I won't try to hide the fact thatI find the A4000 to be a better machine in the long run... right out of the box stock the A3000 have more to offer but the A4000 will pass it with ease in the long run.
The builtin scandoubler of the A3000 VS AGA in the A4000. Of cause the scandoubler is a great thing but lack of AGA is bad. Internal scandoublers that clipp over chips on the motherboard DO EXIST for A4000 (in case you're thinking mediator) but the A3000 can't be upgraded to AGA. So the A4000 is better in the long run.
The A3000 get hotter and thus isn't designed to handle 040 or PPC boards, thought it can be done life expectancy on such boards might be shorter than in an A4000.
You need indeed to do the INT2 mod to take on all A4000 turbos and even then some won't work and others won't fit under the floppy bay of the A3000.
You probably need to change buster and other chips on the A3000 to be able to use cards such as the CyberVision64.
The lack of a 5.25" space in the A3000 is sad. Today we count CD in our systems as standard and then the A3000, although concidered a bigbox Amiga, need to be upgraded outside the main unit.
The battery issue of the A4000 is just as real on the A3000, don't fool yourself into thinking it's any more safe to keep the barreldrum battery in an A3000 than in an A4000. In fact the ones in the A3000 are older so should be worse off.
Conclusion, if you've starred yourself blind on an internal scandoubler to be the main thing for you and a thing you don't want to uppgrade to have, and the outer design of the A3000 pleases more than the A4000 you even though the interior leavs things to be deciered then the A3000 is for you... for all other reasons the A4000 is the one to get.
