Beautiful, pricey, and worth it
Written: Mar 16 '02 (Updated Mar 16 '02)
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Pros: Beautiful, light, and incredibly quiet
Cons: Expensive, scratches easily.
The Bottom Line: Great for professionals who need something that just works. Not suitable for those on a tight budget
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| hsuc's Full Review: Apple PowerBook G4 15.2 in. (M8362LL/A) Mac Notebo... |
Background
I am a developer who uses Unix (and Windows) by day and Windows at home. I have used most of the major OS'es at one time or another: HP/UX, Solaris, OSX, Windows 95/98, NT, 2000, Linux, and OS/2.
After years of putting up with Windows at home, I finally decided to switch. The main reason was the OSX operating system. With OSX, I get the power and stability of Unix, and yet I can run fairly mainstream applications.
Ok, I guess this is a review of the Powerbook, not OSX. First the 15.2 inch screen is huge and beautiful. The display is very usable and bright. The main problem that I had initially is that OSX anti-aliases fonts in a way that is different from Windows. It really hurt my eyes for the first few days. Now am I getting used to it.
Lightweight
I knew the laptop was light, but I was shocked at how quiet it was. Most of the time, it is literally silent. I spend a lot of my time browsing the web and doing light computer activities. The fan hardly ever comes on. You can definitely hear it, but it's no where close to being as load as Windows laptops. The hard drive is extremely quiet. Most of the time, I struggle to hear whether or not the disk is swapping. There are no disk activity lights, so it can be really hard to tell. Finally, even the keyboard is quiet. I am literally typing this in bed next to my wife who is sleeping! Very cool, especially if you have an Airport card.
Wireless Networking
Wireless networking! Yes, it's very cool. Words of warning. It's a pain in the a*s to install an Airport card. I build my own PC's, but even for me, this was somewhat painful. You will need to buy a Torx screwdriver to take apart your beautiful laptop. The Airport card has its own slot buried inside. Take my advice, buy your Powerbook with the Airport card installed.
Once it's installed, the airport card worked out of the box. I didn't have to install any drivers, although I did do a software update the night before and it appeared to download something for the airport. Still, that's pretty cool compared to the trouble I had to go through to install a wireless LAN card in my wife's Windows 98 computer. It took two installs and several reboots before the drivers would load. I had heard similar stories before, but marked it up to inexperienced users. Now I know better. Be warned though that the Airport card seems to have much less range than regular cards since it's buried in titanium. Still works fine for me for web browsing and stuff. I suspect most users won't notice. They would notice the 1.5" antenna protruding from my wife's computer. I can live with this.
Sleep
Suspending the computer is incredibly fast! Absolutely incredible. Close the computer lid. Boom, it's suspended. Open the lid, it's unsuspended in under 3 seconds. The LCD does take a few more seconds to reach full brightness.
Battery Life
Battery life is another major reason I bought this computer. I was drooling at the thought of remaining untethered for 5-6 hours. The truth is that it's no where close to that, at least in OSX. Maybe it will improve in the future, but for now it's closer to 3-3.5 hours for me.
Hardware
Hardware wise, the keyboard is surprisingly solid. I am a fast typer and was surprised at the good feel given it's quietness. The body feels pretty solid, although there is definitely flexing going on. When I took apart the laptop to install the Airport, I understood why. The screws holding the bottom are towards the rear. There are no screws towards the front where your palms rest. Not terribly noticeable, but I had hoped it would take a year or two to notice flexing.
Expensive
This puppy will cost you too. I saw a laptop advertised at Radio Shack with a 1.4 Ghz AMD chip with a DVD/CDRW drive for $1300. That's a full $1000 less than what I paid. But the costs are deceptive. This laptop lets me replace the Windows 98 computer I kept solely to play games. It also replaces the NT 4 computer I used for email, web browsing, and running Quicken. It also replaces the KVM switch that I had to use to toggle between the two. Did I mention I won't have to deal with Windows XP and it's silly product activation feature? Did I mention how much smaller and portable this is compared to two full blown computers? Did I mention that I don't need to install all kinds of Unix utilities? OSX already has them.
Worth it
Lastly, before you discard buying a Mac because of the costs, consider how much time you have spent trying to get Windows to do what you want. How much time have you spent rebooting after installing a program? How much time have you spent restarting your computer because your computer is getting flaky? I have had my Powerbook now for 2 weeks and haven't had a crash yet. I suspend the computer constantly and it works beautifully each time. The Windows 2000 laptop that I use at work can only suspend once or twice. After that it gets flaky. Not to mention that sometimes the mouse gets weird after a suspend.
Sure Microsoft claims that Windows XP is stable and allows you to play games now. How many years have we been waiting for that? I think OSX provides an even better environment.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2300
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G4
Processor speed: 501-600
Screen Size: 15
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
hsuc
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Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 1 member
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