PowerBooks & iBooks Get Speed Bumped 751
Currawong writes "Apple has, as rumors predicted, speed bumped its line of portables. The PowerBooks now come in 1.33 and 1.5Ghz G4 versions, including either NVidia 5200's or Radeon 9700 video hardware. The iBooks can now be had at 1 or 1.2Ghz with Radeon 9200 video included. All can be purchased at the Apple Store. This complements nicely the recent speed and feature increases on the eMac range."
Good news! (Score:3, Interesting)
The prohibitive price is still a bottleneck for me though.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good news! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Go price out a PC notebook with all the bells and whistles in an apple. then compare prices. The apple will be less expensive when it comes to bang for your buck.
Re:Good news! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, go price out a PC notebook with all the bells and whistles that you want. What if you don't need firewire? Most people don't. What if you don't need wi-fi? What if you do need a serial port? A parallel port? USB adapters don't solve these issues all the time either.
The only time it makes sense to stuff a PC full of all the specific bells and whistles that an Apple comes with is A) for someone who needs the exact feature set
Re:Good news! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, sure, most people have absolutely no need to use the most popular digital music player [ipod.com] of the world.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, the humanity. Think of the legacy hardware! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you saying you don't think a DVD burner can read DVDs? Are you saying you don't realize that set-top DVD players can be had for $35 at Kmart? Are you just afraid of the DVD standard because you love VHS so much?
No parallel or serial port? That means I'd have to throw out all of my hardware and buy new stuff.
What ghetto hardware do you have that needs parallel and serial ports?? You'd better say $30,000 medical-imaging systems or something, because unless your hardware is highly specialized (or essential for business but not produced in a modern version), you're at serious risk of being branded a silly Luddite. Personally, the last printer I bought that didn't have a USB port was the one I got in 1999. Next one was combo (USB+parallel) and thereafter, they're USB-only. Last serial device was an old Palm cradle (that's $30 to replace by the way, but my current Palm came with USB only.
iTunes? I've got Winamp. It's free.
I've got iTunes. It's free too. And it's better--it does everything the paid version of Winamp does (in terms of audio; QT does the video stuff), for free.
Silly troll.
Most peolpe don't want and/or need all of that stuff, and certainly don't want to pay for it.
Correction: Most people want or need most of that stuff, and obviously many are willing to pay for it. Some people want actual modern technology on their laptops! And the only thing Wintel laptops can offer that is cheaper than a similarly-outfitted PowerBook or iBook is CELERON! Sorry, that's unacceptable to me. Celeron is just plain pathetic and I will never own a Celeron-based machine of any kind. Celeron laptops are for people who want to say they have a laptop and who just want to get on the IntarWeb and run Kazaa in their dorm rooms. Real computers are a totally different market.
Perhaps my entire comment can just be summed up in a revision of yours:
I disagree completely. I have no need for a parallel or serial port. I need DVD authoring. A portable video-editing studio without DVD recording is useless to me. No FireWire or Bluetooth? That means I'd have to throw out half of my hardware and buy cheap, crappy stuff. Winamp Pro [winamp.com]? I've got iTunes [itunes.com]. It's free. The Apple laptops are full of actual modern technology that you (and obviously, not many others) are afraid to adopt. Cheap PC laptops are designed for those with a SERIOUS budget problem, and no real demands for performance. They have their niche, but that's all it is: a niche. Many people want or need a lot of those features, and clearly 711,000 people [apple.com] were willing to pay for it last quarter alone.
Re:Good news! (Score:3, Insightful)
On a PC... you can buy less and therefore pay less but that doesn't make it cheaper... but rather... more configurable.
I've done these comparisons several times... and in every instance, at WORST the Mac comes out even. Rarely does it come out more expensive. With regard to laptops... Apple's laptops alwaays come out less expensive.
Re:Good news! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Interesting)
Mac: 800 MHz FSB
Dell: ATA/100
Mac: SATA
Dell: 100 Mbps Ethernet
Mac: Gigabit Ethernet
Also lacking in the Dell: ports for 802.11g and Bluetooth, FireWire 400 or 800, optical audio I/O ports, AGP 8X, and a capacity of 4 GB of RAM.
You proved the poster's point: yes, you can build a PC that has fewer features and costs less than a Mac. But you can't find a PC that is feature-comparable to a Mac and yet costs significantly less.
(The 1.6 GHz G5 is kind of a waste of money, anyway. It only has room for 4 GB of RAM as opposed to 8 GB in the other G5's, and it doesn't have PCI-X. The 1.8 GHz is a better value.)
