhz PowerBook G4 that will be announced at the MacWorld trade show. There is also a rumor of a dual-600Mhz PowerBook but I don’t think that will happen in the next 3 weeks.
MIDI: Despite some popularity of the Mac, I think most of the Mac-compatible MIDI adapters are designed to connect to the Mac serial port, which doesn’t exist any more. So you need a USB-to-serial adapter. You’d have to make sure the resultant daisy chain actually WORKS with your MIDI setup.
DIGITAL SOUND: Both platforms can digitize incoming sound at CD-quality or higher quality levels.
DIGITAL EDITING SOFTWARE: Both platforms have decent-quality sound editing software packages. The Mac G4 Powerbook is more pleasant to use because its processor is far snappier at the kind of processing tasks involved.
WORKING WITH OTHER MUSICIANS: The Mac is going to give you more compatibility with files and formats created by other musicians. You’ll be able to handle files originating on a PC better with a Mac than vice versa. Still, if the musicians you expect to be working with are uniformly working with PC laptops, you might want to go with a PC laptop.
MUSIC HARDWARE (other than MIDI): The Mac has Firewire. If you get a PC laptop, you can add FireWire, but make sure whatever software packages you intend on using will recognize it.
Mac laptops are the jewel in Apple’s crown. Especially the Powerbook G4.
And what AHunter said - a lot of musicians use Macs, so it’ll be easier to exchange files, etc. However (like AHunter said) if you only know PC-using musicians, you might want to go with PC.
Just wanted to correct this - there are plenty of USB and even FireWire MIDI interfaces available (I’m in the process of getting one now for a G4 cube). Off the top of my head, MOTU, Opcode, Roland, and Midiman all make USB compatible devices (and most will work with both Mac and Windows).
In addition to the Titanium PowerBook, you might look at the new iBook. It doesn’t have a G4 chip (no AltiVec processing), but is significantly cheaper and has USB and FireWire.
Definitely go for the G4 - but I would heed Chas.E’s advice and wait until after Mac World.
You don’t want to go out and spend all that money on a Powerbook only to find out that they upgraded the whole package a couple of weeks later. You’ll be mighty hacked off 
But there should be no question about Mac vs. PC for this sort of use - Mac get its every time.
One of the things i’ve heard about the G4 is that there is no audio-in jack on it; if this is true, what hardware does one have to buy to fix this? And furthermore, is the ease of use noticeably greater on a mac than on an IBM? I’ve used this HP Pavilion for a few years now, and I guess my biggest complaint with it would be that recording via the audio-in jack tends to be a bit unstable in terms of freezure, as well as with using many of the music programs. I haven’t used a mac since I was much younger, so I’ve never been able to compare performances. I’d be tempted to stick with what I know (and the thought of repurchasing much of the software I have in mac format isn’t one that I relish), but if the differences are great enough, I’d be willing to switch platforms anyway.
I just doublechecked and you are correct, the PowerBook G4 does not have an audio in port. However, the standard audio in port is not sufficient for pro audio quality. Most people are using something serious like the Roland UA-30 USB audio input device. It has balanced inputs, which is pretty important for low-noise high-quality audio. Unfortunately, it’s pricey. If you want to use just regular quality audio inputs, you can get USB devices that emulate the standard audio input (like the Griffin iMic) for about $35. Take your hardware pick, pro or standard, it’s your choice.