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satchmo · Oct 25, 2001, 03:04 PM

of not getting the Ti500?
Looking to pick up a Ti400 but have some concerns.
Have you found the 400 too slow? Is the Airport reception really that bad?
Will adding additional 256K to 384K RAM bring the Ti400 up to speed to say a Ti500 w/256K?

I'm mostly concerned with speed of OSX and resizing of windows.
Will primarily use it for Quark and Ilustrator but some Photoshop.

thanks for any comments

cpatubo · Oct 25, 2001, 03:23 PM

I've had my Ti400 since February, and no regrets. I did have a faulty DVD drive, but got that nipped in the bud right away, and customer service really bent over backwards for me (even fixing some body damage from MY carelessness).

Anyhoo, the 400 seems to be just fine for me. I do a lot of work in Quark 4.11 and Photoshop 6 with no problems whatsoever. I don't know how it is running OS X in classic mode with these two apps, but I would still run both of them after rebooting into 9.2 for optimum performance. I actually have NOT installed OS X because I don't need it (although I do have a copy installed on my G4 tower).

I have 384MB of RAM in my Ti400, and I'm content. I wouldn't say it brings it up to speed with a 500, but maybe it's just a matter of just testing it out...

If I were you, I might reevaluate the need for having OS X, if it's a premature decision or not. But the 400 is a good machine... I got it because it's what I could afford. But if you can, get the 500... it never hurts to have more Mhz.

tomra · Oct 25, 2001, 03:37 PM

Hi.

I`ve had mine since July...no regrets!
Have not been running OSX on it, but i do use it for 3D applications and it works great! Upgraded to 512mb of RAM.

Go buy

Tom

satchmo · Oct 25, 2001, 03:47 PM

Hey cpatubo, thanks for your comments.

Yeah, there's a good deal on the 400 right now and as much as I would like to pick up a 500 or even a new 550 that seem to address some of the original Ti flaws, but it's $650 more!
I hope I'm lucky and don't run into any of these problems after Applecare expires.

I also don't need OSX right now but I'm sure once all the apps I use are optimized, and when it's even more polished, I'll switch.
But it's also nice to try OSX on a temporary basis.

SOLIDAge · Oct 25, 2001, 08:21 PM

I recieved my Ti as a graduation gift in June. So far it's been a wonderful computer (my first MAC :-D )
I don't find it slow usually, and i'm a little upset of corse that the new Ti's have much better graphics cards, but oh well..i'm happy with my Ti!

As for OSX...i'm running it almost exclusivly, the only real reason I go to 9.2 is to use Virtual PC when I really want to Download a song off of Morpheus, and can't find it on LimeWire :-D

[ 10-25-2001: Message edited by: solidage ]

mismith · Oct 25, 2001, 09:24 PM

I've had my ti 400 since march, and for me it's perfect. I was a dedicated mac user until I started college (1997), I had the LC series, a quadra, PB 540c, when I went to the darkside. My university was extremely pro-wintel, i bought a thinkpad, but after three years, i was anxious to return to the mac world.

I was a biology major and got a job with a biotech firm midway through the year. They were anxious to have me start on some work, so they gave me a coporate credit card, and a signing bonus which I promptly spent on my tibook. Anyways, most of the work I do is Office stuff as well as some DNA sequencing analysis. I don't need a whole lot of mHz, and the screen is perfect for my HUGE excel worksheets. I ran out of HD space recently and just bought a new internal HD 30gig, an external 40gig, and an enclosure for my internal 10gig. I save a LOT of digital images, as well as pdf versions of EVERY journal article i read.

So the short answer is NO REGRETS, but it really depends on the kind of work you do, or plan/hope to do.

PS. if anyone is still looking for a sleeve, go with Timbuk2. You won't regret it.

Macola · Oct 25, 2001, 10:39 PM

I purchased my Ti400 in February, and haven't had any problems other than the loose battery, which Apple replaced. I use it for Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Fireworks daily (I have 512 MB RAM). I do have OS X (10.1) installed on a separate partition, but don't have any practical use for it so far, particularly since my trackball doesn't have OS X drivers yet (thanks a lot, Microsoft!!). It seems to run fine, in fact it boots up really fast compared to OS 9. Definitely set up a separate partition for OS 9, though...

I haven't noticed bad Airport reception. My only regret is the size of the HD (10 GB seems a little small) but I wouldn't trade it in for a new Ti just for that. A friend just picked up a Ti400 on clearance for around $1700, so I'd say that's a good deal.

