YMMV - Microcenter Apple 12.1" Powerbook $899 AR/After CC Signup

[dclive]

Good until the 20th of this month.

Apple G4/1.33 12.1" Powerbook, GeForce 5200 Go 64M GPU, 256M RAM, Combo Drive, New in box, all over Microcenters nationwide.

Most stores sold out a week ago. Some stores got a shipment of these Macs in from China today.

Deal: $1099 in store price, plus tax. $100 mail in rebate to Microcenter. $100 mail in rebate if you get a Microcenter Visa card.

(I just cancelled my MC Visa I got last year a few days ago to sign up for it again.)

Houston has about four left as of tonight. Get 'em quick if you want to save $. The typical price for this model is anywhere from $1199 to $1399, and this gets you everything for $900 plus tax on $1099... so it's about $997 out the door after tax.

 

[kamranziadar]

Any review on that.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: kamranziadar
Any review on that.

http://www.macworld.com/2004/05/reviews/g4powerbooks/index.php

4.5 of 5 "mice".

 

[usernamemax20charact]

Damn. That's a very tempting price. Too bad it's not the SuperDrive model. Otherwise, I'd be all over that.

Might check it out tomorrow. Was planning to pick up the new 12" PB with SuperDrive once Tiger comes out. Hmmm... decisions decisions.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: usernamemax20charact
Damn. That's a very tempting price. Too bad it's not the SuperDrive model. Otherwise, I'd be all over that.

Might check it out tomorrow. Was planning to pick up the new 12" PB with SuperDrive once Tiger comes out. Hmmm... decisions decisions.

Superdrive model @ 1.33/12.1" is $1350 for a demo model at my local shop; that's a lousy price. For $900, you get the Powerbook; add $200 for someone else to put the latest 8X Superdrive +DL burner in there - it's a much better deal than buying an older 4X model without DL from Apple....

By "Add $200" I mean go to a place like MacSales.com and have them handle it. It's $150 or so for the drive, and labor adds a bit. There are places that will handle this for you very easily....

 

[Coldfusion]

Philly was all sold out early this week (in fact they were sold out of *all* powerbooks), then got a couple in yesterday. Picked one up. These aren't the current 1.5GHz models, but it's a pretty sweet deal nonetheless, especially when the current iBook's are weaker than this PB and more expensive.

 

[usernamemax20charact]

$1350 is a bit of a rip off. I'd rather wait til Tiger comes out then get the current 12" with SuperDrive model for $1499. I get a larger and faster HDD, double the RAM, a faster DVD burner that supports both +R and -R media, the scrolling trackpad, iLive '05, etc.


Thanks for the info anyways.

 

[dclive]

You're talking about paying 50% more for a perhaps 10% speedup, $40 worth of RAM, and a Superdrive, a much better model of which can be had from Mac vendors for $200. Hmmm...

With the $500 I save, plus $40 in tax, I'll get a 1GB memory stick (1.25GB vs. just 512MB in the new Macs, in 2 256MB modules no less!), a Superdrive that does DL ($200), and still have $190 left over.

Plus, this is here - now. Your solution would have you wait a month or two for a deal that may or may not come. Actually I suspect it will come eventually, but I don't think it's going to happen that fast.

BTW, these Macs come with iLife 05. The DVD is included in the box, but not installed on the hard drive.

 

[usernamemax20charact]

$190 - $120 for Tiger = $70 left, or $120 if I can get Tiger at a discount.

I would've upgraded the RAM to 1 GB anyways. The 256MB stick would have gone into an older PB. So for an extra $70 (or $120), I think it's worth it for the larger HDD, slightly faster processor, scrolling trackpad, and having it be *brand new* and not be molested by grubby hands. As for the DL DVD burner, I already have one so no big deal there for me.

Not sure if it's true or not, but I also hear that these newer revisions are not running as hot as the previous generation. So that in itself is another bonus if true.

Besides, I don't really need one at this exact moment anyways, so waiting is no big deal for me. But thanks for the info/input anyways. It's much appreciated.

 

[dclive]

You can't upgrade the RAM to 1G. It's either 1.25G, 768M, 512M, or 256M. So you're stuck ripping out the existing 256M DIMM in there and adding a 1G DIMM - so there's not much point to Apple's "extra" RAM.

The $900 Powerbook is brand new. That's what I'm comparing against. I agree the $1350 demo model of the Superdrive 1.33 would be a bad purchase.

$900 vs. $1499 plus tax, or $1000 after tax vs. roughly $1610 or so. It's quite a difference. And with iDVD now exporting ISOs, I no longer need a burner on the Mac - I can plug in any old DVD burner, USB or firewire, that I have lying around (which is starting to get pretty common). So for this one, I decided I wanted a simpler setup, and I just bought the memory stick to add to it. $1150 for a decent 1.33 PB 12.1" with 1.25GB RAM is nothing to complain about.

 

[desteffy]

A friend of mine got this one. This deal is very hot. Powerbooks are great!

 

[dclive]

I'd have mine for about 48 hours now and I've been very happy with it so far. It's never even seen my wired network - wireless from start to finish - and I did all the software updates that first night fairly quickly, and from there it's been smooth sailing. ilife 05 was included, so I installed that, and just put 2 dozen pictures into iPhoto v5. Works great! Battery life is about 2.5 hours if you're doing full blown downloads the entire time plus bluetooth networking and have only 256MB. With 512MB in there and with bluetooth turned off, I'm getting about 4 hours. RAM really makes a difference.