Looking forward to getting a PowerBook

Is it a good time to buy one? or should I wait for the rumored G5 one?
I had a Mac when I was younger, but I would kinda like to go back now.
I'm getting tired of Windows, will still keep a powerful pc on the side, but
will probably give more use to a nice Mac.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

xtoo_short20x said:

Is it a good time to buy one? or should I wait for the rumored G5 one?
I had a Mac when I was younger, but I would kinda like to go back now.
I'm getting tired of Windows, will still keep a powerful pc on the side, but
will probably give more use to a nice Mac.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

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If you are waiting for a G5 powerbook, you'll be waiting for a long time. IF you are tired of windows, you could also wipe out your PC and put on a friendly Linux distro such as ubuntu. If you want a mac laptop, get a G4 PowerBook... even if the G5 PBs come out this year (REALLY DOUBTFUL) I wouldn't buy one until at least Rev 2 or 3.

The Powerbooks right now are extremely slow compared to Windows based laptops. There are rumors of a dual core G4 laptop, maybe it'll be out by Mac World San Fransisco?

Oh, and they're extremely overpriced. If you want a small machine the iBook G4 is a much better value.

The Powerbooks were recently updated (mostly just a speedbump), so now is as safe as it gets when buying a computer.

They are neither overpriced nor underpowered when compared to similarly equipped non desktop replacement windows laptops. Faster at some tasks, slower at others. Depends on your specific needs, but a blanket statement like that is inaccurate at best.

Go for it, but buy it with the minimum RAM from apple and get your own memory upgrade elsewhere for much cheaper (1GB is cheap, and OSX really flies with tons of RAM).

If you get one, order it from macmall.com.

They're slightly better than ordering strait from Apple. Cheaper shipping and most the time they'll throw in freebies like free RAM and/or printer.

Rassilon said:

The Powerbooks were recently updated (mostly just a speedbump), so now is as safe as it gets when buying a computer.

They are neither overpriced nor underpowered when compared to similarly equipped non desktop replacement windows laptops. Faster at some tasks, slower at others. Depends on your specific needs, but a blanket statement like that is inaccurate at best.

Go for it, but buy it with the minimum RAM from apple and get your own memory upgrade elsewhere for much cheaper (1GB is cheap, and OSX really flies with tons of RAM).

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G4's are anemic compared to anything Intel has put out for a good 2 years going now.

They are easily out preformed even by notebooks that cost far less than itself, let alone a huge desktop replacement.

If you want to actually compare stuff, check this guy out if you're in the market for the 15" powerbook: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/2x_inspn6000?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Plus you can actually get some high resolutions on those screens instead of being limited to what the powerbooks offer.

But if you just want to get a Mac for the niceness of OSX and can stand some sluggishness in the OS, then go hit up a powerbook.

And don't even tell me that they aren't sluggish. Open a finder window and resize it, it'll stutter even on a Dual 1.8 G5 let alone a lowly G4 Powerbook.

JHendrix said:

G4's are anemic compared to anything Intel has put out for a good 2 years going now.

They are easily out preformed even by notebooks that cost far less than itself, let alone a huge desktop replacement.

If you want to actually compare stuff, check this guy out if you're in the market for the 15" powerbook: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/2x_inspn6000?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Plus you can actually get some high resolutions on those screens instead of being limited to what the powerbooks offer.

But if you just want to get a Mac for the niceness of OSX and can stand some sluggishness in the OS, then go hit up a powerbook.

And don't even tell me that they aren't sluggish. Open a finder window and resize it, it'll stutter even on a Dual 1.8 G5 let alone a lowly G4 Powerbook.

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I just did so (resized a finder window) and it was fine, smooth.

Apps that are optimized to use altivec can very well keep up with intel's notebook offerings. As i said, its fast at some tasks, slower at others. Fortunately, the tasks where its slower tend to be ones that dont NEED huge amounts of CPU power.

My powerbook (1.5GHz, 17") doesnt feel at all sluggish in any way. It even runs recent games quite well (UT2k4, halo, WoW). I did upgrade the RAM though, which makes a big difference in OSX. Occasionally an app slows down (eg, safari chokes when there are a ton of animated gifs on the screen.. firefox however is fine, though i still prefer safari), but this machine is very slick for everything i do.

As for the screen, i dont WANT any higher resolution, not until the OS is res independant. More pixels on the same size screen makes things get way too small, and some things (menus and other system objects) cant be resized.

Rassilon said:

I just did so (resized a finder window) and it was fine, smooth.

Apps that are optimized to use altivec can very well keep up with intel's notebook offerings. As i said, its fast at some tasks, slower at others. Fortunately, the tasks where its slower tend to be ones that dont NEED huge amounts of CPU power.

My powerbook (1.5GHz, 17") doesnt feel at all sluggish in any way. It even runs recent games quite well (UT2k4, halo, WoW). I did upgrade the RAM though, which makes a big difference in OSX. Occasionally an app slows down (eg, safari chokes when there are a ton of animated gifs on the screen.. firefox however is fine, though i still prefer safari), but this machine is very slick for everything i do.

As for the screen, i dont WANT any higher resolution, not until the OS is res independant. More pixels on the same size screen makes things get way too small, and some things (menus and other system objects) cant be resized.

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What'd you turn off effects wise for it to go smoothly? Go into a CompUSA and play with the GUI on a G5 and I had the same problems I did on my iBook when I had it, the thing was just sluggish. I also had a ton of problems using Office on the Mac because it was extremely slow, and having Excel bog down on small spreadsheets when my crappy 2.2Ghz Work machine speeds along with thousand + entry spreadsheets is kind of annoying. But I'm geek like that, I demand speed once I've had it on another machine.

Starting Safari, et al would bring up the rainbow whirr of death that'd seem to take forever to get going well enough. I'll give you the fact that it's a nice browser but it will choke when you come to this website because of all the animated gifs.

As far as the resolutions go, then you're one person. Many people like myself who do CAD and graphics work want those higher resolution screens.

I didnt turn off any effects.. If i try to drag REALLY fast it skips once, but at normal speeds it works fine. I did upgrade the RAM, and OSX loves tons of memory. Also the demos at compusa are often not well maintained, and usually arent upgraded from the base config (theyre getting better, but apple occasionally configs machines with less than an ideal amount of RAM..)

As for Office, i havent used it since the first version of office for OSX, and that not recently. Seemed to work fine though, and i never had any problems, with word or excel. Maybe the latest version is worse, but i havent used it. (wouldnt surprise me, it IS a microsoft program afterall).

Most programs run quite well. Matlab for example, ran as fast on my old 500MHz powerbook as it did on pentium desktops that were new-ish 2 years ago, and much faster than the older pentium IIIs on campus. It really flies on the new G4.
Ripping mp3s (or AAC) is really fast as well, and itunes is brilliant, even with over 7000 songs.

And if I were doing serious CAD work, id much rather be on a desktop machine with a much larger high res screen.
For general use, going too far past 100 dpi is mostly only useful for bragging rights, as it makes text too hard to read.