Why Powerbook? A PC Users Perspective.

Over the past ten years I have owned 5 IBM Thinkpads, 2 Toshibas, and 1 NEC Versa and they all had similar issues! I've never been a huge fan of desktop computing due to the obvious restrictions involved.

Across the board all notebooks (powerbook included) have some of the same problems, in particular they get hot and are limited in their abilities and upgradability.

Most of the ThinkPads I owned had electrical or hibernation problems at some point and all the PC notebooks eventually burned out usually within two or three years of their new purchase. All of the PC notebooks were limited to memory and hard drive upgrades and were quickly behind the functional curve regardless of money put into upgrades. As for performance, when PC notebooks get really hot they lag and eventually crash. One time I crashed during disk operations and screwed my allocation table up.. one in a million eh?

So far, Powerbook on the other hand hasn't lagged or crashed after many intensive and hot hours of use and the OS X sleep function puts windows hibernation to shame. Powerbook is also processor upgradable, has a great repair history, long life span and is built like a tank. Designwise... nuff said. Apple has always had the cool factor on their side.

Using OS X is very nice for a portable user. It's a fun, easy to use and powerful OS that makes some tasks on the go better than XP for me. As I learn about AppleScript more and more things have become possible with my Mac. I love it.

My family wanted a PC desktop so I built a gaming P4 which I use for really intensive operations and specific PC only software tasks but I hate having to sit at a desk in the office to use a computer so Powerbook is my saviour. There is nothing better than having access to your favourite websites, documents and projects either on the go or in front of the tube laid out comfortably on the sofa. For me Sunday afternoon football and web design are a joy I look forward to. Think about it, football and technology at the same time, what's not to like?

Time will tell, but for now I strongly recommend Apple powerbook to any PC user looking to untether themselves.

mate i know that and im just waiting for the avaliable funds

my PB laptop although powerful is starting to fall apart after only 2 years and the screen is starting to go

so hopfully a PB isnt too far away

Time will tell

inflexion said:

mate i know that and im just waiting for the avaliable funds

my PB laptop although powerful is starting to fall apart after only 2 years and the screen is starting to go

so hopfully a PB isnt too far away

Click to expand...

This is the first I've heard of a shortened life span on a PB. This is my first venture into powerbook and I'm hoping for 4 or 5 years from this unit. If it dies young I'll switch back to PC, admit to myself that notebook computing is short lived and expensive and find a way to deal with it. Time will tell, I'm really hoping for alot from this unit.

robbym said:

This is the first I've heard of a shortened life span on a PB. This is my first venture into powerbook and I'm hoping for 4 or 5 years from this unit. If it dies young I'll switch back to PC, admit to myself that notebook computing is short lived and expensive and find a way to deal with it. Time will tell, I'm really hoping for alot from this unit.

Click to expand...

The life of any tool is dependent on how you use it and take care of it.

Should I trade my PB in?

rman said:

The life of any tool is dependent on how you use it and take care of it.

Click to expand...

Agreed, but how long might I reasonably expect my PB to live if I treat it very well but use it intensively for 10 to 12 hours every day for tasks ranging from writing and compiling code to graphic web design and video editing.

I use a notebook cooler, am careful to protect my screen and use a padded hard case for storage and transportation. Is a 4 or 5 year lifespan a reasonable or likely expectation for this unit under these circumstances?

The unit is new and I haven't yet made any significant investment in Mac software. My decision to move to PB is solely based on high hopes for hardware quality. If the hardware won't perform I'd rather have a centrino unit and save the software funds. Should I trade in?

Thanks!

I have a Ti powerbook, which I purchased in 2001. The system is working just find. I do put it there it paces on the average when I encode movies to create DVDs. The system is very durable. The only mishap I have it that is slide off the couch late week. The couch is about 20" off of the floor. The powerbook fell face down. When I picked it up all appeared to be okay, until I went to fold the screen back into normal viewing position. That is when I notice that the left hinge was broken. The powerbook work just fine> I have not decided to fix it as of yet. I may replace it.

I have several big purchases this year. I am looking at getting a new house. I want the 2005 GT Mustang conv, a widescreen LCD HDTV, and a new computer. Also need to update some of my software that I use.

You should be able to get at least 4 year of life out of it easily. I have an Mac SE/30 which I purchased in '89, that is working just fine. All I need to do is replace the internal disk drive. It is working on the external disk drive.

I'm guessing it will last as long as you hope and longer if you treat it as well as you say you are.

A friend of mine has a 2001 powerbook that he uses on a daily basis and has taken around the world with him...

He still uses it and gets most things done. Recently he decided to FINALLY upgrade the RAM though...

