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brewskij · Dec 25, 2003, 09:06 PM

Hi,

been using PCs since about 1989... a coworker turned me on to the newer Macs and their incredible Unix-based, OS/X operating system... the more I read on Mac forums like this, the more I am sold on switching to the Mac_World...

I will be moving house in the near future and want a notebook for mobility aspects assoicated with the move... I have 4 basic choices in mind and they are (all with government discount):

12" IBOOK - $1760
800 MHz, 60G HD, 640 M RAM, BT, Airport, APP, .MAC, MS Office

14" IBOOK - $1848
1 GHz, 60G HD, 640 M RAM, BT, Airport, APP, .MAC, MS Office

12" Powerbook - $2252

1 GHz, 80G HD, 512 M RAM, SuperDrive, APP, Airport, .MAC, MS
Office and Quicken

15" Powerbook - $3090

1.25 GHz, 80G 5400 RPM HD, 512 M RAM (on 1 chip), Superdrive, APP,
.MAC, MS Office and Quicken

My current computer use is not "poweruser" by any means, however I want to leave open the idea of future multimedia apps, editing movies, etc... Also, a guy at the Apple shop told me that IDVD is a nifty little, integrated product (in ILIFE), and IDVD only works with their SuperDrives... Also, my next job will be doing Java development in a Unix environment - and I want to play with XCODE on Mac OS/X (and I know that can be done equally well on an IBOOK)...

Now, I have poured over this forum and other Mac forums, and have read about recent Powerbook and IBOOK purchasers experiencing problems... Powerbook dead pixel and latch problems, and IBOOK logic board problems... I wonder if the percentage of defective Apple notebooks is as high as it appears if you read the forums... is it 5%, 10%, 15% of the notebooks being sold - or is it MUCH lower and it only seems higher as I am reading mostly about folks with problems... Also, it is very interesting to read about Powerbook Titanium owners not complaining of similar manufacturing defects - and it is unfortunate for Apple to be having this sort of problem for such a premium, kewl, feature-filled, and exciting product... Also, it is intersting that PowerMac G5 users aren't reporting manufacturing defects like the ones that new Mac notebook users are reporting... Guess it is easier to make desktops than ultra thin and feature laden notebooks...

Also, I have read that it is a good idea to wait on new Mac purchases until we hear what is announced at the massive Mac Conference in early January to hear about near future product offerings - new ILife version, Powerbooks with G5s in them (and we thought that the G4 runs hot!!), new IPODs, etc, etc...

If you reply I would like to hear what you have and if it is one of the newer models, if you have had problems...

thanks for all the great info in this forum... I have learned tons of OS/X and Apple related info - and I don't even have one yet! I am typing this from my 4 year old, trusty Dell Dimension 550 MHz PC running MS XP Pro (while listening to The Boss/Springsteen on my headphones - "When I'm Out In The Street..."...

Happy Holidays!!,
Brewskij

effgee · Dec 25, 2003, 09:44 PM

Hey there + welcome!

Personally, I have 2 PB's - a brand-spanking new 12" rev. B Combo/40GB/768 RAM (didn't need the Superdrive, already have one in desktop machine) as well as 15" TiBook. Both are beautiful machines - ultimately when it was time to upgrade the good ole 15" book, I opted for maximum portability instead of speed and bought the 12". Portability-wise, the 15" was always a tiny bit too big for my personal taste and I knew in advance that the PB would be a secondary machine, so the maximum speed was not the most important factor. Here's my recommendation:

option 1 - portability 12" PB, Superdrive, 80GB, 768MB RAM. Imho, the most power in the smallest enclosure possible.

option 2 - best "bang for the buck" 15" PB, Superdrive, 1 GHz, 80GB 5400rpm, 768MB RAM. Due to the slightly faster bus speed, greater RAM expandability and (most importantly) significantly faster GPU, the few hundred bucks extra are well spent. If money is not the biggest concern, go for the 1,25GHZ version.

option 3 - splurge 17" PB, Superdrive, 80GB, 5400 rpm, 768 MB RAM. The fastest PB, beautiful screen, might not even need an external monitor. For me however, it was way too large since I travel a lot and I prefer traveling as light as possible.

A few general thoughts. RAM - it's cheap and OS X is RAM hungry. The PB's will run fine with 512MB but they will run even finer with 768 MB (12") or 1 GB (15", 17") - go for that! Of course, wait until after the Macworld keynote on Jan. 6 - the probability that there'll be new Powerbooks is rather small but you never know.

HTH + cheers,

eff

P.S. Almost forgot - my 12" PB as well as my 15" TiBook both were flawless out of the box.

brewskij · Dec 25, 2003, 10:29 PM

effgee,

didn't think of adding more than 512M initially, since the overall cost of the 15" in the config that I am looking at already seems relatively skyhigh to me... but I am looking at the one chip option, to leave room for another 512 or 1 Gig as another chip in the future...

one person wrote that the more RAM you have, the less hard disk hits (potentially), less swapping, and longer battery life... interesting thought!

so, you have had no problems with your new 12" PB - that's great!!... most of the problems that I have read about have been with the 15" PB, which I am guessing is currently the best selling PB at this time...

other question - how much free space do you get outa the box with the default load? how much space is the default load that Apple loads up for you?

thanks for your response!!,
BrewSkij!!

hikouka · Dec 25, 2003, 11:47 PM

option 3 - splurge 17" PB, Superdrive, 80GB, 5400 rpm, 768 MB RAM. The fastest PB, beautiful screen, might not even need an external monitor. For me however, it was way too large since I travel a lot and I prefer traveling as light as possible.

