[kmarketing]

Hi,

I've come to the forum again to ask on whether or not I should go ahead with this purchase...

A friend of mine lent me his titanium powerbook 400 for a week, and now I have the opportunity to buy it.

I have sold my 17" 1.33, got a 17" 1ghz for $800 and sold that one for profit, both in the last 2 weeks. I am left with what I wanted - my g5 desktop and a cheap laptop, my favorite pismo to hold me over, especially until the new lines come out with something special.

Now comes this titanium 400. I've had the titanium line before, and actually never kept them for very long simply because they would get so hot and the airport reception was terrible.

I have no idea what happened with this one, but this one does not get any hotter than my pismo, and the airport reception is just as good. There is no flaking paint, the screen is gorgeous (it was replaced by applecare) so the brightness and color are great, and even the palmrest and trackpad don't have that shiny used look. It pretty much looks new. The only mark is a small blemish on the left side of the display cover that if I do get it I would probably cover it up.

It will have a 10gb Hard Drive, 1gb Memory, COMBO Drive, 4 hour battery. This will be for $400.

What do you guys think? I could place my pismo's 80gb 5400 hd into it to give it even more of a boost.

I really like the widescreen even though its not the same resolution as the newer 15". And for some reason, I actually like the look of the titanium line, when it's not all scratched up.

And then finally, the saddest question, do I keep the pismo or sell it?

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

[brettcamp]

I've had a Pismo and my wife has a TiBook. I think the answer depends a lot on what you're going to do with it. If your G5 is your main home/office computer, then it sounds like your Powerbook is for travel, and the sturdy Pismo feels more solid in a backpack than a TiBook. If your portable use requires a widescreen, like maybe to show off graphic work, then the TiBook is the obvious winner there. Even if the TiBook isn't showing peeling now, eventually it will if you travel with it a lot. So I guess, all other factors being equal, if you're going to travel a lot with it, maybe the Pismo's better. If it's mostly just couch use with occasional travel, the TiBook?

[kmarketing]

Hi.

Thanks for your response. I think what you say makes alot of sense. I think as a laptop both do what I mainly need. The g5 is there for the bigger jobs. And I really like the pismo, it has been my favorite. It's just that the widescreen is really easy to use. I usually have 8-10 windows open on the pismo, and while I love expose, it's sometimes annoying to keep pressing f9 to get to another window. Sure, the 15" 400mhz has the a screen resolution just a little better than the pismo and less than the newer 15" and definitely less than the 17" I had. but it is still nice to use.

I don't travel too much with my pismo right now, just around the apartment I carry it from room to room. Don't know why, but the tibook feels pretty solid, and feels a bit lighter than the pismo. And again I do like the looks of it. When I do travel, both feel pretty good, but the ti feels lighter.

I just never thought there would be a titanium that wouldn't be scorching hot and would have good airport reception without having a card sticking out from its side. I think I've found it, but I 'm not sure if I am willing to give up my pismo for it.

I wish I could keep both, but I just don't know how practical that is. I think that even with switching hard drives (80gb from pismo and 10gb from ti) I should be able to get MORE money than what I would pay for the titanium. I guess I'm having some remorse for letting go a wonderful machine in the pismo.

So my questions are: Do you think the $400 price tag is decent for the Titanium? Do you think the performance of it will be similar/equal/better than the pismo? Do you have any reason to help me justify keeping both?

Thank you. I really appreciate your ideas!!

[I was David B.]

It seems you love all the old machines much more than the new ones .

I had a Pismo 500 and a Titanium 500 at the same time. Although the Tibook had a slightly nicer screen I used my Pismo 90% of the time and I definitely liked it more.

It is very annoying to have 2 or more computers at the same time. You always have the synchronisation problem if you don't decide to do certain jobs only on the one book and others only on the other. You also have much higher costs. Two fast and large hds, memory twice, twice the backup space (and in the end backing up twice nearly the same synchronized stuff), two dim backlights, 4 weak hinges etc.

If you have a G5 desktop for demanding work, keep the Pismo. It is the superior machine and you will be sorry to give it up for a Tibook. The Tibook is a diva, easily scratched, bad dvd drive and all this long known stuff. Using the Pismo will ease your mind. And thats the important thing. You don't live for your computer, the computer should be useful for you and it should be fun and easy to use. Thats the Pismo, not the TiBook.

[kmarketing]

Hi,

believe me it's hard not to want/have the latest and greatest!

I do like the old machines, but more importantly I just like practicality with my money I guess Having my 17" powerbook with my g5 was truly overkill, so I'm glad i actually made money on that so I could have some funds now, and look forward to the new machines that will be coming out.

This summer I actually learned photoshop (proudly in 1 week) and definitely the pismo or old titanium will not be great for that. And truthfully even the 17" 1.33 didn't blow my mind with its performance. So I just need to keep a "cheap" laptop until something else comes along. And hopefully by then, I will have more sophisticated needs for my laptop that I would need to upgrade.

Performance wise how do the 2 compare? Will the g4 processor make a difference even though it is slower than the g3?

It's so tough for me. I like the widescreen, but now using the pismo after a few days of not using it, I feel the joy of using the pismo again. If the titanium was the same as the other ones that i had at one point - hot, poor airport reception, bad cosmetics, then I would say the choice is easy. But I just don't know.

Thanks for the opinions, I'd appreciate more!

[I was David B.]

Originally Posted by kmarketing

Performance wise how do the 2 compare? Will the g4 processor make a difference even though it is slower than the g3?

Performance wise my 500 Mhz Pismo and the 500 MHz TiBook were equal. One exception: video and audio encoding. Import into iTunes was faster on the g4 and ripping dvds and encoding them into vcds was faster (because my program is altivec enhanced it ran 4 times faster on the g4).

[kmarketing]

hi,

this may be the most extravagant and idiotic thing to do, but I will be keeping both machines, the titanium 400 and the pismo. no matter how much i like the widescreen, i just can't give up the pismo which still runs great and looks new. I think I figured out a way to justify this.

I will be selling the 1gb memory chips of the pismo as well as the current 60gb hard drive. The pismo will then have 512mb memory with a 10gb hard drive and airport. I'll have that around as my basic surfing machine at home and outside. I'll keep the titanium 400 the way it is now (1gb memory, 80gb 5400 Hard Drive). If anything happens to the titanium, i'll just move over the ships and hard drive (unless it gets stolen).

So just to rationalize having 2 laptops of similar capabilities, I'll try to make some money off of the pismo to justify this.

Dumb? Maybe. But I feel better already!

[Barry]

the TiBooks were the best laptops apple made, flaking paint not withstanding. The price is a good price. I'd go for it...