Just goes to show that the Missouri Rule ("I'll see it when I believe it", the Show-Me State) is true.
Got a chance to check out a G4 Powerbook last night for the very first time and wow. I went into this bashing the machine so I had a negative bias and I came out impressed:
1. The machine I checked out had none of the problems I have read much about (ie. battery problem, dead pixels, electric shocks from the casing), believe me, I tried very hard to find fault with it. While I'm sure there are lots of units out there that have the problems mentioned, I guess I just got lucky to have been able to try a good unit.
2. I know a lot of people were saying this thing is easily scratchable. To that, I have to wonder what they are doing with their machines. Because it was a demo unit that was borrowed, I had no qualms about trying to scratch this thing. I tried with my fingernails as hard as I could, no scratches, a friend of mine wearing a metal watch rubbed it really hard against the shell as wll as where his hand would rest if he was typing, no scratches. Even scratching it lightly with the sharp edge of a metal letter-opener would not do it until we scratched really hard. This was a huge concern for me, the durability of the machine and in my opinion, after having tried for myself to scratch and physically damaget the G4 Ti, that it is as durable as my Pismo 400 (which I think is very durable).
2. The wider screen on the G4 PB vs the Pismo is a huge difference, with almost an inch of extra space on each side, that's a lot of extra screen real estate. For my job (as a stock researcher) and the apps I run, this extra space is just a little more luxurious than a necessity, but it is important enough that I am seriously considering moving up to the machine.
3. The keyboard, it was more of a medium grey colour than a black colour as I thought and it matched really well with the rest of the machine (it had the silver trimming as oppose to the white trimming) and the whole package looked beautiful. The only thing IMO that throws off the look of the machine is the hinges jutting out at the back, makes it look like the PB has an overbite.
4. This was a 500 mhz machine I tried out, I wish I had a 400 mhz machine to demo so that I could have compared it to my Pismo 400, but it was very very snappy under OS 9.1. BTW, I installed the retail OS X on my Pismo 400 last night and while it was ok, to my eyes and hands, it feels a lot more sluggish than OS 9.1. So I moved back to the older system. It was difficult though because OS X did something to my internal DVD ROM so that it monopolized my sound output (therefore couldn't get system sounds) and woudn't boot of CDs. I managed to zap the PRAM and do a few other things and in combo, I got my drive restored.
5. Once again, back to the screen, it is indeed a lot brighter than the Pismo's and I liked it a lot. The whole machine actually looks like the tray of an airplane to me.
But the screen, very very gorgeous.
6. I can see how people have problems with the DVD drive, I have burned CDs of my own that I used one of those Brother P-Touch label machines to label (BTW, IMO this is the best $50 I ever spent, buying one of these label machines, highly recommended for neat freaks such as myself
) and the CD just barely fit. I find the auto loading and eject mechanism slow, is there a way to speed it up? I've love to see it faster in the next revision.
7. I noticed that when the case closes, the top and bottom are not flush, as it is with the Pismo, but i didn't find that to be a problem. It felt sturdy when I carried it and moved it around, I was flipping it and throwing it around and it was fine.
So as you can all see, right now I am deep in the painfujl throes of gear lust. I have a local Mac dealer here in Toronto that is interested in my Pismo 400 for trade up to a Ti Book 400 but I am trying me best to resist the urge. For what I do, the Pismo 400 and perfectly adequate for the job. In fact it fulfills its functions flawlessly and in a timely manner. But ohh, the Ti PB is so sleek and sex and I love that wide screen, the Pismo by itself looks great but when put beside a TiBook, looks obviously outdated. Nonethless, I love this Pismo and I am struggling with what to do.
At this point, in my personal life, I am soon doing a little travelling (going to Alaska for a week, then to a friend's near the Illinois/Missouri border) and if I didn't go on that trip, the money would more than pay for the upgrade. On the other hand I have more than enough money in my bank account to outright buy a G4 PB (the 500 model no less). But just because I have the funds doesn't mean I foolishly spend them. I am trying really hard to stick with my rule of never buying first revision Macs.
So what I have decided is this. While I am currently already gainfully employed, I am applying for a job posting in Alaska (I'm in Toronto, Canada) that if I get, could be quite schweet. So I decided, if I get the job, I'll buy the machine (or better yet, get the machine bought for me as part of my perks/comp package). If not, I'll wait for the next revision. I was quite unimpressed with the speed with which OS X ran on my Pismo 400 and wonder how much of a difference a 500mhz G4 machine would really make. The slowdowns seem to have to do more IMO (in my own limited superficial observations) on how the OS manages its disk accesses in which case a fast processor won't mean as much but I digress as I don't want to go into a debate over OS X. I've already decided that I am going to stick with OS 9.1 for awhile because my work (which makes money) overrides my desire to be an early adopter of a new and exciting OS.
The video card shortfall, which is one that has been hotly debated here, is also a concern to me, but the really big one is the lack of expandability. A year from now it would not be unreasonable to see a G4 upgrade card for my Pismo whereas the TiBook is not expandable. Of course, I also know from doing the math numerious times whenever I've made the "upgrade or trade-in for a new machine" calculations that it has always made better financial sense to trade up to a new machine than to upgrade an existing one, in which case, the expandability doesn't mean much. But I think I'm going to hold back for the next revision before making a move. In the meantime, I'm experiencing major TiBook pon-pharr (you Trekkies will know what that means *grin*)
Kestral
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