I'd possibly look into Applecare if you haven't already extended your warranty, that way you can have peace of mind for the next 3 years at least!

hmm, i guess im spoiled. i just get a new one when the 3 year warranty runs out.
By then, the hardware will be much more advanced by then.

hopefully, even a G5 powerbook.
But i can tell you know, as much as i use my powerbook, im going to need a new battery preety soon.

inflexion said:

mate i know that and im just waiting for the avaliable funds

my PB laptop although powerful is starting to fall apart after only 2 years and the screen is starting to go

so hopfully a PB isnt too far away

Click to expand...

sorry my first PB sould have been Packard Bell (talk about something totally different!!) yea im stupid i know, so next time i wont finish a post as im running out the house

The Usual

)(* said:

hmm, i guess im spoiled. i just get a new one when the 3 year warranty runs out.
By then, the hardware will be much more advanced by then.

hopefully, even a G5 powerbook.
But i can tell you know, as much as i use my powerbook, im going to need a new battery preety soon.

Click to expand...

Agreed this is the usual course of action. However, I don't want to have to use the warranty during those three years and I want a unit that will fetch its top market value used. By contrast all of my PC notebooks either died young or had very low resale value when it came time to trade up.

I'll be hoping for mine to last 4 years, as I don't want it to break while I'm still paying for it

They're definitely far superior to PC laptops in many ways, at least the ones I've used.

First I had was an old 386 with mono screen, it wasn't actually much bigger than the 12" Powerbook but considerably thicker and of course uglier. It had a massive NiCd battery that stopped holding charge pretty quickly.

Then an IBM Thinkpad 90MHz, which was an awesome machine. It came with OS/2 but ran Win95 quite happily and the suspend feature actually *worked*! It was even one of the first machines with a hibernate function which was flawless too. To this day I've never seen a PC laptop work as smoothly as that did. I was hoping the PB would match it, and of course it far surpassed it. Unfortunately the Thinkpad developed an intermittent screen problem.. I took it apart to try and fix it but being young and stupid I did so on a carpet without an anti-static band...

Next up, an AJP (aka Chicony) 989 which I still have. 233MHz P2. This was an interesting one... it's as if it's an ATX motherboard designed for a desktop PC but crammed into a laptop case. It's big and heavy. If you suspend it in any version of Windows you'll be very lucky if it wakes up again. Closing the lid doesn't suspend it (a step down from the Thinkpad) as they didn't even bother to put a microswitch in. The only good thing about it is the screen, which is quite reasonable, but otherwise it's a clunky thing and of course since buying the PB I've never used it.

So why is the PB such an awesome laptop in comparison?
* First off, it sleeps... and wakes up again! Every time (unless you confuse it by plugging in the monitor and USB in rapid succession whilst it's still closed, but I'm sure that'll be fixed soon and the simple answer is not to do so).
* Built-in WiFi is invaluable - no more PCMCIA card with its aerial sticking out the side waiting to break.
* When you do sleep it (by closing the lid - woot!) it happens very quickly and waking it up again is instant.
* Unlike most PC laptops, you can leave it sleeping and expect it to stay charged for quite some time. Leave either of the PC ones I had sleeping for more than a few hours and kiss goodbye to your unsaved data.
* It's awesome if you ever attend a class/presentation/whatever and you see someone lugging a massive PC laptop around, then they get it all set up and plugged in (because PC laptops last about half an hour off battery) and about 15 minutes later it's finally finished booting up - disturbing everyone with the startup jingle of course whilst they fumble around the side looking for the volume control. Meanwhile, with your Apple you just whip it out of its sleeve, open it up and start typing... all in about 5 seconds.
* Slot loading drive. If you often lie the laptop on a bed or anything other soft surface, this is invaluable in comparison to having to lift it up in order to open the CD tray etc.
* No other stuff to catch or break. The flappy thing covering the IO ports on the back of both my PC laptops broke.
* The 12" one I got is so tinyyy! Yet the screen is completely clear to read. Can't beat such portability especially when it's still a fully functional machine (most PC sub-notebooks of the same sort of size are missing CD drives or other features)
* People compliment it non-stop. I'm not a poser and that's not why I bought the PB (or iPod) but it *is* nice.
* It's nice having a laptop you can rely on when you need it to behave the most e.g. presentations. Hands up everyone who's seen someone struggle at the last minute with their PC laptop and projector crashing/bluescreening (after they've gone through the booting ritual) right when Murphy's Law chooses, totally embarrasing them. Yeah, I thought so.
* I haven't even mentioned the inevitable advantages of Apple and OS X, as they're common to everything, not just laptops.

Powerbook Beats Centrino

Agreed, however the new centrino notebooks are much more energy efficient than the notebooks you spoke of which all get horrendous battery life. This said, from experience I still believe powerbook beats out all PC notebooks hardware wise anyway. Generally speaking PC notebooks are expensive plastic junk that are error and damage prone, with a short life span and terrible resale value. This is the whole reason I switched, 7 notebooks in 5 years enough is enough.
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The hard part of switching was the software, Virtual PC sucks and owning PC and Mac versions of everything is ridicuously expensive. Try buying Office, Adobe and Macromedia Suites twice each and you'll know what I mean.

i had a powerbook 1400c/166 which i bought in january 1997, it only died june 2004