Your response here, based on the normal Slashdot way of doing things, should be something along the lines of, "Nobody needs FireWire anyway, 'cause USB is faster." Or something like that.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. But in that case, you're not saving all of that money, are you? You're having to spend it to get what you want.
As for the FSB, the PC has a faster CPU anyway, so the FSB isn't going to catch the Mac up.
Uh...
If things like 8X AGP are really worth $1,000 then buy the Mac. But I think it's a disservice to say Macs are a better value than PCs.
When you buy a Mac, you generally get more stuff--more features, more software, the whole package--for the money. Therefore, by any objective measurement, the Mac is a better value, where value refers to amount of stuff obtained per dollar spent.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is that utility is a function of desired quality.
For me, for example, 3d acceleration has zero utility, while an extremely high-res (I'm eyeing the dell laptop w/ 1920x1200 @17") LCD has a very high utility. Likewise, I prefer MB over MHz, and low weight over internal optical drives.
I think many people who object to apple's prices do so because you may get a lot for your money, but you may not WANT half of it.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Interesting)
That's great and of course not. The valuation of what one purchases is very much subjective to the party involved. To you, it's not a huge premium, to others it is. There is no right or wrong in this case.
"Anyone who believes a bottom of the line Dull is comparable to a Mac workstation deserves exactly what they get when buying said Dull."
A spectacularly impressive argumentative tactic, taking the name of the particular company being argued against and turning it into name calling. This gives about as much credibility to your presentation as someone referring to Apple as Crapple or the Macintosh as the Crapintosh. Just wonderful.
"You're comparing Apples with oranges (or better yet, Apples with crap)."
I've worked with "crappy" Dells and Apples and great ones. It's true!
"add in a OS to compare with OS/X (oops - there aren't any)"
Wonderful. Continue the absurdity by stating that nothing compares to OS/X. Statements like this make a constructive, sensible debate impossible. You sir, are a wall.
"and the other standard software packages (iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, etc., etc.)."
It is wonderful that you like these and see value in them. That said, others do not. Like me for example. Don't care for any of them, particularly iTunes. But that is just my opinion, and in no way is a statement that you to must see it as I do.
"Why can't PC bigots get over the fact that today's Macs are price competitive with PC's?"
What is a PC bigot exactly? A person who sees things differently is a bigot? Here in Canada, Macs are, in my humble opinion, very much competitive with PCs in the laptop area and yet bigot that I am, I still prefer the PC and one of the factors is price, and the other is features. Having said that, other opinions are welcome and not judged, unless of course they offered in oh you unholy unwashed masses sense. Let's take a look at an example or two shall we?
The 17" Powerbook is $3,699.
The 17" Toshiba Satellite P20 is $3499.
Features vary, such a RAM, Firewire ports, etc. but its all down to which one you like better. What's your name for Toshiba? Toshita?
Now as for desktops, I recently upgraded to a P4 2.8Ghz with a Gig of RAM, 800MHz FSB, 36 GIG SATA, Pioneer 107 DVD-R+R, ATI 9600, 120 GIG ATA second drive, new case, external drive enclosure for the CD-ROM, external drive enclosure for a third Hard-Drive (ATA - 80 gig) for $1800.
I can pick up a PowerMac G5 1.6 Ghz (I know, the speed varies across platforms and OS's) for a mere $2499! I find the PC in this case to be a far better deal in this case. Does this make me a PC bigot? Does recommending the new eMac to a client who personally finds using Macs easier make me a bigot as well? My god, just the other day I was praising InDesign and talking about its advantages over Quark (I didn't say Quirk however). I must be an Adobe bigot! Oh the humanity. When will this rampant platformism ever stop?
Very peculiar. Do people actually see other people as defined by their computer system? Are there millions of PC people out there? What sort of clothes do they where? What strange foods do they eat?
Re:Good news! (Score:4, Insightful)
What really makes more sense is to compare what you're trying to do with the computer, and what will work best for you.
For instance, I find my Powerbook is much easier to write on; for whatever reason, Microsoft Office X for the Mac seems cleaner and less clunky than Office XP on my desktop. I also find my Mac is generally easier to do my UNIX development on since I have X11 and gcc right there, and it's a BSD system under the hood. Similarly, playing with music composition and digital editing seem to be easier on my Mac. With the digital audio output, my Powerbook makes a better stereo/DVD player for me in my room as well. I also like that it has great battery life, so I can pop it onto 802.11b mode, and wander around the house with it; it's nice to be able to have the Mac there to look up recipes on wirelessly, or to work on my writing (stored on a network file share) in the kitchen while cooking.
