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The Apple Certified Refurbished 17" PowerBook G4 1.33 MHz I bought in February, 2006 is now 30 months old (in its service life); elderly for the average computer as a front-line machine, and historically, I've rarely lasted much beyond this point before the itch to upgrade systems overcomes me.

I decided back in '06 buy one more PowerPC 'Book rather than taking the plunge with a then just-introduced MacBook Pro, consistent with my "never buy Version 1/Revision A of anything conviction, and I ended up ordering a refurbished 1.33 GHz 17-inch PowerBook from TechRestore.

Over the past 30 months, the 17" PowerBook has been a reliable performer, with zero hardware problems to report. If a computer ever epitomized the old Apple "It just works!" slogan, this machine is it. Upgrading through several versions of OS 10.4 Tiger to OS 10.4.11 was painless with no issues or problems encountered. However, OS 10.5 Leopard, which I installed last November, has been a somewhat different story - not a disaster, and I've continued to use it, almost immediotely hooked by two features in particular - Spaces and Time Machine - as well as smaller improvements like the smarter spellchecker, QuickLook, and somewhat improved Spotlight performance - but there have been frustrations as well, which have not entirely been addressed by the three updates so far. POP 3 email performance in particular remains dismal, and the old, 1.33 GHz G4 processor really works for a living trying to keep up with Leopard's demands. I also miss not having Classic Mode suooirt, although not nearly as much as I thought I would.