Advise sorted on what to do with my Power book G4, 5 years old

[captaintiger]

Hi guys,

i have been reading this forum for past 1 month and I am extremely impressed by the amount of information available here.

this is my FIRST ever post here.

I have been using MAC laptops for 9 years now. Mt first one was a powerbook G4 in 2000-01 , which I replaced with a NEW powerbook G4 in 2004.

This book from 2004 has following characterstics


Powerbook G4 Titanium, 15"
processor : 1.25 GHz power Pc g4
memory : 1.25 GB DDR SDRAM
Hard disc : 80 GB

Now the interesting thing is that this laptop is working brilliantly even after 5 years. Though has become quiet dirty etc.

The negatives : I do feel it becomes slow when too many windows open
I am not able to burn DVDs in it, which i want to do
I do hate the spinning wheel which comes time to time.

I had installed a new battery in 2008 but it never performed well. I had bought a new power cord for it as the old one was giving problems. expenditure about 300$ or so. I also upgraded the memory from 500 MB to 1.25 Gb last year.

Now,

i am perplexed on my next course of action. I am itching to buy a new macbook pro. The main things I do is watch DVds, surf internet several hours a day and do official work on Mac office. No video editing or photo editing. I am a world traveler, traveling constantly. Money is no issue.

I am longing for a v v fast computer. I dislike the spinning wheel. I dislike the the delays when surfing the internet. I dislike the time itunes takes to open up etc

What I should do with my old laptop? if I sell it, what should be the correct price for it??

Which is the new laptop I should buy? Mac air, 13", 15" or 17". believe it or not, i love all four of them!! I love the air for its weight. I love the 17" for its big screen and sturdy look. 15" seems to be a good all rounder. 13" seems to be a good amalgamation of pro and air.

Will one of these new laptops perform really 100 times better than my present one? what to expect?? i have been to mac retail stores v often but cant make up my mind!!!

Any advise would be highly appreciated.

 

[MacMini2009]

If it is giving you any problems in terms of speed, I suggest selling it for about $200-$500. As to getting a new Mac, I recommend the 13in 2.26GHz Macbook Pro and upgrade the RAM to 4GB and a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive.

 

[captaintiger]

If it is giving you any problems in terms of speed, I suggest selling it for about $200-$500. As to getting a new Mac, I recommend the 13in 2.26GHz Macbook Pro and upgrade the RAM to 4GB and a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive.

Will I get a price of 500$?

How will the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive differ from the hard drive coming originally?

 

[MacMini2009]

Will I get a price of 500$?

How will the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive differ from the hard drive coming originally?

You might get $500. Most likely you are to get maybe $350. Well the Western Digital Scorpio Blue has a higher capacity, and will be faster than the stock drive.

 

[gavin83209]

If you are willing to tolerate the IMO pointless SD card slot, I would recommend the 15" MBP, as high end as you can afford, but only upgrade the processor from Apple. The Seagate Momentus 7200.1 is the fastest (7200 RPM; faster) and largest (500 GB; bigger) 2.5" hard drive on the market right now to the best of my knowledge and should be if anything overkill. If you buy a model with 2 GB of RAM, you should be able to bump that to 4 GB for ~$70 or 8 GB for ~$700.

The PowerBooks similar to mine went for $250-550 on eBay the last time I checked, probably in November. An average condition 1.25 GHz PB, should be safe at $450-550.

 

[MacMini2009]

If you are willing to tolerate the IMO pointless SD card slot, I would recommend the 15" MBP, as high end as you can afford, but only upgrade the processor from Apple. The Seagate Momentus 7200.1 is the fastest (7200 RPM; faster) and largest (500 GB; bigger) 2.5" hard drive on the market right now to the best of my knowledge and should be if anything overkill. If you buy a model with 2 GB of RAM, you should be able to bump that to 4 GB for ~$70 or 8 GB for ~$700.

The PowerBooks similar to mine went for $250-550 on eBay the last time I checked, probably in November. An average condition 1.25 GHz PB, should be safe at $450-550.

The Scorpio Blue is said to be at par and sometimes even faster than the Seagate 7200.4 even though the Scorpio Blue is 5400RPM.

 

[slu]

Since you are a frequent traveler and only really use the machine for DVDs, Office and Internet and because you want to burn DVDs, I recommend the 13 inch MBP.

It is a good compromise between power and portability. The only reason I recommend this over the Air is the Superdrive. If you don't need to burn DVDs all the time, you could get the Air and the external Superdrive. I personally think the external drive is a pain in the butt.

Since money is no object, I would get the top of line 13 inch MBP to be the most future proof.

 

[CalMin]

Time to upgrade. This new line of Macbooks and Macbook Pro's are fabulous. Keep the old machine as net terminal - it's not worth much resale.

 

[captaintiger]

Will a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive be better than the 256 SSD coming pre fabricated with the MBP?

