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Bad move to "downgrade" 1.25 15" to 60gig and no superdrive?

coolbreeze

coolbreeze

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 20, 2003
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Well, I am on the fence to buy a 15" pbook. I don't really need a superdrive, nor 80 gigs (my 40 gig has 19 gig free and I have more junk on here than I need).

I figure with the edu disc, HDD downgrade from 80>60, and downgrading the superdrive to optical drive, I can get the cost of a 1.25 15" pbook down to around $2,000.

Does this seem like a mistake? I looked at the entry level 15", but by the time I added ram and AE, the price was almost the same.
 
If you don't need the extra 20 gigs or a Superdrive, then by all means, save the extra money on something that would be of more use to you like RAM. No use paying for a bigger HD if you won't use the extra space or a Superdrive if you don't plan on burning DVDs, after all.
 
yeah you made good choices. superdrive blows unless you burn lots of dvd's. its to slow for my tastes, and the combo drive is still slow but better than the superdrive.

iJon
 
Damn

Damn, yeah thats a good idea. I probally should have done that when my sister asked her which one to buy. Even though she was short on money, escentially if I took the pricer one down I could have got her 250mhz for 50 bucks. Opps, I dont know if I should even tell her. Not like it really matters, it will be a beast for what she does.
 
yeah, that's a good idea if you don't need that extra stuff. but personally i always say to get the highest spec stuff you can afford, then you usually get longer life out of it, and might hold it's value longer.

but if you're the average student (no wads of cash floating around) then go for the downgraded 1.25. it's a good deal. :)
 
Originally posted by iJon
yeah you made good choices. superdrive blows unless you burn lots of dvd's. its to slow for my tastes, and the combo drive is still slow but better than the superdrive.

iJon
Click to expand...

iJon has a good point here. I bought the originial iMac 800 17" with a SuperDrive thinking it would be fast and I could burn DVDs. Well, I've burned two DVDs in the past year, and those were data DVDs, not videos. I could have split them onto multiple CDs for the same cost.

My next one will definitely not have the SuperDrive.

Edited for typos
 
Coolbreeze-

Yeah, I'm actually going to do the exact same thing (but keep the 80GB)... I dont need the Superdrive, and I can make the machine $2100 if I exclude it... (of course, that's with my student discount). This is the machine I've been waiting for, and I have been patrolling all the forums I know of for the last two weeks finding EVERYTHING I can on the new PB... and basically it's an awesome machine. I know it's for me (my poor Lime iMac DV 400 G3) knowing that I am a Graphic Design major, and this computer will be my new livelyhood. Prob. about 3 weeks!!!!

{sigh}

Don't worry about downgrading, it's all good!
 
by going with the combodrive, you gain faster burning for CD-RW/R too!

choose what works for you - that's why there are options. ;)
 
I agree with what others have said. I'd *rather* have a combo drive than super, since I know I will never burn DVDs and like the faster CD burn speed.
 
if you don't already have a superdrive, i would recommend looking at it again. i wouldn't get it personally, but only because i already have a superdrive in my eMac. in the end its probably a good choice to go with the combo drive anyways, as 2x is far too slow for my own tastes.

as far as the HD goes...get the 80GB. just because you don't need it now doesn't mean you won't later. I remember when 4GB hard drives were just way too much space. you never know when the next 'mp3' is going to hit the tech scene. that 20GB may save you alot more money down the road.
 
Depends how long it would take to burn a full DVD. How long does it take for the people out there with burners.

I have lots of stuff i would like to burn onto DVD and i'm thinking i should go combo and buy an external one at x4, but they are expensive.

I did actually order the 15" without SD and with a 60GB HD, then i changed my mind after hearing about all the quality controls issues. It made me think more about the machine so i cancelled it (my week has gone much quicker now, now i am not expecting delivery of it:)) and have now started to look more closely at say the 12" and buy an external for that instead. Since i only want 2 games also i don't need the 1.25Ghz processor.

But we shall we anyway when i price everything up.
 
I got the superdrive, but I am unsure that I will actually use it much. Given that I only had a 4x external burner for my Pismo, I am happy with the 16x cdr speed with the superdrive. But, if you are not going to use it, then you might want to save the money. The only thing you would want to think about is how it affects the resale value. I don't think that it would much, though, since one could get a faster external burner if they really wanted one.

I am waiting for a box for my new machine so it can have its superdrive replaced. Been ripping tons of cd's since I got it, and how it does not want to take any more. At least I had not put my Pismo on eBay yet. Now, I am not saying that the superdrive is more fragile, but who knows, maybe it is.

As for as the hard drive, you are only saving $70, so I think I would go with the 80gig even if you don't use but a fraction of it. The resale issue, I think, is more important here.
 
CrackedButter, what quality control issues did you hear about? Okay, my superdrive did just take a dive, but I don't know if that is inditive of an overall quality issue. I did have some problems with the latch, but as several threads that I have read indicated would happen, it now closes just fine. For some machines, it appears that they need to wear in a bit. Also, you need to close it with a little speed, since a gentle closing increases the likelihood of it not closing. But again, mine is working perfectly after a couple of days of use.

