Although anyone can walk thu practically any parking lot and witness the various dings, I marvel at your sheer luck. I would not be so ready to laugh at those who are more careful. It just takes one time...

What is your statement? What's funny?
I'm not getting the joke.

At this point the hard drive has been completely replaced by a different 40GB drive. The machine would lock up when coming out of sleep. The display would show the screen with everything minus the mouse cursor. I presume might have been causing the problem, since the trackpad was bent when the aluminum above it had been peirced. The display and entire computer would then appear frozen for about 45 seconds. Any attempts to say, change the volume or screen brightness via the keyboard would not actually take affect until immediately after the machine unfroze.

After pounding the dent out the freezing had stopped, but I do think that my wireless range has been reduced because now I can't see some basestations that are only 30-40ft away indoors. Oddly enough I can still connect to a belkin router almost 100ft away at my dad's house on the other side of town.

Nice laptop. I've always loved that model. The screen glare is a little worse than I would have imagined, but it appears to still be usable.

'shame we can't run OS X on it.

I agree, the aluminium is not robust.

That said, I have a 17" that was given to me by my boss, after I drooled on it. No, really, I remarked how I would like one, and she said...I'll get you one. I thought, yeah, right, I'll believe it when I see it.

Then she dropped it one day, broke the screen in half, pretty nasty damage.

She got it fixed, gave it to me, and got herself a 12" Powerbook. The 17" was just too heavy for her small hands to even pull out of the bag.

When I walk around with this thing, I treat it like a carton of eggs, and a carton that can be scratched by breathing on it. I would love to be able to just toss it on a counter, but...I love the looks of it too much!

How were the old Titanium Powerbooks? Any more robust than the Alumininum?

they could take knocks better but prone to scratches, scuffs, chips. early models chipped really bad on the hinges and frame. tibooks seemed much more structurally sound from my experience (i've owned two) but i always babied them and they were perfect when i sold them.

I still have my 400 mHz model, been pampered from day one. I have always had it in a Kamas Powerbook stand when using at home and have kept the keyboard covered to keep dust off. [Although the screen is nowhere near as bright as that of the iMac G5 beside it, the brightness seems to actually have benefitted from the recent 10.3.9 update. Tiger is next...]

I would love to know if any of those custom paint jobs that have been documented on the web over the years have held up better than the original factory paint. In other words, is Titanium by nature a material that paint has trouble sticking to, or is the problem with these the kind of paint used by Apple?

Although the Titanium model was very cool, I'd like to see Apple move all their high-end laptops to the same kind of white plastic housing that the iBooks currently have. It seems strong enough, and with minimal effort/care, should look good for a long time too.

The AlBooks definitely dent easy. Frankly, I don't think I've seen a single model over a year old that DOESN'T have some form of denting. Alternatively, the TiBooks just cracked, scratched, and broke so I suppose we've upgraded to SOME degree. ;-)

Not going to comment on your specific dent/friend, but I see these things come in for service all the time, have owned both Powerbook and iBooks, and have DEFINITELY found the iBooks to be more durable than the Powerbooks.

If you're looking for maximum durability and don't mind the performance/functionality hit, the iBooks are a pretty good deal.