When i say better, I mean in terms of performance and speed and delay time.

I do understand that the SSD will offer only 256 GB space.

But I am literally longing for a v high speed machine.

Will it be prudent to go for 15" MBP just for the sake of 3.06 Ghz processor?

I am will to pay for 8GB RAM if it makes my machine reaction time super fast.

Any answers?

 

[gavin83209]

Will a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB Hard Drive be better than the 256 SSD coming pre fabricated with the MBP?

When i say better, I mean in terms of performance and speed and delay time.

As I understand it, an SSD has a very fast sequential data rate, meaning that access to single files or groups of them are very fast, but the random access leaves a little to be desired. Depending on your needs, this could be good or bad. Summary: SSDs can access grouped data quickly, while HDDs (as I understand it) are slightly better for random performance.

I do understand that the SSD will offer only 256 GB space.

But I am literally longing for a v high speed machine.

Will it be prudent to go for 15" MBP just for the sake of 3.06 Ghz processor?

If you are looking for top of the line, the 3.06 is what to get. If you don't need the power, then use your discretion. I myself am eyeing the 17" model, but only for it's ExpressCard slot. They both seem to be solid computers.

I am will to pay for 8GB RAM if it makes my machine reaction time super fast.

What do you use your computer for? If you only have basic needs, then 4 GB should do fine for a while and then you can bump it to 8 GB later. It's like 2 GB was at the time your old PowerBook was new: nobody really needed more than 1-1.25 GB of RAM with 2 GB (the ceiling) still available at a much higher price for the power users. Open the Activity Monitor in /Applications/Utilities/ and open the "System Memory" tab, then read me the "Swap used" and "Page outs" numbers with a typical workload open and I can be more specific than that.

 

[captaintiger]

Open the Activity Monitor in /Applications/Utilities/ and open the "System Memory" tab, then read me the "Swap used" and "Page outs" numbers with a typical workload open and I can be more specific than that.

Thanks for such a detailed reply.

The answers are as follows :-

Page outs = 324 MB

swap used = 591MB

This was as per more or less typical workload open.

Please advise your take on that.

 

[miles01110]

I am longing for a v v fast computer. I dislike the spinning wheel. I dislike the the delays when surfing the internet. I dislike the time itunes takes to open up etc

All computers wait at the same speed, and the newer Macs are no exception. You'll still get beachballs, applications don't load instantly, etc.

Will one of these new laptops perform really 100 times better than my present one? what to expect?? i have been to mac retail stores v often but cant make up my mind!!!

100x better? Doubtful. The gap between your old machine and the new ones is pretty significant though- you'd notice the difference for sure.

 

[theMaccer]

Since money is no issue to you, I would say keep it. (your not gonna get too much anyway) Buy a top of the line 15'' MBP, maybe put an SSD inside.

 

[tallpaul]

I upgraded from a 2005 PB G4 1.33ghz 1.25GB ram, 60GB hd to MBP13 2.53Ghz 4Gb ram 250GB hd and it is so much faster!

I miss the size and shape of the PB but the MBP 13 is the perfect step up the ladder, not to mention in built camera and mic etc.

Using Migration assistant made it all so easy too

Tall Paul

 

[clyde2801]

Do you have a titanium or aluminum powerbook? I thought the ti's only went up to 1ghz. If it's an aluminum one, with silver keys rather than black, you can go up to 2 gigs of ram. 2 gigs of ram, a faster hard drive, and optimizing your g4 for tiger or leopard by turning off processor sucking eye candy can give it quite a boost for consumer applications. Google for a couple of good websites for optimizing your old system.

 

[gavin83209]

Thanks for such a detailed reply.

The answers are as follows :-

Page outs = 324 MB

swap used = 591MB

This was as per more or less typical workload open.

Please advise your take on that.

If you have 1.25 GB of RAM in your PowerBook now, then 4 GB should be overkill for your usage. In fact, it looks like you could squeeze everything into a 2 GB system if you wanted to.

Do you have a titanium or aluminum powerbook? I thought the ti's only went up to 1ghz. If it's an aluminum one, with silver keys rather than black, you can go up to 2 gigs of ram. 2 gigs of ram, a faster hard drive, and optimizing your g4 for tiger or leopard by turning off processor sucking eye candy can give it quite a boost for consumer applications. Google for a couple of good websites for optimizing your old system.

It's an Aluminum. Titaniums only went up to 1 GHz unless you got Sonnet to upgrade it to 1.2 GHz, but that has since been discontinued. In any case, the Alu can take 2 GBs of RAM while the Titanium (to my annoyance) can only take 1 GB.

 

[zedsdead]

I say go with the 15 or 17. The 15" is the best all around blend of everything in my opinion...it has power, portability, and the screen is really the perfect size.

I HIGHLY recommend getting the SSD drive. Upgrade the RAM yourself.

Avoid the Air at all costs until Apple makes the machine up to their usual standards of build quality.