Splurge. Big Al is king

effgee · Dec 26, 2003, 06:59 AM

brewskij,

didn't think of adding more than 512M initially, since the overall cost of the 15" in the config that I am looking at already seems relatively skyhigh to me... but I am looking at the one chip option, to leave room for another 512 or 1 Gig as another chip in the future...

As long as you're planning to buy the 15", that's a good choice. Just in case you decide to get the 12", keep in mind that it has 256 MB soldered onto the board and only one expansion slot for RAM

one person wrote that the more RAM you have, the less hard disk hits (potentially), less swapping, and longer battery life... interesting thought!

That might be a small factor - have never attempted to check that out personally. I don't think that the battery time you gain by adding more RAM would be more than a few minutes.

so, you have had no problems with your new 12" PB - that's great!!... most of the problems that I have read about have been with the 15" PB, which I am guessing is currently the best selling PB at this time...

The 15" is a great machine, especially now that Apple seems to have gotten the "white spot" problem under control. And, as a percentage of overall sales, I'm pretty certain that the number of lemons delivered by Apple is no higher than that of any other manufacturer.

other question - how much free space do you get outa the box with the default load? how much space is the default load that Apple loads up for you?

Uhm, not entirely sure since one of the first things I do with any new machine is to wipe the hard drive and install my own stuff. If memory serves me correctly, the default installation (system + apps) on my 12" PB was just under 5 GB, leaving a bit over 30 GB left. Maybe another member here has more detailed info on that.

If you have the opportunity go to your local Apple store/Mac dealer and spend 10-15 minutes on each of the PB's to decide what's best for you. In case you don't have these links yet, also check out barefeats.com and AccelerateYourMac.com for speed tests/comparisons between different PB's, components etc. - they're both very useful sites.

HTH + cheers,

eff

typoon · Dec 26, 2003, 01:00 PM

Well today is my day. I'm getting a Powerbook. I went through this agony trying to decide which one. I finally settled on the 12" because of the portability. I was going to get a G4 iBook but I decieded I liked the powerbook better. so I'm getting that. More RAM, Larger Drives standard and less crap installed from the factory.

brewskij · Dec 26, 2003, 01:47 PM

I have taken the advice that vetern Mac owners say - check out the options at a Apple Store... spent multiple hours total at our Oahu store - talking to several guys who work there... they tell me the sage advice that depending on my needs (current and future) is how I should decide on IBOOK/Powerbook and form factor... I do not like the fact that the IBOOK 14" doesn't have higher resolution than the 12" model... also I definitely appreciate the advanced features on the PowerBook - higher resolution, more graphics RAM/speedier graphics card, more cache, ability to go to 2G with RAM, the DVD burner, and faster memory bus... also, the other features that are just plain kewl - backlit keyboard, auto-dimming monitor, gigabit ethernet and firewire 800 ports (not that I would use them in my current use/needs), various video connectors and ability to hook up a second monitor and easily have both as the screen real estate (very kewl indeed!!)...

am definitely leaning toward PowerBook 15" model...

again, am waiting on Steve Jobs keynote address at the Mac conference - unless Apple has some sort of incredibly sale on them (new models/not refurbished) in the next week or so (doubtful since they are such huge sellers for Apple)...

a part of me thinks that, Hey, you could get a PowerMac G5 for the price you are paying for a PowerBook... what's up with that decision, dude? hard to rationalize, but I definitely need portability for the move... last time we moved (to Oahu from Japan) I was without a computer for several months, and it was trully a royal pain the the butt...

on reinstalling OS/X - is that hard to do, or really easy (as I am guessing it is)...

thanks for your posts! appreciate your sage_advise, wisdom, humour, Mac_friendship, etc, etc

BrewSkij

effgee · Dec 26, 2003, 02:37 PM

Reinstalling OS X is a breeze - you just need to get used to the slightly weird/different underpinnings of UNIX with its several "System" folders (one each for "root", "all users", "individual user"), so you know where to find the stuff that you need to back up (Home folder, user prefs, mail, etc.) on a regular basis and/or before upgrading/reinstalling.

If your computing needs don't change dramatically, I'm sure you'll be perfectly happy with the 15" PB. And keep in mind - you can always buy a desktop machine later

I have yet to hear of a Mac geek who only bought one machine

How about a real obscene dual processor G5 with two 3.x GHz processors and 8 GB of RAM towards the end of 2004?

brewskij · Dec 26, 2003, 10:51 PM

effgee,

luckily and happily for me I have had several years of experience working with Unix on minicomputers and Sun workstations several years ago (system administration types of activities)... so, am relatively familiar (but rusty) with command line Unix... never mastered the VI editor, but was able to get around and even mastered some relatively fancy schmancy and ultra powerful sed statements that could do almost anything...

yeah, later on down the line - a PowerMac G5 desktop, possibly a dualie!!!!... yeah, buddy! that's what I'm talkn bout!!

when I go into the Apple store, there is a dual 2.0 G monster with a 23" cinematic Apple monitor - WOW is all you can say when test driving it... that's what computing is all about... massive programs that it shreds in no time as they come up in record breaking speeds... whoa nellie!! yeah, buddy!!

later and thanks for your Mac support while I ponder decisions that require some of my hard earned US buckaroonies,
BrewSkij (typed in while listening to Bruce Springsteen Live singing such a most excellent song, "NO SURRENDER")

jimf_81 · Dec 29, 2003, 10:50 AM

Personally, I'd go for the 15" PB, and my second choice would be the 12" PB. The only hesitation I'd have for the 15 is that it seems to be having the most problems, but that should be resolved fairly soon. It is also the most popular PB too.

I've had a 17" PB for about a month now, and I absolutely love it. Just got some Altec 621's for Christmas, so with my backpack case from Spire, wireless keyboard and mouse (Apple bluetooth), and stand, I have a pretty sweet system going on. If you can splurge, as per the earlier comment, go with the 17.