I am going to make the jump... Some suggestions on a question I have.
 

Whelp, after being a long time PC user (Debian GNU/Linux) I have decided to jump over to a Mac. I started liking the Mac's when OS X first came out, we got my mother one of the flat panel iMac's running 10.2 (upgraded to 10.3) and I started toying with it even more. So right now I am in the market for a Powerbook... a 15 inch.

At first I was going to wait for a G5 Powerbook; though, I have long given up on the hope of that. So now my questions is; is it worth waiting for Tiger (10.4) to come out with the G4 Powerbooks? Also, is there anything else around the corner I should wait for. I bought my iPod Mini less then a month before a started hearing rumors about the second generation.

There is always something else coming round the corner... waiting for it will drive you nuts...

Welcome to the bright side... and enjoy...

Given that we are already in April and Tiger is expected in about 10 days I'd say buy the laptop now or wait it doesn't matter... WHY... well Apple usually include in the box a rebate form which will allow you to get a free copy of Tiger once it's released. Check with your reseller to make sure..

Cheers,

--Zed :cool:

yeh, I agree, you could spend your whole life waiting for the next big thing, I bought my 12" powerbook (1.33) about a year ago and I am still as happy with it today as I was 12 months ago!

I would check when you get your powerbook that it comes with a free upgrade to Tiger.

As for G5 laptops, I suspect that apple will introduce them in about 5 months time starting around the 1.8mhz G5 mark, I think I will 'ebay' my current powerbook when that happens as apple products really hold their value and it won't cost that much to upgrade.

Panther is a REALLY solid OS X release. Go ahead and get your laptop now. Get used to using OS X. If you feel the need in 6 months, go ahead and get Tiger. By then, it'll have a few patches out and will probably more stable then 10.4.0.

I would wait just until Tiger is released.... that will most likely get you a PowerBook with Panther installed and disks for both Panther and Tiger. Then if you want to, you can use Tiger right away, or use Panther for a few months and upgrade later for free when it reaches 10.4.1 or 10.4.2. Apple generally offers an "up to date" deal for people that bought a Mac (or Apple App) within a month (at least a few weeks) before a major update. Generally the user just pays shipping and handling... around $10 I tihnk. But Tiger could still be further away than that. Don't wait for a G5 PowerBook... they could be a few months away or well over a year away.

Unfortunately, I think zed gave some inaccurate information. For at least the last two years, you only get to use Apple's "up to date" programs, where you get upgrades to a newly announced version for $19.95, if you purchased your product after the release date for new version was announced.

In the case of an OS upgrade, that means if you buy a PowerBook today and they announce the release date for Tiger tomorrow, you probably will have to pay full price for the new version. However, if they announce today that Tiger will be available on May 3rd, you will likely be able to buy your PowerBook anytime between now and then and get the upgrade for $19.95.

Please note this is going off of past history; you never know what Apple will do next time.

Edit: some stuff I figured I should add: Also, for the last couple OS revisions, Apple has stated that as of the release date, every new machine ships with the new OS. However, that is true only for machines leaving the factory as of that day, and it may only mean that there are upgrade discs included but not preinstalled. Machines that were already in inventory at your place of purchase will only have the old version in the box. You're eligible for the Up To Date program, but you've got to wait a bit for the upgrade to arrive. So be aware that if you purchase from a reseller, especially a big catalog with lots of machines in inventory, you're probably still going to have to update. It can take weeks for most of the machines in the channel to actually have the new version in the box.

If you prefer to do clean installs instead of upgrades, I would wait until Tiger starts shipping on the machine you want, otherwise you'd end up having to erase the Panther install. However, staypuft's idea in post #5 is worth considering, if you can time it right.

Another thing to be aware of is that (at least in the past) the disks you got with the "up-to-date" program were upgrade-only disks - you couldn't use them to do an install except on a machine that already had a previous version of OS X on it. Hence no "erase & install" option.

I just bought another Mini, couldn't wait for the new OS version to release. I didn't see anything about a low-cost upgrade. Anyone have details on how you'd take advantage of this?

the discounts only come in to play AFTER the new release has been made. that is, once you can go to the store and buy 10.4, then computers you buy that have 10.3 will be eligible for the discount. or, as suggested above, you can wait for the 10.3 hardware channels to clear and get 10.4 installed on a machine. apple ships all hardware purchased from the online store with the current os. dunno about the brick & mortar apple stores.

As has been said above, in the past this offer comes into play only after the new OS version has been announced and at that time there is a web page about it.
The (now defunct) page for Panther upgrades:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

Thanks for the fast and awesome response guys... actually when we bought the iMac we currently own from CDW their website said it would come with 10.3; however, we got it with 10.2. After complaining to CDW and selling us a lie they refunded the cost of 10.3. This time I will be taking advantage of my student discount (as I will be a student for another few months) and going right through apple, unless you guys have any better suggestions.

