Apple Announces New iBooks

vasqzr writes "Apple has announced new iBooks. New features include G4 processor up to 1.33GHz, built-in wireless networking capability, a DVD-burning SuperDrive and up to 1.25GB of memory. G5 PowerBooks can only be closer...They also show a single processor 1.8GHz G5 PowerMac desktop for $1,499"

Price Matching now?

[ack154]

I'm not sure if I'm the only one to notice this now, but I haven't seen it before. While I was browsing the store, I saw an Apple Price Matching ad... Apple is now going to Price Match all resellers on hardware and software.

Price Match details and FAQ [apple.com]

I usually only see the resellers selling for $3 or $4 less on most products though, so not sure how much this will help sales. Where Apple seems to maybe get bitten on this is when resellers are bundling printers and other items with big hardware purchases.

Also new Xserve RAID; pricing

[daveschroeder]

Apple has also introduced a new Xserve RAID [apple.com], with storage up to 5.6TB with throughput up to 380MBps at a cost of just over US$2/GB. Apple also expanded the Xserve RAID compatibility certifications [apple.com]. See the press releases [apple.com] for more information.

Also, with the new 1.2GHz iBook with 256MB RAM, 30GB drive, and 802.11g wireless coming in at $899 (education), and the eMacs and iMac G5s coming in at $599 and $1099 (education), respectively, I fail to see how people continue to say Macs are too expensive. Even Walt Mossberg notes [wsj.com] "If you tried to match the specs of the base iMac G5 in a traditional Dell tower, you'd also pay more. A Dell Dimension 4600, with the best processor, Windows XP Pro, the best 17-inch flat-panel monitor, a CD recorder and the same graphics card, costs $7 more than the 17-inch iMac. And it's much bulkier and uglier."

sadness is i

[scribblez]

A month after my girlfriend gets hers.. darn.

Re:Price Matching now?

[McKinney83]

Not for bundles.

From the price match faq:

"Bundled, used, refurbished, discontinued, demonstration or exhibit products, and products from other manufacturers are not eligible."

Re:Price Matching now?

[jxyama]

Price matching is usually for those who made the purchase right before an update like this. If you, for example, bought a stock 12" iBook three days ago for $1099 (now $999), Apple will match and give you $100 back or upgrade your machine to the newer one for free.

Re:Bus speed nitpick...

[Anonymous Coward]

I might be mistaken, but I don't think there is 200mhz laptop memory yet. The PB already have 166mhz, if the iBook got upgraded they would canibalize PB sales even more.

Re:Not News

[adam mcmaster]

They didn't just redesign the site, they're now offering different products - I ordered an iBook a few weeks ago and they have changed my order to reflect this change, which is nice since I'm now getting a faster processor and a bigger hard drive for the same price.

Re:Price Matching now?

[ack154]

Right... but it's not a price thing for that. People are buying from resellers BECAUSE OF the bundles. Not because of a lower price with bundles. So there is usually little price difference, it's just that resellers offer more with the purchase than Apple does.

Re:yet more confusion between ibook and powerbook

[pkhuong]

Lighter, more professional looking*, better FSB, possibility to go and haggle for a lower price due to the new ibook being so close in perf?
More built-ins: 802.11g, BT, larger HD. More video RAM, which i guess is more important with Quartz. Better case (aluminium > plastic :). Oh, and the PB is slightly smaller in every dimension. Note that i only made the comparison for the 12.1" models, some points may not apply on larger ones.

*That was actually important for my Corpo sister. She can't go on a board meeting with a shiny, cutesy iBook.

Re:1499 is too much

[mod_critical]

Actually, I have had experience with both single and dual processor G4 and G5 machines, and the speed boost is no small deal

I was skeptical at first too, given that on Windows machines I am used to an intensive application sucking up all of one processor and just letting the other take care of mouse clicks in the GUI. However, with Apple software, and actaully a lot of non-apple software I have found that it thread very, very well, and utilizes both processors to their maximum almost all of the time during an intensive process.

