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My 17-incher is in

Arrived about noon PST in the wilds surrounding Seattle. Since I ordered it at 6:06 a.m. 4/19, that makes for 7 days and 6 hours. Not bad for BTO at release.

Because I'm simultaneously putting my wounded 15-inch TiBook out to pasture, I've got a lot of copying and installing to do before I can really play. Other than the really stiff action on the trackpad button, I've got nothing to report.

Oh, and those of you in the market for Powerbook bags might check out Waterfield Designs at sfbags.com. Stellar customer service and bombproof bags.

--dnoonan.
 
Gurugrrrl said:
Ok...just got mine in! Quick battery question, though, before I get all into this. It came with about half a charge. Should I go ahead and let it completely run out of power, then completely charge it up before I leave work today. OR...should I charge it up all the way now, then let it run down, then charge it completely up AGAIN?

According to the manual that came with mine (you did read your manual didn't you?), it says to fully charge the battery FIRST, then let it run all the way down until the powerbook forces itself to go to sleep. Then recharge it fully.
 
valkraider said:
...
Simple Guidelines

* Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.)

I'll attest to this. My Wallstreet batteries are 5.5 years old and still going strong. They have only very rarely been fully discharged. But they still perform almost as well as when they were new.
 
I truely enjoy the fact that FedEx completely bypasses University Mail, which usually takes one or two extra days to sort and deliver items to the residence halls. I got my memory the day after ordering it, all the non-PowerBook stuff I ordered (.Mac, APP, Jam Pack, etc.) came three days after ordering, and I'm assuming my PowerBook is sitting at the front desk waiting for 2pm when it opens up. I'll be standing there with ID in hand ready to take it upstairs and forget classes for a day or two. 45 minutes left!
 
Gurugrrrl said:
Does anyone here have the link to that site that sold the covers for the keyboards so they wont make an imprint on the screen? I can't seem to find it in a forum search.

Rather than purchase a keyboard cover, I have been inserting a plain piece of paper inside my tiBook when I close it. I've been doing this for two years now and have never had a single imprint on the screen!

Now I'm waiting for my new 1.5 15" PB. Should come tomorrow from MacMall. Ordered it last Monday.
 
RevK said:
Rather than purchase a keyboard cover, I have been inserting a plain piece of paper inside my tiBook when I close it. I've been doing this for two years now and have never had a single imprint on the screen!

Now I'm waiting for my new 1.5 15" PB. Should come tomorrow from MacMall. Ordered it last Monday.


Well it doubles as a screen cloth and it looks cool :p

You order a standard config from Macmall USA or AUS?
 
Ok, my review of my PB1.5 15" SD, 128Meg Vram, and 5400rpm drive. So, after noticing the "wobble", i reinstalled OSX. It installed faster than my previous 1.25, and it should :). After getting everything installed, I had to update my bluetooth firmware (kinda sad that it didn't already have it, but I guess they are using hardware that could have been created months ago). No biggie. I then began to start installing all of my additional software. Office X, Age of Myth, SimCity4, Quicken2004, etc. After the installs were completed, and I updated my settings, I did a reboot, and started to play. I first wanted to see how the 9700 did with my games. I didn't notice much of a difference with SimCity4. Zooming in and out still was slow and chopy. AOM is much better than my PB1.2515". Moving around the screen is much smoother, but everything else is the same. It is faster overall than my 1.25, but not enough that I am being blown off my chair. As for heat, it is just as hot as my previous 1.25. After my battery was charged, I ran this:

PowerBookG4:~ kbonnel$ ioreg -l -w 0 | grep IOBatteryInfo
| | | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4400,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=4398,"Voltage"=12541,"Flags"=1090520069})

In case you wanted to know. i will check it again after I drain it, and recharge it.

What else, my LCD is perfect (knock on simulated wood), and I am going to test write a 4X DVD-R and a DVD-RW to see the speeds.

If you have questions, let me know.

Kimo
 
Mine is STILL being held in Memphis, for over two days now! I called and they said it is getting on a plane tonight for BC, Canada, and that it will be delivered tomorrow by the end of the business day.