On the other hand, 3D gaming is definitely easier on my Windows box. And I find, for whatever reason, that my Windows box works better for me when I'm doing website dev; probably because I have Opera, IE and Mozilla installed, because I tend to work best in JASC Paint Shop Pro for doing web graphics, and because I find Evrsoft's 1stPage the best 'notepad on steroids' solution for HTML editing, even if it's defunct and no longer supported. And obviously, doing any sort of Windows development is way easier on my PC desktop than my Powerbook!
Does this make one or the other of them better? Not really. I admit I tend to prefer my Mac lately simply because it seems to run faster/smoother for me, and I've been doing a lot of writing. But my PC gets a lot of daily use as well.
Sure, I could've gotten a 'faster' Windows laptop than my Powerbook. But a six-pound little slim thing with 1 gig of RAM, built-in wireless and firewire, and suchnot is not to be sneezed at. I find the large, crisp screen works well for me when I'm traveling and when I'm writing. To
That doesn't mean that's true for everyone else.
Re:Good news! (Score:4, Informative)
The 8600 configured as you speced, except for a 9600Pro w/ SXGA+ screen, and integrated bluetooth is $2,654(they are running a free dvd-burner pro-mo so this will be a little higher after wed). Buying your second stick of 512mb at crucial brings the price down to $2,509
A Powerbook specced similarly, but with a G4 1.5Ghz, a 9700 w/ SXGA+ screen, and a 5400rpm drive is $2,999.00. Buying the second stick at crucial brings the price down to $2,829
The powerbook costs $320 more, pretty close. A sale in the other direction could make the powerbook cheaper.
I want a portable laptop, the 12" powerbook is considerably cheaper than a inspirion 300m, it also has more options.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to evaluate bang for your buck. Apple wins out there.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously to you, if you don't perceive a need for it, then nobody needs it.
You don't get out much, do you? I know a number of people that have gigabit networks in their homes (including mine), much less at work. There are quite a few inexpensive gigabit ethernet switches on the market, including the NetGear GS108 (8 port) for $150 and the GS105 (5 port) for $80.
With gigabit, I can do AFP or SMB transfers at over 50MB/sec which is a good 5x faster than a 100mb network to/from the network file server, and that is w/o jumbo packets.
Even the slow ATA drive in laptop can push 20-30MB/sec, so network performance would benefit from gigabit over fast ethernet. Try pushing around some video clips and you'll appreciate the speed difference.
Re:Good news! (Score:3, Funny)
The prohibitive price is still a bottleneck for me though.''
Try finding a x86 laptop with similar battery life. Then talk to me about prohibitive prices.
I was waiting for Apple to upgrade their iBook line, so I can get the old models cheaper. The timing is almost perfect, as my HP Pavilion N5415 died yesterday after a long period of increasing unusability. Heh, I would never have bought that one if the G3 iBooks had been available
Re:Good news! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good news! (Score:4, Informative)
I do agree, though - I turn the brightess down a lot when I'm not plugged in; I've been sitting here about an hour on battery and I still have >65%.
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I've said this before. [slashdot.org] No, I am not a karma whore. Yes, I want to change some perceptions regarding the Macintosh platform.
(I should add that XPostFacto has broken a couple of things,
(tig)
Damn! Damn! Damn! (Score:5, Funny)
Guess now I will just have to wait for my carbon-fiber, dual G5 PowerBook with fold out twin displays and fuel cell technology battery with 12 hours of life that the rumor sites are talking about.
Re:Damn! Damn! Damn! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damn! Damn! Damn! (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of a speed increase at the same price... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:5, Informative)
You can usually find good deals on older hardware right around the time that they are about to announce a new model. They just don't offer it to everyone through the Apple Store. Instead, I usually see them advertised in the Mac User's Group store and places that other long time customers have a chance at them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer is simple really. Apple would like to maintain their products as objects of desire. Sexy bits of computer art that both inspire lust and allow us to accomplish our work easier and/or faster than ever before, making a difference. To lower the prices would reduce Apple computers to commodity items much like the rest of the Wintel world.
How many Dell, HP, Compaq, graybox etc.... hardware rollouts are greeted with the same kind of fervor that Apple computer hardware announcements inspire?