Just a FYI that I have noticed working with these in the past

Re:Still mirrored video

[BMonger]

Unless you do this:

http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html

This works well, is incredibly easy to do, and can be reverted at any time.

I read about this yesterday

[Jucius Maximus]

Think secret was right again, even down to predicting the date of the announcement. [thinksecret.com]

Re:Still mirrored video

[Ford Prefect]

Apple still cripples the iBook with mirrored-only video. No desktop spanning. The Radeon chipsets they use do support it, but Apple reserves that feature for the Powerbooks.

I've no idea why they continue do it, but it's easily worked around [rutemoeller.com]. :-)

Re:Still mirrored video

[GreatDrok]

Apple still cripples the iBook with mirrored-only video. No desktop spanning. The Radeon chipsets they use do support it, but Apple reserves that feature for the Powerbooks.

You can update the flash memory on the iBook to allow dual screen support. I was torn between a powerbook and my iBook but in the end I decided that the difference in price for the dual screen capability wasn't worth it. Then I found you could patch the iBook to support the feature and I have been extremely happy as a result.

My iBook is one of the first G4s (933Mhz 14") which I upgraded to 640MB RAM and airport extreme. The new ones look like a great deal but I would still recommend more memory, 256 is simply not enough. A non Apple upgrade is available and does the job for half the price. Battery life is excellent and the build quality destroys equivalent PC laptops

Re:yet more confusion between ibook and powerbook

[Spytap]

a a recently graduated film student, I can attest that the Powerbook is the way to go. Much faster, more robust, larger screen area, and the ability to have monitor spanning really make the Powerbook the way to go. I've seen and used both in action, and while the iBook functions for stuff like iMovie, When you get into Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects, and Photoshop (all needed in film school) the Powerbook really is the only useable solution. Editing a movie on Final Cut Pro on an iBook is an exercise in tedium and patience.

Re:Also new Xserve RAID; pricing

[daveschroeder]

First off, by using educational Apple prices vs. standard Dell retail, you're comparing, well, Apples and oranges

I'm not. Walt Mossberg was comparing retail.

And as for the education prices, if you add $100, you get retail.

Secondly, from everything I've read, you in no way need to get the best Intel chip available to compare with Apple in terms of speed. Everything I've read says that you need Apple's top processor/memory packages to make OSX zippy.

Well, that's completely and totally wrong, since first, it's subjective, and second, you most certainly do not need the "top processor/memory packages" to make OS X "zippy".

Plus, I have no idea what you're looking at, but Dell's chapest PC is $469 with monitor, while Apple's seems to be $799 with that ridiculous monitor built in, plus with half as much RAM.

Take it up with Walt Mossberg [wsj.com]. He's not even an "Apple guy". And someone will ALWAYS come up with some configuration of something else that's "cheaper" than some model of Mac. You can ALWAYS do this. Christ, if you think it's a rip off (it's not), don't buy one (and I imagine you won't).

Re:No relation to ibook and g5 PB

[Yrd]

Just don't buy the RAM from Apple, they overcharge horrendously for it.

Can't wait for a G5 Powerbook, but it's going to be a while I think. I think we'll see another revision of the G4 Powerbooks first.

It might be interesting if they went dual-core on the Powerbooks actually. Probably similar heat problems though.

Re:Price Matching now?

[Tim Macinta]

I usually only see the resellers selling for $3 or $4 less on most products though, so not sure how much this will help sales.

I bought an iBook from Small Dog Electronics [smalldog.com] a few months ago for several hundred dollars less than everywhere else was charging. I'm not sure why they were the only ones that seemed to be substantially cheaper than buying direct from Apple, but I was quite happy with the purchase.

Re:yet more confusion between ibook and powerbook

[Greedo]

You can do monitor spanning on the iBooks, despite what Apple or resellers may say. It just requires a (simple) firmware hack to enable it.

I've got it enabled on my iBook (the first model, G3/800, in the white plastic design).

