SportsShooter.com - How often do you upgrade your laptop?

	New England \| \| USA \| Posted: 5:39 PM on 10.29.06
	->> Well my 15" G4 PowerBook is about 84 days old and it absolutely died today. The computer will no longer recognize the hard drive or optical. .....so about 84 days

Peter Hoffman, Student/Intern, Photographer

Naperville | IL | U.S. | Posted: 5:50 PM on 10.29.06

->> well I'm about to hit 2 years with my powerbook, and while I would like to upgrade, as a fellow student/intern, I'm sure you know that it costs money (and a good chunk) to do so.

I dunno, I get by with mine and probably won't upgrade for awhile still...bottom line is that it works and it's not causing me any problems right now aside from its slowness.

I'll upgrade when I can afford it without sacrificing more important things.

Actually I sold my 4 yr old desktop like 6 months ago, so all I own is this 12" powerbook, and I feel like I'm surviving just fine.

Will Powers, Photographer

	Erie Denver Boulder \| CO \| USA \| Posted: 5:57 PM on 10.29.06
	->> Whenever a new computer has a feature I "want" that I can't have any other way.

David Templeton, Assistant, Photographer

Hammonton | NJ | USA | Posted: 7:22 PM on 10.29.06

->> Well I've had my dell inspiron 8600 since Nov '03... since then ive replaced the power adapter, upped the ram from 512MB to 1.25GB, replaced the 40GB drive with a 80GB one, and I format and reinstall once a year. And this year I'll replace the battery, which has about 60% of its former capacity.

And its still speedy and I'll definitely get at least another year out of it.

It helps that its recently been relegated as my secondary computer, for 2.5 years it was my only computer, but now it sits next to my AMD dual core with 4GB of ram and four hard disks :)

My rule of thumb, dont upgrade until you find yourself yelling "COME ONNNNN" at your computer.

Steve Mitchell, Photographer

	West Palm Beach \| FL \| United States \| Posted: 7:42 PM on 10.29.06
	->> Every six months

Stanley Leary, Photographer

Roswell | GA | USA | Posted: 7:48 PM on 10.29.06

->> I am trying a new approach, replacing the hard drive after 24 months. Bought the kit which you just duplicate everything onto an external and then swap the drives. Went from a 60 gig to a 120 gig.

I think this will hold me potentially for 2 more years, but I will most likely upgrade in the next 12 months.

While I would like to just upgrade all the time, it isn't the best to continue to create more overhead costs than necessary. Upgrading cameras and laptops every 2 years is quite expensive.

Allan Campbell, Photographer, Assistant

	Portland \| OR \| \| Posted: 7:56 PM on 10.29.06
	->> I have a G4 powerbook maxed out on Ram when my company bought it in October of 04. The case is warped, sound comes and goes, but it is still running well. I would like to upgrade but probably will not be able to until this one dies.

Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer

Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 8:09 PM on 10.29.06

->> I generally will try to buy a $1000 laptop every two years. By shopping judiciously, I can get a model with "better than average" features at the time of purchase, but that still has some resale value or other use two years later.

For example, a couple of months ago I got a new laptop with a Core Duo processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 15.4 wide-glossy (I'm one of the ones who likes those) screen, and 120GB hard drive for $999. Two years from now, MS might have the bugs worked out of Vista and Adobe will have a 64-bit version of PhotoShop for it and I'll be ready to upgrade again.

Al Santos, Photographer

	Silver Spring \| MD \| USA \| Posted: 11:25 PM on 10.29.06
	->> I've had my Ibook G4 for two and half years and it has been great. I am only upgrading to a Macbook pro because my work is footing the bill, otherwise I would keep using my Ibook until it dies.

Jeff Gritchen, Photographer

	Long Beach \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 11:35 PM on 10.29.06
	->> I have a Aluminum Powerbook G4 1.25 ghz thats about 3 years old Here a hint that works wonders for speeding up my Mac. About once a year I completly erase the hard drive, reinstall the OS and all the software fresh - of course I back up all my data first. Its amazing how much faster my computer runs after its reborn. It usually takes a whole day to do it - but its worth it.

D. Ross Cameron, Photographer

Oakland | CA | USA | Posted: 1:21 AM on 10.30.06

->> Dave Barry of the Miami Herald wrote a column some years back that spoke to this constant "planned obsolescence" that's epidemic in the high-tech world.

