Thoughts Upon Finally Upgrading To An Intel Mac - 37 Months On
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
by Charles W. Moore
After 18 months plus of chewing it over (and over and over), I’ve finally decided on what will be my first Intel-based Mac - 37 months into the Intel Mac epoch. It didn’t take me so long because I was trying to make some sort of a statement. A big part of the reason it’s taken me so long (besides budgetary constraint) is the amazingly satisfactory performance I’ve been getting from my trio of Power PC laptop workhorses; a 1.33 GHz 17-inch PowerBook G4 currently running OS X 10.5.6 Leopard, and to Pismo PowerBooks, both hotrodded with 550 MHz G4 processor upgrades and 8x dual player SuperDrives, and running OS X 10.4.11 Tiger.
When I bought the 17-incher back in February, 2006, just after the first Intel Macs had been unveiled had Macworld Expo, I reasoned that I would use it as a tide-me-over laptop for 18 months or so as I waited to see how the proverbial dust settled before moving on to a Macintel. However this computer, an Apple Certified Refurbished unit, purchased for the price of a mid-model MacBook (actually the MacBook was first unveiled three months later), proved to be such a likable, dependable, and capable machine that I frankly haven’t had a lot of incentive to move on to something else.
On the cusp of winding up its third year of service, the big old PowerBook - a revision that took its introductory bow at Macworld Expo Paris in September, 2003, has yet to give any trouble that would cause it even a day of downtime. It’s been a quintessential “just works” Apple machine.
The Pismos are just amazing. Now going on nine years old, they are also rocks of dependability, and I much prefer them for hands-on feel to any other laptop I’ve ever used, save perhaps for the PowerBooks WallStreet and 1400, whose keyboards were even better, but the Pismo isn’t far behind in that department and way ahead in performance.
However, it’s time. More and more software is being released as Intel-only, as will be OS 10.6 Snow Leopard later this year if prognostications are accurate. And while the 1.33 GHz G4 processor does a pretty fantastic job, it struggles a bit with some of the newer software, and it’s been clear for some time that Apple just doesn’t have its part in supporting Power PC anymore. Leopard runs reasonably well -- at least well enough that I haven’t then seriously tempted to downgrade to Tiger, but it still has many rough edges and angularities, at least on this Power PC machine, while Tiger 1014.11 remains a smooth and refined customer. It’s time.
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So last Thursday afternoon I placed an order for an Apple Certified Refurbished 2.0 GHz unibody MacBook. Ironically, it was the release of the upgraded base white MacBook that’s spurred me into active mode about a system upgrade. The latest price leader MacBook is a tremendous value for the money, and the graphics, RAM, and frontside bus enhancements it just received, combined with its FireWire port and old-school trackpad with separate trackpad button make it a very attractive proposition that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to anyone shopping for a Mac laptop on a tight budget.
However, it also felt like to much of a reach backward, which is not all bad -- I like mature technology - but I tend to keep my computers for a long time, and the future is the the new aluminum models, even though I’m not enchanted by the loss of FireWire support and the button-less trackpad.
What helped clinch the decision for me was reading recent Mac switcher and Tom’s Hardware tech journalist Alan Dang’s ten ton review of the unibody MacBook (which is what he switched to). Alan’s introduction intro and report on the engineering of the unibodies reminded me of the in-depth Apple hardware reviews John Siracusa used to write for Ars Technoca, and I came away mightily impressed both with the reporting and with the machine.
On the MacBook’s architecture and engineering Dang rates the aluminum unibody design of the MacBook as “superb,” with “impressive sturdiness” as well as being easier to clean. In summary, Alan Dang concludes that “the MacBook offers an excellent design for the money. The unibody construction is second to none, and Apple has done its homework with component selection, choosing best-of-breed technologies.”
Apple Canada wants Can$1,149 for a 2.0 GHz white MacBook, which at current rates of currency exchange makes it a better deal here north of the border than it is in the US at $999. However, Apple Canada’s refurbished page had been offering Apple Certified Refurbished 2.0 GHz unibodies for Can$1,199 (that’s two hundred dollars or 14 percent off the list price of Can$1,399) at least when they had them in stock, which wasn’t very often or for very long, so when they popped up on the site Thursday morning, I talked it over with my wife and then placed the order.
I’ve had an excellent experience with the Certified Refurbished PowerBook G4, and a couple of refurb. iPods I bought for family members, so I hope history repeats itself, although I’m cognizant of the fact that this will be a Revision A model, which is always a bit of a red flag. At Can$1,199, the refurbished unibody is only fifty bucks more than the new white plastic model, and only nominally one hundred dollars more than its selling for refurbished in the US, which makes it a decent bargain in the Apple system context. With a USB modem (Can$59) the total damages came to Can$1,258 plus 13 percent Harmonized Sales Tax for a grand total of Can$1,422.
One drawback of buying a certified refurbished unit is that Apple doesn’t offer the build-to-order options that are available for new Mac system purchases. If an upgrade to 4 gigabytes of RAM had been available for Can$150 as it is for the new unibodies, I would have gone with that as well, but Apple wants a whopping Can$300 for a four gigabyte upgrade as a separate item, and there was no way I was going to pay that much, so I’ll do with the standard two gigabytes for a bit and probably buy a four gigabyte upgrade from a third - party supplier - Canada RAM, Canada Computers. or Other World Computing, whoever offers the best deal.
Now I just have to be patient while I wait for my new to me MacIntel to arrive (FedEx says tomorrow)
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