Re:Off Topic Apple Question

[zaren]

Go to theApple Store [apple.com] and buy a refurbished 1 Ghz G4 iBook for $700 from their "Special Deals" section.

You really don't want to get a G3 these days; even though OSX will run on it, it's going to run dead-slow.

And buy more ram. No matter what Apple says, you need more ram.

Re:yet more confusion between ibook and powerbook

[Speed Whiplash]

The iBook and Powerbook use the same processor with the same bus speed. The G4 has a relatively slow bus speed, but it is quite up to the task of student video editing. I wouldn't use that as a limiting factor. Just about any computer with a dedicated video card is more than up to the task. Essentially the difference comes down to video card. The PowerBook has a wonderful ability to span the video to an external monitor or composite monitor/TV. The native 1024x768 12" iBook/Powerbook screen is the bare minimum usable realestate. An external monitor will be bigger and brighter and much easier to use when doing graphics. I use a 12" 876MHz Powerbook with a 21" CRT monitor and it works wonderfully. Add a full-size keyboard and mouse and this little laptop is a wonderful workstation. The iBook is better at two things in my experience. They seem to have a better battery life which might be attributed to a lesser video card, and they feel cooler to the touch. The little 12" Powerbook gets pretty hot and mine collects sweat marks in the summer. The iBook has a wider plastic shell that insulates the exterior from interior heat. The Powerbook uses the shell itself to shed heat. The Powerbooks are a bit thinner. My aluminum-skinned Powerbook looks old compared to the shiney iBook. Both are very elegant an obvious next to Windows laptops and are both made of high-quality materials. I take my Powerbook to work every day and throw it around everywhere. It has a hard and strong shell. The iBook probably wouldn't fare quite as well since it has such a highly-polished shell. The Powerbook is wonderfully portable and worry-free. If I had an iBook I would probably worry more about keeping it polished. Really the only working difference though is that video card. The iBook can output to an external video monitor, but again, it's only going to mirror to it. A video editor will appreciate being able to edit video while keeping a full-screen preview and review on an external monitor; or inversely edit on an external monitor and preview/review on the notebook's screen. Good luck!

Re:Knoppix-like Linux for iBook?

[mbaudis]

1. yes, there are linux distros, even knoppix (have to look up...) don't know about gento (had tried it back then...) 2. using fink.sourceforge.net, you can get the whole (nearly) lot of "linux" software in a debian style system, to run on top of os x or full screen (rootless) or with x11 as primary windowing system. X11 window behavior is determined through your config (KDE, Gnome, blackbox...) so you are able to have a complete KDE system on top of OS X aqua, and use both at the same time; and if you are a strange person (or need to do it...), you can also have windows under virtual pc etc.

Re:Is it just me...

[nmk]

Well I can't give you any empirical data (though I'm sure it exists) but I can speak from my own experience. I currently own a Powerbook which runs at 1.5 Ghz. About six months ago I bought a 1.6 Ghz Pentium M laptop for my mother. The speed difference between the Pentium M and the Powerbook is huge. The Powerbook is simply MUCH faster than the Pentium M laptop in everyday use.

I was really under the impression that the new Pentium M chips are fast, but its performance was really quite poor compared to my powerbook. I haven't done any application benchmarking, but I can tell you for sure that the Powerbook feels much faster.

The G4 and Pentium certainly can't be compared clock for clock. You would get people equating a 1.5 G4 with anything between a 1.8-2.5 Ghz Pentium 4. All I can tell you is that the Powerbook feels very responsive, much more so than any Pentium M or Pentium 4 laptop I've used (I haven't yet used the psycho Alienware type laptops).

Re:yet more confusion between ibook and powerbook

[Echnin]

The new iBooks have 802.11g built in. The additional VRAM will be important with Tiger, as Core Image only works with 64 or more, which you don't get on the iBooks. The iBooks supposedly take more abuse than the PBs. Just some points that you should also consider.

Still Radeon 9200 Mobility?

