When I purchased my Powerbook G4 1.67GHz 128VRAM in February 2006, I had looked at the MacBook Pro and could not make up my mind as to which one was the best choice. So I made a side-by-side comparison of pros and cons.  

Other than the lack of universal binaries for all the apps that I already had and the lack of modem port (which comes handy when you want to fax a document from your laptop), one of the big turn-offs for me on the new MacBook Pro was the absence of the Firewire 800 port. Uhh I couldn’t cope with that. 

The Powerbook G4 was the only laptop out there with the Firewire 800 port, currently the fastest port that exists. It comes very handy when you need to backup 80GB or more of data quickly; it is twice as fast as the USB 2.0 port. I have been so spoiled with the power of this port for three years now (considering I switched to Mac only 3 years ago and yes, Apple already had the Firewire 800 port on their desktops). 

To come to the point, I was looking at the features of the new MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo and realized that Apple silently brought back the Firewire 800 port the 15 inch models. What great news! The power of Firewire 800 is now back in our hands. I am still a little turned off by the lack of modem port though. I would not want to pay extra for that USB modem.

Another year and there will be no more need for the PowerPC based machine as most of the developers would have released the universal binaries of their applications. And choosing an Intel-based Mac will not longer be a difficult choice to make. 

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