All in all, the machine seems incredibaly well built. I am not sure that the 12 would have any quality advantages. That is, much of what they have learned with the 12 regarding quality is probably in the 15. You get the extra ports, and a nice bit of real estate with the screen.

Again, I am not sure that my superdrive problem is indicitive of a quality control problem. And if it is, it is more of a problem on Mat****a's side than Apple's side. I expect that once the drive gets replace, I will get a long and happy life out of my new 15 incher.
 
i got my 15 inch Tibook with just the combo drive and instead got 1 GB of RAM. if you only need 60 GB, that's good too, man. i would consider a RAM upgraded to AT LEAST 512 if not 1 GB of RAM, though. it makes a massive difference, especially running multiple apps.
 
Well, I pulled the trigger (time to prepare my iBook for eBay...).

Got the 1.25 offering, but dropped the 80 to 60 gig, and dropped the superdrive. I figure if down the road I feel the need to burn DVD's, I'll spring for a firewire Lacie DVD burner or something. Besides, I burned one disk on my iMac superdrive...

I also added the .mac bundle. Now I am kind of wondering if I should have just used that $70 I spent on .mac and made my ram a single stick of 512. Besides, are 256 sticks worth anything?

So, can I modify my order after it's been submitted?

Thanks.
 
Originally posted by nickfit
CrackedButter, what quality control issues did you hear about? Okay, my superdrive did just take a dive, but I don't know if that is inditive of an overall quality issue. I did have some problems with the latch, but as several threads that I have read indicated would happen, it now closes just fine. For some machines, it appears that they need to wear in a bit. Also, you need to close it with a little speed, since a gentle closing increases the likelihood of it not closing. But again, mine is working perfectly after a couple of days of use.

All in all, the machine seems incredibaly well built. I am not sure that the 12 would have any quality advantages. That is, much of what they have learned with the 12 regarding quality is probably in the 15. You get the extra ports, and a nice bit of real estate with the screen.

Again, I am not sure that my superdrive problem is indicitive of a quality control problem. And if it is, it is more of a problem on Mat****a's side than Apple's side. I expect that once the drive gets replace, I will get a long and happy life out of my new 15 incher.
Click to expand...

I recently registerred at macnn.com's forums and i have seen tens and tens of compliants about the latch, screen with white spots and dead pixels.

I had cancelled my order for the 15" downgraded for some of those reasons, now i am waiting till Panther comes out (cannot be bothered reformatting and reinstalling again, not after i just did this to my iBook only yesterday).

Or maybe (live in UK) i will travel to a store in one of the bigger cities and check out a 15" personally before i buy.
 
Crackedbutter, check out the 15 before you make the final decision. Again, the latch problem that people are talking about works itself out. Mine was not catching at first, but in a couple of days it works perfectly. Again, you also want to make sure that you don't close it too gently. Remember, the 12 has the same latch design, so it could happen there.

As far as pixels, apparetnly those happen. Mine is fine, but I rember that my Pismo had a bright pixel when I first got it, but after 3 or 4 months it dissappeared.

The important thing to remember here is that these are new, so you are bound to see more people talking about their problems with these than those who have 12 inchers. In general, you are several times more likely to hear about a problem then about someone who says that everything is working perfectly. I suspect that threads on those machines were full of problems when they first came out.

Once again, I am really happy with mine, even though I need to send it back for a couple of days to have the drive replaced. Since the 12 uses the same drive, the same thing could have happened with it. I also can't imagine only working with a 12 inch screen, since this is the only computer I have. Anyway, if you are going to wait until Panther comes out, I suggest you hold off making up your mind between the 12 and 15 inch models.
 
Originally posted by nickfit
I ...I am waiting for a box for my new machine so it can have its superdrive replaced. Been ripping tons of cd's since I got it, and how it does not want to take any more...
Click to expand...

:eek: what do you mean by "tons"? I'm in the middle of ripping my collection and hope the SD doesn't die on me!:mad:

What exactly happened? Motor doesn't inject or eject the disc? Disc is in but doesn't read? OverHEAT?

I've actually come across one original disc that the SD rejected, but I know is perfectly good because it works in every other CD player/ CD ROM/ changer that I've played it on. It's even been ripped on a PC. Strange.
 
My superdrive stopped accepting discs. I push it in, and it is like it is going against a spring, so it never goes in. I ripped about 100 cds over a couple of days. Things were getting warm, but I am not sure what really caused it. I did have an issue with a coupld of burned discs, where they would play, but there was some kind of data error which made it so I could not rip the songs. These were discs that were burned from cds. I still burned at least one more cd after these two discs, though, then it stopped working.

Anyway, I called Applecare and they are sending out a box, and said that once I ship it out, it would be between a 3 and 5 day turn around, from my door back to my door. I hope that they have replacement drives on hand.

Again, I have no idea, but at the moment, I am willing to accept that I just had dumb luck. And again, at least I have not sold my Pismo yet.
 
good luck with the repair.
i've just done about 100 cds (~7 gb of aacs) over several days and its still going. still have a long way to go tho... :eek:
 
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