buying a powerbook. maybe. help?

[blan0145]

I feel like an underinformed, sort of lost consumer. I think I'm going to buy a 1.67 15'' Powerbook this afternoon for $2,099 with my school's discount, and then get a $100 rebate, because that's a promotion going on right now. Any thoughts on this? Is this a bad decision for any reason?

Also: does anyone have any thoughts on whether I should throw down for an extra battery? I've never owned a laptop before, so I'm not sure how it will change my computing habits, or if I'll need more power on the go.

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

THANKS!

[julesstoop]

The present powerbooks are great computers especially in terms of build quality. Get one if you can pay for one. If you want a second battery, you might consider buying one from newertech (in stead of Apple)
Important: get as much RAM as possible. With Tiger I find 768 MB to be a minimum.

[rjtprocrastinet]

I'm going to pile onto blan0145's question here - I started seriously considering a PB 15" 1.67 about three weeks ago, and waited to see what WWDC was going to produce...

I would be using a PB for:

1) video editing on Final Cut Express - not full time, or all the time, but this is particularly what I want to be capable of and the main reason I'm looking at a new system
2) Photoshop for digital picture adjusting/retouching
3) learning basic web design
4) plus of course the basics that anything can do - email, web, Word, etc.

I know folks on the boards grouse about the PBG4 being "outdated," etc. etc. and boy that frontside bus number does look low.

But then I have to admit: I have only the foggiest notion what the heck the frontside bus actually *is* and no idea at all what it does to performance. It's just really hard to drop $2k+ on a computer when the boards are full of people slagging it, and when it comes to specs big numbers are comforting to those of us who don't really know what we're talking about.

I guess what I'm looking for is a current PB owner to tell me "ignore the theoretically low specs, ignore the fact that on paper the iMac G5 spanks it, the PowerBook kicks ass and you'll love it like a sleek aluminum concubine."

Or, you know, words to that effect.

[blan0145]

rjtprocrastinet summed up my concerns very precisely. I too worry about the bad rap given the powerbook (Do I really need to be worrying about the resolution of the screen? Maybe so--I don't know.)

As for the battery, julesstoop: if I buy one from newertech, do you know if that if that voids my warranty?

I currently dropped the superdrive (I don't know when I'd use it) and threw in 1gb memory (but the two 512, not the 1gb). Does that seem sufficient?

And I believe it's true that third party memory voids warranty--anyone have thoughts on that?

[screensaver400]

Consider the 12". Theres very little performance difference between the two, unless you need a really good graphics card. And the 12 incher's card still plays the recent "Close Combat: First to Fight" shooter game just fine.

To me, if you're gonna buy a laptop, buy a laptop. Don't buy something you won't want to take with you everywhere. The 12" is just like having an extra small textbook with you-- Nothing big. When you're home, plug it into a big 19" CRT and external keyboard/mouse, and you've got all the screen real estate you need. How much work in Final Cut Express or whatever do you really need to do on the road?

But the 12 incher's screen is pretty decent on its own. Its 1024x768 which, while not great, is good enough for some basic Photoshop or Dreamweaver, especially with Expose.

Plus, you'll feel better about only spending $1399 (after rebate) for a superdrive powerbook.

As for performance, its decent, especially with Tiger. Its snappy enough. The only real slow down I see is encoding h.264 with Handbrake... It takes 8 or 9 hours to rip a dvd into h.264. But the slow down is with the codec, and its intensive with just about anything.

You will be happy with the current powerbooks.

EDIT: The Newertech battery shouldn't void the warranty, as its a very user-replacable part. If it blows up, killing the system, Apple won't fix it, of course. But if something else on the system breaks (hd, etc) thats unrelated to the battery, just pop the original in, and take it to the Apple Store (to be safe).

[blan0145]

I'm buying a laptop because I'm moving to Japan, and it's a much simpler device to transport. My heart still lies with desktop computers, though, so I don't think I'm ready to go for the 12''. Thanks for the advice, though. I've thought about it a lot, and in the end, the extra three inches tug at my heart.

[blan0145]

thanks for the battery advice.

[blan0145]

after looking at the newertech batteries, I see that I can get one from apple for $15 cheaper. is newertech's design improvement worth the extra dough?

[rjtprocrastinet]

I've thought about it a lot, and in the end, the extra three inches tug at my heart.

I'm in the same boat - I'll accept the extra 1.(?) pounds to get the extra screen real estate. My friend has a 12" PB and my wife has the 12" iBook, and they just feel a bit too beensy for me.

[julesstoop]

Blan, you are probably right: the difference in capacity just about outweighs the price-difference. Both differnces are quite marginal though.

[blan0145]

The deed is done. It'll arrive soon, hopefully.

[rjtprocrastinet]

Wow, blan, you pulled the trigger on that sharp-like. Well done and congrats.

[rjtprocrastinet]

Okay, I have a finer point to put on my question. I spoke with a friend who runs FCP on his G4 PowerBook, and he confirmed that while it's not as fast as a G5 duallie (naturally) it runs just fine if you need portability.

He mentioned, however, that he's heard QT7 which comes with Tiger is 64-bit optimized and does NOT run smoothly on a G4 (He's still on 10.3.9 and the prior QT). Since FC uses Quicktime extensively, he indicated that QT7 might change the picture for running it on a G4.

Anyone have experience with this? I searched past QT7 discussions and didn't see anything, but apologies if it's already been discussed...

[Brad]

As far as speed and perceived smoothness, QT7 runs as well as QT6 on both my nine-month-old 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook and my five-year-old dual 500 MHz G4 Power Mac.

I've experienced no decrease in performance with FCP 4.5 when running 10.4.

[rjtprocrastinet]

Brad, you're a gentleman and a scholar. That's exactly what I was hoping to hear.