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the same thing happens with PeeCee/commodity hardware too; try and find a new 10GByte disc for 10GBP, or a new Celeron 500 for 5GBP. This is particularly annoying if you want to put together some ultra-cheap new machines (for an undemanding user such as Aunt Tilly, say) without resorting to the skankiest hardware out there (which is probably sti
Enough nonsense, really (Score:5, Funny)
But what the heck is with all the sexy nonsense? Since when did we start humping Macs and iPods?
"Sexy bits of computer art that both inspire lust..."
Lust?
Sure their products might be sleek and very well designed, but to call them sexy and lusty ALL the time? I'll take good ol' T&A over hardware any day.
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:5, Funny)
Why doesn't BMW sell the 2002 3 series anymore? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, warehousing old graphics cards, HDs, etc costs money and would actually increase Apple's Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). If they then dropped prices, they would have slimmer margins in both directions (lower revenues, higher COGS).
I got my dad to buy a Apple refurb iBook and save $300. It works great, has no physicial defect and as far as I can tell, is identical to a new one with three $100 bills stuck in the DVD/CDR combo drive.
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Instead of a speed increase at the same price.. (Score:4, Informative)
What do you want more -- an Apple and the OS X OS, or a cheap laptop? You can get a desktop eMac NEW for $799. That's a steal. Order one through a school and it's $50 cheaper.
Powerbook for $600? Ha. Not even an iBook.
MAYBE you can find a 700MHz iBook on eBay, used -- or dealmac.com -- for $600. I've seen 500MHz ibooks for sub-500 some months back. These systems are suitable for UNIX or Mac development, which is what I use mine for.
Refurbs are great if you have a warranty.
powerbook improvement (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:powerbook improvement (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder when computers will really flatline. My dad was hired because the local IBM was just starting computers, you know with radio tubes and all. They were always asking "When is it going to stop?" Like, decades ago. So far, it hasn't.
And I honestly don't see much indication that it will. Dual layer DVD? Blue-Ray? Internet connections as fast as local networks today? LCDs taking over for CRTs (still on CRT here)? OLED taking over for LCD? Wireless broadband? ATI and NVidia shoving fps through the roof?
There's so much that hasn't been done yet. I wish a computer from the future would fall out of a time warp or something. Just in my time, I've gone from 64kb -> 1gb of RAM. That's 16,384 times greater. It won't stop there...
Kjella
Parity with the Pentium-M (Score:3, Informative)
all that is needed is a 15 inch and 17 inch G5 model, I was hoping that it would be this summer, perhaps in the fall.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:G5 Laptops (Score:5, Funny)
Re:G5 Laptops (Score:5, Informative)
And really, the need to handle power/heat issues in a laptop may be causing other problems with getting one in a laptop anyway. If they went through the trouble of introducing a speed bump G5 laptops won't be in the next 6 months. In addition, when they do arrive they will probably be only in the high end at first, so if your thinking low-end money range it will probably be longer still.
Re:G5 Laptops (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, the yields on the 970FX are nowhere near high enough yet for them to have enough to satisfy demand for G5 Powerbooks.
I currently use a 15" Albook (1.25GHz G4) as my primary machine. The only time it's ever slow is when I'm doing something complicated in Final Cut Express, or running VirtualPC (which runs at about PII 266MHz speed).
Speedbumped? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that this is just the poster's own term to describe this. Oh well!
Re:Speedbumped? (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "Speed Bump" has been in use in Apple circlessine at least the time the original 8100 PowerPC went from 80 to 100 to 110 Mhz.
Re:Speedbumped? Speed Increase? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps 'road hump' doesn't mean gettin' some in the car anymore.
Re:Speedbumped? (Score:5, Funny)
Hold Over? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple Insider [appleinsider.com]
MacNN [macnn.com]
Pricing (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:G4/G5 benchmarks (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's is something from a post I made somewhere above concerning speed compairisons:
--------
I have the previous version of the 12" PowerBook running at 1ghz and it's noticably faster than my p4 1.5ghz. I'd rate it as feeling about the same as a 2.0ghz p4.
So I'd say the 1.5 would be about a 2.8 or 3.0ghz pentium.
While we're on this topic I'd like to point out that Macs feel much faster than they actually are because of the superb multi tasking and UI response under heavy load.
When I am encoding a video on my Windows machine I can't do anything else on my computer, if I try to click something it takes about 30 seconds for the menu to popup.
On the other hand, my Mac can have 20 apps running and encoding a video at the same time and the UI still responds beautifully.
This is why using a Mac is a great experience, you so rarely get frustrated at it because it just works.
