Hey, I'm new to this forum and I'll do my best not turning this thread into another "should I buy now or wait discussion", eventhough I guess that's what it all comes down to in the end anyway
I'm a photographer and need a laptop bad. I currently have a stationary stone age PC wich catches fire after half an hour of photoshopping.
Now, I've been checking out the powerbooks for quite a while and basically been waiting since last april that they'll transform these "state-of-the-art" machines into something that's actually close to the current state-of-the-art. As of today, I could buy a pb and probably get along fine, but they'll have to cut the price with about 30% first to get it down to a reasonable you-get-what-you-pay-for level. I'd probably spend the next months trying to get over the idea of being fooled into investing in last years technology anyway, but it'll probably do fine.
Problem being, they ain't cutting their ridiculous prices. And as if that wasn't enough, you're all telling me that it'll most likely take another 6 months until they'll bother to upgrade their hardware. And when they finally do, they'll release some first-gen trial machine wich obviously is going to be plagued by first-gen issues, right?
So this is what it all boils down to: since apple has set them and their pb line up for a year of hibernation, why bother about buying one?
And this is where I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. When I look at the current PB specs I don't see a mac, I see a modified PC. The gpu is an nvidia (difference being that dell and sony offer 256mb gmem instead of the pbs 64 and 128) just like another comp these days, it has the same so-dimms just like everybody else had a year ago (pretty much every high-end PC laptop runs DDR2 today). Are you telling me that it is the powerPC cpu on 1,67ghz/512k L2 cache/167Mhz FSB that outperforms for example dell's 2,26Ghz/2mb l2/533 FSB?
Or is it the superior effectivity of OSX versus XP that does all the difference?
And it's still worth spending more money on a powerbook?
I'm just plainly asking, why should I, today, even consider buying a powerbook when I can get a top of the line dell or sony vaio for the same money?
I've heard a lot of people talking about the "mac experience". Is that the reason why people pay more for less? Personally I think the new vaio's offer a more pleasurable using experience, but that's me.
I've also heard ppl buy PBs because of their incredible screens. I couldn't resist borrowing a friends newly bought inspiron and dragging it down to the local mac store for a comparison. The screens may have been differently configured, but my experience was that the dell screen was brighter, had the same resolution, but that the inspiron due to its brightness was less prone to reflections and the like. Bare in mind though, this was an entirely non-scientifical test. I've heard from a friend that the PB are great to work on, and can, eventhough not with the ease of a crt, be calibrated. Never tried calibrating an inspiron. The sum of the experience I'd say is that mac's screens ain't no greater than any other screen on the market today.
And, hey, if I'm after portabillity, the vaio's both weigh less and have longer battery life.
So, to sum it all up, Why should I today and for the following year even consider buying a mac laptop? I'm after a stable yet portable machine I can work on. I more or less only use photoshop.
I'll greatly appreciate to hear your honest thoughts on this, as experienced mac users. Although I'm not in much need of "PC sucks mac rocks" type of comments. THanks!
edit: forgot to mention.. dell also offers free memory upgrades this week... don't see that coming out of applestore...
I'm a photographer and need a laptop bad. I currently have a stationary stone age PC wich catches fire after half an hour of photoshopping.
Now, I've been checking out the powerbooks for quite a while and basically been waiting since last april that they'll transform these "state-of-the-art" machines into something that's actually close to the current state-of-the-art. As of today, I could buy a pb and probably get along fine, but they'll have to cut the price with about 30% first to get it down to a reasonable you-get-what-you-pay-for level. I'd probably spend the next months trying to get over the idea of being fooled into investing in last years technology anyway, but it'll probably do fine.
Problem being, they ain't cutting their ridiculous prices. And as if that wasn't enough, you're all telling me that it'll most likely take another 6 months until they'll bother to upgrade their hardware. And when they finally do, they'll release some first-gen trial machine wich obviously is going to be plagued by first-gen issues, right?
So this is what it all boils down to: since apple has set them and their pb line up for a year of hibernation, why bother about buying one?
And this is where I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. When I look at the current PB specs I don't see a mac, I see a modified PC. The gpu is an nvidia (difference being that dell and sony offer 256mb gmem instead of the pbs 64 and 128) just like another comp these days, it has the same so-dimms just like everybody else had a year ago (pretty much every high-end PC laptop runs DDR2 today). Are you telling me that it is the powerPC cpu on 1,67ghz/512k L2 cache/167Mhz FSB that outperforms for example dell's 2,26Ghz/2mb l2/533 FSB?
Or is it the superior effectivity of OSX versus XP that does all the difference?
And it's still worth spending more money on a powerbook?
I'm just plainly asking, why should I, today, even consider buying a powerbook when I can get a top of the line dell or sony vaio for the same money?
I've heard a lot of people talking about the "mac experience". Is that the reason why people pay more for less? Personally I think the new vaio's offer a more pleasurable using experience, but that's me.
I've also heard ppl buy PBs because of their incredible screens. I couldn't resist borrowing a friends newly bought inspiron and dragging it down to the local mac store for a comparison. The screens may have been differently configured, but my experience was that the dell screen was brighter, had the same resolution, but that the inspiron due to its brightness was less prone to reflections and the like. Bare in mind though, this was an entirely non-scientifical test. I've heard from a friend that the PB are great to work on, and can, eventhough not with the ease of a crt, be calibrated. Never tried calibrating an inspiron. The sum of the experience I'd say is that mac's screens ain't no greater than any other screen on the market today.
And, hey, if I'm after portabillity, the vaio's both weigh less and have longer battery life.
So, to sum it all up, Why should I today and for the following year even consider buying a mac laptop? I'm after a stable yet portable machine I can work on. I more or less only use photoshop.
I'll greatly appreciate to hear your honest thoughts on this, as experienced mac users. Although I'm not in much need of "PC sucks mac rocks" type of comments. THanks!
edit: forgot to mention.. dell also offers free memory upgrades this week... don't see that coming out of applestore...