20050211

when logic (board) fails.



ah, remember my iBook from a few posts back? that particular model seems to be prone to logic board failure, and so, being the perfect little apple, myBook decided to follow its brethren into the apple repair center somewhere south of the island of misfit toys and um, bakersfield. i'm lookin' at a 6 to 16 week wait while it grows a new brain or somethin', so in the meantime, it's time to break into the vacation funds and buy a new laptop.

i am loyal to the mac daddy mac, so there's no question the next book shall not have an orange on it. i'm toying with the idea of getting a mac mini, but the demand is so great that there is a three week wait, and i prefer the portability of a notebook. so, a question to other mac users out there: what book should i buy next?

10 comments:

love, LOVE my 17-inch PowerBook G4. now they come with faster processors. and its portability is priceless. did i mention they just came out with iPhoto 5.0?

i've never known anyone with a mac that went bad. yours must be an "abomination"?

hi purplegirl!

i thought you had a dell...? 17" G4?! oooherrrr, is that your powerbook or are you just glad to see me >;-D

i have iphoto 5, but i don't really use it. the only thing i love in iLife is garageband, which everyone should have.

lucky you--if you don't know anyone with a failed mac then you've never been here, here, or here.

Biggest fastest one you can afford. I loved Garage Band and made the world's finest dance track on it but very very memory, hard-drive, and processor hungry for my 3yo G4 powerbook (15" if you must know")so there wen't that music career.

I'd actually like a desktop model but they're not quite as sociable.

[slightly sad fact] I still have my old 180B deoderant ball laptop "Barry"]

enthenie (that's how i imagine your name would be pronounced in strine)

i still have my powerbook duo 280. works a treat, but i can't do jack with it besides play pong and connect at 14.4 on unix. oh, and use it for a doorstop.

here's a question for powerbook users: is the powerbook as durable as the ibook? i need as bulletproof as possible. i have dropped my ibook from great heights onto concrete (yes, by accident) and i have seen an ibook survive a three-alarm fire. that's what i need, bebes! something to withstand our inevitable test run as kji's first american target.

nope, never tried dropping the powerbook from great heights. you dropped yours on concrete? (gasp!)

btw, the dell i have is a handheld axim x50 deluxe which isn't compatible with Macs so i had to get PowerMac to make it compatible. still, not happy with it. the driver for the wifi always disappears so i have to re-boot all the time.

but i love my G4. oh, i already said that.

Powerbook G4 15" with Airport Express. Powerbooks are far sturdier than iBooks. I'm a bit clumsy and have dropped both. The new Powerbooks have a 'drop motion' sensor to protect the hard drive when you throw it across the room. If you use a laptop a lot (like me), need added grunt (yup, me too) and can afford one (hmmm? not me) then definitely go for the Powerbook. Although, I have experienced a bit of warping on my 15 inches. A common problem I understand, which may be fixed by now.

>when you throw it across the room.

>when you throw it across the room.

>when you throw it across the room.

>when you throw it across the room.!!!

you are SO putting ideas into my head

Hi santos, I'm Keiko's other half, and all-purpose Mac guy - I buy quite a few in my job.

I've got a PowerBook 12" and I love it - as far as durability goes, my (heavy) bag broke a while ago and put a big dent in the corner of the Powerbook but it still seems to be working OK.

If you get a new computer, though, I'd disagree with getting the best fastest PowerBook you can. PowerBooks and iBooks are still stuck on G4s at the moment, whereas iMacs are now G5s and much better. I don't really think the PowerBook is far enough ahead of the iBook at the moment to justify the higher price.

If you can live with a desktop, get an iMac, they are great, and the extra screen space really helps. If you have to have a laptop, go for the cheapest (ie 12" iBook) and budget to replace it sooner than you would have done if you'd bought an expensive PowerBook.

NB for the price of a 17" PowerBook, you can probably get an iMac AND and an iBook!

Feel free to agree/disagree/discuss etc!

hi matthew! thanks for stopping by, i appreciate the help. i have an iMac, one of those that looks like a crazy desk lamp, at home, but at work i'm using PCs and frankly, they sort of suck. and i'm surprised with how much i used the iBook everywhere in between home and work!

i'm trying to figure out if i really need the extra speed (i don't--unless someone can tell me otherwise), the bigger screen (maybe), or more storage space (i've got an external 60g, but i've got so many programs on the old iBook that i only had about 4gigs left to play with, so yes. i have to say i am leaning more towards an iBook again rather than the powerbooks, despite all the advice given. deep in my heart, i feel like i'm completely capable of destroying a powerbook within a matter of days.

do you think they'll be upgrading the iBooks anytime soon? if it came down to it, would you pick a 12" iBook or a 12" powerbook?

Santos, they always upgrade them after you buy them so you just have to live with it :) Serously, though, I'm not sure if iBooks are due for an upgrade yet and even if so, it won't be anything drastic - they just upgraded PowerBooks and it was fairly minor.

iBook is $999 vs $1499 for PowerBook. You're not really going to notice the difference between 1.2Ghz and 1.5Ghz. Upgrading to a 60G drive is an extra $75, but that's still $424 cheaper than the PowerBook.

It's worth buying direct from Apple so you can upgrade the hard drive when you buy - replacing the drive in an iBook is fairly non-trivial and warranty-defeating. OTOH, buy extra memory from Crucial because it's much cheaper than Apple and easy to fit.

If you were going to spend the extra, it might be worth going to a 15" but then that's a lot more money - and still only a G4. At the moment, I think cheapest iBook is the best buy, especially if you already have a desktop machine. (BTW 14" iBook is just daft - bigger and heavier but same screen resolution.)

Regards, Matthew