Should I buy and Ed. discount TiBook?

[scooterspud]

My university is selling fully loaded, 15" Ti powerbooks with 1Ghz, Superdrive, 60gb hd, airport card, AND 3 year Applecare for $1,999. Are the Tibooks really awful and I shouldn't get one? What are the known problems? I'm looking to take the pb around to coffee houses and the like, and am wondering if I should just get a 12" instead.

And should I really wait for the WWDC? Someone just got me a new 15gb ipod, and I've got no way to use it with my old school imac!

 

[Cabot]

Hi there. From what I know. The 15" Titanium powerbooks are great, but that they scratch and chip. I don't own a Titanium, but that is what I have read. they are just as good as the rest of the PB's except the RAM is not DDR, no Airport Extreme, and no internal bluetooth. WWDC 2003 may or may not be the place where the new 15" will be released. The Ti's are good, if you want to wait. The 12" PB get HOT. I went to an Apple Store in NYC and the salesman said that the 12" PB gets extremely hot. The 17" is excellent too.
My advice is to get the 15" from your university, because when the new 15"s are released, it may take some time before your university sells them for the price of the current Ti's.
Hope it helps!
-Cabot

 

[nikfel]

I only encountered three major problem with my powerbook..

1. the paint chips off extremely easily....all u need is a metal watch and an hour of usage and the paint is gone. Infact I do not take mine out of the house anymore as I am always afraid of chipping the paint.

2. The harddisk that came with mine gave up on me after six months.

3. And the thirdly is the battery also gave up after a year of usage so I would get a spare and avoid keeping it hooked up to the powersupply for long period of time.

Expect these few maybe not so major however annoying problems. Just remember one thing with a 15 inch titanium powerbook u will always be the envy of people as it one stylish laptop.

The powerbooks (Titanium) are not awful at all its a notebook that can easily act as a desktop. It also does not heat up as much as the 12 inch. Do not forget that the paint chipping is really just a superficial aesthetic glitch, and even though as annoying as it is it can easily be repaired by purchasing a paint kit espeecially for titanium powerbooks...in only costs $30 (i think). One last thought however do keep in mind that an updated 15 inch powerbook is soon going to be released.

Good luck with your new purchase .......NIKFEL

 

[Funkatation]

i wonder if all schools have this deal

 

[mueng]

Originally posted by Funkatation
i wonder if all schools have this deal

university of michigan has similar deal, it just costs $2138, rather than $1999.

 

[saabmp3]

Get the TiBook at that price, it's a great deal. I know that the paint chips off, boo hoo. You know what, Apple fixes this for free. If your going to baby your comptuer like the guy who doesn't bring his out of the house then don't get a laptop, their meant to take abuse, I've certainly given mine plenty of it. I just shipped it off to apple a few days ago, their replacing the case for free because of my paint issue. Works good enough for me.

The HD in there is an IBM (not a deskstar ofcourse) and is of good quality, but again, if you have a problem it'll get replaced.

Third, I beat the crap out of my battery. I leave it charged for long times and then cycle it to death, sometimes twice a day. I know mine isn't going to take this much longer, but I still get 5 hours of life off of it after one year right now.

What I'm trying to say is, don't worry about it, your going to have a great machine. Cause my primary machine (the TiBook) is off to repair right now, I'm typing this on one of the Sharp Ultra portables and it's HORRIBLE. I hate it. My mac is 1000x better.

BEN

 

[rt_brained]

Sounds like the same deal my girlfriend and I got through the UC system. Compare the major features at $1999:

12" 867MHz G4 AlBook
256MB RAM
40GB HD
Superdrive
No PCMCIA slot
Airport Extreme (802.11g) ready
Bluetooth built-in
1yr. standard warranty

vs.

15" 1GB G4 TiBook
512MB RAM
60GB HD
Superdrive
PCMCIA slot built-in
Airport Card (802.11b) built-in
Bluetooth ready
3yr warranty

Honestly, the only people that would find this a toss up are smoking crack.

And if the new 15" Powerbooks ever arrive, you'll be glad you saved twelve hundred bucks.

 

[idkew]

Originally posted by nikfel
I only encountered three major problem with my powerbook..

1. the paint chips off extremely easily....all u need is a metal watch and an hour of usage and the paint is gone. Infact I do not take mine out of the house anymore as I am always afraid of chipping the paint.

2. The harddisk that came with mine gave up on me after six months.

3. And the thirdly is the battery also gave up after a year of usage so I would get a spare and avoid keeping it hooked up to the powersupply for long period of time.

i feel i need to refute some of nikfel's points.

1- The paints does chip off, as mine did, but it is not that easy. In fact, I wear a watch on my left wrist, and I never had/have a chip or scratch for it. I did, however, have the paint "rust" from my skins sweat/chemicals on the right side... It only began to chip after serious "oxidation".

2- Probably an isolated incident. I have not heard of this as a large problem at all.

3- My batteries are still going well. Probably not as well as when they were 100% new, but that is what happens to batteries. Notice how I was speakign in the plural, which might be why mine still last pretty long.

I would go for it. You will not be dissapointed, and you get a three year warranty. I love my TiBook, but she could be faster and have a better graphics card. Your with be faster and have a better graphics card. You can't go wrong at that price.