I just upgraded from a 1.25GHz 15-inch PowerBook to the new 1.67GHz model and I ran into a few issues and surprises. Read more…
I just upgraded from a 1.25GHz 15-inch PowerBook to the new 1.67GHz model and I ran into a few issues and surprises.
First, the memory bay is smaller on the new machine and my 1GB memory strips from the old model will not fit in the lower slot of the new machine.
Second, AirPort Extreme is now really “built-in” and gone is the access door in the battery bay, hopefully I will never have to replace this card.
Third, the internal modem is of a different type. The old modem, according to System Profiler was called “LastDash” with driver “InternalUSBModem.kext (v2.6.3).” The new modem is called “Jump” with driver “MotorolaSM56K.kext (v1.2.0).”
Why do I care? Well, after many trips round the world I found it necessary to hack some modem scripts to allow for slow dialing and also to make the modem ignore busy signals (this is accomplished by adding X1 to the dialing string). Japanese hotel rooms have an internal dial tone which sounds just like “busy” to the modem. None of my hacked modem scripts worked on the new modem so I had to hack some more 🙂
I do like the new backlighting of the keyboard, this is much improved over the previous model. Also, having a 100G hard drive is nice and hopefully the Sudden Motion Sensor will save me from disaster at some point in the future.