I’ve finally snapped and decided to investigate buying a laptop. I think one would my make school life a lot easier, plus just provide the freedom to study anywhere.
Although I won’t rule out a windows based, I’ve pretty much settled on an Apple. (never owned one, want to try one) I was interested in the 12 inch powerbook, because the whole point of a laptop is small and portable. I have my monster PC to leave my nuclear war simulations to!
So here’s the question. Buy a 12 inch powerbook now on the cheap? Or wait 1-2-3 months for an intel based one. From reading various apple rumor sites, the deal is this. 12 in powerbook will be discontinued, but 12 in ibook will remain. New powerbook will be sexy 13.3 inch widescreen.
Should I buy at the end of the product cycle, or wait? To be honest I’m not really keen on waiting 3 months. School starts again in 1, and I really need one.
You’re never going to be satisfied if you wait to buy computer hardware, ever. Because the Next Great Thing is always three months around the corner. And that’s doubly true with anything from Apple. Buy now and have fun!
Tough call, but one that’s faced by just about anyone that’s bought computer equipment lately. Always something new down the Pike.
However…the MacWorld expo less than a month away. January 9. If they announce new powerbooks, it should be then. At which point, you can either decide to go Intel, or grab a G4 book at a hopefully discounted closeout price.
The G4 is plenty powerful and they’re not going to abandon operating support for it for years. So there’s no reason not to buy one and save some cash in the process. (Your school may also have an educational discount program for computer equipment, although you might be able to do just as well buying elsewhere if the price drops substantially.)
Yes, normally I’d agree. The only reason I’m a bit cautious on this particular transaction is that supposedly the switch to Intel is a pretty major step. The new processors are supposedly dual core, over 2 ghz, and much improved battery life. Plus, the 12 inch powerbook that I’d be buying will be discontinued. That makes me a bit nervous.
On the other hand, if the new ones cost more then $1,499 or I’d have to wait 6 months, I’m going with a current one.
The computer industry is always moving, if you keep waiting for “the next big thing”, you’ll never end up with a computer…
the next incarnations of OS X will ship with a PPC emulator called “Rosetta” which will convert PPC code to intel code, and for the next couple years, Mac apps will ship in a “fat binary” configuration, containing both PPC and intel code, you select what machine you have, and the installer uses the correct code
if you don’t have a bunch of existing PPC apps, Rosetta will be a non-issue for you, in this case it might make sense to wait for the intel based Macs…
then again, there’s the unwritten rule in the tech sector of “never buy a Rev. A. product”, the intel Macs will be new from the ground up, and will definitely have some growing pains to iron out (all new revisions do, it’s a fact of life, doesn’t matter if it’s Mac or PC…), if you don’t mind being on the “bleeding edge” it might be worth the RISC (pun intended ), however, the PPC platform is a proven, stable design, but will soon be left in the past…
personally, i’m waiting until Rev B, if not Rev C, before making the switch, but i have a lot invested in my PPC based Macs, so the intel switch will be more of a headache for me than it will be for you…
i guess the answer is “it depends…”, sorry to be so vague
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. However, I’d imagine after they introduce them, they’ll be either expensive as hell, or still unavailable for another month or two.
So the 1.5 ghz g4 still has some power?
Tried this, no go unfortunately. www.techbargains.com has some really good prices however.
Another question. I know with my PC is a part craps out, I can swap or fix it myself. Not so with the Apple, and even less so with a laptop.
Should I pay $350 for the 3 year coverage? Is it worth it?
