[Ti] Happy 1 Ghz Powerbook users!

[Benn]

On Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at 12:21  PM, John Griffin wrote:
> This must be a world record for the time to make a product obsolete -
> destined for the Guiness Book of World Records!

You know, there's a part of me that agrees with this.  Luckily, my 1Ghz 
powerbook hadn't shipped as of today, so the order was canceled, and 
I'll be ordering a 17" powerbook.
While the powerbook 15.2" is not nearly obsolete, when making my latest 
tibook purchase, I wanted a machine that would last me the length of 
applecare (3 years) easily.
Well, 2 months after I ordered my powerbook, Apple releases the 
powerbook that really has the potential to do this:
-Firewire2: 800mbps; no external solution is going to take this out for 
some time
-802.11g: Wonderful choice that apple chose this, as for the time being 
I can still use my 802.11b base station until I want go get a Airport 
Extreme base station, but Extreme will easily become the standard over 
the next three years.
-Better(!?) video card: Apple still has no performance tests about the 
Radeon 9000 mobility vs. the GeForce 440 To Go, but I would imagine 
they would put a more powerful card in the 17" powerbook.
-DDR RAM: An obvious advantage
-Bluetooth: While I have no use for this now, maybe some better stuff 
will come along.
-New material/form: Now I don't know much about this, but I'm hoping 
that the Aluminum casing will be more durable, and since it's not 
painted, minor scratches will be less visible and paint flaking won't 
be a problem.  Also, airport range is improved to what the iBook's  got 
now!
-Auto-sensing screen and keyboard brightness: while I don't really ever 
look at the keyboard when I type, there seem to be plenty of times 
where I'm in the dark and start making strange mistakes, so being able 
to see the keys will be an advantage in some way.
-Software: Assuming by the time it's supposed to ship, it will have the 
latest versions of iPhoto and iMovie, and will also be bundled with 
iDVD, which would otherwise cost $50.

All these advantages worth the extra cash?  For me, planning on not 
upgrading my laptop (and now, maybe not even another mac) for the next 
three years, this is the machine I've been waiting for.
However, had my powerbook shipped before this announcement, I would NOT 
have been too upset.  The 1Ghz powerbook with superdrive is an amazing 
machine.  I would be a little upset that it had a $200 price drop so 
soon though.

Benn