And if you think you’ll ever want Bluetooth, get it built-to-order when you buy the laptop. It’s tricky to install after the fact.
I’m still using my '98-vintage WallStreet PowerBook, and am fully satisfied with it. Admittedly, it now sports a G4/500 caughercard, half a gig of RAM (not originally supported in this model), and one of the fastest notebook hard disks ever made (the Hitachi 60 gig 7200 RPM), so I’m not saying a Mac PowerBook will keep you satisfied for 6 or 7 years without any subsequent investment. But they’re built like tanks and the fact that you can generally upgrade them puts them in a class unusual among laptops.
(Incidentally, I’m holding out for a G5 PowerBook. Or a *dual-*G5 Power Book :D. But I’ve got a PowerBook to use while I wait.)
I’m writing this on a 15" 1.5 GHz PowerBook. I’ve had Macs as my personal computers since 1993, when I bought my first one. I’ve always had good experiences. I had my first Mac for 7 years, until the hardware could no longer keep up with newer software. My last computer, a G3 PowerBook that I bought in 2000, is still functioning as my wireless access point, backup HD, and soon-to-be web server.
I’ve almost always had to use DOS or Windows at work, so I do have a good basis for comparison, and in just about every category you could think of Windows of any flavor has not come out on top. XP comes very close in some ways, but doesn’t quite make the grade, except for one thing: software compatibility. In spite of most of my life outside work being spent on a Mac, I considered switching to XP for compatibility. I got tired of waiting for ports of software I wanted, even though most of the bugs usually shake out in the porting process so the Mac version seems to have fewer problems overall.
I looked at the features and prices of computers that were comparable to the PowerBook I wanted (the one I ended up buying). Any laptop that was even in the same class as the PowerBook was close in price (no cheaper than about $250 less at the time I was looking), produced by a company with a much worse service and reliability record than Apple, and left something to be desired in both design and aesthetics. Flimsy cases, shitty screens, underpowered video cards, no DVD-write ability, and smaller HD were some of the reasons various computers got rejected. Most of the ones that were left after those were eliminated were usually bigger and heavier than the PowerBook. Add in the UNIX basis for OS X, a recent (at that time) boost to PowerBook stats at no change in price, educator discount, and easy and cheap financing, and there was no real rival to the PowerBook for me.
I’ve been very happy with my new computer. The only compatibility problem I’ve had is with the 5 year old NEC printer in the main office, which has not had a driver update for OS X. Since I can just save to my directory on the network (no compatibility issue there) and print from one of the XP workstations, this is not a major problem. NEC does not have a good record for support and upgrading for any platform; leftover resentment from an almost complete lack of interest in their proprietary system during the OS wars back in the 80s, I think. My girlfriend’s new Canon printer worked perfectly without any driver installation.
I had a bit of learning to do with the new OS, but there weren’t any major issues. Aside from the overall more polished feel to OS X, there is one feature that kicks XP’s ass: Exposé. I use Exposé extensively.
Another plus, almost a necessity for me, is the extensive multi-language support in OS X. I live and work in Japan. I bought my computer here. It took me 10 minutes to decipher how to do it from the Japanese-language manual, and about 1 minute to implement a switch from Japanese to English for the OS default language. I can switch to Japanese input with a two key-stroke combination, or if I feel like it, I can switch the whole OS to Japanese in less than a minute.
A well-written piece of OS X software will switch to your default language, but even if it comes with no localization, it will still run properly and display dialogs and menus correctly as long as you didn’t opt out of installing the language support package for that language when you installed OS X. My girlfriend has her own account that has Japanese as the default language, and she can switch to it without having to reboot. If I felt like it, I could give my Spanish and Brazilian friends their own accounts with Spanish and Portuguese as the respective default OS languages.
One of my friends, who runs XP, would have had to partition his HD, with one partition for each OS language, and reboot every time he wanted to switch back and forth. He tried just using the Japanese input method in the English version of XP, but found it lacked some characters and wouldn’t correctly decode some files, so he bought the Japanese version of XP (extra money I didn’t have to spend since OS X comes with all the supported languages on the install disk) and puts up with having all his dialogs and menus in Japanese. Not very fun when something spits up an error message and you have to figure out what’s wrong.
Bottom line, I’m very happy I got a PowerBook, I fully expect to get similar longevity to my old PowerBook’s, and I’m ecstatic that I get to use OS X. In my experience, it works better than advertised. I’m still discovering features that I didn’t know it had until I needed to do something that used them. I’ll be building an XP compatible for gaming and so that my girlfriend can keep using her existing software when she moves in, but my main computer is probably going to continue to be a Mac for a long time.