Go into your local computer superstore, he wrote, and pick out the fastest, RAM-rich, huge-displayed state-of-the-art laptop in the store. Take it to the checkout counter, pay $3,500 for it, then walk outside, throw it in the Dumpster and go directly back into the store and pick out the newer, faster, more efficient model that came out while you were in the parking lot.

I've had mine since 2000. It works -- slowly, but it works.

Don't give in to the gadget monster.

Recalcitrantly,
DRC

Jeff Stanton, Photographer

Tucson | Az | USA | Posted: 1:45 AM on 10.30.06

->> I bought an iBook G4 in May 2004. I loved that machine. But in two years and one month, it had a hard drive failure, the CD rom stopped working and the logic board failed twice. That was enough for me.

I bought a Dell.

I'm not saying I won't ever buy another Apple product, but those items I described should last longer than two years. The first logic board went after seven months. The warranty was still good on the machine.

The hard drive i ended up replacing at my own cost. The CD rom was never fixed. After the second logic board failure, the warranty had expired by then and Apple quoted me a price of $475 including shipping to replace the second logic board.

Guy Rhodes, Photographer

	East Chicago \| IN \| USA \| Posted: 1:50 AM on 10.30.06
	->> Whenever it gets stolen at X Games.

Kristin Nichols, Student/Intern, Photographer

Gainesville | FL | USA | Posted: 8:22 AM on 10.30.06

->> Jeff -

I've had the same iBook issues. My current G4 is actually my second - my first, a G3, had to have its logic board replaced twice and I ended up selling it when the hard drive started going bad. This current one has had its logic board replaced once and now the firewire port doesn't work - and its warranty was up about two weeks ago. I can get by w/ the USB ports but they're somewhat slow and annoying when I'm trying to ingest several gb of photos at halftime. I think the iBooks have a history of these issues that the rest of the Mac lineup isn't necessarily known for, though. I mean - I did only pay $700 for the thing and it doesn't exactly get the royal treatment from me.

I had a Dell too - never again - talk about a clunker. But again, the cheapest Inspiron model they had - I guess you get what you pay for. At least with Apple you don't have to spend three hours on the phone with Bangladesh before having the opportunity to have a non-scripted conversation with someone who knows tech support. But that's a whole other rant.

Bastian Ehl, Photographer

	Magdeburg \| _ \| Germany \| Posted: 9:06 AM on 10.30.06
	->> Every two years.

Jim Colburn, Photographer, Photo Editor

	Omaha \| NE \| USA \| Posted: 10:24 AM on 10.30.06
	->> "I'm using a G4 iBook that I've had for a little over a year now and I feel like it's really starting to show its age" How? If you're running more or bigger programs have you maxed out the RAM? If you're running out of disk space have you thought about having a bigger hard drive installed?

Kristin Nichols, Student/Intern, Photographer

Gainesville | FL | USA | Posted: 1:03 PM on 10.30.06

->> "How?"

Well... for one, the logic board is having issues (again) - the firewire port no longer works and the USB ones are starting to act iffy sometimes, too. And some of the keyboard's keys are taking a vacation when I seem to need them most. (This young "im ebow" fellow makes frequent appearances on my screen after football games.)

Plus, it's just... sluggish. I suppose wiping the hard drive and only reinstalling what I really need would help clear up some space and get it running a bit faster, but as it is now, with the RAM maxed out and me making a valiant effort to keep several GB free on the HD, it just runs pretty slow. It's fine for one-off photo editing when I've got plenty of time to work, but it does get old when I have to sit and wait 20 seconds for it to bring up the next frame in Photo Mechanic or when Photoshop takes 2 minutes to load an image.

At this point, I just wonder - with the logic board needing repair (again) and wishing I had more HD space so I don't have to constantly fight to keep some free - if it isn't time to upgrade instead of paying those costs. And this is what happened last year - seemed more economically feasible to pay for a new machine that had those features (more space, more RAM capacity, working ports) standard instead of as an upgrade/repair to my current one.

Ron Erdrich, Photographer

Abilene | TX | USA | Posted: 2:08 PM on 10.30.06

->> If it is a hardware issue and not system-related, then you probably should get a new laptop. If it were me, I would stay away from the consumer-targeted machines like the MacBook and go for the MacBook Pro or simply an older Powerbook.

I've got a 2000 400 mhz G3 Pismo Powerbook that I have used since 2001. It ran OS X great and I sent it to Daystar about two years ago to have the processor upgraded to a G4 550, maxed out the RAM and put in a 7200 60 gig hard drive.

