[driven]

The one place that I still use PCs in my daily life is my notebooks. My trusty Dell I8200 has (literally) travelled around the world with me 12+ times.

I'd REALLY like to move to the PowerBook. Does anybody know of anyplace that I can rent one for 2-3 weeks so I can try it out and see what kind of "gotchas" I might have in a mobile environment? (Kind of like renting a car for a week before you buy a similar model.)

[SplijinX]

Maybe, quite a few sites came up on Google:

http://www.rushcomputer.com/who_service_ar.htm
http://www.laptoprent.com/

Mostly catering to business, something like this isn't going to be cheap, you're probably better off buying an old one one ebay for trying.

Don't really know what you mean by "gotchas"... Apple notebooks are built pretty solidly and build quality has improved with rev b's and c's. I'd say the functionality is at the very least comparable to wintel notebooks and in many cases surpassing them.

[bbales]

I looked into this a few years ago (wanted to ren one for the summer, so I could be portable and still be a mom to 3 kids). It was VERY expensive, though I don't remember the particulars right now.

But if you're used to a notebook already, I'm not sure why you'd need to rent one before buying. I guess what you need to figure out is if an Apple PB would run all the software that you need. Are you using anyhting that's PC only? I have a year-old 12-in PB and cannot imagine my present life without it. I use it quite a bit, though I'm working on my desktop right now. Summer vacation officially begins tomorrow, so it will once again be getting quite a workout.

[driven]

Yeah ... I've got a few concerns:

1) .NET software ... I *was* a developer until recently when I went into a full time training role. I have a few things there that I'd have to replace.

2) More importantly I'd have to find out how I can get my cell phone to link with the laptop as a modem. This would be VERY important unless I wanted to pay the high fees for airport hotspots.

3) All of my Palm Tungsten 2 Applets would have to smoothly transition into the Apple world. Most shouldn't be a problem, a few might be. (Docs 2 Go, Microsoft Money conduit, etc.) I'd like to work those issues out before comitting to the platform.

4) Any other issues that I might not realize until I plug into a customers network. :-)

(Additionally I'd like to compare speed/performance of my usual daily tasks in comparision to the Dell that I'm currently using.)

Thanks for the feedback ... I do appreciate it.

[SplijinX]

I can see why you would want to play around with a Mac before getting one. The concerns you have would take a good bit of investigation to find whether or not it would work.

If those rental places end up being too expensive, there are some alternatives that could be cheaper:

1) You could buy the powerbook that you think would suite you, test it out and if it works great, if not ebay it off at a slight loss.

2) Check out the Marketplace forum and maybe post to see if anyone lives in your area and might be willing to part with their powerbook for a while for some compensation.

3) Beg someone you know with a mac to let you test out your inquiries



The .net stuff might be a show stopper, even if you succeed to do the things you want it to do in VirtualPC it will be incredibly slow.
http://www.itwriting.com/dotnetmac.php

As for cell phones, I know there are plenty of users that have successfully gotten their cellphones to connect to the internet, mostly through Bluetooth. However if your using a usb connection, a driver might not exist for the Mac side and if it�s a serial connection, it definitely won�t connect. I recommend checking out Howard Forums for you cellphone model and seeing if anyone has tried to connect to the internet using a Mac: www.howardforums.com/

The Palm will definitely connect up no problem with isync�the applets will definitely require some snooping around the net. They may be shareware to do something similar to what your current apps do. I�m almost certain you will have to find a work around for at least one, if not most of your applets. Don�t think Microsoft Money even exists on OS X, but there might be someone out there that has written a program for it, wouldn�t be surprised.

Best bet is to do your research on all your areas of concern before dropping money on something you can�t keep or wasting countless hours trying to connect your phone up when others have tried and failed. Where there�s a will there�s a way � it�s just a matter of how much time and money you want to waste.