Here's hoping! Do you think I will notice a difference going to a 1.5Ghz G4 with 128MB VRAM and a 5400 RPM Hard Drive from my little old G3 iBook 600? :D

Cheers!

p.s. Has anyone else had their machine held at Memphis for two days?
 
Wobble

My new 12" had some wobble so I gently pressed down on the two diagonal corners that were wobbling and it fixed it! Not exactly brain surgery I know but it worked. I think the wobble issues are mostly because these puppies end up being so stiff.

Jon
 
hey "Aswitcher".....

I just recieved email from RADTECH USA that my ordered shipped today,

I order the screen saver, titanium/no logo, the bluetooth mouse, the screenspacers rubber things and the alum/PB tool kit.

I went to crucial and got an extra 512 ram, shipped today as well.

Now for the good part, I ordered the:
17" PB, 512ram/1slot, 128mb ati/9700, .Mac software, extra warrenty, and got the epson C84/$50.00 and WOW, they threw in free 2day air.

over 3g's and I got 2day air free :eek:

anyway the ship date is on or before may 3rd, I hope before...... :rolleyes:

In closing, I can't WAITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT :eek:

THANKS FOR YOUR ADVICE

Michael, The virgin Mac man......... :eek:
 
iBook 12" update

Here are some initial impressions after working on getting my wife's data moved over to the new iBook from an older, G3 500Mhz iBook (both 12" screens).

The screen seems the same, if not marginally worse to me. I didn't really notice the narrow viewing angle as much on the older machine, maybe it's my imagination.

Fit and finish on whole machine is 100%.

Most noticeable is that the left side (hard drive, right?) hand rest is pretty warm, but maybe a bit cooler on the new book than the old one. The old hard drive was a self-installed 40gig 5400rpm IBM travelstar and it is much, much louder than the new one. When firewire-ing all the data over the old drive crackles and pops a bit with quite a high pitch - the drive mechanism is audible sitting in front of machine. The new drive is silent. I have to put my ear to the casing to even verify that the data is coming over. It is the same sort of variety of mechanism noise, but very muted and less frequent. A very soft tap-tap.

I'll post some more if I use the machine later -

d.
 
I got mine around 10:00 this morning. What can I say? Its awesome. I was a bit surprised by the size of the 15.2" screen. I previously had a 15" TI Book and this just looks so much larger. The screen is also of nicer quality than my 12" Powerbook, and appears brighter and more vivid. I have no dead or stuck pixels or white spots. I haven't installed any games (not looking forward to the chaos of installing The Sims & Expansion Packs). My favorite feature has to be the backlit keyboard----I bet I walked into my walk-in closet 10 times this morning... observing the keyboard.

All and all, it seems like this is a great revision. I'm very satisfied.

Josh
 
valkraider said:
Shanghai->Seattle via Jet Airplane

Seattle->delivery via Plate Tectonics

Heh. Actually, it turns out FedEx didn't drop it in the subduction zone here in the Pacific NW. I GOT IT! (15" 128, 80ATA @ 5400, 512 one stick)

It's perfect. No wobbles. No bad pixels. I migrated from a Tibook 1Ghz. machine. I'm loading my OfficeX, Dreamweaver, Final Cut, etc. and report back my observations.

I love the keyboard feel. The mouse button is better. After a full charge, I'll let it run until standby to condition the battery (I think that's right). Can I call a notebook computer beautiful?

:D
 
Ok, so an update.

I burned 3.16gigs to a DVD-R at 4x in 13 minutes 56 seconds (from the moment i clicked burn, to when it finished closing the session). I didn't count the verification. I burned the same 3.16gigs to a DVD-RW at 2x in 20 minutes and 5 seconds....

Kimo
 
Sim City 4 sucks on all computers, MAC's or PC's, I have the PB 1.5 too, but will not use it, my Powermac g5 DP 2.0 Ghz with 9800 Pro is great, but not with Sim City 4, in fact i hate sim city 4, the graphics are sputtery and the interface is wrong, they just need to tweak the graphic drivers for it and it could be good, but as a recommendation i would not use it for testing out the power of any computer.