It worked great for about a year until heat killed the disc. I bought an 80 gig 7200 hard drive to replace it and haven't had any problems since.

I figured out that my heat issues were coming from the fact that I never let my screen go to sleep, I would just leave the screensaver mode on. Those Daystar chips do run hotter than the G3 processor did, but I haven't nocticed any problems since I replaced the drive a year ago.

You can buy those Pismos at Powerbookguy.com for $300-$400 right now if you're interested in a good beater computer. Mine works great with OS X 10.4 and CS2, but you could easily do everything you need to do as a photographer using 10.3, Photoshop 7 and Photo Mechanic 3.

If it is a software issue, you might try Diskwarrior or find a IT person who specializes in Macintosh computers. My cousin runs his own IT company in San Francisco and has lots of experience with Mac systems.

http://flavortech.net/index.html

-Ron-

Jim Colburn, Photographer, Photo Editor

Omaha | NE | USA | Posted: 6:08 PM on 10.30.06

->> "the logic board is having issues (again) - the firewire port no longer works and the USB ones are starting to act iffy sometimes, too"

That sounds like major stuff the needs repair. If there's that much wrong, and it hasn't been repaired under warranty, then bite the bullet and get something new. If you didn't get the Apple Care package remember to get it next time. You can get a new MacBook Pro with 2Gb of RAM, a 120Gb HD and Apple Care for around $2500.

A new MacBook with similar specs (except for the 13 inch screen Vs. the 15 inch screen) is around $2100 so if you can afford the extra $$$ go for the Pro.

Since you're a student you can also take advantage of Apple's education discount and get the Pro for $2200.

Wesley R. Bush, Photographer

	Nashville \| TN \| U.S. \| Posted: 7:39 PM on 10.30.06
	->> As infrequently as possible. Usually when I start having too many issues or if it's no longer fast enough to handle my needs. Otherwise, why waste the money? You can spend yourself to death trying to update things that still work.

Richard Wolowicz, Photographer

	Brossard \| QC \| Canada \| Posted: 9:45 PM on 10.30.06
	->> I was in the same boat as Jeff Stanton ... my G3 iBook got the famed logic board thing. I had it for 2 years. Posting for the first time on my new Dell Dual Core2 with the big shiny screen. Still having to get used to the dual button touch-pad but, this thing is grease lightning fast.

David Seelig, Photographer

	Hailey \| ID \| USA \| Posted: 12:22 AM on 10.31.06
	->> 3 to 4 years m y 550 g4 was upgraded witha dvd burner and a bigger harddrive. Now I have a mac pro book hopefully it will last as long. I have wall street before that

Corey Perrine, Photographer

	Hudson \| NH \| USA \| Posted: 12:27 AM on 10.31.06
	->> I'm on a PowerBook G4 1.25ghz I just upgraded the DDR RAM to 1.25GB and it's fast enough for my needs. I plan to max out the RAM in a year to 2GB then after one more year, ditch it. Playing the computer technology game is just too crazy to keep up with the latest model. More power to you if you can keep up.

Corey Perrine, Photographer

	Hudson \| NH \| USA \| Posted: 1:31 AM on 10.31.06
	->> Oh yeah, it's three years old and I'd like to ride it out five years.

George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor

	Washington \| DC \| USA \| Posted: 8:34 AM on 10.31.06
	->> Whenever the boss says "You're getting a new laptop."

Dave Amorde, Photographer

	Lake Forest \| CA \| USA \| Posted: 11:14 AM on 10.31.06
	->> Whenever one of my kids says "Dad, I need a computer for school!". They get my old one, and I reward myself for raising another teenager by getting the latest and greatest. I always knew having kids would be rewarding.

Kyle Edwards, Photographer

Orinda | Ca | USA | Posted: 2:38 PM on 11.02.06

->> My iBook G4 from 2004 hasn't had one problem (living in a developing country...Tonga for two years). I installed a larger HD and hacked the NVRAM to use two displays. Works Great. I won't be getting another laptop. I do not need portability like I did.
I'm looking at the 24 iMac once PS is native...

I do recommend reinstalling at least once a year. In the last two years I've done it 3 times...

Melissa Wade, Photographer

New York | NY | USA | Posted: 2:48 PM on 11.02.06

->> Hmm, I thought Macs were perfect and never had problems :-). I just ordered an extra 1gb of RAM for my Fujitsu to get atleast another year out of it (not quite 2 years old). I will likely upgrade it when a significant speed increase is available as it works just fine; it's my patience and workflow that has issues.

