Where to buy a new Powerbook G4

roneill

HI,

I want to buy an apple Powerbook G4 1ghz does anyone know where in ireland would be the cheapest to get one?

Thanks

Gordon

Try www.bigbearsound.com
they are a Dublin Apple reseller, they may be able to give you a good deal.

Dr_Teeth

I got my ibook from Typetec (http://www.typetec.ie) last year, got a good price on it. You can buy stuff directly from Apple's website also, they have a page for Ireland.

Teeth.

PhilipMarlowe

Check out the new 12" & 17" powerbooks before you buy (if you haven't already done so).
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.apple.com/irelandstore/

Dr_Teeth

That 12inch model... *drool*! My next laptop for sure.. the only thing I don't like about my 12inch iBook 500 is its performance.

Teeth.

pa

It looks like the 12" Powerbook is going to be the computer that tempts me to finally get a laptop.

So, anyone want to buy a 1.2GHz Athlon? ;-)

PhilipMarlowe

STATE OF THE ART
Apple Thinks Big, and Small
By DAVID POGUE

SAN FRANCISCO -- The number 128 is important in personal computing. Because it's a tidy power of two, it often defines quantities of things like megabytes, megahertz and megawatts. But for Apple at the annual Macworld Expo trade show, 128 was a more important number. It was the number of times the audience interrupted Steve Jobs's keynote speech with applause.

Part of that reaction, to be sure, had to do with Mr. Jobs's legendary onstage charisma. Part of it, however, was also that his company had a lot of products to unveil.

The parade began with gracefully improved versions of Apple's flagship multimedia programs: iPhoto 2 (for organizing and exhibiting digital photos), iMovie 3 (for editing camcorder video) and iDVD 3 (for turning those finished videos into Blockbuster-style DVD's), all to reach the market on Jan. 25. There were new programs, too, like Final Cut Express, a $300 junior version of the $1,000 Final Cut Pro editing software beloved by professional video and film editors.

Then Mr. Jobs dropped a pair of software bombshells sure to thrill Mac fans, and infuriate Microsoft.

First, he introduced a Web browser called Safari (a free download at www.apple.com, for Mac OS X only). Its three most important features are speed, speed and speed, loading Web pages in a third the time of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Next, he introduced Keynote, a presentation program like - or, rather, unlike - Microsoft's PowerPoint. The new Apple program is a graphics powerhouse, not as full-featured as PowerPoint but with far superior typographical and visual effects.

These programs may make life even easier for Mac fans, but may not persuade many Windows users to leave what, at this trade show, is known as the Dark Side. Yet Apple did show off something that might: two new laptops that lay claim to superlatives like "biggest," "smallest" and "first."

Over the last year, Windows laptop makers have introduced models with 16-inch screens (measured diagonally). These behemoths, weighing up to 10 pounds and going dark after only two hours of battery life, are too unwieldy to use on airplane tray tables - or even, paradoxically, on laps. Their makers (like Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Sony) call them "desktop replacements," implying that these babies have all the power of a standard PC, with just enough portability to move occasionally to another location.

Anything they can do, Apple figures it can do better. In early March, Apple will begin selling the first laptop with a 17-inch screen - 1,440 by 900 pixels, or enough to view two side-by-side Web pages with room to spare. According to Apple, it's the same screen used on its best-selling desktop model, the 17-inch iMac.

This 17-inch PowerBook G4 is a beauty, clad in unpainted, finely textured aluminum alloy, rounded at the edges and completely flat (and very hot) underneath. At 15.4 by 10.2 inches and only one inch thick when closed, it's gorgeous and shockingly big, like a sterling-silver cafeteria tray from Tiffany's.

Apple's engineers no doubt had a field day dreaming up cutting-edge technologies to cram inside; you've never seen such a long laptop feature list. In addition to the usual PowerBook amenities (Ethernet, S-video, modem, two U.S.B. jacks, a PC card slot, and a drive that plays and burns both CD's and DVD's), the new PowerBook offers several technologies that are not only firsts for Apple, but, in some cases, for the computer industry as well.

First, a Bluetooth transmitter is built in, so that the PowerBook can communicate wirelessly with a similarly equipped Palm organizer or cellphone (for an Internet connection). Second, one of its two FireWire jacks can connect to a new breed of hard drives with so-called FireWire 800 connections, which can transfer data about twice as fast as regular FireWire (and U.S.B. 2.0).

Third, the new PowerBook introduces 802.11g, a new version of the Wi-Fi wireless networking technology that has become popular among laptop lovers in coffee shops and airports. (Apple, understandably, gave it a less user-hostile name: AirPort Extreme.)

The beauty of this new standard is that it is compatible with all existing wireless "hot spots" - but if you buy Apple's new, $200 AirPort Extreme base station, you can transfer files five times as fast.

Apart from its Montana-size screen, the new PowerBook's most glamorous feature is its hidden light sensor. When it detects that you are working in, say, a darkened movie theater, the screen automatically dims slightly to save power. Then, amazingly, a fiber-optic light glows beneath the keyboard. The light spills out around the keys and, in fact, through the transparent letters on the keys themselves.

Frankly, the whole thing is a little silly; finding your way around the keyboard just isn't much of an issue when a 17-inch floodlight is towering above you. Still, the effect is undeniably spectacular. PowerBook owners will soon be dragging loved ones into dark closets and basements for demos.