I’ve found the powerbook at cheaper places (amazon) then Apple’s store. Can I buy this protection from them seperately? (I didn’t find anything on their site that indicates yes)
I’ll be honest here… Apple WANTS resellers to push AppleCare with every CPU, it’s almost expected, so any Apple reseller/Apple store is not going to give you an honest answer…
i will…
like any extended warranty, AppleCare is a gamble, you’re gambling the purchase price of the policy against the possibility of the machine failing…
an out-of-warranty flat-rate Apple repair (the machine is dispatched to Apple service for repair) is $400-450 depending on the machine model, iBooks are $400 flat-rate, PowerBooks $450, the flat rate repair covers everything except physical damage to the screen or cosmetic damage, if you have a catastrophic failure and need a new logic board, hard drive, and optical drive (worst case) that flat-rate repair would cover it, if you had a reed switch in an iBook fail, the flat rate would cover it, you get the idea
you’ll have to determine if the AppleCare policy is worth it for you
no legacy apps? i’d wait, if you buy now, you will acquire legacy apps by proxy, any app you buy between now and the transition is a PPC app and will run in Rosetta, taking a slight performance hit
If I bought a powerbook now, any software I buy will be “compiled” to run on a PPC. Hence if I ever get a new intel mac, the software I bought will run in emulation on the new machine.
Rosetta = emulator?
I’ll definitely be holding off until Jan 9th (mac world) to make my decision. If I’m not impressed with the price, or the feature set isn’t a huge leap, I’ll buy the old powerbook.
yes, that’s what i said, any apps you buy now are PPC apps and will run within Rosetta (PPC code emulator for intel chipsets), and like any “emulated” code, you do take a slight speed hit, not a big deal for word processing/spreadsheet/other mundane apps, but not good for apps requiring “real time” access to the processor, i.e. games, audio and video software (Final Cut/iMovie/GarargeBand/etc…)
I honestly wouldn’t do it. Of my three friends that bought Apple laptops in the last two years, all three have experienced catastrophic breakdowns. Two have been left with basically unusable computers, and one has spent nearly the original price of the computer on repairs. His machine is currently in the shop for the third time with a dead harddrive- and this from a computer that spends nearly all it’s time one a desk. Apple is notorious for long expensive repairs. They also like to fight with you about warranties.
Right now Apple laptops just don’t last. They are expensive toys for people who can afford a new computer every year. If this is going to be your primary computer and you will not be able to buy another one for several years, I really recommend looking at either a desktop or a studier PC laptop. Honestly, the only laptop I’d consider getting as a primary computer is a Thinkpad.
In my immediate family, we’ve gone through 2 clam shell ibooks, 2 white ibooks, and 2 powerbooks (plus several mac desktop computers) since however long ago it was that the colored ibooks came out. I like macs. However, I would say - if you plan to be transporting the computer a lot, think about going with an ibook. In my experience, they seem to hold up a little better than the powerbooks. I would also say go with the warranty. Its not that I expect that things will go wrong with the computer, its just that in the cases where something does happen, you’ll wish you had the warranty. I’d bet that we’ve had less problems with the macs than any of my friends have had with their windows laptops, and I really feel that the mac laptops hold up better for longer. The old ibooks have to be at least 6, maybe 7 years old and they are still very good useable computers, I can’t say the same for any of the laptops my friends got when we started college (5 years ago).
Have you looked into getting a tablet? I have all my notes, papers, HW assignments and handouts on my ~3 pound 12"x8"x3/4" tablet. I am not sure what field you are in but if its something science based where a lot of professors hand out notes you can import those onto the tablet and then take your own notes on top of them. After about a week of using a tablet I found it to be much superior to pen and paper for taking notes. I used to always run out of space at the bottom or the sides of the page. Not any more, one click and my page expands or I can lasso my notes and move them around. I am a 3rd year student in engineering and the only regret I have about getting my tablet is that I didn’t get it two years ago when I started school.
Reguarding Even Sven and Sept5’s comments, I’ve got a 12" iBook that goes to and from work every day with me, haven’t had any problems in the 15 months I’ve owned it.
A cow-orker had a mid-sized powerbook that worked fine until his kid was horsing around, ran into it and snapped a hinge.
I HAVE heard the iBooks are tougher, and the hinge design was moved to the newer powerbooks, so that’s a plus.
I think your success in protecting your laptop all depends on how you treat it. You can move it all you want if you treat it like a Faberge Egg. You’ll be buying a new one if you treat it like a sack of grain.
