[magness]

I know there's a few of these posts out there but I still have to exclaim!!

Woohoo.. Just after a year of using my 17" BigAl Rev A I decided to upgrade. It was my first Mac too and MY GOD!!, it was heart wrenching to part company with it. *sniff* after much loyal service.

I managed to get a good price for it on ebay and combined with the sale of a copy of Visual Studio (which I made a tidy profit), I managed to get the following without ANY outlay of cash.

15" PB 1.5ghz G4
512MB Ram (1 stick)
128MB Vram & 5400 Rpm 80GB Hdd
Apple Wireless Mouse

After a week of hectic shopping NextByte (Australian chain) actually gave me the cheapest price which was $4100 (after some bargaining). That may be expensive to most of the U.S. buyers out there but it seemed like a good deal to us Aussie buyers.

The frightening thing was after comparing the 15" G4 to other mainstream PC laptops of the same calibre (PM 1.5 Ghz, 512MB memory, 80GB hdd, 128VRAM), the G4 came out the cheapest by at least a couple of hundred bucks). The most expensive was an IBM T42 which was $6500 bucks. How can anyone say Apple's expensive after that? Mind you there were cheaper ones but they weren't a major brand.. and they were cheaper but about $50 bucks. Waaaaaay Ugly too

I only had to wait for a week (since it's a BTO) before I got my machine. That's got to be some record. It's my second Mac but I'll tell you what, I'm never EVER buying a PC laptop. After switching, other laptops (even the ever expensive VAIO's) dont' have that Apple-esque "lick me" quality to their products. Still have my PC desktop though for gaming but since Macs are becoming more and more a viable gaming platform, my desktop may soon be replaced by a G5 (if the wife deigns to approve the expense of course :-))

Coupled with the new 40GB IPOD I bought it's a DREEEAAAAMM.

Performance wise, it's slick. I'm assuming it'll only get slicker when more memory is added but that can wait until next payday. It feels better and sturdier than the 17".

VPC runs great on it too using Windows 2K. Needs more memory but it's nothing a fat wallet can't handle.

Halo with lens-flare up to maximum seems to drag a little bit and the demo version on unreal 2004 seems to lag a bit but I didn't buy it for games (although it would help just a little bit)

I still get hassled by the PC guys at work about converting to being a Mac elitist. My parish priest even threathed to ex-communicate me for buying a Mac. But Hey.. in the least were not as bad as Amiga Users Right? (FLAME ON!!!!!) .. Just kidding. :-)

Oooh look.. an apple airport express just appeared on my shopping list. I wonder what I'm buying next.

[TheIceMan]

magness: Congrats. I can still remember the feelings of nervous excitement as I opened my Al 15" PB just 5 months ago. Seems like yesterday.

[iNeusch]

Hey.. that's me in a couple of days when I'll get my (old..) PowerBook G4 (Ti 800, 1Gb, 60 Gb) back from Apple Care with a brand new screen...
Can't wait

[d.fine]

I wish I could open my PB as if it were new, see it for the first time again ... be so excited as that day, a little over 4 months ago ...

[Nawus]

Congrats! I share your excitment. Mine arrived via Fedex last week after my bro took delivery of his 15" 1.33 2 weeks ago. Now that we have 2 15s in the same house, Airport Xpress will be order soon.

[djohnson]

Excellent! 10 days till I get to order my 12" PowerBook