----
FYI it has the same NVidia FX5200 the new ones have and it plays all the current games very well (Except the super high end FPS games like Ut2004...playable but not that enjoyable). Anyway, anyone who intends to do serious gaming on a laptop is a damn fool, even more so on a Mac laptop.
Re:G4/G5 benchmarks (Score:4, Interesting)
Temperature woes (Score:5, Informative)
A caution to anyone who'd likely buy one of these new PowerBooks: may your lap beware!
I own one of the "older" 12" G4 PowerBooks (867 MHz), which I absolutely adore, but it has heat issues. The main heat venting location on the case (that I've found) is the bottom rear of the machine. This means that if you're sitting down with it on your lap and you're wearing shorts, prolonged use (3+ hours) may result in warming to the point of extreme skin discomfort. This isn't usually a problem, though it's something you become aware of after the first couple of times you accidentally scald yourself. With the increase in speed, however, the speedy processor would cause an even higher temperature level, barring a radical change to the way in which heat is vented (which is not apparent from the official specs [apple.com]).
Mercifully (in a way), a semi-recent update changed the fan kick-in temperature to a lower threshold, meaning less built-up heat but a lower battery life. Expect the batteries on the new PowerBooks to not quite last as long as they're listed as, though they'd probably last long enough as is. For a college student like me, just having them last through class so that I can go back to my dorm and plug in for the evening's homework is fine.
I'd still buy one (if I had the money and needed a new computer), though I'd be careful to do most of my work on a table.
Re:Temperature woes (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two 12'' 1GHz models in my household, and they never get uncomfortably hot -- neither is used for gaming, but I do a good deal of development and numerical computation on mine, which means the CPU can be pegged at 100% for lengthy periods. The fan does kick in fairly regularly though.
Re:Temperature woes (Score:5, Informative)
For financial reasons I had to give it up and then I managed to get another one a few months later just after the second revision came out (1ghz, 256mb standard, usb 2.0, fx5200) and the heat issue was nearly gone alltogether.
It's still noticably warm but it's no longer _hot_.
As a general rule, stay away from first versions of any new hardware, in this case the new PowerBook enclosures.
Sure I'd love to get a G5 powerbook as soon as they come out but I would wait until the second or third revision before buying one.
Re:Temperature woes (Score:4, Funny)
If you're spending a hot summer's day sitting down with your laptop for three uninterrupted hours, you probably weren't using anything down there anyway.
Computers getting faster ... who woulda thought? (Score:5, Funny)
Airport Extreme standard on Powerbooks now (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Anyone want to buy a used iBook? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh well, at least it's still cooler than the competition.
ibook12" annecdote:
I was complaining to my friend in a cafe the other day that when I use airport to download large files as well as listen to itunes, run word, Fire im, and a dozen other apps, my battery life only lasts for about 3 and a half hours instead of 5. He told me to go fuck myself because his computer lasts about half as long and most of that time is spent configuring his wireless card, then his computer froze up and he had to take out the battery to reboot it.
Man I wish I owned a wintel!
: )
iBook RAM increase (Score:3, Informative)
This is a HUGE difference for me, since the stuff that I'm most interested in doing isn't so much CPU intensive as RAM intensive. I can live with just about anything, but under 1GB of RAM was a deal-killer on the iBooks.
For me, this changes everything.
What about screen resolution. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd happily take a G4/500 with a Radeon 7500 if I could get decent resolution with it. I'm sure Sonnet will have a CPU upgrade for me when I need it, but it's a lot harder to upgrade the screen.
The crummy screens on Apple's current low-end lineup is why I'm upgrading my almost 10 year old Beige Powermac (upgraded to G4/466 and 768M RAM) instead of getting an eMac (17" screen, but it's a really ugly last-century shadow mask) or iMac (15", 1024x768) or a notebook. I don't need a red hot machine and I can't imagine giving up my 1280x1028 (up to 1600x1200, if I wanted) aperture grill display (a nice Trinitron clone by CTX, under $200) for the eMac or iBook...
I was writing this DMCA takedown notice (Score:4, Funny)
The7 stages of grief of highly effective people (Score:5, Funny)
Fast forward one year. "The G5 laptops are OUT?!?...."
(This is a repost of an old post of mine, but as relevant today as it was then...:)
I Love Apple! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I Love Apple! (Score:4, Funny)
Because Microsoft doesn't make PCs?
Re:5200's? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:5200's? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:5200's? (Score:3, Informative)
It is not an option. If you click on one of the links so generiously provided in the post, such as the PowerBooks [apple.com] link, you can see that the option is either get a 15" or 17" PowerBook with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 or a 12" PowerBook with an NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200.
