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MikeD · Apr 23, 2004, 11:33 PM

Just wondering if anyone took the plunge to upgrade from 867 to either 1.33 or the 1.5 PBs available now. I'm thinking about doing such a thing but want to hear other users experiences. Was it a great difference? Are the newer models just as 'hot'? I'm starting to feel limited at my maxed ram 640mb and 867 mhz.

Mike

curmudgeon · Apr 25, 2004, 10:07 AM

Even an upgrade from the 867MHz 12" to the 1GHz 12" shows an improvement in speed and heat production. One can only imagine the an upgrade to the just-released revisions would yield yet more improvement, as the third generation has typically been a sweet spot for PowerBooks (as seems to be the case yet again!).

jtwiskowski · Apr 25, 2004, 02:23 PM

Okay ... I went from a Revision A 12-inch to a Revision C 12-inch PowerBook G4.

I had the 867MHz SuperDrive with AirPort Extreme and 640MB RAM. It was my favorite Mac yet. I downloaded and installed the warranty-voiding firmware to up the SuperDrive speed to 2x. All worked as planned.

My new machine, a 1.33GHz Combo Drive with AirPort Extreme and 768MB RAM. My main reason to upgrade was the improved graphics card. I wanted to play Halo on the road ... period. I almost went with an iBook and Radeon treeat Halo better in my opinion. But the 64MB VRAM on the PowerBook was hard to pass up.

I can play Halo ... still not as well as I would like. I only wish Radeons could fit in the 12-inch ... even the iBooks 9200 is prefereed over any NVidia offering. I hear ATi needs external VRAM where as Nvidia places it on the same chipset or what-have-you.

However, I recommend one get the BTO 5400RPM hard drive upgrade. It is something I should have done. It is blatantly obvious the HD is the only bottleneck on this computer. However, I have some faitht hat it is good I stuck with the stock 4200RPM 60GB and wait for the 100GB laptop drives, or maybe even some 7200RPMs that may come down the road.

The screen is better, although maybe just more easily calibrated. The battery life is outstanding. My Revision A was wonderful with battery life, almost like an iBook. But this new machine is amazing. I can play an hour of Halo, watch a short movie of the had drive, or even pat of a DVD, with plenty of teem in between for surfing the web and such. All with AE and BlueTooth on and running (I use Apple's BT WIreless Keyboard and Mouse). All on one battery. I could easily see getting 4 hours.

I will be taking her to the Bahamas next week to spend more quality time with her.

Hope this was a little help,

[email protected]

p.s.
I dropped the SuperDrive as my desktop G5 has one ...

Mallrat · Apr 25, 2004, 02:48 PM

Originally posted by jtwiskowski:
Okay ... I went from a Revision A 12-inch to a Revision C 12-inch PowerBook G4.

I had the 867MHz SuperDrive with AirPort Extreme and 640MB RAM. It was my favorite Mac yet. I downloaded and installed the warranty-voiding firmware to up the SuperDrive speed to 2x. All worked as planned.

My new machine, a 1.33GHz Combo Drive with AirPort Extreme and 768MB RAM. My main reason to upgrade was the improved graphics card. I wanted to play Halo on the road ... period. I almost went with an iBook and Radeon treeat Halo better in my opinion. But the 64MB VRAM on the PowerBook was hard to pass up.

I can play Halo ... still not as well as I would like. I only wish Radeons could fit in the 12-inch ... even the iBooks 9200 is prefereed over any NVidia offering. I hear ATi needs external VRAM where as Nvidia places it on the same chipset or what-have-you.

However, I recommend one get the BTO 5400RPM hard drive upgrade. It is something I should have done. It is blatantly obvious the HD is the only bottleneck on this computer. However, I have some faitht hat it is good I stuck with the stock 4200RPM 60GB and wait for the 100GB laptop drives, or maybe even some 7200RPMs that may come down the road.

The screen is better, although maybe just more easily calibrated. The battery life is outstanding. My Revision A was wonderful with battery life, almost like an iBook. But this new machine is amazing. I can play an hour of Halo, watch a short movie of the had drive, or even pat of a DVD, with plenty of teem in between for surfing the web and such. All with AE and BlueTooth on and running (I use Apple's BT WIreless Keyboard and Mouse). All on one battery. I could easily see getting 4 hours.

I will be taking her to the Bahamas next week to spend more quality time with her.

Hope this was a little help,

[email protected]

p.s.
I dropped the SuperDrive as my desktop G5 has one ...

How "hot" does it run? I found the 867 too hot, but the 1ghz seemed fine.

Does the 1.33 chip make it run even cooler?

jtwiskowski · Apr 25, 2004, 03:23 PM

My Revision A 12-inch suffered almost none of the problems most owners had expereinced. I did however have an overly tighten latch that grew perfect over time.

My Revision A was uaully to be founf ontop a CoolPad Traveler (the small white version of the Podium CoolPad) sitting on a desk. Therefore it was always properly cooled. I did notice that if it was to heat up, the left palm rest was the place it did ... just nothing worth a complaint IMO.

My Revison C seems quiter, as it seems never to make a sound, ever. The only noise is the slot-load drive ... louder on ejects and such, quieter for gaming and DVD playback however. This is eaily the quietest Mac I have owned (I had a few fanless imacs in my time). Heat is a non-issue. The left palm rest has yet to feel any warmth, or at least any more than the right as to be noticeable. My left hand is almost always on the palmrest as well. Heat is noticeable on the bottom, more like a generic PC laptop. I have been using this laptop solely on my lap however, no CoolPads or desks. As I said the heat is noticeable on the bottom, but not worh complaning about IMO. I believe the rest on the unit typically feels cool, making any warmth more noticeable (my roomates keep my apartment fairly cool).

I am please with everything about this machine. If I had a B revision I might stick with it ... but if one can afford the extra cost of upgrading ... a jump from A to C will be a welcome one.

Anything else, let me know ...

[email protected]

p.s.
It was nice to get a machine preloaded witht the latest OS. Only a security update, AirPort update, and BlueTooth update where needed, all recently released.