New Laptops: Mine and Possibly Yours! // VOID-STAR.NET

New Laptops: Mine and Possibly Yours!

Well, I was sitting on the lounge on Sunday with my newly-restored laptop when, uh-oh, the hard drive started making That Noise again. So it stopped booting once more and I was kinda, “… oh.” but not so emo this time because I’d both Time Machine’d and manually backed up all my important shit about an hour before. So nothing major got lost.

Even still, on Sunday afternoon Mat took me down to Mac1 once more, this time to buy a replacement. Much to his annoyance, I got the ‘equivalent’ replacement — a 15″ MacBook Pro — mostly because the 13″ screens on the MacBooks were just… to small. I do everything on my laptop (on my lap, not plugged into a monitor) and I could just see the 13″ screen driving me nuts. So a 15″ it was, and if right now is a horrible time to buy Pros (there’s supposedly a new version release in a couple of months)? Well, I buy pretty much everything like that. I’ll deal.

In fact, have a picture of me doing just that:

The new MacBook’s name is Tavehd-Kyn (literally “Second Gift”), and last night it occurred to me that it was the most awesome thing ever when its keyboard lit up because the room was dark. How fucking awesome is that shit? I knew about the camera and the gyroscope but, like, a light sensor too? Holy fuckola!

Anyway, my big debate now is what to do with Vexxis. Thing is, the HDD is on the fritz and it’s as old as fuck but otherwise it’s a perfectly serviceable laptop. It’s about $130 for a new, bottom of the line 80gig hard drive, plus whatever the install costs In Your Area are. I’ve still got the original box containing all the original leads and so forth, and when I get a minute between furiously writing job applications I’m going to zero out and reformat the HDD. Because you never know (but you probably do).

So, my question is, who wants a laptop? It’s a PowerBook G4 1.33GHz, 512MB RAM, 55GB HDD.

Your auction starts now. Base price is shipping (the box is huge; I’ll get some numbers tomorrow when I’ve measured and weighed the thing).

6 Comments

1. 

   928 days ago
   199 comments

   chelle

   Jesus. Chris would die of shock and pleasure if I presented him with a Macbook. He’s been wanting one for eons. Can I get an asking price? I’ll find out in the meantime what hd replacement for Vexxis would cost and factor that in, so I’m still not sure. (Haha, federal tax refund, do your stuff!)

   • Reply
   • 

     928 days ago
     1,606 comments

     Dee

     Well, it’s a PowerBook not a MacBook (PPC chips rather than Intel chips).

     I’ve seen second-hand models with similar specs and ‘perfect’ hardware go for about US$500. The monitor has one dead pixel (green; it’s in the top right quarter but TBH I hardly ever noticed it) It’s four years old so there’s a bit of accumulated grime on the keyboard (though, durr, I’ll clean it as best I can), and the lid doesn’t close perfectly flush at the corners but that’s a known flaw with these models (and the lid still closes; just keep it away from well-meaning parents sticking their fingers in the 3mm-ish gap).

     Postage to the US is gonna be a fucktonne, and of course the charger is for an Australian socket, so you’d need either an adaptor or a new cord.

     So, yeah. That’s the maths. ^^”

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     • 

       928 days ago
       199 comments

       chelle

       $500 USD is a scream (and I’d start with 400 USD), but the four-years-old part has me concerned, as well as the adapter being incompatible. Shit, sorry about this, but I think it will not work. It’s a birthday present, so I’d better just collaborate with my parents and get a new one. :/

       • Reply
       • 

         928 days ago
         1,606 comments

         Dee

         No worries; it’s up to you.

         TBH, though, the only part of it that’s dying is the HDD, which is easily (if not necessarily cheaply) replaceable. The hardware runs a little on the slow side (of course), especially if you start booting up latest version commercial-grade software (i.e. Office ’08, PhotoShop et al.), but I should say that I quite happily do all these things, they just take time. I use it almost literally 24/7 and there are no indications of any other bitrot. Overall I think Macs age a lot more gracefully than PCs do.

         It’s probably best suited as a kind of “my first Mac” for people who aren’t really sure they’re sold on the idea but want to try it out, anyway. For Chris’ birthday — if he’s really keen on joining the Mac-and-latte cult — a bottom of the range 13″ MacBook is probably the way to go (they’re about US$1,100).

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2. 

   927 days ago
   413 comments

   Mat

   ebay + sneakily omitting certain infor = PROFIT!

   • Reply
   • 

     927 days ago
     1,606 comments

     Dee

     = negative feedback on my account.

     • Reply