Re:5200's? (Score:3, Insightful)
My current laptop (not a Mac) has a 64mb Geforce FX5200 Go. I've been using it over the last few weeks (combined with a Pentium M 1.5 and 512mb of PC2100 DDR) to play Farcry, which seems to be a pretty graphics intensive game.
I've got texture detail set on high with everything else set on either medium or low. The game may not be running at a hojillion frames per second, but it's completely playable with no ann
Re:5200's? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:5200's? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hold on a minute there. One moment people here claim that all Apple hardware should be compared to medium or top-range PC stuff, and that this makes them reasonably good value for money. And then, when people do exactly that, it is suddenly unfair because the Apple is really a low-end system?
You cannot both have your cake and eat it. Either the 12" model is quite overpriced as a "low-end consumer" machine at $1600-$1800, or it's got a really shitty graphics card for a medium/high range machine.
Re:Ah... Now I want one even more... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe if you get a Mac you won't have to drink so much...
Re:Ah... Now I want one even more... (Score:5, Insightful)
If all-in-one is okay, then you should have no other complaints. The price is right for all the apps / great OS / great hardware. Besides, it's easier to move around than a monitor + box. That is important if you move from room to room every couple of semesters.
Re:Converted (Score:5, Funny)
The "Apple Zealot" converts 1.5GHz G4 into 3GHz P4
The "PC Weenie" converts 1.5GHz G4 into 0.1 GHz P4 as that's about the speed it runs Virtual PC (probably, assuming anyone actually bought a Mac. Which nobody does. etc)
The "Geek Index" says 1.5GHz G4 is about 2-2.5GHz P4 probably but it depends what you are doing and anyway it's all easily fast enough to code stuff and surf for pr0n.
The "SETI Weirdo" calculates that a 1.5GHz G4 does more units than their rival^h^h^h^h^hfriend. So that's ok.
The "Arty type people" think oooh a mac. It runs FCP.
8 out of 10 CEOs go "a shiny thing"
etc
Troc
Re:Converted (Score:5, Informative)
All in all the G4 is faster clock-by-clock than the P4 in most cases. It doesnt make it faster than the P4 either way though since it still clocks far too low, but it is a competent CPU.
Re:Converted (Score:5, Funny)
Hey Taco:
I propose a new poll:
"Which sub-group on Slashdot take themselves too seriously?"
My vote has to be the coders. Post a joke in a Perl thread, and you will be modded -1 flamebait. These people are obsolutely incapable of laughing at themselves. Maybe they should get out more.
Some of the Mac people here are almost as bad. This guy asked for a speed comparison between Intel and Apple procs. Sure, it may be a troll, but its not as obvious as the "Apple is (still) dying" thread.
At least the BSD guys usually post the obligatory "BSD is dying" message before anybody else gets a chance too.
Re:Converted (Score:5, Informative)
So I'd say the 1.5 would be about a 2.8 or 3.0ghz pentium.
While we're on this topic I'd like to point out that Macs feel much faster than they actually are because of the superb multi tasking and UI response under heavy load.
When I am encoding a video on my Windows machine I can't do anything else on my computer, if I try to click something it takes about 30 seconds for the menu to popup.
On the other hand, my Mac can have 20 apps running and encoding a video at the same time and the UI still responds beautifully.
This is why using a Mac is a great experience, you so rarely get frustrated at it because it just works.
Re:Converted (Score:5, Informative)
That's a result of Windows's semi brain-dead priority system. Pop open task manager, find the encoding process (the one that's gobbling all your CPU), right click on it and set priority to 'Low' or 'Idle'.
I used to play Unreal Tournament while encoding videos all the time without a problem. It encodes slower at low priority but UT didn't suffer much of a performance hit. Made me miss my old dual-CPU system though.
Unless of course you're running that 9X/ME crap, which even most Windows users these days realize sucks.
Re:Converted (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently configured a low-end Dell for my sister. I figured the 2.4 GHz Celeron would easily smoke my old 800 MHz G4 TiBook. And I have no doubt that on a single-application benchmark, it would. But in practice, I was cursing at the thing because it seemed so damned slow. My laptop just feels faster. And that perception seems to be because virtually nothing bogs it down, so I've gotten in the habit of multitasking. Start an application installation or system update, and then check my email while it is in process. Start three applications at the same time and browse the web while they load. Start a graphics program rendering a big tiff, then switch to Word and work on a document. I was expecting to do the same thing on the Dell, but often one application will bog down the entire system. But for the way I've gotten in the habit of working, it feels pokey.
