If you really need a DVD burner, then the 12" iBook is out of the market. Only the 14" iBook and all the PowerBooks have a SuperDrive. (CD-R/W DVD-R/W) (Thats + and - R/W for both)
So that leaves your option with the 12" PowerBook.
The G5 laptop will probably never happen, too much heat, and the Intel ones may be a while yet.
If you need a new laptop, go for it. You can guarantee that whatever you decided, and whenever you buy it, the next best thing will be around a couple of months later.
Screen quality on both machines are excellent, recently improved, and battery life is acceptable.
Check out the Apple store for comparisons
P
Hi there.
Im about to make the change from windows to mac. i had the oportunity earlier this year (july), but i just held on to another windows laptop.
I was using a big, 15 inch widescreen pentium 4 laptop with media center, but it weighted a lot! so after a year or so, i decided to sacrify power for weight, and bought a 10 inch fujitsu p7010 notebook on july. it has been ok, but it is slow as hell... one of the reasons that i didnt bought the apple notebook was because of games, but im going to get another pc to handle that... i can live without games on my main notebook. the other reason was the rumors about the new ibooks and powerbooks, wich i think didnt became true.
so now, im in a big trouble. if im going to change my laptop, its going to be on december 05, if i dont change it now... well, i think that its going to be until may or june 06. after that, im going to college, so i dont think im going to be able to change so often my notebook. once a year if im lucky.
So, should i buy an apple notebook now? or should i wait for next gen G5 or intel based apples? should i go for the 12" ibook, or the 12" powerbook? (i dont like bigger ones)
one thing i dont like from my current fujitsu and from the ibook, is that they dont have dvd burner. also, now that im not going to do gaming on that machine, i dont need an ultrafast notebook. im going to use it for all of the office apps (word, excel, powerpoint), web surfing, file storage and a little photoshop from time to time. maybe a little virtual pc emulation for a very simple windows program.
are there differeces in screen quality between ibook and powerbook? battery life?
hope you can help me!
Nahum

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic