fellow neowinians,

i am about to buy a 17" powerbook g4 1.67Ghz, with 1GB Ram from the apple store.

i was wondering:

1) how it would play games like jk2, sims 2 (when it comes out), call of duty and ut2004?

2) is there any lag using the mac bluetooth keyboard?

3) whats the longevity of the battery, ie how many years will it last before having to be replaced and whats the best way of keeping it in good order, ie fully charging and letting it run out over and over???

4) is it worth buying before tiger comes out? will tiger have enough features to make me want to buy the new os instantly if i buy the powerbook now.


thanks

The usual lag of a wireless device. Nothing major though.


Get it after Tiger comes out. Only 2 or so weeks left. You will want to wait for it, trust me.

If you get the Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128Mb of RAM you will be able to play all the listed games nicely.

Battery should be good for a fair few years. Ive had my iBook for 2 years now and had no problem at all with it.

No problems with any of Apple's BT Keyboards or mice. You will want to turn them on as soon as you turn the Mac on though.

If I were you I would wait till Tiger comes out

Seriously man, get it after Tiger, it is also rumoured that the 17" will be updated, the screen or something, i cant remember, can anyone shed some light on this

yeah i heard something about some kind of hi-res screen coming out cos this is "the year of hi def" apparently.

i know it sounds crazy but i dont want them to change the design or anything before i get a chance to buy one cos i like how it is now, if they start adding a second g4 processor in there and make it bulkier and/or noiser then it will kind of ruin it a bit.

1) It should be able to play games like them reasonably well, Quake III engine games seemed to run fairly well on mine. (I've played a bit of Wolfenstein ET, and it ran fine maxed out)


2) I didn't notice any when I had one with my iMac G5; I prefer to use the Powerbook's keyboard though, as it's got a backlight.

3) Apple says you should get 300 cycles out of a battery. You're recommended to just keep topping it up and do one full discharge/charge cycle a month to keep it calibrated. Charge cycles are the total of how much it's been charged. If you use 50% of the battery one day, charge it, 20% the next, charge it again, and then 30% the day after and recharge it, that only counts as one cycle.


I get around 3 hours on my maxed out Rev.D 17" Powerbook, but that's with screen brightness on automatic, (usually 60% or less) the keyboard backlight on 30%, processor speed on automatic, and using airport. (WiFi) I've had the machine just over 2 weeks, and done 5 cycles (there are tools that can tell you) but a lot of the time I'm running off the mains. I expect the battery will last me at least a year and a half. I could be wrong, but I believe the 300 cycles is just how long it will last at full capacity, once you go over that it should still work, but you'll start to get less time out of it.


4) Tiger is reported to be coming out or being announced by April 15th. Personally I would wait until then, and if there's no announcement, I'd buy it. Tiger is, in my opinion, a must buy though. It should bring big performance increases in some areas, as well as greatly increased functionality. The graphics card in the Powerbook will be great for Core Image too.



Some sites are posting a rumour of an "HD Powerbook" being released when Tiger is (1920x1200 instead of 1440x900 resolution) but personally I don't see it happening; the Powerbooks were only just updated recently. (and the resolution is perfect for that screen size)

I also doubt this will happen, as people like myself who have a £2429 machine, are going to be very ****ed off at Apple for paying to get a maxed out machine and have them replace it within two months. Generally Apple is at least six months between their machine updates, if not more. (the Powermacs haven't been updated for 10)

it is most likely to be plugged in 90% of the time. if it is plugged in will it not use the battery at all then? does the battery automatically disconnect? sounds like a silly question but i haven't had a laptop, nor a mac lol, before.

The plug is red when it's charging, and green when it's just running off the mains. I've heard some people say you should still take the battery out, and others say that it doesn't matter. I just leave it in the machine.

Wait for Tiger's release. If they have new powerbooks by then, just drop by to your local retailer, they still should have the "old" powerbooks.
I don't know for sure, but wasn't there a coupon for a free OS X upgrade when you bought your Mac like 4 weeks before announcement of the new release?

I've seen a Sony 17" laptop with this resolution... and it's GORGEOUS. Maybe it's just me, but if that Sony ran OS X, I'd have sold my PowerBook.


Most likely they would add it on top of the line for more money. Maybe that's why the 17" is so "cheap" (and I use that term VERY lightly). I remember them being $3200, now they're $2800. Nothing holding them back from adding the 17" HD-edition at $2999 or $3199 even, if they wanna push it.