Portable Audio/midi Interfaces????, which one? Options

[lazytomc]

I'm about to get a 12" G4 powerbook and I need a reliable audio/midi interface (good audio I/Os are more important to me than MIDI at the moment though). I've been looking at the M-Audio Firewire 410 (which is at the top end of my budget), the Quattro, the Duo and the Tascam US-122.

I will be using Cubase SX and Reason 2- I do a fair amount of MIDI work and record the odd guitar/bassline and vocal... I also plan to play live using the laptop. I'm aware of the limitiations of USB and the benefits of Firewire, but is it worth the extra cash? Would it be better to go for the Quattro and buy a separate mic pre-amp (eg Audiobuddy)?

I know there are issues with the US-122 and OSX, but what about the M-Audio hardware? how does that perform?

And finally.... are there any other alternatives that I should consider?

any advice would be much appreciated!

[xingu]

FYI, Tascam has released new OSX drivers (v. 3.2.2) for all of its USB interfaces. From my communications with Frontier Design (the guys that wrote them) most beta users experienced drastic improvements in OSX performance with the new drivers. I wasn't really having any problems with my 428, but the 3.2.2 seems fine to me. Tough to gauge with the Tascam forum being down, but I haven't seen many complaints around here or elsewhere...