kbonnel said:
Ok, my review of my PB1.5 15" SD, 128Meg Vram, and 5400rpm drive. So, after noticing the "wobble", i reinstalled OSX. It installed faster than my previous 1.25, and it should :). After getting everything installed, I had to update my bluetooth firmware (kinda sad that it didn't already have it, but I guess they are using hardware that could have been created months ago). No biggie. I then began to start installing all of my additional software. Office X, Age of Myth, SimCity4, Quicken2004, etc. After the installs were completed, and I updated my settings, I did a reboot, and started to play. I first wanted to see how the 9700 did with my games. I didn't notice much of a difference with SimCity4. Zooming in and out still was slow and chopy. AOM is much better than my PB1.2515". Moving around the screen is much smoother, but everything else is the same. It is faster overall than my 1.25, but not enough that I am being blown off my chair. As for heat, it is just as hot as my previous 1.25. After my battery was charged, I ran this:

PowerBookG4:~ kbonnel$ ioreg -l -w 0 | grep IOBatteryInfo
| | | | "IOBatteryInfo" = ({"Capacity"=4400,"Amperage"=1200,"Current"=4398,"Voltage"=12541,"Flags"=1090520069})

In case you wanted to know. i will check it again after I drain it, and recharge it.

What else, my LCD is perfect (knock on simulated wood), and I am going to test write a 4X DVD-R and a DVD-RW to see the speeds.

If you have questions, let me know.

Kimo
 
Why reinstall OSX?

kbonnel said:
Ok, my review of my PB1.5 15" SD, 128Meg Vram, and 5400rpm drive. So, after noticing the "wobble", i reinstalled OSX.

Out of curiousity, why did you reinstall OSX?

I just got home from work, so now my serious playing and configuration begins :cool:
 
xBench on new 15"

mine shipped today! HOORAY!

One of you guys with the 5400 RPM drive and 128 mb vid card can you run xBench (with all backround apps closed ;) and post your results?
Thats the model I have coming :cool:
 
fmcooper said:
Out of curiousity, why did you reinstall OSX?

I just got home from work, so now my serious playing and configuration begins :cool:

I like to work from a fresh copy of any OS when I get a new computer. I didn't want to have any left over applications/files laying around (i.e., office test drive, etc). Is there a uninstall feature in OSX? Or is just deleting the directory enough?

Kimo
 
JonGraves said:
Xbenches at 129.7 (with energy saver set to highest performance).

Hmmm. I have mine set to highest performance, and I get great scores on everything - EXCEPT the hard disk.... Brings my total to 96... :(

I have the 5400rpm drive, and I have run XBench 4 times now. I get scores in the 10s for the "sequential" access, and then I get in the 700s for the "random" access (with maybe one coming out in the 20s).

I am running an extensive hardware test right now, anyone know what might be up?


Oh yeah, I got mine... :)
 
Finally online

Ok, I'm finally online now and checking things out. This is the first post from my PB15 :) Machine seems nice and snappy, screen is beautiful and flawless. Case is perfectly true and flat. Airport config was just fine. I typed in the hexadecimal code WEP code from my router and I'm in business. I have not verified that the hard drive is 5400RPM yet (doing that next), but the RAM config is correct (1 chip) and the video RAM is indeed 128MB. I've got the Toshiba MK8026GAX 80GB drive. More later once I've dug in a little more...
 
Improved.

valkraider said:
Hmmm. I have mine set to highest performance, and I get great scores on everything - EXCEPT the hard disk.... Brings my total to 96... :(

I have the 5400rpm drive, and I have run XBench 4 times now. I get scores in the 10s for the "sequential" access, and then I get in the 700s for the "random" access (with maybe one coming out in the 20s).

Well, I ran the hardware test, everything was fine. I rebooted - same results.

I installed the AirPort 3.4.1 update, and restarted - and now my XBench scores are normal...

I got 133.26

And I have no bad pixels, and no wobble. Nice... ;)
 
mxpiazza said:
hmm... i have one, small, stuck green pixel in the upper left hand corner. kinda sours the whole thing... oh well.

mxpiazza,

Don't worry too much... I had the same thing happen to my PC notebook when I first bought it. Take a cloth (that you would use to wipe glasses, etc.) and wrap it around your index finger. Then, gently massage the area where the dead pixel is... Most of the time, you'll activate the liquid crystal in that area, and you'll notice the dead pixel no more! :)

Give it a shot... HTH!
 
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