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Apple Releases New PowerBooks

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mongoos150 said:
This is HORRIBLE - I'm getting about 2.5 hours TOTAL with fully charged battery, wifi on, screen dim and keyboard dim...with airport off I get 2.75 - honestly, should I take it into Apple and see if they'll give me another battery???:mad:
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Have you done the whole "calibrating" (is that the term?) the battery, in which you charge it fully, then unplug it and run the battery dead, then charge it back up, etc. etc.? I've read that if you do that at least a few times in the beginning, you'll start to see longer battery life. All new PB's apparently shouldn't be showing a lot of battery life until their batteries have been calibrated. Just thought I'd ask, even though you may already know this...
 
I've done it once and am doing it again (battery currently shows 6 minutes of battery life remaining lol). By the way - I downloaded FrontRow - AWESOME.:)
 
mongoos150 said:
This is HORRIBLE - I'm getting about 2.5 hours TOTAL with fully charged battery, wifi on, screen dim and keyboard dim...with airport off I get 2.75 - honestly, should I take it into Apple and see if they'll give me another battery???:mad:
Click to expand...

Check out http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

It will let you know if your battery needs replacement.

Also remember, to achieve Apple's max battery life, bluetooth and airport are off, and screen backlighting and CPU speed is at the lowest setting.
 
generik said:
Typing this on my new 15" now :)

The screen issues were a bit overrated, you won't see it unless you are explicitly looking for it.
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No, some people have bad screens. You obviously do not. But this is not an example of "people looking for it." The screen on my new 17" PB was unusable.

It's not a big deal. Most will have perfection, and a few will need replacements. But don't be dismissive of others.

And congratulations on your new PowerBook.
 
CoconutBattery lists my current max capacity at 4395 mAh, only 5 mAh under the original, but it's going down pretty quickly, I woke up this morning after charging it and unplugged it - estimated battery went from 3:50 down to 3 in a minute, it's now lingering at 3:04...I still feel I should be getting 4.5 hours if Apple rates at 5.5. My conditions are probably among the best for getting good battery life out of thething...I'll cycle it a few more times, but this is quite dissapointing.
 
Remember battery performance is based on .5GB of Ram and 5400rpm drive in addition to the restrictions mentioned earlier. I haven't tested mine yet.

I still need to load Macromedia Studio 8 suite. Hoping the new screen res. is sufficient to get some work done in Flash without using an external monitor all the time; moved up from a Pismo as well with the 1024 screen that just didn't cut it.

My right corner also doesn't close completely, but its really a minor issue, probably Apple's attempt to account for the raised trackpad button.

No dead pixels but I might have a small scratch 1/16" on the edge of the screen, could just be dust. The right lower corner of the monitor is slightly brighter, but not anymore uneven than any other laptop LCD I've seen that is as thin as Apple's. The brightness was set to 3/4 when I booted it up; it seems much brighter than in the Apple store, but Apple's stores are very well lit.

There may be some truth to the button release issue, but mine doesn't seem to be anything I won't adjust to in a day or 2. I'll probably be using a mouse 3/4 of the time anyway.

I've been putting off getting a new PB for about 2yrs. so my Pismo hasn't been maintained like it should (thousands of files scattered everywhere); it's going to take a while to migrate my old prefs, apps and files.
 
It'll be a mighty upgrade from a Pismo, my friend :)

Battery total capacity has decreased about 100mAh from first charge, only have about five charge cycles total. I charged/depleated the battery about four times, in fact I haven't left the PB plugged in while fully charged for the past two days (had it for four)...still getting around 2.5 hours battery. I haven't even installed my 1GB ram SO-DIMM yet, it's running soely off of the built in 512! Extremely dissapointing...I'm also hoping the extra ram makes a huge difference, the system seems to be lagging a fair amount - even in Sims2, the video is choppy (I thought the upped vram would have prevented this?)
 
New Bp

So I got my PB today... I ordered it on the 1st of Oct. but they held onto the order until the 19th when they released the new books. The good; I got the new book, the bad I had to wait and extra 2 weeks, plus the fact I'm in the middle of nowhere overseas so in all It's taken exactly one month since time of order. Everything is great, everything so far works well, haven't been able to check battery yet, but the screen is beautiful, and so far it runs quite fast.

Only question I have (and this may have already been adressed before) but I haven't used macs for a few years, and I was transfering all my music but many of the files won't open... the ones that say .wma, is there a way ot convert these files or anything? Thanks.
 
kodeman said:
So I got my PB today... I ordered it on the 1st of Oct. but they held onto the order until the 19th when they released the new books. The good; I got the new book, the bad I had to wait and extra 2 weeks, plus the fact I'm in the middle of nowhere overseas so in all It's taken exactly one month since time of order. Everything is great, everything so far works well, haven't been able to check battery yet, but the screen is beautiful, and so far it runs quite fast.

Only question I have (and this may have already been adressed before) but I haven't used macs for a few years, and I was transfering all my music but many of the files won't open... the ones that say .wma, is there a way ot convert these files or anything? Thanks.
Click to expand...