[aarku]

This graphics card is soon very obsolete by Apple's standards, because it won't support the upcoming Core Image [apple.com] technology which is part of 10.4 Tiger [apple.com], scheduled to be out pretty soon as far as the lifetime of the iBook is concerned. Core Image is damn cool, and this little puppy will be left in the dust.

Re:Price Matching now?

[HeghmoH]

The hilarious thing is that Apple absolutely forbids its resellers from selling below the price they set. That's why you never see any resellers with big sales. They all have prices that are at most $3 or $4 less than Apple's official prices, because that's as low as Apple will allow them to go. So this "price matching" thing is just a feel-good thing that won't actually be used for anything.

Re:Off Topic Apple Question

[XxtraLarGe]

Why not get the basic eMac then? It's the least expensive Mac you can buy. Apple has refurbed 1.25 GHz w/Combo Drive models for $699 (go to the Apple Store [apple.com] and click on the red "Save" tag on the right hand side.), or you can go to DealMac [dealmac.com] and they usually have something cheap listed. The great thing about Macs is that they will hold their value for a long time, so if you don't like it, just sell it on eBay and get at least 75% of your money back.

Re:While it may be ...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Sure I also have an XP boxen that gives me as little trouble as my Mac. But that is because I went out and bougth a high-end PC system from a manufacturer that properly tests every piece of hardware that goes into the box. I also have several friends who went for the "ceaper must be better principle". They built their WinTel boxen them selves from individual parts bought off the shelf at a local electronics shop . Both my Mac and my high-end PC are considerably more stable than these homebuilt systems. You can get a PC system that is just as stable as a Mac you can probably also scratch build your own PC system that is as stable as a Mac but either of those PC systems will end up costing you considerably more than the $500 the above poster suggested. I don't care whether we are talking PC or Mac computers, quality costs.

Re:Knoppix-like Linux for iBook?

[foniksonik]

is there any way to do this with OS X?

Yes. Try out CodeTek Virtual Desktop... not only will it give you virtual desktops, more than you can shake a stick at... but it also gives you the option of 'Focus-Follows-Mouse'... check it out here:

http://codetek.com/ctvd/ [codetek.com]

Re:Off Topic Apple Question

[Sea Monkey]

I highly recommend getting either the refurb ibook or just one of these new ibooks. I was in a similar position (in terms of what I needed a computer for) 2 years ago. I bought one of the 12" G3 ibooks and added an airport card and 256MB of RAM for a total of 384. Contrary to what another poster says does not run OSX too slow on a G3 provided you have enough RAM.

After an initial 2 months which was _very_ frustrating as I was relearning everything I finally got used to it and now I love it. Even though I live in a 400sqft. appartment the getting the airport card was the best thing I could've done. It totally changed how I use a computer (had a desktop previously).

BTW don't get a refurb G3 iBook. They have a problem with a mainboard that flexes when the ibook is picked up with one hand and the video eventually goes out. They fixed it in the G4 revisions.

Re:Still Radeon 9200 Mobility?

[prototypical]

As has been pointed out numerous times, Core Image will support any machine that has even a remotely modern GPU. It will turn off the prettier eye candy so that it will still run, but the system won't at all be made unusable.

Core Image, like Core Audio, is an optional toolset for people who feel like adding on to their programs. It's not at all a requirement to use the enhancements in Tiger. Hell, if Apple keeps up their delivery on performance, Tiger will probably be even faster than previous iterations, depending on how they handle Spotlight and the other new features.

Re:Knoppix-like Linux for iBook?

[Spyky]

Why not just run ALL of the software you want ("OpenOffice (with good fonts), AbiWord, The GIMP, XMMS, mplayer / vlc / firefox / gaim / several window managers") in OS X itself?

Install the X11 server from apple. Then go to fink.sourceforge.net. Install fink.

Then type things like "fink install bundle-gnome", "fink install gimp". "fink install windowmaker". OpenOffice distributes a binary for OSX www.openoffice.org

In X11 preferences menu, set to Full Screen. Now you can run any window manager you like, full screen, command-option-A will swap you back to your normal OS X desktop. Set your xinitrc files to load the wm you want, and/or start gnome, etc...