Re:Converted (Score:5, Interesting)
Altivec code, on the other hand, seems to be very different. Code that heavily uses the altivec, like MP3/AAC encoding, graphics work, Folding@Home, and the OS X UI seems to be much faster at the same clock speed. For doing Folding@home, for example, my 1.25GHz G4 is quite a bit faster than my 1.7GHz Pentium-M. A few years ago, I had a 667 G4 and a 1.2GHz athlon. The G4 was nearly twice as fast as the athlon when doing Distributed.NET type stuff (rc5-64 at the time, I think).
For those of you doing Java, a G4 seems to run Java code of any sort, including the compiler, the same speed as an Athlon XP or Pentium-M at a 50% greater clock speed, or 80% higher for a P4. I did tests compiling the same code in the same IDE, doing code refactoring, etc. The disks drives, btw, were approximately the same speed and the ram was the same for all these tests.
I know I haven't done really official tests, I'm just stating my experience.
Re:Converted (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Benchmarks (Score:5, Insightful)
How much faster, I will not say, but a 1.4GHz G4 is very different from a 1.4GHz P4. Or P3.
And impossible to do, really, because the amount of difference depends heavily on the application being used. Some applications can take, and are designed to take, better advantage of the PPC + Altivec. Other applications don't benefit nearly as much.
So it all depends on what you want to do with it, really--and I recommend that you determine what you'll be doing with such a laptop most of the time, and then clock those processes. If speed is your chief concern.
Re:Worst. Title. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Terms and expressions can mean different things in different contexts.
Re:Any system software updates also? (Score:5, Informative)
So on the offchance that you're not trolling:
- Fink isn't developed by Apple, and they have nothing to do with it, aside from some possible back channel help. However, it did not come "included" on your PowerBook, unless you bought it used.
- You can check for a more recent version of fink by: % sudo fink selfupdate
- You don't need to sell your hardware to update your software.
Hope this helps. Welcome to the Mac.Re:Remember..... (Score:3, Insightful)
why would the consumer need to remember that ooh macosx is unix based omg kewlor gimme gimme, especially when very few understand anything what 'unix' means if anything in this case?
when you're comparing them you should compare what can it do for you at what price.
Re:I'll keep my 64 bit laptop (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'll keep my 64 bit laptop (Score:5, Insightful)
So your whole point is that your 64b Athlon computer is only good for games?
How about XSan? Motion? FCP? FCP HD? DVD SP? Shake? Logic? BLAST?
You forget that some people actually make money with their machines.
You also forget that for some people, especially those that earn something in the $40 to $50 an higher an hour range, time is money. Linux, BSD, and Windows is too expensive, and strangely enough, Macs, with their plug and play nature, are cheaper. Literally, if it takes me one day to set up something in Linux, and 10 minutes on my Mac, that's the difference between $500 spent/wasted and $10 spent. Over the course of a month, then, a Mac will have paid itself off.
Especially when you're talking about a $1,400 iBook. Make a DVD? Insert a disk, arrange the menus, and hit burn. 20 minutes later you're done. Make a movie? Plug in the camcorder, import video, arrange the video, and 30 minutes later you're done. Send the DVD off for replication, make 500 copies, and start on your next project.
Re:I'll keep my 64 bit laptop (Score:5, Funny)
So, you're the one who was responsible for the last Matrix.
Re:I'll keep my 64 bit laptop (Score:3, Informative)
Not feature rich...?
Does that include the built in Bluetooth? DVD-burner? Thin size and quality design? Firewire 800? Optic Keyboard Sensory? Gigabit ethernet? Mac OS X? (incl. iLife, etc.) and long battery life?
Wrong, the worst part is... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have both a dual 2.0 GHz G5 and a 1.25 GHz 15" PowerBook G4. The G5 is without a doubt faster, but for the typical user and his/her uses, it doesn't offer much. The G5 excells at video encoding and also compiles larger code bases much faster. However, for typical uses (web browsing, word processing, etc.) there is not much of a performance gain.
As for your two-button mouse argument: TRY IT! I figured I wouldn't like it much, but I find it to work out quite well. Now, I always have one hand on the keyboard, which makes me operate my computer much more quickly and efficiently. My experiences with Apple lead me to believe that if they are doing something, there is usually a damn good reason for it, and that reason is usually right.
So, instead of loudly proclaiming your ignorance and demand Apple do things your way, I suggest you open your mind to "thinking different" and begin to realize that things can be better than the way you've been ingrained to beleive.
