Switcher questions

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Macbook 1.83Ghz, 1GB Ram, 60GB HD. 19in. external display, bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Closed Lid.
Hi... I'm kindof in a real crossroads right now because I am a senior highschool student who is applying to college and I have an 8lb dell that I don't want to use in college. I would wait until June to pick up a new powerbook but there are a couple of things that detract from that option:

1. People say there will be problems with the centrinos...
2. I don't think I can sell my dell for nearly as much then as I can now.

However, if I sold my laptop in Dec. or Jan. I probably could get $1000 for it... What I am wondering is if I should just sell it now and pick up a refurbished 15" pb 1.5ghz G4 for $1,450, or wait until I see a current 15pb in the refurb section. Nevertheless, I don't know when that will be. What I really want is the extra 64mb of ram that the current 15in pbs offer. I only play world of warcraft on occation and wcIII, but I just would feel a little more secure with the extra video ram (and a slightly faster cpu as well).

The other option I thought of was buying a new previous gen. 15in pb off ebay that was configured with a super drive and 128mb vram for around $1600. If I were to do that, would apply start the 1 year limited warranty after I register the computer? Or could that 1 year limited warranty already be 4 or 5 months old?

I'd ask anyone who bought a refurbished apple to tell me how they liked it and if it was in really good conditioin (i.e. the case was free of scratches, and screen wasn't knicked or scratched).

Thanks alot.
 
H

Harryc

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I just bought a refurb'd 12" Powerbook 1.5Ghz superdrive last week from Apple. Anyone would be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and a brand new Powerbook. It is perfect in every way. In fact I got lucky (which happens often I understand) in that it was supposed to come with 512MB RAM, and it came with 768MB installed.
 
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thats great to hear. I guess the main question I was trying to get across was: "how far would a 64mb 9700 take me"? I rarely spend more than 4 hours a week playing games, and the four I switch between are: Americas army, World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, and Starcraft.

That being said, I'm sure there are some people out there with a pb config something like the one I previously described who has done some of this.

Thank you very much for your responses.
 
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jn4jenny

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Arichards said:
thats great to hear. I guess the main question I was trying to get across was: "how far would a 64mb 9700 take me"? I rarely spend more than 4 hours a week playing games, and the four I switch between are: Americas army, World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, and Starcraft.

That being said, I'm sure there are some people out there with a pb config something like the one I previously described who has done some of this.

Thank you very much for your responses.

I think you'd be okay with that configuration, but definitely make sure that you get the three-year AppleCare warranty when you buy, for several reasons:

1. If and when your PB breaks (and it will, because three years is a long time--something is bound to go wrong in that span of time with almost any laptop, PC or Mac), AppleCare will not only fix it for free, but it'll also bump you to the front of Apple's repair line. If you try to get Apple to fix your machine without AppleCare, they'll do it, but they'll take their sweet time (like several weeks.) That's not something you want to go through if you're a student who uses your PB daily. You want to get it repaired and back to you ASAP.

2. AppleCare increases the resale value of the PB because it can be transferred to the new owner. So if and when you're ready to sell, you'll get top dollar.

If you buy the machine off Ebay, then yes, there's a strong possibility that the 1-year limited warranty will be several months elapsed. Fortunately, you can buy AppleCare anytime within the first year. Seriously, it's something you should buy. Even if you have to ask for it for Christmas or something.
 
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Just so you know, I run World of Warcraft (the most graphics intensive of the games you mentioned) on my 32 MB Vram iBook without so much as a hitch. However, I do have most of the settings on low. 128 would be nice, but 64 is nothing to sneeze at in a notebook. I should also note that I have my system memory maxed out. This probably makes up for some of my video memory lacking.
 

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