I'd never really thought much about replacing it until I paid a visit to a Manhattan's Cathedral School to see what I could learn from how they teach technology there. Cathedral is a Mac school, and their technology lab was outfitted from wall to wall with gleaming white eMacs and iMacs of every variety. Tucked in between two of the desktop machines was a cute little white notebook -- one of the just released iBook G4s. I took one look and fell in love.

Or did I?

White seems to be the new Titanium, what with all of these iPods, iBooks, iMacs, and eMacs popping up all over the place. The sleek silver of the Aluminum and Titanium PowerBooks and Power Mac G5s now signifies the geek elite, while cool white iBooks and iPods are for the hip masses. So while on the one hand I really dig the look of the iBook, on the other hand maybe that's just what Apple wants me to think. And I certainly am prone to seeing something shiny and letting it drive my productlust to the point of obsession.

Still, polycarbonate plastic is rugged and ready to go, whereas brushed metal is scrach sensitive and prone to overheating. Heck, you can drop an iBook from a fifth story window without worrying about damaging it, while that PowerBook G4/867 was quickly pulled from Apple's lineup because it threatened to burst into flames just from running Photoshop on it. Right?

Before I got too carried away with my newfound iBook lust, I did a little research. After all, it's what's under the hood that matters, not what color the hood itself is. The iBook family starts with the $1,099 12" G4/800 and ends with the $1,499 14" 1GHz model. Nestled in the middle is the real star of the show: the 14", 933 MHz model, built standard with a 256K L2 cache, 32 MB of VRAM, a 40 GB hard drive and DVD/CDRW combo drive, and Firewire and USB 2.0 ports. All for under $1,300. The 12" model, which really is too small to be useful I keep telling myself, has an 800 MHz G4 chip and 30 GB hard drive, but otherwise is the same as its big brother. And it lists for $1,099. Amazon's got it for $994 after rebate. Whoa.

Worried that I was missing out on a great opportunity to upgrade my Mac for a song, I headed out to the Apple Store NYC in Soho to get the scoop in person. There, I talked to one very nice salesperson who seemed to know nothing about Macs. Then I noticed a crowd formed around another guy in an salesman's uniform (black "G5" t-shirt and jeans) and sporting wireframe glasses, a short beard, and a very long ponytail. Computer dude if ever there was one. So I waited my turn to pick his brain.

"So I've got a TiBook 500," I started, relishing the chance to drop specs and knicknames to "Darius" (as I'll call him to protect his identity) in front of tourists. "It works fune, but these new iBooks look like a great deal, so I'm thinking of selling my machine to get one. I'm wondering, will the 933 give me more or less power than my machine now. I do a lot of email, Web surfing, etc, but I also do some audio and video work -- you know, Reason and Live and Final Cut -- and I'd like to get into multichannel digital recording and that kind of stuff."

I couldn't help but notice that the Japanese man standing next to me looked impressed and confused by the application name dropping I'd done. His clothes and haircut may have been nicer than mine, but I certainly knew my stuff. And how to show it off in the most annoying and self-serving of ways.

"Yeah, the 933 will give you about 50% more computer than you've got right now," Darius quickly said in summary. "Since you fall into the high-end user category I might recommend you look at the PowerBooks, since they have faster overall architecture and can hold more RAM. But if you just want to make a swap for as little money as possible, then yeah, go for it. This is a great machine for the money, and for what you want to do."

I pressed on, asking Darius about the iBook's drawbacks. "Well, you can't do video spanning [Note: A kind reader, Mr. G. Soroos, has since emailed me with a link to a screen spanning hack for all dual-USB iBooks. He says it works.] or drive a flat screen, but if you need a bigger screen you can always get a 20" CRT real cheap and use that. And there's no PCMICA slot but you don't need that with Firewire. It's a great little box. The 12" is actually my favorite. Basically the first 12" PowerBook G4 got way too hot, so they took the guts of it and put it in the iBook casing, then re-engineered the PowerBook and came up with the current 1 GHz model. So the 12" iBook is a great deal. But the 933 has a bigger screen. The 1GHz isn't really worth the extra money."

I picked up the 12" model and then the 14. The 12 was so small and cute. And light. I squinted at the display, trying to imagine 8 tracks of digital audio flickering up and down it. It's the same number of pixels as the 14, I thought, trying to convince myself. And it's cheaper. I could use the leftover money for trips to the eye doctor.

But no, that's silly. The thing I'd miss most about my TiBook -- now that the iPod has supplanted it as Apple's coolest product -- is the 15" widescreen. So while the 12" iBook has the allure of the tiny going for it, truth is that the furthest I usually carry it from my desk is to the living room. Once in awhile I'll take it to work or on a trip somewhere, but it's not like I'm forever trying to make space to do work on an airplane seatback tray. My laptop is a desktop replacement, pure and simple, right down the to external keyboard and mouse I usually employ with it, so a 12" screen just wouldn't cut it.

I went home and started obsessing about a new iBook. The pros outweighed the cons for sure: Faster (though the TiBook does sport a 1MB cache), more durable, brand-new warranty, and a complimentary copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 to boot. Heck, THPS 4 won't even run on my current machine -- not enough CPU or video horsepower.

Right now, there's little question in my mind: For $1,200, the iBook G4/933 is a great value. Far more bang for your buck than the $1,999 PowerBook G4/1 GHz, illuminated keyboard or not. Question is, do I really need a new machine, and if so, how much am I willing to pay out of pocket?

Let's see, if I bundle my TiBook with the external CDRW drive, a hub and a mouse, and a carrying case, what could I get for it? Is my next stop eBay?