Another handy hint: add the line "export DISPLAY=:0.0" to your .bashrc so you can start X apps from the Apple Terminal application.

Best of both worlds!

-Spyky

all I have is a G3 iBook

[microcars]

my only 'puter is a 12" G3 iBook 700 and I use it for all the things your mentioned plus:
video editing with iMovie
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
GoLive

I usually have 3 browsers open plus iTunes going, plus several other things going on.

all on 640mb of RAM and OS 10.2.8, once I move to Panther (10.3) I expect a bit more performance.

so basically, anything you buy will be better than what I have and what I have is fine for what you want.

Re:Is there an adapter for s-video to normal video

[jridley]

That's unusual, I bought my last TV 3 years ago, and most TVs at the time (except the REALLY cheap stuff) had s-video)

Anyway, yes, you can get cheap adaptors starting at $10, or you can wire your own. Here are some (google, 10 seconds)
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/svideo 2cvideo.ht ml
http://www.cablestogo.com/product_list.asp?cat _id= 2012

Re:Also new Xserve RAID; pricing

[daviddennis]

He's correct that it would not use Quartz Extreme, which is a speedup feature that uses the video card to offload a lot of work from the CPU.

However, he's most likely wrong about it not speeding up your machine. I had a 400mhz PowerBook G4 when it was first introduced, and the menus were pretty sluggish. Quartz Extreme fixed this when I upgraded to the 1ghz model. But then I sold that and temporarily got a 400mhz PowerBook again with Panther.

It was much, much faster than my original 400mhz PowerBook. Menus and basic functions were almost as fast as the 1ghz model. Of course meaty processor-intensive functions were a lot slower, but the point I'm making is that the optimizations made even an old machine shine.

The other major advantage is that the Finder has really been smoothed up nicely. It works a lot better than in earlier versions because they noticed a lot of the usability bottlenecks and fixed them.

Of course at this point you might just want to wait until Tiger (you have maybe six months to go) unless you can get Panther cheap.

D

Virtual Desktop Manager for OS X

[prell]

You should check out Desktop Manager [sourceforge.net] for OS X. It will even use those neat user-switching animations to switch desktops (e.g. the cube, etc.). I used it briefly, and it's cool, but I ditched the idea completely, simply because it's so easy to just do "Command+h" to hide the current application. Also, I do use Expose, and that helps.

Re:Price Matching now?

[nolife]

I am not getting into a battle of who can find the best deal at the Dell web site but you must have worked really hard to find and paraphrase the worst deal you could possible find there as a comparision.

They have an 1150 [dell.com] (that you referenced) with a CDR/DVD combo (as you referenced) and a P4 2.8 and a 1 year warranty for $799 with free shipping.
** I am not trying to compare this laptop to the Apple in any way, just that your attempted comparision was not very good.

Re:Price Matching now?

[MacGod]

I'd like to see Apple do better with RAM pricing on their online store. I think part of the "Macs are more expensive" flak comes because Apple only includes 256MB RAM in their machines and triple-charges for RAM. When people compare prices to (for example) Dell, they add on another 256 or 512 RAM to match Dell's specs. If done through a third-party, this wouldn't be a problem. But because the comparison is done through the Apple Store, it makes the Macs look even more expensive than they really are.

Of course, even worse is that half the people buying Macs through the Apple Store probably don't know enough to buy their RAM elsewhere and end up getting ripped off, rather than going to DealRAM and finding the best price.

Re:Off Topic Apple Question

[phillymjs]

If you're looking at used Macs on eBay, any desktop with dual G4 processors would be fine for running OS X, though you'd probably want to stuff it full of RAM if it doesn't come that way. Make sure the onboard video card has at least (IIRC) 16MB of RAM so you'll get the benefits of Quartz Extreme. If you go for a 15" CRT-based iMac, make sure it's a slot-loader with at least a 500MHz G3, and try to find one with enough VRAM for Quartz Extreme.

