Upgrade time - Chime in!

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Well I have been kicking around the idea of upgrading to a new mac.

I have a PowerBook G4 that still works great, except its starting to get slow due to the fact that most websites and programs have too much going on that the hamster inside just cant keep up. Also, there are no updates for the software and the power cable has had connectivity problems for the past few years - I have been making it work but its seen better days.

I just graduated with my Masters and have a job that provides me a work PC laptop. I am having a hard time figuring out what i want to replace the PowerBook G4 with since I spend the majority of my time on the road. When I travel I don't really want to carry around two laptops. I have been thinking about a mac mini but for not too much more I can have the ability to take everything with me using a MBP. Since I have not had a desktop in a while...I'm having commitment issues hahaha

I mainly am sticking with mac's because I have had this one for about 6-7 years and never had a problem out of it. If the next one lasts that long then I'm getting my money out of it. I use to do video and photo editing but now am not in that field, my work laptop provides all of the software I need for my job. This upgrade would basically be a internet browsing machine that would hold my music, photos, videos, etc. What are your thoughts?
 

Slydude

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M1 MacMini 16 GB - Ventura, iPhone 14 Pro Max, 2015 iMac 16 GB Monterey
Have you considered getting the portable Mac and then running your Windows software under either Bootcamp or virtualization? This way you get to use a Mac that you enjoy, use Windows for work, and only carry one laptop.
 
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I agree with Sylvester. Apple using Intel chips was one of my favorite things they did. I no longer ever need to buy a Windows machine because I can run Windows on my Mac. You can't do this with your PowerBook because it's a PowerPC and not an Intel Mac.

If you are going to go this route then make sure you get a lot of RAM because running both Windows and Mac on your computer will be demanding. Remember that you can upgrade the RAM yourself. I think getting a MBP will fit your needs.
 
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2011 27in iMac i5 3.1GHz, AMD 6970, iPhone 4, Wi-Fi iPad 2
have you ever considered getting a mac book air? It's quite fast, doesn't have a huge 1tb drive, but you can easily by a small portable one. And the airs generally perform quite fast as they have an SSD. IMHO if you want something portable that is the way to go.

However, I do like the MBP and bootcamp idea as it is all around the best choice.
 
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have you ever considered getting a mac book air? It's quite fast, doesn't have a huge 1tb drive, but you can easily by a small portable one. And the airs generally perform quite fast as they have an SSD. IMHO if you want something portable that is the way to go.

However, I do like the MBP and bootcamp idea as it is all around the best choice.


No, I like having an optical drive.
 
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I also can't live without an optical drive so I understand. I still use enough optical discs to make it a necessity.

Since you already use a laptop you should be used to the weight of one so getting a MBP shouldn't be much different. If portability is important to you then a laptop is really your only option and MBP is really the only legal option to have both Windows and Mac OS on one computer so that you don't have to carry two computers.
 
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13.3 MBP (2009) 6GB DDR3 1066 , 500GB Seagate Momentus XT (Hybrid SSD-HD)
I can see your issue,

I am currently deployed in Afghanistan and have had my macbook pro 13.3 this entire time. I MUST use windows in order to conduct my counseling sessions for my soldiers and who wants to work on these dinosuar dells. So i loaded VMWare fusion with a windows XP OS and boom...i am portable and able to conduct business on the go. I am running a 13.3 intel 2.26 with 6GB and 500GB Seagate Momentus XT ( SSD/HDD ). I can honestly say that i am FLYING fast right now and will not need another MBP for atleast 2-3 years. I would suggest ditching the powerbook and porting your HD from work to a bootcamp partition. i know you dont want to part with powerbook but sometimes we gotta flow with the time. Maybe you could buy a refurbished MBP and upgrade it to your liking since your using this home and office reasons. just a thought and good luck.
 
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I can see your issue,

I am currently deployed in Afghanistan and have had my macbook pro 13.3 this entire time. I MUST use windows in order to conduct my counseling sessions for my soldiers and who wants to work on these dinosuar dells. So i loaded VMWare fusion with a windows XP OS and boom...i am portable and able to conduct business on the go. I am running a 13.3 intel 2.26 with 6GB and 500GB Seagate Momentus XT ( SSD/HDD ). I can honestly say that i am FLYING fast right now and will not need another MBP for atleast 2-3 years. I would suggest ditching the powerbook and porting your HD from work to a bootcamp partition. i know you dont want to part with powerbook but sometimes we gotta flow with the time. Maybe you could buy a refurbished MBP and upgrade it to your liking since your using this home and office reasons. just a thought and good luck.

That sounds like it would work great. Any helpful links on how to do that? It may be self explanatory when setting up boot camp I just have no experience with the newer apple software
 
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2.8 GHz 15" MacBook Pro OS X 10.7.x & some old Macs
That sounds like it would work great. Any helpful links on how to do that? It may be self explanatory when setting up boot camp I just have no experience with the newer apple software
Installing Windows through Boot Camp is pretty easy but here are few additional helpful reading: Apple - Support - Search
 

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