Wait or buy Powerbook?

[aobk84]

Hi guys, i'm new to this. I've been thinking of getting a 12in powerbook, should I wait or get it now?
Thanks..

[Noel]

If you need it now, buy it now. If you can wait, do.

[psmith2.0]

They were updated in January, and Apple hasn't exactly been setting any speed records with their laptop updates. It's so hard to tell.

They'll probably get updated in late summer or autumn, but who knows? I'm not entirely sure where they can go, speed/spec-wise in their current form. Can they get beyond 1.67GHz safely and comfortably?

:confused:

In the meantime, check this page out...might be helpful:

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

[Franz Josef]

Hi guys, i'm new to this. I've been thinking of getting a 12in powerbook, should I wait or get it now?
Thanks..

The now v later debate is an old one. To my mind, the answer is usually do it now unless there's a firm reason to wait for a specific point in the future. Life's too short to hold off unless there's a really good reason to. A 12" PB is a great laptop and if you're using Windows at the moment, the sooner you switch the better - it's a different world and there won't be a day you'll regret the change. You'll ask yourself why you didn't do it sooner.

I think I take a slightly different line to Pscates 2.0 above - in my experience, the 1.5Ghz 12" PB is a fast machine and I'm not sure a future step-up (1.67 Ghz or beyond) will seem materially faster for the user. Just make sure you get 1Gb of RAM so that Mac OSX can spread it's wings.

I'm assuming you're sure it's a 12" you want (great for portability) and not say a 15".

[porter]

I don't think it will be updated too much.
They might give you some more nifty tricks like the scrolling trackpad.
Or more RAM, a better video card, something along those lines.

But I doubt you'll see a speed bump- if Apple left IBM, why should they even bother giving the PPC one last improvement? Or if it is, it will probably be negligible- so you get 1.67 vs. 1.5GHz... if that were to happen to me, I wouldn't lose sleep over that. And on top of that, Apple is probably focusing all its efforts on the Mactels. I don't expect to see the current range be updated significantly any more, so they have got to get the Mactels out ASAP.

[nota12b]

Hi guys, i'm new to this. I've been thinking of getting a 12in powerbook, should I wait or get it now?
Thanks..

I just jumped ship to Apple and I can tell you that coming from the Windows-world it's a breath of fresh air! As quoted elsewhere in this forum, make sure to do the upgrades on RAM. I went iBook 12", upgraded to 768Ram (love newegg and Kingmax!!) and hitachi 80G 5400rpm h/d and now have over 4.5 hours wander-time - it's great!

PB - now? I've not dealt with the 1.5/1.67 processors at all, but the 1.2 in the iB is plenty fast enough for me. Net admin wandered by the other day and I went to show him something on it and the response was 'that's pretty snappy' re: click/response time. PURE swag, but the ibooks should see an upgrade before say back to school time, and that being said the Power line should see one as well, simply to keep a difference between the lines - the 12PB comes REALLY CLOSE to the ibooks :\

[Meltedbutter421]

I would buy it now.
I'm actually going out myself and buying a 15" today.
Just a few more hours and I'll be off this crappy Dell :D
I really don't expect updates for a while and I dont see any reason besides battery life to wait for an update. And who knows, they might now fix the battery life problem with the update. :\
If you do decide to buy now, I would buy from maczone.com because you get 512 MB of RAM added for free and a free Epson Stylus C86. I hope this helps you... :smokey:

[Franz Josef]

What a happy thread :D

[intlplby]

i tend to think that it is probably worth waiting until the next update which will be in the next 2-4 months..... they were updated in january so we should be neat the next update

135 since the update and the average is 185... so that is 2 months wait.......

plus, even if the powerbooks were the first to be updated to intel in the first quarter of '06 it would probably be good to wait until after WWDC 06 before going intel so not only the big developers, but the small developers can catch up too.

[WinOSX]

wait for the intel chips, you'll see a huge speed increase. Hold off if you can.

[intlplby]

i expect the intel chips in powerbooks are going to come before there is really wide adoption of intel native apps.... you might have to run lots of apps and addons and other things through rosetta for a little while first.....

waiting for intel pbooks makes the wait 6-9 months away

[FFL]

this looks a lot like Purchasing Advice.

[Franz Josef]

wait for the intel chips, you'll see a huge speed increase. Hold off if you can.

Hard to see speed as some absolute good WinOSX, now if you really need the speed for something specific, well that's a different matter. And holding off.........life's too short, you'll be a longtime dead.

[kscherer]

With good supply from Apple and few (if any) backorders, I would say now is as good a time as any. MacWorld Boston is no longer a big venue for hardware releases, although a spec update could come at Parris. Look for updates from 6-10 months apart which would put you late summer prior to school session.

In other words, just get the fool thing and kick yourself later. :p