Re:No G5, and the worst part... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Gee, a G4 is all you need, you don't need any more speed".
What do you, personally, need more speed for? The only thing I ever do that taxes my G4 is video editing and running VirtualPC. Everything else is more than fast enough. A G5 would probably help the video editing, but it's not something I do every day, and I'm happy to just set everything up and leave it doing the rendering while I'm asleep. VirtualPC is about PII 266 speed, and I don't really need it to be any faster (sure, it would be nice to run it at P4 speeds, but if I really needed to do much x86-specific stuff I'd have bought an x86 laptop).
The G4's FSB is only running at 167mhz. That's pathetic in 2004. Its why the G4 chip never seemed all that fast and why the G5 kills.
Right. I need a faster chipset, because that would, uh, use more power and drain the battery quicker. Oh, and make the machine hotter. Seriously, when was the last time you did anything on a laptop that was limited by FSB speed?
build a goddamned 2 button mouse into the case.
Have you ever actually tried using a trackpad with two buttons? I still haven't found one that's comfortable. The trackpad in the PowerBook is amazingly nice to use. Oh, and I have yet to encounter a Mac app that actually needed a second button.
RTFSS (Score:5, Informative)
The 15" and 17" PowerBooks include a single Type I & II PC Card slot, and always have. The iBooks don't have it as a means of feature differentiation from the PowerBook line. The 12" PowerBook doesn't have it for obvious reasons.
Of all the people I know with PowerBooks, absolutely none of them have ever used a PC Card in one. Why would you, when every PowerBook since about 1998 has had everything you'd add via PC Card already built-in?
The only thing I can think of anymore that someone might have a use for is a memory card reader-- but why buy a PC Card one and limit yourself when you can use a USB one on any computer?
~Philly
Re:Lose Airport Extreme, add PCMCIA (Score:5, Interesting)
So why is it you need PCMCIA? Is the current Cardbus slot not sufficient? It's like PCMCIA, only much faster and with a wider bus.
Oh, and it's backwards compatible.
Let me guess -- didn't read the specs? I understand.
Were you happy with it when you bought it? (Score:5, Insightful)
There will ALWAYS be "better deals" after you buy. You can only worry about what things were like when you bought. If your reseller won't happen to help you as a courtesy, there's nothing you can do other than irritate yourself further with anger or worry. It's your choice whether you enjoy your new iBook or complain about something beyond your control.
Re:desktop update next week? (Score:4, Interesting)
SJ at the release of the G5 stated clearly that they "IBM and Apple are today announcing that within 12 months we'll be at 3GHz". You can hear/see this yourself in the WWDC 2003 video at timecode 1:52:00
Unless things continue to go horribly wrong at IBM, that means the G5 will hit that mark in June.
Note that Steve stated they would be at that speed, not announcing that speed. I would expect, based on that statement, that such systems should be shipping by July at the latest.
At this point, I suspect that Apple will forgo any interim speed bump or upgrades for the PowerMac and is simply stockpiling the 3GHz processors in anticipation of a major buying spree once the new systems are released.
I recall speculation after the WWDC last year that Steve's statement might mean there would be no major updates until a year later. That speculation seemed to be dismissed quickly by most.
Re:iBook cannibalizing PowerBook sales now? (Score:4, Interesting)
With my education discount, I can get the PowerBook for $1399 and the iBook for $1155. The PowerBook is the stock 12" without the Superdrive, and the iBook is the base 12" with a combo drive, Airport Extreme, and a 60 GB HD. (The Airport and bigger HD are BTO options to put it on par with the PowerBook. So now I'm looking at a $250 difference, or ~20% if I look at it that way. For this 20% more in cost, I get a 1.33 GHz G4 vs a 1 GHz G4 (33% improvement), a 167 MHz system bus vs a 133 MHz system bus (25% improvement), a nicer video card (double the VRAM), and other random PowerBook niceties like the ability to do monitor spanning without OpenFirmware hacks. Not to mention the PowerBook is lighter and smaller in all 3 dimensions. The only real advantage I see in the iBook is the greater battery life, but the 5 and 6 hour quotes are to be believed, the difference is all but negligible.
While the iBook is still an excellent option, I just feel I'm getting more bang for my buck with the PowerBook. This is a laptop that's going to last me a long time, so I think the extra money spent will be well worth it in the long run.
Re:No scroll wheel / zone? (Score:5, Informative)
Voilá, scrolling areas and tap corners (==5 mouse buttons). Also a Windows-style acceleration mode, which IMO makes the whole touchpad much more useable.