Thinking of buying a PB

[klezmer41]

I've never owned a Mac in my life, and I never even considered it until a month ago because my friends both have TiBooks. I'm a computer science guy and I really do like having the whole thing built on Unix... but I think what really sold me is that the PBs are shiny! No PC laptop I've ever seen looks anything nearly as cool as these.

Okay so I have some questions. How does the aluminum compare to titanium? Is it as durable, as good at dissapating heat, etc?
I've heard those stories about people with PBs who've had the aluminum warp... that ain't cool with me. About that combo drive, is it really more efficient in every way over the superdrive? That might be a better choice if I really don't need to burn DVDs. Also I'm a student developer and I've been checking out Apple's ADC discounts. Somewhere in a PDF file i read, Apple owns the code that you write on that machine and that you can ONLY use that machine for development of Apple products, or something like that. Does anybody have any info on that? And if I do choose to actually buy an Apple notebook then will I get the same exact machine from the same inventory as if I used a regular student discount or bought it at a retail store? Thanks!

 

[kuyu]

Glad to hear you like the aesthetics of those pretty powerbooks so much. I can't answer all your qusetions, but I can help.

While the top of the line powerbook won't beat a wintel laptop in pure speed, it will get more done in the same amount of time. This is because cpu's are only as fast as the commands comming in, and after 2 months every mac user learns the "quick ways" to do everything, and can perform most operations extremely fast.

Your machine should come from the same inventory as all other macs, but expect some preferencial treatment as a developer. Apple knows that indi developers like you are the future, and they want your help. Also, Xcode (from what little experience I have) is way better than any C based compiler I've seen on the pc. Developer tools are free with all macs, as well as ilife 04, which is THE MOST USEFUL set of apps ever built. Just wait, you'll see what I mean...