Morgan and I have had some fun comparing the speed of the MacBook Pro 1.83 core duo with my 1.67 GHz Powerbook. We haven’t been timing it, but the MacBook definitely boots faster, and many apps, such as iCal, Safari, and Garageband launch faster.
Side-by-side, the two machines look almost identical. The screen on the Mac Book Pro is a little brighter than the screen on the 1.67 GHz Powerbook.
Even with the faster speed of the Mac Book Pro, I still favor the Powerbook. The Powerbook has a built-in modem, regular sized PCMCIA card slot, and firewire 800. Of these options, I use firewire 800 the most. Also, the Powerbook runs Final Cut Pro and the Adobe Creative Suite natively. FCP will be updated to a Universal version at the end of the month. The Adobe CS might not be updated until next year.
We have about 250 refurbished 1.67 GHz Powerbooks in stock. Once these sell out, it’s hard to know when we’ll get more, as they’ve been discontinued by Apple. I’ll eventually upgrade to the Mac Book Pro. For now, I still feel spoiled by the 1.67 GHz Powerbook.