PowerBook - Page 2

I just got a 15" 1.33GHZ Powerbook; I bought it refurbished, and then called Apple and negotiated my student discount (I am a grad student). The machine is really nice, and the OS rocks! Java sucks though, way too slow. There are other small things too, which you take for granted on a windows machine, but aren't availble in Mac land (ie: hardware accelerated sound, or a hardware accelerated mouse!). My mouse, btw, is a Logitech MX900 BLUETOOTH MOUSE, which rocks! Unfortunatly it is not hardware accelerated, but I was able to program the additional buttons for Expose. For those of you new to Mac, I highly recommend Konfabulator - this will really make the XP crowd jealous! The other thing I like about the Powerbook is that the resale value is pretty high (!!) - good luck selling you're Mitac 8050 to someone on eBay, there are only like 5 people who know what it is. The same goes for "Brand Names" like Sager, and Compal. As for the G5 powerbook, my impression is that Apple has a low powered G5 ready, and they will make an appearance in January.

For those of you thinking about getting a powerbook, the other thing I don't like is that the screen resolution is too small (1280x854) - you are pretty much forced to use Expose, because the windows are too damn big!! The Java implementation is also very poor; it is extremely slow, and crashes quite often. Safari is stilil buggy, although I have heard a rumor that Microsoft will release IE6 soon (I still haven't decided whether this is a good thing). But it is a pretty nice machine, and Tiger completely blows away Longhorn, which is why I made the switch.

you mean IE6 for mac, right, cuz its been out on windows for a while. And i assume that Tiger is the new revision of OSX? is it any better than Panther/jaguar/whatever came before that, and if so, how? i've only used OSX panther and some of the really old OS' (think single digits ) and panther seemed pretty nice IMO, doesn't look like you can do too much better than that, especially with dual 23-inch widescreens, dual 2.5ghz G5's, 2gb of ram, and a 9800XT... now if only there were more games for mac!

Hi,

Yes I meant IE6 for MAC, the Windows version has been around for a while. Safari 2.0 will come with Tiger, which has built in support for RSS feeds (yes, I know IE6 already has this built in). Take a look here if you are curious about Tiger:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/

thanks!

VGOKLANI,

How did you call up Apple to get the educational discount on the refurbished Powerbook? I thought you could not recieve the discount on a refurbished item. Thanks!

JW

I had to use some friendly persuasion; I called them a few times, and they said no each time. And then I called them again, and this girl picked up (she sounded cute on the phone) - so I just turned on the charm and she gave it to me. sometimes you got to be nice!

So after you already bought the Powerbook online, you called up after the sale, and got them to take it off the invoice? You really must be one smooth talker Did you really just ask, or did you try to play the, I really can't afford this unless I get the discount?

JW

i tried that at compusa, but the guy was like "well..we don't want price to be the defining factor when purchasing a mac.." and blah blah blah. Well, for some of us who don't have 3 porsches in the driveway, price is a factor. He then went on to say he could probably knock off $200, off of a $2500 15.2" pb. <sigh> I wish I had 3 porsches - and a pb.

I ordered the refurbushed powerbook (it was $100 cheaper than the educational discount) and called them afterwards. usually phone operators have the ability to give you a small discount; so I am not sure whether it was an educational discount or a "personal" discount - which was roughly $95 with taxes.

btw, my 1.33GHZ powerbook is sloow. I put in a gig of ram, but what it really needs is a 7200 RPM had drive. unfortunatly, you aren't allowed to customize the refurbished laptops, and changing the hard drive on the aluminum powerbooks is really annoying (it's not trivial!).

powerbooks are for powerpuff girls ;-)

Nice review Jeffers.

My two cents about the new PowerBooks. Frankly, I think I like the Titanium PowerBooks better in terms of design. Plus, whatever Apple's marketing can say, white keyboards do get dirty faster than a car with a metallic black paint.

My biggest problem with the new Aluminium PowerBooks is that you cannot boot them under OS 9. I am still fond of a few old applications and games, I am still fond of the incredible speed at which OS 9 is running, and I also believe Panther is nowhere near for prime time.

Impossibility to run OS 9 for obscure marketing reasons highly sucks. If I want to run MS-DOS or Windows 98 on my Dothan computer, I can. Why Apple can choose for me what system I am "allowed" to run or not? I wish someone will come up with a Virtual PC-like utility to run OS 9 under OS X, because the "Classic Environment" is a joke.

Majic: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SheepShaver.html

For the past 3 weeks ive had a mac (running OSX10.3 and OSX10.4) and a PC (running Windows XP and SuSE9.1). I have personally found that the Windows and linux are alot more functional, and make a generally far more useful computing solution. The best things about the mac is easy to use, however if you are an experienced computer user you may find it quite frustrating to use the mac, as its not the most efficient operating system to use. Also, the operating system seems like it is too demanding to run properly on the computers i was using (One an old 800Mhz Imac, the other a new 1.1Ghz powerbook). As windows are drawn in pdf format, it just seems to be very sluggish to use, which is something i cant stand. That being said, the new version of Office is quite amazing.

Personally, i would choose a x86 laptop, because OSX just doesn't really compete with the flexibility of an x86 laptop.

Questions for Jeffer

1) How much juice do u get on a typical charge...how long does it run approx? (i'm guessing no where 4.5 h as they promise?)

2) Someone wasnt happy about how the fonts display on MS word, is it noticable?

3) benchmark!!!!

4) take some pics! I wanna see that beast! (some pics on the RadTech
is nice too and your other toys)

5) did you do a mem upgrade? if so where you buy it? If its 3rd Party, what brand?

thanks

Are you sure about that because I still am having classic OS 9 on my old iMacG3. I always boot it on Panther but have a choice of switching OS from Panther to classic 9. I actually have been running simple program on classic 9 and have no problem with it. I never use my Mac for gaming though.

BTW. I am hoping that Apple can launch PowerbookG5 within a few years. Otherwise I will try new AMD 64 bit lappy and get PowerG5 for new desktop. I almost bought Powerbook G4 but ended up with PC based only because I just wanna check on this Centrino and Win XP OS deal. So far, I can't complain. However, I miss certain function on Mac.

U can sign up with picture/photo sharing sites like:

http://albums.photo.epson.com


i'm sure there are a ton of other ones.

in regards to battery life, when u dont use CPU/Optical Drive intensive app how much time u got is what i meant...

Like editting in MS word or working with Photoshop, reading Emails, listening to Mp3s... things like that...

I think u can watch DVD on any laptop with n/p, a good movie runs for 120mins.... and batt usually last that long...

actually, most DTR notebooks can't handle a full DVD because it requires a lot more CPU, GPU, and optical drive activity than checking your email. an average notebook can't even get 120min checking their email, AFAIK (and looking at the 7-8lb+ category here).