TimMcG · Oct 25, 2001, 10:47 PM

I've had mine since March. No regrets, but I do wish I had the new CD-RW drive instead of the DVD drive. Although watching a DVD on a plane is better than burning a disk and having to listen to the lady sitting next to you for two hours

coke::Ti · Oct 26, 2001, 10:46 AM

Bought my Ti400 in May, best Mac I have ever owned. I do not have the loose battery problem nor any DVD related problems.

I use it for everything from interneting to DTP to software development(my work) in Virtual PC in the old days. Now I use OS X.1 as my primary OS, and since it comes with a rich set of development tools, I no longer have to use VPC, a real bonus for me : ) It runs OS X.1 beautifully.

I love my Powerbook G4/400. Of coz more Mhz would be nicer, but it all depend on how much you want to spend. When I bought mine, the price difference between the 500 version and the 400 version was almost US$750, and for me the extra perfomance could not justify the extra cost. In your case, if the faster powerbook can save you hours and hours, and if that translates to $$$, then get the faster version. Its that simple.

10GB HD is kinda small, but if you have a CD burner, then its not too bad, unless you are into video editing. 512MB+ would be ideal.

Btw, just how much faster is the 500Mhz model compare to the 400Mhz? I wouldn't think the difference is that great, considering their system bus, cache are all the same. On the other hand, the performance difference between the 550 and the 667 would be more significant.

JHromadka · Oct 26, 2001, 01:10 PM

I got my TiBook 400 early this year and still love it. It is my first Mac, and the only thing I have done is add 256MB of RAM.

cpatubo · Oct 26, 2001, 03:34 PM

My DVD-related problem was oddly enough not the eject problem. I never had any of the common problems everyone else was seeming to have, like the loose battery prob or stuck pixels (although one did show up eventually). My DVD problem was that one day it just did not recognize disks at all. It would want to initialize them every time, and wouldn't even start up from system CDs. Bizarre, but Apple fixed it up for me quite well.

I love my Ti... it's my first PowerBook, and I think it'll be around for a while. I may eventually get more RAM or a bigger hard drive, but the best decision for me at the time, financially, was to buy the base 400 model. Hope it makes you happy too.

Oct 28, 2001, 10:36 PM

I had mine since April and was happy and satisfied eversince. Many say that the Ti400 is slow but for me upgrading from a Wallstreet 250 is a big performance boost for me

It will keep me happy until, lets say, a Powerbook with twice the performance comes out...(G5 Powerbook? ...I wish...)

flyhigher · Oct 28, 2001, 11:48 PM

I just bought mine last week from MacWarehouse ($1599 refurb). No regrets at all. I find no noticeable speed difference between this and a desktop 450Mhz G4.

Gaming performance isn't spectacular, but for me this is a holdover machine until they release one with the Radeon M6.

nick h · Oct 29, 2001, 12:29 AM

I bought my Ti400 back in February. I added an xtra 256MB to bring it up to 384 total. It's all I need and runs like a dream. I do mostly web surfing, word processing, and video editing.

Overall I'm very pleased. I don't know what there is to regret (except that time when I scratched the bottom of it on a pen, oops).

-Nick

67shark · Oct 29, 2001, 01:55 AM

I got mine in June, (also my first mac) and I love it. I use it for Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as IE and business bookkeeping.I installed 512mb ram for photoshop and I love it all

I initially never used osx, but a friend of mine convinced that I should upgrade to 10.1 and I have never looked back. classic works great.

OSX.1 is exactly what I thought I would be getting when I bought a MAC. It is awesome.

I neverr really thought much that the 500mhz was going to be that much faster--and I couldn't afford it anyways-- although now the 667 is pretty appealing, but the prices on the 400s have dropped like a rock. If you can get a refurb of gently used model cheap I would have no qualms buying such a great unit. but for $3K you can get the 667, with 30G, 512mb, airport, and some better guts. You won't go wrong with any, just get the best thing that you can get.

TiG4 · Oct 29, 2001, 10:56 PM

The best decision I have made for the year 2001 is my switch from a Windows environment to the Mac!

No regrets with my Ti-400 machine.
I was on the verge of investing on a Sony Vaio when they released the TiBook.
And as they say : the rest is history

Luckily for me, there were absolutely no problems with my TiBook.
I have been an advocate for Apple ever since.