Apple PowerBooks

[asiafish]

The reason Apple PowerBooks (and iBooks) are so hard to take apart is that Apple places a premium on style over ease of maintenance. Yes, it sucks when you want to upgrade a hard drive (cost me $80 labor to upgrade my 12" PowerBook's drive), but then, Apple really isn't made for tinkering.

Despite the expense and annoyance, they are great machines. I just bought the new 12" that was announced January 31, and it is a beauty that will not likely need a hard drive upgrade for some time (80GB 5400RPM TravelStar is standard on the 12" superdrive). RAM is very easy to reach, and that is really the only thing 99.9% of users need to upgrade.

It is a very different philosophy of design between Apple and IBM. My ThinkPad is far more utilitarian (T22), designed for hard use, while the Apple is a work of art, that also happens to be a powerful computer. The aluminum casing is a bit more delicate than a TP (scratches and dents if hit too hard), but they got the useability issues down, like a ThinkPad-quality keyboard.

For me, it was the OS that made me go to Apple, or more accurately, the lack of Windows viruses and spyware. I have neither the knowledge nor the patience to get Linux working completely on a laptop (DVD movie playback is a must for me), nor can I really use a computer without MS Office (sorry, file conversion doesn't cut it with complex documents), so it is pretty much Apple or Windows for me (actually both).

As much as I like the PowerBook though, my ThinkPad still gets a lot of use. It is obviously more rugged, and for extended hotel stays, it makes a better DVD player, but for short hops or home use (plugged into a 19" LCD) the PowerBook is a great machine, despite non-user-upgradeable hard drive.

[kev009]

Sounds like a good machine. I haven't used OS X much but I know Apple makes a pretty decent laptop from the past. I wish I had the $ to have one of each .

[asiafish]

OSX is terrific. When I close the lid, it sleeps immediately, and wakes up just as quickly. Unlike Windows, it can sleep and wake hundreds, if not thousands of times without getting screwy (I always use Hibernation instead of sleep in Windows for that reason).

The user interface is different than Windows, but no more or less difficult. Actually, the only problem I had switching was getting all of my old emails out of Microsoft Outlook 2000, though the contacts were easy using my Palm as a conduit.

What makes switching platforms expensive is the need to buy all of your applications again, the hardware is just hte beginning. Overall though, I'm glad I made the move, and whenever I want to do something in Windows (or use a larger LCD), my ThinkPad is just as willing as ever.

[mattfromomaha]

They do have some great styles, and the hibernation thing would be awesome...

[asiafish]

The hibernation thing really is the bomb. On my ThinkPad and XP, it takes about 30 seconds to hibernate, perhaps a few seconds more to resume. Standbye is about 5 seconds, with about 10 seconds to resume, when it resumes (standbye never really worked that well in any version of Windows, though it has improved), and its only reliable once or twice between reboots.

For Mac, there is no hibernate (suspend to disk), but it doesn't need it. Sleep (standbye or suspend to ram) takes at most 3 seconds in either direction (including networking) and is so reliable that it works hundreds or even thousands of times between reboots (I haven't rebooted since the 10.3.8 OS update made me reboot about a month ago). Actually, major OS upgrades are the only time I reboot, ever.