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Well, I finally received it...

It's beautiful, but not without some expected minor issues.

First, the L K and , keys seems to have some problem - they make a noise and feel like they're sticking when they're hit. I can make it go away temporarily by pressing down hard on the key, but it returns soon enough.

Secondly, and similarly, the mouse button has a bit of give - you can press it gently and release it without it being clicked, but it still makes a weird noise.

Small issues. But annoying.

What's not annoying is the machine - I benched it straight out of the box and got 135. The keyboard not going to the edges of the machine will take some getting used to (I used to aim for the edges with the delete and tab keys on my old 12") but the backlighting is pretty cool.

So big it up to all you specced 15" owners out there. Keep it real ;)
 
nice mate! mine had some mior issues too, but nothing too bad. It has a "wobble" but otherwise is fine.

And yeah I like the backlit ketboard too. :) its heaps of fun going into a dark room, and when u turn the light on the keyboard goes dark and the screen comes alight because of the ambient light sensors... its pretty cool!

they are good laptops! :D everyone should buy one. :)
 
To the people considering the 5400rpm drive option where money is already quite tight, its worth considering an external firewire drive (400 or 800) for real speed if you want to do video/audio work. Get one fitted with a 7200rpm desktop drive and 8mb of cache through firewire 800 and it will have way more space (Up to 250GB) and be a good bit faster than the 5400rpm upgrade.

Obviously if you have loads of cash you'll be going for both :D But its worth considering this alternative option anyway. The only disadvantage is portability.

I'll be going for the 4200rpm internal + 7200rpm 160GB maxtor firewire drive with my powerbook at the end of the month. Its only costing me about £40 more than the 5400rpm drive upgrade for 140GB more disk space.
 
I got the 15" PB / 1.5 Ghz G4 / 512MB RAM on one SODIMM / 128 MB VRAM / 80 GB 5400 RPM HD / SuperDrive / wireless mouse and I couldn't be happier. No problems at all. Just turned it on, hooked up to my wireless network and started moving all my data over from my old desktop. Screen is beautiful for DVDs and games, although I've only played a SW Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy demo and America's Army: Special Forces so far. I wish they would make a Mac version of SW: Knights of the Old Republic.

And just to take quick second to gush about the speed with which I received my order:

I placed the order for the PB and peripherals on a Wednesday morning. The next day I received the printer, wireless mouse, etc. The day after that, I received the PB itself. In the course of 48 hours, the order was received, the system was customized (although I noticed that I have a pretty common customization, so they probably had some ready to go), and was shipped from Shanghai, China to Washington, D.C. The only holdout is my copy of Tron 2.0 which is still pending from MacPlay, but I'm not sweating it. All I can say is the Apple Online Store and FedEx have really earned repeat business from me in the future.

--hciudad
 
Battery life: 3.5 hours

I know there's probably a dozen battery life threads, but I this one seems to be the '15" gush thread', so indulge me...

I have been running XCharge to monitor battery life on my Powerbook since I received it several days ago... I have run it on the following settings:

Screen brightness: 3-5 increments
Display sleep: 3 minutes
Hard drive sleep: 5 minutes
Bluetooth off
Airport Extreme on
Backlit keyboard on half strength

With these settings, I have regularly been achieving battery discharges over 3.5 hours, surfing the web over Airport, using Word and a small amount of Photoshop.

I'd have to say that the screen brightness is the biggie, it is not dull by any means and going to full strength from where I've set it has minimal usefulness in well lit areas, and is only incrementally better in a dark setting.

I have also watched about an hour and a half of a DVD (with Airport turned off at the time) during one discharge and got the same run time.

Given all the horror stories I'd been reading about the battery life of the 15" (and the fact that it's battery is the same as the 12"), I wasn't too optimistic. Just know that used wisely and within means, it can do extremely well on the road. And for power use, you can always hook up the power adapter when necessary.



On another note, will report back soon when my keyboard issue is being looked at... rock on the 15"... ;)
 
can't bear to see this thread disappear into page 4

Well, I took the Powerbook in to an Apple reseller and they're replacing the keyboard which is awesome - great to see them do this for even such a minor issue.

Would be great to hear from anyone else that has recently purchased a Rev B 15" Powerbook to let us know what they think of it.
 
Godfather said:
Although I generally complain alot, I have the PB 15" and I love it. It has 1 gig of ram, 128 mb vram, 5400 rpm HD and it's all wireless. I love it. The only problem which I am getting is when I am typing sentences, like in a chat app, sometimes it erases the whole sentence by itsself, and no... I am not pushing any buttons 'accidentally'. I don't know what it is...

I have this exact configuration and what sounds like the same problem as you do. I'll be typing an email and I'll suddenly erase an entire paragraph or the entire email. My best guess is that I'm somehow brushing the trackpad, but if so, it must be really, really lightly. If anyone knows what's up with this, I'd be very glad to hear. I have selected the "ignore accidental trackpad input" option in system preferences, but it did nothing to address this problem.
 
Fixing the Wobble

I just got my 15" yesterday, and it had a very slight wobble. I showed it to my father and he took a look at it, raised one of the wobbly corners put something under it (my wallet) and gently pressed down on the opposite corner to slightly bend the casing and eliminate the wobble. I must stress it was very gentle.

Hope that helps.

Ozi said:
nice mate! mine had some mior issues too, but nothing too bad. It has a "wobble" but otherwise is fine.

And yeah I like the backlit ketboard too. :) its heaps of fun going into a dark room, and when u turn the light on the keyboard goes dark and the screen comes alight because of the ambient light sensors... its pretty cool!

they are good laptops! :D everyone should buy one. :)
 
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