12" powerbook good for recording?

[i hope i pressed record]

in about a month i'll be in a position to upgrade from this 4 year old imac, under the guise of collegiate necessity :D :cool:

i've had my heart set on a maxed out 12" pbook for sometime now, but lately i can't seem to ignore what a G5 imac would give me for about the same amount of cash. i take A LOT of pictures, do some light photoshop work, make the odd short film with friends, and like to record my own stuff (well, mostly other people's stuff lately :p ). my current imac can deal with all of that fairly well, except for the recording. i can handle waiting a bit for a PS filter, or for an imovie effect to render, but i can't handle putting down my guitar and turning to my screen only to find that my computer couldn't keep up and the whole take was lost :rolleyes: . it's enough to make me not want to record much at all. hrmmm, new paragraph? i think so!

i could never major in english :\ . okay, where was i? oh yes, the powerbook. would it be good for medium-heavy garageband use? i like to let tracks roll for as long as possible while i loosen up or try a different approach to something. would the powerbook just squeak by, or would it scream (damn keynote buzzwords are still floating around in my head)? i'm hoping the latter, as i'm tired of being tied to my desk so much.

i'd really appreciate any and all thoughts on this matter and any related ones :)
-Ben

PS- sorry that was so long, i just thought i'd give a little something more than your standard "xxxx vs. xxxx" post.

[Wrao]

My 1.25 ghz 15" powerbook handles Garageband fine*, the current 12" powerbooks will likely handle it a bit better, what with the faster HD and more standard RAM. The big thing you'll want to upgrade is your RAM. That said, Garageband 2.0 has a nifty feature that makes processor power less of a concern, It has the ability to 'lock' tracks which works in the same manner as the 'freeze' function found on more high end recording solutions.
'locking' a track essentially renders the individual track and prevents it from being edited, this enables playback of all the other tracks to be more smooth because it doesn't have to process all the effects for the rendered portion live. (sorry if that is a little confusing)

There are many other tricks to maximize recording potential even with a great system it's good to take note of them.

*My max track count(in Garageband 1.1) is somewhere between 50 and 60 with gobs of effects, it's a pain in the ass sometimes and I have to resort to all sorts of tricks to get what I want, but ultimately I'm satisfied with what I can do with it.

[RowdyScot]

I'm using a 12" PBook 867 MHz, and it handles Garageband 2 pretty well. I'm having the same popping sound problem as many others have reported with GB2, but as far as the actual recordings, I've not had any problems.

[i hope i pressed record]

sounds good guys, thanks :D