I’m fortunate enough to own a new 15″ PowerBook. I’ve been working on a mini-review pointing out some likes and dislikes of the PowerBook, but I thought it might be fitting to first explain how I got here. I’ve owned a total of five different Apple computers (not including the mini @ work) but have only been buying them for a year and a half. Here goes:

Apr. 2004 – After being frustrated with every linux distribution I tried, I blindly purchased my first mac in an attempt to see what all this OS X stuff was about. I gobbled up a G4 Tower (machine 1) clocking in at 800Mhz or so (it may have been 400, I forget). Bought this beauty on eBay to give OS X a whirl. I was hooked instantly.

May 2004 – Now that I had confirmed OS X’s goodness, I needed more power. I snagged a single processor 1.8Ghz G5 tower (machine 2). eBay the G4.

…time passes…

Sep. 2005 – At this point I’ve been doing a handful of side projects and working from home a lot more. We’re about to have our second daughter and it was clear that my presence in the living part of the house would be appreciated. Apple announces new iBooks, I snag the 12 incher (machine 3) and sell my G5 on eBay.

Oct. 2005 – During paternity leave, I read through “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X” and was getting my hands dirty with some Cocoa. The iBook just wasn’t cutting it. The screen resolution was too small for running multiple projects in xcode and things just felt slow. Apple had refurbished dual 2GHz G5′s for $1650, I jumped (machine 4).

Nov. 2005 – The iBook plus G5 wasn’t working. I was rarely using the G5, meaning it hadn’t solved anything. Enter new PowerBook’s, now with a decent screen resolution! I quickly jettisoned the G5 and the iBook on eBay (made a profit on the G5 and $100 loss on the iBook) and ordered a new, stock, 15″ PowerBook and a 1GB stick of RAM (machine 5).

That’s where I’m coming from. I don’t have a long history with OS X, but I’ve seen a handful of Apple’s hardware. In the near future I’ll post my likes and dislikes of the new PowerBook.

My wife was way too supportive as I shuffled through three expensive machines in three months. Just the other night while I was working at the dinner table I stated, “This PowerBook is a real humdinger”. She said “good” with a hint of “I’m glad that’s over”. I silently thought, “yes…over…” I wonder if those Intel in January rumors are true.

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<rumor-mongering> Quick comment on the iBook’s in January rumor. People are speculating that these iBooks will be using Intel’s dual-core, Yonah processor. Wouldn’t that make them a lot more desirable then the single-core, PowerPC based PowerBooks? I think I’m on board with the “consumer level products go Intel first” (iBooks / mini / maybe iMac), but creating a “consumer” level product that smokes the “professional” level seems like a bad idea. The big assumption there is that these Yonah’s will be pretty zippy (initial reports say yes, they’re zippy). So if we do see Intel in January, I’d guess no dual-core. </rumor-mongering>

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2005 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Apple, Hardware, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.