I have recently upgraded from a 266MHz WallStreet (192MB RAM) to a 500MHz Pismo (640MB RAM).
This has allowed me to switch to OS X full time. On the WallStreet Mac OS X was rock solid, but the video performance was just good enough to run all the eye candy in the OS X Finder. I was booted in OS X only about 5% of the time. For the Lombard, like the WallStreet, the hardware acceleration in the graphics chip is not fully supported in OS X, so you shouldn't expect too much in graphics performance if running OS X. My expensive, WallStreet expansion bay hard drive has now been replaced with a much cheaper FireWire external drive. You have got to love the plug and play ease of FireWire over SCSI - no rebooting to add/remove the drive. Of course, there is no FireWire on the Lombard. I am now running OS X 99% of the time, wirelessly networked with an internal Airport card - definitely a Wow factor to my non-Apple-loving friends - Look, no wires! The only downside has been a slight flaw my Pismo's LCD display, which seems to be a manufacturing fault in a small percentage of Pismos - the Pink Screen of Death. There is a slight pink area in the bottom left corner of the screen, visible when viewing a window with a white background. This is particularly annoying as I always seem to be looking at the bottom left of the screen when reading emails (long digests such as G-Books). If I turn the brightness down to preserve battery life, this pink area extends to most of the display :-( As a consequence, the battery life on my Pismo is only just over 2 hours in OS X because I am always operating on full brightness. This is only a few minutes longer than my WallStreet on battery power, running OS 9 at low brightness. However, last week I had the need to use to use the WallStreet to boot OS 8.1 and some foreign OS 9 systems from my expansion bay drives. I was surprised at how snappy OS 9 is on the WallStreet. It actually seemed faster than the Pismo! Maybe because they were all uncluttered, vanilla OS installs... Other than this, the LCD on the Pismo is much brighter and sharper than the WallStreet. The Pismo also comes with an OS X capable DVD drive, whereas the WallStreet and Lombard DVD modules, if you have one, are not supported in OS X. I have kept my WallStreet now for 3 months, watching on eBay as its secondhand value decreases. I can't bear to part with this trusty old friend. (It's been that long that I've almost forgotten how to reset the Power Management Unit on the Wall Street - the problem occurred when I drained the batteries completely and was away from a mains adapter.) The WallStreet may actually have better build quality - it feels more rugged. But the Pismo has all the modern ports - FireWire, USB, 100BaseT ethernet, Airport slot - the power to run OS X and it is a little slimmer and lighter. I would definitely recommend the Pismo rather than pouring money into upgrading a WallStreet. But, if you do not need Mac OS X, the WallStreet is quite capable in its stock configuration - just max the RAM and fit a larger hard drive. If you are using apps like PhotoShop, I think that a Pismo is better value than a WallStreet upgrade. Just my tuppence... (2p is currently the 2nd smallest coin in the, Euro-free, UK) Mike On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 12:32, Pat said: >I am thinking of buying a new Powerbook, currently I have a >Wallstreet series 292 mhz. I am thinking of getting either >the 400 or 500 mhz pismo. Will the ram I just purchased work >in the Pismo? What are some opinions on the Pismo? Or should >I go with the Lombard? -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
