I am also in the same consideration. Any help on this would be great. Also, is there a significant performance increase? Say the same increase in going from a 4200 to a 5400? Beca…

I'm curious about the performance increase too? I know a 7200 will be faster than a 5400, but is it "worth the $200" snappier?

I posted a thread awhile back all about the 100GB 7200rpm drive, comparing it to the 5400rpm drive, and providing links to pages online that compare them. The brief version is tha…

I just ordered it. I'll let you know I've also heard that it actually makes marginal difference. But, if it's <10% battery power, I'll take a 10% increase in speed and product…

7200RPM drives have a higher idle power consumption, but the active power consumption is only a tiny bit higher. In both cases, it's not going to make a huge difference in real use…

iomatic: I hear newegg is a good place to buy RAM. Without a specific link, I can't tell if the RAM you're looking at is the same as the RAM in the Powerbook. So the speed is sli…

tooki > can you elaborate on this a bit? Does this mean the 7200 would eat up more battery when the HD is not doing anything? That sounds really bad! When you say the differen…

Quote: Originally Posted by Fusion I have a 100gb 5400 drive in my powerbook right now, and I am very impressed with the performance. In ordering the new one, I was immediately …

Quote: Originally Posted by iomatic What I want to know is, can you use the 533MHz RAM that's only available through dealram and pricegrabber? Yes. No problem. Although it…

The difference in power draw is tiny. Below are the power numbers for Hitachi drives, but they should be similar for other brands Hitachi 5K100 (5400RPM): Startup (peak, max.) 5.…

Wow, that's an extremely helpful post, Mark. I hope your numbers are right. But I've read your posts before and found them informative. I'm still nervous about pulling the trigger.

When I said it was negligible, I meant negligible. Like 5 minutes total, if that. CPU usage is going to make a far bigger difference, as will screen brightness and wireless usage. …

You people rock. I am going to go for the 100GB, 7200-rpm hard drive. I will be using the fastest Powerbook ever. OK, I admit that it's not that fast, but I'm still excited. Thanks…

Thank you guys so much for the informative posts! tooki or mduell > You mentioned the speed differences were going to be noticed on seek/random read/write, but not much on read…

I would say that browsing in finder and launcing applications would be the two things that gain most from a faster hard drive. At least that is my experience from using other compu…

Why? Quote: Originally Posted by Lundh …. What I would like to know for sure before buying a 7200 2.5" drive is that it not is an Hitachi.

I know Dell uses the Hitachi 7K100 100GB (HTS721010G9AT00) 7200rpm HD. I don't know how it is but I'm hoping Apple is using the Seagate Momentus 100gb 7200rpm hard drive. Check ou…

striker100 is right, read the barefeats.com benchmarks, which are very informative. Noise levels are also listed. If I were buying, I'd be taking the HD upgrade $$ and sticking it…

Battery performance: Anyone wonder what voodoo would produce "better battery performance" when both the previous model and the present model have 50 watt-hour batteries? Well, che…

I have the new 15" and it gets about 45 minutes more battery life than my old 15" Powerbook. If your concerned buy an extra battery.

iomatic: Look at the benchmark striker100 posted, that is the reason I don't want a Hitachi. Seagates 5400 drives are just as fast and consumes less power.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lundh iomatic: Look at the benchmark striker100 posted, that is the reason I don't want a Hitachi. Seagates 5400 drives are just as fast and consumes…

Humor warning: don't read if you're laugh-impaired. You know how the ROKR itunes phone is getting bad reviews, how people are suggesting glueing a Shuffle or Nano to your present …

Quote: Originally Posted by Lundh iomatic: Look at the benchmark striker100 posted, that is the reason I don't want a Hitachi. Seagates 5400 drives are just as fast and consumes…

I read that report. However, they don't have the 100GB 7200rpm Hitachi tested, nor do we know which drives will be shipping with the new PowerBooks-- actually I think some of stock…