PhilipMarlowe

You should also know four important statistics about this machine. It weighs 6.8 pounds, it contains a 1-gigahertz G4 processor, it manages 4.5 hours of battery power per charge (according to Apple), and it costs $3,300.

Apple points out that no Windows "desktop replacement" laptop has a bigger screen, lighter weight, better battery or slimmer profile - and that's all true. But if you don't need state-of-the-art features like Bluetooth, FireWire 800, and 802.11g wireless, some rivals come relatively close. Sony's Vaio GRX600, for example, is thicker and heavier (eight pounds), and the battery life isn't as good. But when equipped like the PowerBook (60-gigabyte hard drive, 512 megabytes of memory, CD-DVD burner), it costs $600 less. And don't tell Apple, but its 16-inch screen actually reveals more of your spreadsheets and Web pages, because it has more pixels (1,600 by 1,200) packed into that space.

The other new PowerBook is another story. This time, Apple outdid itself in the opposite direction. Apple calls its 12-inch PowerBook G4 the smallest laptop it has ever made - and the smallest, lightest full-featured laptop on earth. ("Full-featured" means that the CD burner and a full complement of jacks are built in.)

The keyboard is identical to the one on its 17-inch counterpart. So how could a full-size keyboard fit on a mini-notebook? Simple: Ingeniously, Apple let it run all the way across, edge to edge. Without a millimeter of margin, the keyboard just fits in the laptop's 10.9-inch width. (The other dimensions: 8.6 inches deep and 1.2 inches thick.)

As it turns out, the little PowerBook inherits only some of the 17-incher's hot new features: the aluminum case, 802.11g wireless transmitter (this time, a $100 option), and built-in Bluetooth. It lacks the FireWire 800 jack, PC card slot, and the light-up keyboard. On the Internet some are already calling it the "G4 iBook," as though it's just a faster, slightly smaller and lighter version of Apple's inexpensive, ice-white iBook (which runs on a slower, G3 chip) rather than a true sibling to the original, 15-inch wide-screen PowerBook G4 (which is still available).

But that's not fair; this little powerhouse is in a class by itself. You can pick it up with one hand - it weighs only 4.6 pounds - and hide it from jealous co-workers under a sheet of typing paper. Best of all, it costs only $1,800. (For $200 more, you can get a CD-DVD burner instead of the CD burner-DVD player.)

As Apple's latest big-and-small experiments illustrate, designing laptops is no picnic. The trouble is that the world's wish list contains two mutually incompatible kinds of specs. On one hand, everyone says that the perfect laptop should be small, light and inexpensive; on the other hand, it should also be rugged and powerful, with a big screen and full-size keyboard.

Most people will probably find that the new 17-inch PowerBook grants plenty of wishes in the second category at the expense of the wishes in the first. But in the 12-inch PowerBook, Apple has found a sweet spot bigger than a sugar plantation. It's worth 128 rounds of applause all by itself.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/09/technology/circuits/09stat.html?8hpib

DannyD

The cheapest place you will get one in Ireland is the apple store (or if you work for Apple a whopping 27% discount )
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irlstore

Inspector Gadget

...I understand it's possible to get an educational cut on these things as well (a friend got just that on a G4 Powerbook...)

Gadget

roneill

yeah I saw the educational discounts it works out at about 200 euro. One of my collegues in work is still studying so maybe he can buy it for me.

I've decided to go for the new 17" G4 Powerbook with the new airport extreme (802.11g) cos it looks just so cool.

The apple store www.applestore.ie says it will be available in about 7 weeks time, I wonder if I order it now can I get the discount on the Office X that they have been doing because that offers up at the end of january.

Apple have a couple of interesting videos on the new machine on there website.

I've also downloaded Safari its pretty good....

pa

Originally posted by roneill

The apple store www.applestore.ie says it will be available in about 7 weeks time, I wonder if I order it now can I get the discount on the Office X that they have been doing because that offers up at the end of january.

That Office v.X offer was extended to April, I believe.

PhilipMarlowe

If you buy it under educational it looks to be about a 5% discount...

The Office offer won't be available under 'Educational' but an Educational Version of office will be, which is about 50 bucks cheaper than the promo price

Roll on 7-10 weeks time to my first Mac - a 17" powerbook...

p.s. I reckon it's sell share in Microsoft time and buy Apple 'cause I can see a lot of people switching... A good few of my friends/family/peers are certainly considering doing so.

Synkronite

The new 12" Powerbook w/ 640Mb RAM and Airport Extreme

Costs;
€2609.92 in Ireland (or €2479.42 w/ Edu Discount)
and
$2048.00 in USA (or €1937.83 by today's conversion rates)

If you have the opportunity Id suggest buy it from America or get a friend who's going there to get you one. Apple is overpriced in Europe (€220 more expensive even if you take off the 21% VAT from the Irish Price).

I know where Im buying my next mac from.

povszil

HI,
I have one for sale but there is no Mac Os x on it.
R u interested in?
my email:
povszil@hotmail.com

roneill wrote: »

I want to buy an apple Powerbook G4 1ghz does anyone know where in ireland would be the cheapest to get one?

Thanks

akadesign

Get a grip povszil, that post is almost 5 years old, I think he might have picked one up by now....