After not a whole lot of debate, my friend decided to order the 15" PowerBook. “You mean I won’t have to run WebRoot, Spybot, Ad-Aware and the Microsoft spyware remover every week?” “And that damn antivirus thing won’t pop up every day and make it impossible to do anything while it’s running?” seemed to be the clincher. The $150 rebate from Amazon certainly helped.
On the geek side, a real live Unix command line is pretty cool, too. As a security administrator, I also appreciate how the default condition for service ports is closed and root is disabled by default.
Root should never be enabled on MacOS X. It’s an unnecessary security risk, IMO, especially since any deep-level digging you need to do can be done with an (authenticated) Administrator account anyway.
Whoops. Spoke too soon about the lack of hardware issues.
Poorly done, Apple. They should be more forthright about such things.
I don’t really feel like launching a new thread on this issue, so <bump>
Is the AppleCare warranty worthwhile? It’s $349 for the G4 Powerbook, and it looks like a big rip to me. I’ve seen several opinions online that concur with this. Does anyone have any opinions or experience with it?
Stranger
I didn’t purchase it. Mostly on principle. I feel all extended warranties are a waste of money. I think paying $2000-3000 is enough for a laptop. A lot of people are going to try and talk you into it. They’re going to say - “But it’s a laptop, it has a lot of delicate components, anything could break at any moment.” I say hooey, it’s just another way for them to part you of your money. And if it does ever needs repairing, then that’s when I’ll pay them but not before.
The rumor mill is currently saying that new Powerbooks are coming with free upgrade vouchers for OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and that Tiger will be announced/released in April 2005 (next month, woohoo!)
My rule of thumb is to purchase Applecare for anything that has an LCD screen. Note that you can purchase AC before a year has passed after your purchase, so you don’t have to cough up the money for it upfront.
Alternately, you may want to look at Safeware, which is an insurance plan for computers.
FYI, check out the “Apple Developer Connection” before you buy. For $500, you can get an ADC Select membership and qualify for a hefty discount on one system. I used this on the last top-of-the-line G5+display that I bought and saved $1300, for a net savings of $800. Plus, ADC membership gives you access to Tiger and other pre-release software right now (some folks in my office have been running it for weeks).
Here’s the page for the program:
http://developer.apple.com/membership/select.html
Here are some details on the “Hardware Purchase Program”
http://developer.apple.com/membership/hardware.html
Here’s the store front that gives you the discount (you have to enter a key during checkout to actually get it, but you should be able to price stuff up in this store vs. the regular online store to see what you’d save):
I’m a fan of AC for laptops. I got it for my 17" 1GHz and have probably gotten my moneys worth. They’ve been good about repairing damage that could possibly be construed as my fault. It’s 12" ibook predecessor had the LCD die after 2 1/2 years, also replaced under AppleCare
That said, we did not get AC for my wife’s 12", thinking we’d pick it up just before the year ran out. 10 months after we got it, the baby poured a glass of water onto it. Applecare wouldn’t have covered that, and enough components were fried that it made sense to replace, rather than repair. In that scenario, we would have lost the money outright if we had bought applecare. They same would be true if it was stolen in the first year. So waiting til the last minute may make sense.
The PowerBook we got two weeks ago did not have this, so it’s definitely a rumor.
So I went ahead and purchased a PowerBook, the 1.67GHz machine with 15in monitor, adding 512M of memory to bring it up to an even 1Gb. Nice little machine so far, but there are some things I’m going to have to get used to, and I’m not super impressed with the way Safari works, yet, though maybe I’ll adjust. (Or, more likely, I’ll download Mozilla and use that.)
Oh, and MacUser (from this thread will be happy to hear that I did, in fact, purchase the machine from a local reseller (Di-No Computer in Pasadena), although after my first couple of conversations with other resellers I was just about ready to go the online route.
Anyway, thanks, everyone who offered advice.
Stranger
Very cool! What problems in particular are you having with Safari?
Here are some must-have apps you should download:
- Desktop Manager - provides you with multiple virtual window spaces (“desktops”). A good complement to Exposé.
- Launchbar - allows you to launch an application or open a folder/file by simply typing its name. Quicksilver is another popular alternative.
Hmm, there are many others, but I can’t think of them.
If you don’t like Safari’s look feel and behavior, give Shiira a try — it’s the same engine but it has a different sensibility.
Firefox seems to be taking the world by storm. Opera is also a good option.
Good luck with your new machine, Stranger.