Also, bear in mind that the iBook series was built to stand up to the rigors of life in a book bag, it was designed with high school/college kids in mind, the polycarbonate plastic shell is relatively tough and durable, and the inner magnesium frame gives it good rigidity
…that’s Apple’s take on the matter
the reality is, the iBook is only slightly more durable than an AlBook (PowerBook G4 Aluminum), primarily due to the plastic casing being a little more impact resistant, however, i have seen broken iBooks (end-user damage), the most common physical failure point on an iBook is to the immediate left or right of the screen hinge, if the laptop is dropped on it’s edge, the screen support bracket can fracture right at the right or left edge of the hinge
the repair part is around $60, takes about 2 hours to install, as the machine needs to be dissasembled to the frame and the guts of the screen assembly need to be transferred over to the new support bracket, this repair would not be covered under AppleCare as breakage caused by abuse (which dropping the 'Book IS) is not covered by AC
that said, anyone who carries their laptop around in a book bag or non-padded laptop case is just asking for trouble, you made a large investment in computer technology, why not protect it with the correct carrying case?
I’ve had a 15" PowerBook for two years. I’ve carried it with me in a backpack pretty much every day of those two years: to classes during the winter, and to work during the summer. It gets at least eight hours of use every weekday, including usually a full charge-discharge cycle of the battery.
And I have not not had a single problem with it. It’s had things dropped on it, it’s fallen off my desk, it’s been scratched and banged around, and in general is still working perfectly. The screen is bright and uniformly lit, the hard drive has not had any problems, and the original battery still lasts for about 2.5 hours.
The model I have is essentially the same as what’s on sale now.
PowerBooks are extremely popular here at MIT, among both professors and students alike, and I have not heard anyone complaining about reliability or long service turnaround times.
Also, don’t you think it’s rather ridiculous to call PowerBooks expensive, and then recommend a Thinkpad? They’re both expensive. You get what you pay for.
And that article is two years old, by the way. As I said, the laptop I purchased around that time has had no problems whatsoever, and Apple has had the intervening two years to improve the design further.
I have bought a lot of Macs in my life. Usually, I buy the first of the new lines when they come out.
Almost always, Apple will release an upgrade two months later that’s the same price as the one I bought, and twice the specs. This has happend to me with a IIcx (IIci came out instantly), several of the 603-era powerPCs and powerbooks, the 350 Mhz G4, and a single-processor G5 - always replaced within a few months. I tried to sell the 350Mhz G4 once as a trade-in on an upgrade, had the woman at the Apple store tell me there was no such model until I dropped it on her counter (it was out less than three months). The G5 I’m using now had a similar lifespan.
I’m going to buy an Intel Mac the day they come out. I have to, I’m a developer and my customers will have them. Don’t be like me, kids. If you’re going to wait for an Intel Mac, wait until the SECOND release. If not, there’s no point in waiting at all unless you’re hoping the price will come down (which it will, but maybe not enough to make up the value of the time you spend without it, waiting).
Interesting opinion. I would respectfully disagree. I own an early Titanium Powerbook G4/ 667 Mhz. I bought it in April of 2002. It came with the original Mac OS-X, 10.1. ( which was one buggy bit of programming… ).
If the machine and the shoulder bag it was tucked into hadn’t been placed on the car seat by a nitwit owner ( hello ! ) last spring and flipped onto the floor violently when I hit the brakes, thus trashing the Hard Drive, I could have said to you that this machine worked flawlessly every time I used it, and I use it a lot. I had to put in a new HD, and I still use that machine. It is a thing of beauty. It’s not a toy, it’s a tool.
iPods are toys, the padding around the HD is absolutely inferior for the violent and repeated vibrations and strikes that many iPods suffer on a daily or weekly basis. I know- I’ve taken my used Gen III iPod apart to replace the battery, and so have held the HD in my hands. THAT is a toy.
Get the machine now, you can Rosetta your way through the transition period. And, do as was suggested up there- wait till Release II or III of the Intel machines before you change to one. That’s my goal. If this machine is destroyed and I have to get another, I am getting another metal G-4 PowerBook. ( They stopped making the bodies out of real Titanium early on, so those of us with TiBooks are few and far between. Most of them have been aluminum skinned machines, and owning an Apple AlBook just…has no…panache, yanno?
), however, the PPC platform is a proven, stable design, but will soon be left in the past…