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2, the series opener-
The second Mac upgrade
project, which actually starts first, needed to be a Powerbook since
this market segment has probably been Apples greatest success, Quite
often in recent years G3 and G4 PowerBook's have been the portable technology
leaders, well ahead of comparable PC Notebooks in features. You will
see PowerBook's everywhere; sales, media people and designers, to cameos
on a shockingly high number of movies and TV shows. We acquired two
early G3 "Wallstreet" version 2, 14" display, 233MHz
PowerBooks as our test subjects. They're readily available used at reasonable
prices on sites like eBay and various used Mac specialists around the
Internet. There were lots and lots of these sold, but they don't come
all that cheap, holding their value quite well. Which does prove fact
one of Mac pride, Macs are a good investment. Care to guess what a four-year-old
PC Notebook is worth?
ìCould your present Mac do the necessary tasks you will need to do for
the next couple of years . . . î
What should make you decide to keep and upgrade your current iMac or
PowerBook? Actually, this applies to any Mac of the last eight years.
Well there are a lot of reasons that are only important to you. You
should decide first and foremost that the total cost of upgrading your
Mac is more logical than purchasing a new, or newer used Mac. How does
"logical" fit in this decision? Well, there are a lot of factors
that you ought to outline ahead of time, probably on paper if your brain
is not equipped for extended memory. Here's the "factors"
I use, in the order of my importance:
- Could your present Mac do the necessary tasks you will need to do for the next couple of years, if you can upgrade it with currently available components?
- Can I make it fast
enough, with enough RAM memory, to suit my actual needs and not necessarily
the "PC phallic symbol GHz/RAM race"? Now be honest, don't
be sucked into the number game that Intel and AMD has fostered!
- Physically and esthetically, are you satisfied with the Mac you have? Keep in mind that you can customized the look on your Mac, just as the Wintel crowd seems to be infatuated with these days.Personally, I still prefer the look of the black G3 PowerBook to the G4 Titanium (even without the peeling silver paint), but while I like the shape of the original iMac, the "Fruity" colors have worn VERY thin! I dig the Snow (opaque white) iMac, and the Graphite iMac was cool too. I'll look into feasibility painting your iMac. I think you should figure that your G3 PowerBook is just too to cool looking "redecorate", and pretty much impossible anyway. Maybe we'll have a contest for the coolest looking iMac or PowerBook remake by a reader, stay posted.
- Lastly, can the upgrade route deliver a path to using the peripherals you'd like to use, as well as allow you to keep using the ones you already have and want to keep? We're talking data ports here, my dear obsessive Mac'ers. WiFi 802.11b, Firewire, USB 1.0, USB 2.0 and even SCSI for the die hard, will be on the quest list for the port Holy Grail.
OK, so put on your
thinking beanie, make your list of what you want to do with your sweetheart
Mac and add up the costs that we find in our two projects. Then the ultimate
decision is yours and only yours . . . . trade it, or upgrade it. Look
for Part One of the G3 PowerBook "remake", coming in the next
couple weeks here on
tech-edge e-zine.
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