New Powerbooks best yet says ComputerWorld

Wow, so Apple's finally, almost gotten it right, you guys are saying-- On rev Z. Yay for Apple!

I'd like to add that I have not had any of the display problems. (I got the machine a couple of days before thanksgiving, so it is very recent). I have several friends and colleagues with this same model who do not have this problem either. I am sure some people are having these issues but it is not ALL machines as has been suggested.

I just picked up a new 15" two days ago, and it is awesome. There is NO screen defect or "horizontal lines" issue as has been documented elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. When I bought the first editions of the 15" 1.25 PowerBook, it had two manufacturing flaws, the latch not closing and the white spots on the screen. Apple owned up to this problem and replaced both features. My point is I think the display issue has been fixed, and was probably only in the first few units. As for waiting for the Intel books, if they are really that fantastic I will upgrade at the time. My guess is that there will be some kinks to work out with the processor switch, and I'm happy to sit that out with my PowerBook.

There is a production problem with the new 15" PB's. The screens all have a problem which is discribed here: http://15inpbscreen.appleplace.com If you bought one, please check your screen with this image: http://crankycat.com/pb15_problems.png and contact Applecare for a replacement. My company ordered three, they got this issue. We god replacements for all three that also have this issue. Also the PB's in the two Apple Centres in my town have this issue and the shop personel haven't seen a good one yet...

I just bought a 12" 1.5 Ghz PowerBook refurb to compliment my Dual G5 PowerMac. I love it. Perfect balance of portability and power. My worry about the first version of Apple's intel based laptops is that they will not be able to run the PowerPC based versions of sofware I am using (Photoshop, FinalCut, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc) at fast enough speeds. I forsee the first Intel based laptops to be more "consumer based".

This may be a ridiculous question, but, is the better batter life a product of higher-capacity batteries, or superior power-management on the part of the new PBs? I'm guessing it's the latter - but want to make sure...

I bought a PB about a year ago. Will wait another 1.5 years before I get another. Yeah, people will get them because they need em. I guess one could still buy now, but the intel PB's should be introduced by next summer (I should think). I will buy a second iteration. Once they have the bugs shaken out. I love my PB. 15" is fine. Although, I wish I had the better resolutions.

If you plan to buy a Powerbook in the next two years, buy it now. (Full disclosure: That's what I just did, and for the following reasons). Why? Rev. A hardware is notoriously buggy. The Rev. A 12" Powerbook had a slew of problems, and that wasn't even a particularly new architecture. I'd give it enough time for a shakedown before I decided to buy an Intel powerbook. That probably accounts for the next year or so. Why the extra year? Well, this may be controversial, but Apple is headhunting Vaio engineers from Sony to help them get the x86 Powerbook to market. If you've ever done any kind of volume tech support on Vaios that should chill you to the bone. Of mainstream x86 laptop brands, Vaios are the most compromised, chained-down, unreliable, piles you could fear encountering. Some of them need byzantine combinations of BIOS updates just to flatten and reinstall them. Some of them don't even work with Sony's own Memory Stick standards! Personally, I'll be giving it 18 months to see exactly what the Vaio connection ends up being, and make my decision then. In the meantime the new Powerbook has the HD screen I'd been waiting for, and that was why I went for it.

henh, you said "17 inch man "

ummmm... haven't you been paying attention? MHz don't matter! haha... right. Go use a PowerBook. It's a hell of a lot more responsive than my PC desktop, with higher specs, running the exact same software (hooray, open source...). Oh, and... you call PC Users "friends"? I'm sorry.