For anyone ordering on the PC side atleast, if you aren't going to order the maximum RAM allowed up front (I went with 1gb while 2gb is the limit), atleast spend a little extra to get all that you do order as one piece so that you can add more later without having to dump some.

Greg Ferguson, Photographer

Scottsdale | Az | USA | Posted: 3:00 PM on 11.02.06

->> My original G4 Aluminum PB ran until I fried the drive. I replaced it, and used it until the hinges froze after about four years. I'd worn the finish off it in so many places it was down to the base metal.

Now it sits on a shelf with my Airport and printers and acts as my desktop machine, with a 20" LCD monitor attached to it, along with an external keyboard and mouse and acts as a server to our other Macs. I still do a large percentage of my editing on it.

For travel I replaced it with a 15" G4 iBook about two years ago. That's what I'm typing on right now. It's regularly coated with dust from our rodeo work, and gets banged around (in the case) when we're packing and traveling. (I went with the iBook because I wouldn't feel so bad when it was covered with dust.)

My wife's G4 12" PB is about three years old. It had its CD burner replaced after it ingested too much dust after about 1.5 years. It got retired from active duty displaying to customers when the iBook came along, and now is her main machine for our business. And, at night when we're on the road, it doubles as our DVD player for watching movies. It's also got a permanent curve to the base of it from getting squished by something heavy during travel, but it keeps on a' tickin'.

Laptops and portables are more prone to failure due to the way they're treated. If they were left on a shelf or table and never moved they'd last a lot longer, but that would defeat the purpose of having them. They're more expensive because their components are smaller and require less power, not because they're more robust.

And, my laptop is the one piece of equipment I'll pay to get an extended warranty - they're subject to too much abuse. If you've ever priced the replacement cost of an LCD you'll see why.

Oscar Sosa, Photographer

Jacksonville | FL | USA | Posted: 4:14 PM on 11.02.06

->> I use mine until it dies and then I fix it. I've got a 400 Mhz G-4 Titianium Powerbook. I also have a G-3 500 Mhz iBook. Both work great and do everything I need them to do. I bought the iBook in 2001 and I got the Powerbook used in 2005. I use them to transmit to client FTP sites and check e-mail, some web surfing. As of right now I have no reason to upgrade.

So to answer your question: When the laptop I have no longer does the job I need it to do. At this point it seems that I upgrade every 3-5 years.

Ron Scheffler, Photographer

Hamilton (Toronto area) | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 6:21 PM on 11.02.06

->> The new Intel Mac laptops run circles around the G4 line. That was enough for me. I went from an iBook G3 in late 2001 to a G4 in August 2005 (though still have the G3) then got the MacBook as soon as it came out this year. I was trying to stretch out the G3 as long as possible but just couldn't cope with it's slowness. Photo Mechanic on the MacBook is so much faster than the G4!

Someone mentioned they prefer to avoid the consumer line of Mac laptops. I'm the opposite. The MacBook has (had) the same processor as the Pro and just lacking some oomph in the graphics department... so, if you're not running Aperture or want to play games, the Pro is overkill (and too big). For me the laptop is a temporary storage device needed for some editing in the field. I'd rather spend the extra money on a pro tower.

I'd say another deciding factor is my current digital camera. When I bought the iBook G3 I was using the 4 MP 1D and editing in Photo Mechanic was OK. Once I moved up to the 8 MP Mark II, the G3 was way too slow. I couldn't even imagine using it with 16 MP 1Ds Mark II files.

And try to keep more than just a few GB clear on the hard drive. All of the apps use a lot of virtual memory and therefore need more disk space than you realize. At least with the MacBook it's super easy to change/upgrade to a larger internal drive. Not so with the iBook.

Alan Carroll, Photographer

Sheridan | WY | United States | Posted: 4:00 PM on 11.04.06

->> Ron I'm with you. I'm still running my G3 Pismo, but I've been reluctant to do a processor upgrade on it (I don't want to ship it off to have the conversion done). I've replaced the drive twice now, the keyboard once and upgraded to a CD-RW drive. It has served me well all these years. But it is getting long in the tooth. There is some stuff out there I'd like to run that won't work on a G3 processor...