You can convert wma using iTunes. Its only one direction --> to mp3 or ACC.
 
unless i'm doing something wrong (which is likely) I used Itunes to convert the music, but it didn't convert a lot of them for some reason.. as mentioned before the .wma files. Is there another specific way of doing it? Thanks
 
mongoos150 said:
CoconutBattery lists my current max capacity at 4395 mAh, only 5 mAh under the original, but it's going down pretty quickly, I woke up this morning after charging it and unplugged it - estimated battery went from 3:50 down to 3 in a minute, it's now lingering at 3:04...I still feel I should be getting 4.5 hours if Apple rates at 5.5. My conditions are probably among the best for getting good battery life out of thething...I'll cycle it a few more times, but this is quite dissapointing.
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I'd call AppleCare. Might as well get a new PB while you can.

Sorry about the issues you have been having.
 
Which problems to look for in my new PB 15"

Hi there,

My first post here, although I have read MacRumors for quite a while now.

I just bought the new PB 15" as a replacement for my (switcher) iBook G4 800MHz. I kind of lost track of all the posts in this thread, so could someone please sum up the potential problems with the new PBs? What shall I look for, when I fire it up? (It is still in the box).

I bought the PB with 512MB RAM, and ordered another 2GB at Crucial. (Still waiting for it ...)

Thanks!
 
MiraMac said:
Hi there,

My first post here, although I have read MacRumors for quite a while now.

I just bought the new PB 15" as a replacement for my (switcher) iBook G4 800MHz. I kind of lost track of all the posts in this thread, so could someone please sum up the potential problems with the new PBs? What shall I look for, when I fire it up? (It is still in the box).

I bought the PB with 512MB RAM, and ordered another 2GB at Crucial. (Still waiting for it ...)

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Looks like you made some nice choices! :) As far as I've seen, the issues are: screen has horizontal lines in it (mine doesn't so I don't know what this looks like personally), some screens flicker - particularly after upgrading the OS - but I still don't understand why people are upgrading (what's wrong with Tiger?) - but at any rate, the screen flickering apparently ceases shortly afterward. Then this thread obviously addresses a battery problem, but I don't think anyone else has complained about their batteries (?). Finally, MY complaint was that the front right corner of the lid doesn't close completely flush, as opposed to the front left corner. It's very minor and most people have written (or told me in person, e.g. friends and even mac geniouses) that it's very common and no big deal, won't affect performance or the latch, etc. It's still kind of annoying. Apple said they'd send me return stickers to send it back to them in the shipping box and that they'd cover that/send me a new one. But others have told me not to bother - that I could just as easily get another one with the same or worse lid problem cause it's infamous with PB's. So I've let it go - for now. I still have however many days left to send it though - should I change my mind.
 
17" vs 15"

I already posted this elsewhere, but...

I ordered a 17" the day after they came out, as I've been needing one for months. I'm still waiting to get it, because I ordered it with a 7200 HD. I went to my apple store today (The Hague, Holland) to check the status of my order, and even though it was shipped on the 25th, they couldn't tell me when it will be here.

While I was there I had a look at the ones they had for display, and I was very disappointed with the screen of the 17". It didn't look particularly bright at all. However, when I checked the 15" that was right next to it, I was amazed at how sharper the screen looked (compared to the old ones and to the new 17" that was there). Both were the new models! Now I'm starting to regret my choice, as I am paying $300 more for the 17" (both with 7200 HDs) only for the larger and supposedly better screen, but out of the two machines I saw at the store I would have DEFINITELY picked the 15" even if they were the same price! :(

Those are the only ones I have seen so far though. Has any of you seen them side to side at the stores? How do you think they compare to each other?
 
must have been a defective 17 inch monitor in there. i have seen the oposite in the 15 inch powerbook and the 12 inch ibook too. the ibook's color and contrast was accurate, and teh 15 inch powerbook was very blueish. i won't worry if i were you. not to mention being able to have the screen size the same as the 20 inch g5 and being able to view two web pages and documents at the same time. :rolleyes:
 
I'm down to getting two hours in regular usage conditions. Should I call Apple? Go into the store and talk with a MacGenius? This is insane. I've done about five charge cycles to 'condition' the battery. Rediculous.
 
Manufacturer 100GB 7200 RPM disk

Can anybody tell me what manufacturer it is on the 100GB 7200RPM disk on the 15 or 17" new PowerBook. Like to also have the productnumber.

John Erik
 
7200rpm hard drive model

johnerikjohnsen said:
Can anybody tell me what manufacturer it is on the 100GB 7200RPM disk on the 15 or 17" new PowerBook. Like to also have the productnumber.

John Erik
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Mine has a Seagate Momentus, model number ST910021A. It's a great drive - very quiet, very fast and apparently very reliable (5 year warranty).
 
Appleinsider is reporting 15-inch Intel Powerbook in early 2006. It will be 20-25 percent thinner.

Do you guys think they can keep the $2000 price, or will they have to raise it?
 
powerbook911 said:
Appleinsider is reporting 15-inch Intel Powerbook in early 2006. It will be 20-25 percent thinner.

Do you guys think they can keep the $2000 price, or will they have to raise it?
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They'll probably keep it the same. I'm stoked for this. I bet it's out by MacWorld.
 
powerbook911 said:
Appleinsider is reporting 15-inch Intel Powerbook in early 2006. It will be 20-25 percent thinner.

Do you guys think they can keep the $2000 price, or will they have to raise it?
Click to expand...

Interesting, I guess this means Apple is going with Yonah first before Merom. I wonder how long Apple will keep the Yonah machines around then before they release Merom machines.. It will be an interesting year, that's for sure! :cool:
 
Could they possibly release new Powerbooks as early as in January? I want a computer, but it seems quite foolish to buy one now. I guess I could manage without a computer for a couple of more months, but it still sucks.
 
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