cinematic displays~

So I was thinking, I want a mac.. :D but man those cinematic displays.. holy smokes they cost as much as the machine.. know of any nice crt's ? obviously that would defeat the purpose :\ but I really like those sony ones!
or maybe I should just get a 17' powerbook :D and e-mail cybling pics of it daily!.

i wouldn't buy a cinema display. I would get the 17" powerbook or the 17" imac. both have the screens built-in, and are cheaper that way. the iMac especially is very affordable.

if you get a powermac, i was considering buying two 17" apple CRTs off of eBay and going dual monitor. You can get two of the 17" CRTs for less than one 17" LCD... and they still look like "apple" monitors. search for apple CRT on ebay if you want to see them.

yeah thats a good idea deker because those lcd's are way over priced.

I don't think they are over-priced, I just think all LCD's are expensive. And there really isn't any reason to have one in my opinion, unless you are really needing the extra space. CRTs look better in my opinion. Though I haven't seen any of the Apple CRTs or the iMac in person yet. I'm sure it is quite good. But the iMac is a good value. And the PowerBook is too, considering all the amazing technology in it.

mmm those imacs are quite nice. and much more affordable! I see the wisdom of deker now .

Yes, I think the iMac is apple's best deal right now. For only $1799 you get a 17" flat panel, 1Ghz processor, a 64 meg video card, 256 megs of system RAM, a DVD/CD Burner, etc. Plus it's ready for Bluetooth and wireless networking with a pop-in card. Pretty amazing deal if you ask me. Plus you get all the iApps for free.

The top of the line custom built iMac seems a little overpriced to me. $550 more dollars for a gig of RAM and bluetooth and airport built in.

I would just buy the middle one, and then get more RAM from somewhere else. Apple's RAM seems to be a little more than other's.

The iBook is also very affordable, starting at $999. Though you'd probably spend $1,299 to get 100 more megahertz, bigger hard drive, and a CD Burner. And of course you have to consider the iBook still uses the G3 processor rather than the G4. Thought people still say the iBooks run photoshop and dreamweaver just fine. Though you wouldn't want to use either of those on a 12.1 inch monitor very much. The iBook does support mirroring out to a second monitor though. And with a non-supported hack, you can make it run dual monitor with an extended desktop.

I was noticing on the Apple site that the DDR Ram is really expensive, do you know if Macs use the same Ram as Pc's?

As far as I know, yes the RAM and hard drives are the same on both platforms. I'm quite sure of it actually.

Another thing to consider if you're thinking about getting a Mac is getting a refurbished model. I've heard really good things about Apple's refurbished models. People say they are just as good as a new one, and you can usually save a couple hundred dollars on them. Plus they are inspected and repaired completely, whereas on the assembly line they only check like every 50th one to make sure it works.

And if you buy an Apple authorized refurbished model, it has the same 1 year warranty as a new model, and is eligibe for applecare, Apple's 3 year extended warranty plan. Which everyone seems to strongly recommend, especially if you get a laptop machine.

Do you know what brand Apple buys?

No. I have no idea.