Sanity Prevails.
I have decided to postpone my purchase of a new Macbook Pro for another 3-4 months. I had a chat about this with several friends these past few days. The reasons?
Several actually. Here’s why:
As I’ve written before, I really (really!) dislike getting first-revision Mac products. They more often than not have either design or manufacturing issues. While the latest Macbook Pros are not radically new in terms of their design, they might have some manufacturing flaws, being new models and all. Just a few weeks after the release of MeromBook Pro, there seem to be some problems [1] with them. Living in Hellas makes repairs (and/or replacements) very difficult, so I’d rather not risk it.
Then there’s the lack of free time. I’m probably busier than anytime since 2004 and I need to finish my doctorate thesis so there’s little time to play around with a new laptop. While my busy schedule means a lot of my time is spent coding and doing I/O (i.e. reading and writing :) ) on computers, I’d rather use my desktop setups instead of a 15″ MeromBook screen. My main development machines are much faster and much more comfortable to work with than the MeromBook, so there’s little need for additional CPU power. Moreover, I’m hardly using my laptop for any other CPU intensive task lately, hence I don’t need the extra processing power offered by the new Macbook Pros.
Finally, there’s Leopard. I’m relatively tight on money right now and I wouldn’t want to spend an additional $130 requested for Leopard when it comes out early next year when I can get it for free then with a new MBP.
All in all, it seems that cosmix’s eternal advice for Macheads still stands: don’t let Steve’s RDF and the aura of new gadgets rush you into getting an Apple product as soon as it is announced. The display and fan ‘reports’ may be affecting only few of the hundreds of thousands of C2D MBPs sold by Apple, but it’s a pain getting laptops repaired and/or replaced, especially if you’re depending on them to do work. Hmm, well, multiply that pain by 15 million times and you may come close to how bad it is if you’re living in Hellas.
March or April 2007 it is then for me! Well, depending on Leopard I guess :)
Hello there!
How are thee? I’d like to ask you a few questions about Leopard. I’m thinking too of buying a new macintosh x86 based currently I’m stuck with my old G4 iBook which I love!!
Will I be able to run leopard smoothly on it, or should I stick with Tiger? I’m sitting on a ‘next-generation’ OS anyway.. the features we have (in Tiger) since 2005 are what windows users expect to see as a bleeding edge technology in windows (s)Vista so..
Another thing, I live in Greece.. do you know of any store (except rainbow and resellers) that I can buy a battery and a supply cable for my iBook? It seems that after 2.5 years my battery finally died :-(
best regards,
Nice blog ;-)
Hey!
Leopard is expected to be faster than Tiger due to several optimisations in the kernel. I don’t think support for the G4 is going to be dropped in Leopard. There’s still a very large userbase with G4 machines. Make sure you have enough RAM (I’d say at least 1 GB).
It’s understandable that your battery has died after 2.5 years, especially if you were using the machine daily. Unfortunately, even though I moved back to Hellas in the summer of 2005, I am not at all knowledgeable about the Mac market in this country as I haven’t — and do not intend to — purchase any Macs from Hellas under the current IMC ‘regime’. Sorry. :(
In any case, Leopard seems to be improving OS X a lot under the hood (and not so much in terms of ‘user’ features or UI) and if you’re not in need of the fancy new backup etc. you could stay with Tiger for a bit longer if your machine is not up to it and you don’t want to upgrade your hardware. On the other hand, I reckon that March-April will be a good time to get a new MBP/Macbook if you so wish to do :)
Take care and thanks for the comment.
Hi, I have only 768 MB of RAM so I think I’ll stick with Tiger a bit longer. Thank you for the reply, I’ll see what happens until April.
err shit.. I’ll have to do my nationaly military service in May.. sucks.. but I have too.. so I think I’ll have to wait at least another 12 months until I get another mac :-(
poor me!
If you feel 768MB is enough for what you do with your iBook with Tiger, then it will probably be enough for Leopard :)
Since Intel is on a roll with multicore CPUs, and since you’re going to the army, I’d probably also wait if I were you, unless you manage to get some sort of placement where you’ll have enough time and/or a desk job that will enable you to use your new laptop. :)
“All in all, it seems that cosmix’s eternal advice for Macheads still stands: don’t let Steve’s RDF and the aura of new gadgets rush you into getting an Apple product as soon as it is announced. “
Speaking of Apple Gadgets, I’d like to hear your advice on this: I’d like to purchase an IPod. I actually meant to do that last year, when the nano ones came out in stores, but then I learned they were deffective. So, I decided to wait for a while. Prices would go down, too, I thought. Now, the 4GB is worth 220euros, but am still sceptical whether it’s worth it. Also, a friend of mine bought another MP3 player , 6GB storage, for 140euros. The only reason I’d pay more for an IPod would be for its design and stuff. Should I wait a few months more or buy another MP3 player?
Hey moga! To be honest I’m not sure what your question is. I don’t think that getting an iPod now is risky — on the contrary, the new nano is essentially a shrunk mini (aluminum shell), the video has been out for a long time and the shuffle is just pointless unless you only listen to music when you jog :)
Pricing is another thing. I’d get an iPod because I think that overall Apple makes good products, not just because they look good. While there are sometimes faults with Apple products and especially their first revisions, Apple still tops the U.S. Customer Satisfaction Index and designs and manufactures excellent products. You hear more about them because they are leading the industry in so many ways — and on this blog because I mostly write about them :)
On the other hand, 80€ is a significant difference in price; have you compared the two devices? Are they similar in weight, features, size, etc? Mind you that with the nano you’re essentially paying for the size + design. If you were looking for value for money that’s the wrong place to look. However, if you have decided to get it, I would not wait any further at this point.
I never had second thoughts about Apple’s excellent reputation (I grew up as a kid with an Apple LC II ..) but price was a major concern !
Thanx for the advice :-)