I've ordered two Macs using Apple's educational store... if you plan to change anything from the default configuration, this is a great way to do it. However if you're NOT planning to customize your Mac, check out the various online Mac retailers as you can often get cheap RAM upgrades, free shipping, and avoid sales tax. It's sometimes cheaper than the educational discount from Apple once you factor in the sales tax.

If you do go with the Apple Store, I would suggest that you look at getting more RAM from another retailer (as it is often significantly cheaper than Apple, but sometimes not). macsolutions.com crucial.com or any other reputable store with RAM that carries a lifetime warranty. RAM is easy to put in the PowerBooks... all you need is a 0 phillips head screwdriver.

Apple has refurbished deals on the web. Look for the red SALE tag at the Apple web store and see what you can find there. Some of Apple's educational web sites have the refurbished deals as well.

It depends on how bad you want to get started on a new powerbook. I just bought a new 1.67ghz 15" and love it. Panther has been around long enough to be completely stable (no more Firewire Hard Drive wipeout scares) and I also don't have to worry about any compatibility issues with other peripherals and/or drivers for things like printers, scanners, etc. that may not yet be supported on a brand new Mac OS. I always feel that it's best to wait 6 months or so before I upgrade anyway to the newest OS (unless the old/current one is miserable - which Panther is not!) so that all the kinks and driver support gets sorted out.

Also, I'd be a bit weary of the couple hundred bucks or so you'll save on the education discount on the Powerbook. I just ordered one that way (my wife is a teacher) and it shipped direct from Shanghai! Which was quite ironic, as I'd just returned from there and was waiting to order it when I got back to the US. It took almost 7 days to get to my doorstep (with UPS 2-day expedited shipping). When you factor in the $100+ in tax ... I don't think it was really worth it. You can get one online w/ free shipping for about $2250 (1.67ghz; 512mb ram; 80gb 5400rpm HD; Superdrive) from B&H or some other online dealer and will ship that day. And you'll want to buy your RAM from somewhere else, too, like OWC macsales.com - I got an additional gig strip from them for $230 - about 1/2 of apple's price. I ended up walking down to my local Apple store here in town and bought a brandnew Powerbook from them and returned the educational discount one to Apple when it finally arrived a week later. In the end, the ~$100 or so difference w/ the education discount didn't do much for me as I needed the machine a week ago.

Whelp, I did it... as of five mintues ago I ordered my new PowerBook 15" 1.67GHz SuperDrive w/ the 100 gig HD. I am pretty happy... I am also happy at the fact that I am going to be getting both 10.3 and 10.4 (though the UpToDate program). I just hope that the 10.4 upgrade goes smooth.

Congratualtions !

This way you get a mature 10.3 for starters and you can pick your time to switch over to Tiger once the ugliest bugs are squashed.

I'd suggest to partition the drive in two, that way you can organise a smooth transition.

Partition the drive for what reason? I was planning on making two partitions (one for the system and another for my rather large files and what not). Why would having two partitions make for a smoother transition? I was thinking it would just replace 10.3 and convert my settings over but if not it doesn't matter because my laptop and Tiger sould arrive around the same day, actually I expect Tiger here first.

Make sure that you make the "system" partition big enough. Many people have had trouble when they haven't left enough space for OS X's swap files etc. And it is generally easier if all of the Apple-supplied apps and user folders, etc are on the "system" partition (as they are by default). I don't see too much point in partitioning a "small" (from the point of view of a few years from now) drive like a 100 GB one. I would recommend instead that you should buy an external firewire drive and use that for backup. (If your internal drive fails, it is likely that all partitions on it will be gone.)

While I respect people belonging to the "thou shall not partition your harddrives and leave them as Steve created'em for us"-fraction, I like to have two big partitions on my main machine.

I run my production system on one partition and use the other to prepare the next version, twiddle it until I am satisfied, then just change the standard boot partition.

That has been proven a lot less troublesome than trying to get a new OS release up to speed in a hurry.

voldenuit: well, as of right now I plan on putting Tiger on when I get it and that should before I get the laptop. Anyways....

I am a partition king, heh.. the computer I am on now (A dual PIII 1Ghz) is my main computer right now (not counting my dell notebook I am selling this afternoon)... I will be turning this machine into a server but right now I have seperate partions for my homes, boot, system, and what not.. then again there are 4 HD's in this machine as well.

I do the same thing. But on an external disk drive.
I have found that I always eventually fill up my internal drive. My current iBook drive is (nominally) 80GB. Had I partitioned that into two 40 GB partitions, I would already (after 5 months) be down to a mere 10 GB on my boot partition. That would be okay, but after another few months and I might be down into the getting-nervous level of only having 5 GB left. (I consider 2 GB free disk space to be a bare minimum for OS X.)

And note that OS X's "Hot File Clustering" (http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme...zations/#THREE) only works on the boot partition.