But I must say, it is the easiest laptop to work on that I've encountered and there are a lot of spare parts on eBay. It has been the best hardware investment I've ever made...

Alan

Erin Schrad, Photographer, Assistant

Glen Allen | VA | United States | Posted: 9:06 PM on 11.09.06

->> Well, let's see... back when I was a PC user... ::shudder:: ... my laptops lasted about 18 months before pretty much self-destructing. I truly believe that Windows is programmed to eat itself. Over time, for no reason at all, necessary system files would just start to disappear and Windows would greet me daily with the dreaded blue screen of death. I am a pretty saavy computer geek and did everything I could to keep those things running, but they still seemed to age quickly.

Half-way through college I became an art/design major and I bought my very first Powerbook... a G3 Lombard. I believe I had that for about 3 years before I upgraded, with the main reason for doing so being the arrival of OS X. (It still had life, so I sold it for $600 to a musician in California who wanted to use it to record live shows and make CDs.)

My second Mac was a TiBook, which was great (except for some flaking paint). I had it for about 18 months, and the only reason I sold it was because work finally ponied up to buy me a computer (yep, that's right, for 2 years I used my own computer at work). I sold the TiBook to a photographer who was going to be working in Antarctica constructing buildings at the bases down there and he wanted to be able to edit the photos he would take while there.

As I said, work bought my third Mac, a 1.25 GHz PowerBook G4. It is 39 months old now and still plugging along, but has just been replaced this week by a new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. After getting the screen replaced on the PBG4 because of the white spot issue, AirPort reception was never quite the same. It made it really difficult while traveling to get online at hotels... I pretty much had to be in the same room as a wireless router to pick up a signal. Also, starting a couple months ago, I could barely keep the thing powered. The AC-in card has gotten loose inside the computer and it takes an elaborate setup to position the plug just so so that it powers the laptop, which doesn't make for a very portable machine anymore. So I held out as long as I could so I could get the Core 2 Duo chip.

My philosophy is to buy the most you can, so I get the fastest processor available, the bigger hard drive, usually more RAM (although not directly from Apple), and so on. This way my computers last a long time, with specs that survive through future software release requirements. And I feel like my Apple's run just as good when they are replaced as they did when I bought them... the newest software may tax the processor a little more than the software of 3 years ago, and the full to overflowing hard drive slows things down a bit... but they don't crash on me and they definitely are still useful.

Now that I have a new computer to keep working on, I can see about sending in the old one to get its issues fixed, and then it will be fine for a possible additional employee or for my brother to use for his music (work will let me buy it for $25!!!).

Tony Donaldson, Photographer

Los Angeles | CA | USA | Posted: 1:23 PM on 11.10.06

->> Guy, I marked yours funny, but still feel your pain on that one.

I buy a new computer every year or two, alternating desktops and portables with each purchase (e.g. one year a laptop, next year a desktop). I generally replace hard drives every year, something newer and higher capacity comes out, AND so far I've only had two drive failures, and they had already been backed up. I've upgraded optical drives on desktops and portables alike. Rule of thumb for new purchase is when you discover you can't live without more speed or other capabilities, or if some technology in your current model will be outdated and no longer supported (e.g. eventually code won't be written for PPC Macs), or if yours has a nagging problem that's more expensive to fix than buying a new one.

Jeremy Drey, Photographer

Reading | PA | USA | Posted: 2:11 PM on 11.10.06

->> This thread could get longer but I still thought I'd add my two cents for whoever actually reads all the posts, besdies Kristin of course.

One month ago I bit the bullett and bought a new MacBookPro. LOVE IT. But in doing so I had to put down my college workhorse the original 667 Mhz Powerbook TI. I had upgraded the RAM to its max about halfway through college and had continued upgrading the OS every month or so after the new one had come out. By the end of it Thor (I'm a loser and name my computers) was running slow, but still functional.

End of story mine lasted 4.5 years before I really needed a new one. Someone had said and had been seconded about doing a clean install every so often, and I will third or fourth that notion. Never ceases to amaze how much faster everything runs all of a sudden when the bits are reordered!

-Jeremy
(the MBP is named Spartacus for those wondering)

Oscar Sosa, Photographer

	Jacksonville \| FL \| USA \| Posted: 12:30 PM on 11.11.06
	->> Jeremy, I bought a used Power Mac 7600 from a therapist several years ago. I'd be happy to give you his number. I think he can help. In the meantime, don't use anything with sharp edges and try not to name your furniture.

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