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PB G4 1.25 vs. MBA 1.8???
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Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
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Woops, I mean MBA 1.6
Hey everyone. It's been a long time since I've been on macnn - and even when I was here in the past, I was always in the PowerMac... MacPro section.
Anyways, I have a now officially obsolete powerbook G4 1.25 with 2Gb ram. I have been seriously thinking of switching to an MBA recently. I NEVER use my superdrive, and it would be nice to shed some weight (I will miss the 15" screen though). My laptop is 6 years old, but I think it's still a great machine. How much faster is the MBA though? I do web development and use dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator, and textmate/code most of the time (all at once too). Ever since I upgraded to Leopard, my system has been A LOT slower. I wish I could go back to the days of Tiger when my laptop was VERY snappy™. (Actually, can you do screen sharing with Tiger and Leopard? If you can I will go back to Tiger.)
I've heard the MBA can be slow, but I cant find any tests against the PowerBook G4. Anyone have real world experience with it?
Also, I looked on craigslist and people are still selling PB G4's for $600-$800. At the same time MBA's on craigslist are about $1000 - $1200. Is it worth the upgrade in terms of performance? Thanks!!!
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: 888500128, C3, 2nd soft.
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Controlling a Tiger machine FROM a machine with Leopard via Screen Sharing works just fine.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New Zealand
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In my opinion, keep your PB around until it dies. If it's still working and is not too slow for your needs.
Your PB felt slower after upgrading from Tiger to Leopard? I found the opposite.
This might be of some help regarding screen sharing: http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?...81016225820893
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MBP 15" C2D 2.2GHz 4.0GB 500GB@5400
iPhone 4 32GB Black
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Boston
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One question regarding the MBA? Can you live within the 13" screen? Doing web development means the 13" can be a little bit cramped.
I also recommend that you downgrade back to tiger, the advantages of Leopard are lost on your machine due its performance.
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~Mike
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Los Angeles of the East
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gotta agree with Maflynn on the advantages of leopard vs tiger. there are a lot of way's to replicate some of the features in leopard on tiger if you're really loving some of the stuff (downloads folder, transparent menu bar, etc..).
Also if it were me and I didn't have a desktop at home, I would definitely go the macbook route rather the MBA route (you mentioned the 1.6 which has a lousy gpu as oppose to either macbook currently being sold now) with snow leopard on the horizon, especially considering that it seems you keep your machines a lot longer than the avg users here at macnn.
EDIT: forget everything I mentioned about the gpu on the macbook air if you'd be purchasing a new MBA as I was mentioning the X3100 on the first gen MBA's released.
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Last edited by iREZ; Feb 19, 2009 at 01:02 PM.
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NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
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Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
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thanks for the responses everyone.
@Spheric Harlot - that's good to know. What about Back to My Mac? Will that still work? That has become a life saver
@B Gallagher - Yeah, it definitely felt noticeably slower - I could be wrong though.
@Maflynn - I think I might, but then there's the other problem of Leopard only apps...
@iREZ - I do keep my stuff for a long time in general - 11 year old shoes, 8 year old shirts... I have an iMac G5 too (in addition to my PowerMac G5 Quad, which is my main computer), which I might sell along with my powerbook. Your point about the gpu still applies I think. I was looking into the refurb 1.6, which I believe is a first gen model.
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Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Do your part in stimulating the economy—buy.
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Moderator  Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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The AirBook will run circles around your PowerBook, cpu-wise, of course. The AirBook is called slow, because compared to the other current Macs, it is the slowest (slower, but smaller harddrive, slowest processor).
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Having used a MBA before and a G4 PB(1.33 2GB)... I think your PB G4 is probably comparable in speed to the MBA... If you are going to run simultaneous programs at once, the CPU in the MBA makes it snappy, but the hard drive is a lag... its basically an iPod HD unless you upgrade to the solid state drive.
If you must, I would suggest you go with the MacBook route, its faster in every way than the MBA... from CPU to HD, its also more expandable... has more ports and a superdrive, not to mention the price difference.
G4 PB's are still good machines, and still have a great return if you are selling...
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