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macbook v. powerbook

N

n00bz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
i've got a 15" powerbook that's about 3.5 years old (1GB RAM, 1.5ghz, 80GB) and i'm thinking of replacing it with a macbook.

my battery doesn't hold charge well anymore, i'd like to put in more RAM, and i'm probably going to have to get an external hard drive soon - basically i added these costs up and they're reasonably substantial, and i think i'd probably be best served to just buy a new laptop instead of "fixing" the current problems.

i've used friends' macbooks and i like them well enough, though i haven't spent all that much time with them. i guess my question is this: will i see any step-down in performance in going from the powerbook to a macbook? getting the macbook pro isn't a possibility because of budget constraints (i'm a grad student) and i don't do any major sound/video editing that'd really take advantage of the pro anyway. so, does anyone have any suggestions?
 
The guts aren't going to let you down, just depends if you can work with its physical qualities over a prolonged time. The latest MBs are 5lbs on the button (.6lbs lighter than your powerbook) so that should be a relief. But they are smaller, lower res, glossy screen only machines... if you're alright with that... and losing your creature comforts like express card, illuminated keyboard, DVI, S-Video(right?) etc, heh..

Oh, and what exactly will you do with it? You may not need more RAM, it's 1GB as standard now, coupled with the faster procs... you might find the system runs to your satisfaction without upgrade.
 
jnc said:
The guts aren't going to let you down, just depends if you can work with its physical qualities over a prolonged time. The latest MBs are 5lbs on the button (.6lbs lighter than your powerbook) so that should be a relief. But they are smaller, lower res, glossy screen only machines... if you're alright with that... and losing your creature comforts like express card, illuminated keyboard, DVI, S-Video(right?) etc, heh..

Oh, and what exactly will you do with it? You may not need more RAM, it's 1GB as standard now, coupled with the faster procs... you might find the system runs to your satisfaction without upgrade.
Click to expand...

if his powerbook is 3.5 years old then the MacBook will be significantly more powerful than his old machine. The res would be about even actually as well.

However, the main thing would be that his current system is still solid, and more RAM would be nice, but more than likely he would be better with a larger hard drive, or just an external.
 
TheStu said:
if his powerbook is 3.5 years old then the MacBook will be significantly more powerful than his old machine. The res would be about even actually as well.
Click to expand...

Oh how technology comes along! Indeed; 15.2-inch (diagonal), 1280 x 854 resolution, TFT widescreen on the 1.5GHz PowerBook. Those G4 17 incher PBs same the same resolution as our current 15" MBPs. Wow!
 
I've used my friends MacBook many times and if there's one thing I don't like it's the low res display. But besides that, its a faster and lighter comp. If I were you I'd make the switch...
 
truthfully i don't use the s-video or dvi or pc card slot, and i just noticed that my keyboard backlight isn't turning on anymore (whoops).

i take my powerbook with me everywhere - home/class/library/wherever. everyone with a macbook seems to have a much easier time connecting to the wireless network at school than i do (this is a serious pain in the butt sometimes). my battery life is also abysmal at this point, and my hard drive is filling up. i don't do anything that i'd think was super resource-intense, but i do see a fair bit of choppiness when i have a lot of big spreadsheets/word files/powerpoints open, and i get the beautiful rainbow pinwheel frequently. my guess is that more memory would help this, but i recognize that i could be wrong.

i figured that if i was going to buy more memory, a new battery, and an external hard drive, i'd be paying a fair amount of money for a "polished turd" (i love my pb, i don't really mean that.) why not spend a little more and get a new computer with a warranty, etc? except i'm not that familiar with macbooks, and don't know if there'd be an overwhelming reason that the powerbook would still be better. it seems like "buy a macbook" is shaping up as the advice?
 
n00bz said:
truthfully i don't use the s-video or dvi or pc card slot, and i just noticed that my keyboard backlight isn't turning on anymore (whoops).

i take my powerbook with me everywhere - home/class/library/wherever. everyone with a macbook seems to have a much easier time connecting to the wireless network at school than i do (this is a serious pain in the butt sometimes). my battery life is also abysmal at this point, and my hard drive is filling up. i don't do anything that i'd think was super resource-intense, but i do see a fair bit of choppiness when i have a lot of big spreadsheets/word files/powerpoints open, and i get the beautiful rainbow pinwheel frequently. my guess is that more memory would help this, but i recognize that i could be wrong.

i figured that if i was going to buy more memory, a new battery, and an external hard drive, i'd be paying a fair amount of money for a "polished turd" (i love my pb, i don't really mean that.) why not spend a little more and get a new computer with a warranty, etc? except i'm not that familiar with macbooks, and don't know if there'd be an overwhelming reason that the powerbook would still be better. it seems like "buy a macbook" is shaping up as the advice?
Click to expand...

Yeah, just let your PowerBook um... age gracefully 😀 Sounds like a MacBook is in order then. It's incredibly easy to update RAM in the MacBook, it'll come with 1GB but an update to 2GB costs peanuts, the newest can accept up to 4GB but it doesn't sound like you'll need that much based on what you do.

You'll still get the same 80GB HD though with the 2.0GHz (and - combo drive! get the holy water! 😱) so go for the 2.2, with SuperDrive and 120GB HD. That's if you burn DVDs at all, of course. I went for the Combo Drive because I hardly ever even play DVDs, never mind burn them.

If you end up getting the 80GB combo model, not to fear - apparently the HD install process on a MacBook is really painless. And obviously, don't upgrade your HD or RAM size through Apple. 😀
 
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