Check prices for completed auctions of machines that meet the above specs to get a feel for the price you're likely to pay. Used Macs hold their value extremely well and auction prices tend to be high. For what you'll be paying for a used machine, plus shipping, it might be worth it to just get a brand-new eMac at your local Apple Store, which will be much faster and have a full warranty.

~Philly

Re:Yeah, with Crolles2, the 7448 and the MPC7448

[prototypical]

Then let me break it down for you, since this is apparently so difficult.

The processors that Apple dubbed the "G4" are various iterations of the Motorola 74xx core. Targetted at the embedded and low-power draw computing markets, originally, the highly efficient design was very competitive with anything else in the same price bracket for a while.

When Motorla spun off their semiconductor division, it took the name Freescale and began to ally itself with other technology firms. Right now, Freescale, Phillips, and STMicroelectronics [freescale.com] are sharing fabrication space in a facility they built in France. This site, known as Crolles2, is intended to be a next-generation workhorse and research lab, where they can apply the lessons learned from the failing and lagging Motorola line. They'd had successfuly 90nm test runs as early as 2003, with engineering samples being produces in 2004, and a plan to start the sampling process for 65nm in 2005.

The product line for Freescale is one of legacy - older Motorla cores like the 74xx series, the 603e, and others - and some new designs. Among the new designs are the e300 and e500 embedded systems chips (shipping now), and the e600 and e700 [freescale.com] designs. The first appearance of the once-e600 will be the MPC9461D, which is a dual-core enhanced 74xx chip that will have two 128-bit AltiVec SIMD units, 1 MB of L2 cache per processor, on-die memory control and access to DDR2 (up to 667mhz), four on-die MACs for networking, encryption protocol support on the chip, and the ability to scale past 1.5ghz (the current high-end for 74xx cores).

As a stepping stone between the present [freescale.com] and the future, [eetimes.com] Freescale is revising the existing MPC7447A processor. Breaking from the traditional upper limit of 167mhz on the MPX system bus, they're offering it at 200mhz on the bus, with a jump in core frequency to 1.8ghz. This compares to the previous high-end chips, the MPC7447A and older 7445/7455, with higher clocks and system access ability but lower power draw.

There... Just as geeky, but now more informative.

Re:Still Radeon 9200 Mobility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally wrong. The 9200 Mobile supports pixel and vertex shaders in DirectX and OpenGL:

http://www.ati.com/products/mobilityradeon9200/f ea tures.html

Re:Price Matching now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello moderators!! Parent post was not insightful, it is short sighted.

Check out this thread [slickdeals.net]at Slickdeals [slickdeals.net] on current Dell laptop deals, basically $750 rebates on many models.

Inspiron 700M $1449 + $51 upgrades - $750 = $750
Pentium M 1.6GHz, 12.1-in WXGA, 4.1lbs w/
512MB, 30GB, 8x DVD

Inspiron 600M $1299 + $201 upgrades - $750 = $750
Select 1 year limited warranty option.
Pentium M 1.5GHz, 14.1" XGA, 4.98lbs
512MB, 30GB, 8x DVD

Inspiron 8600 $1349 + $151 upgrades - $750 = $750
Pentium M 1.5GHz-M, 15.4" WXGA, 6.9lbs
GeForce FX Go5200, 512MB, 30GB, 8x DVD

Inspiron 9100 $1549 - $750 = $799
P4 2.8GHz HT, 15.4" WXGA, 8.92lbs
Radeon 9700, 512MB, 40GB, 24X CDRW/DVD

Inspiron 5160 $1149 + $351 upgrades - $750 = $750
P4 2.8GHz, 15" XGA

Re:No "Combo Drive", thanks.

[volsung]

If you are a eligible for the academic discount, they offer a version of 12" iBook with a plain-old CD-ROM drive and no Airport Extreme for $900.

The normal 12" model with Combo drive and built in Airport Extreme is $950 with the student discount. So if you plan to add WiFi to the CD-ROM only model, you've negative the cost savings.

Re:Graphics chips and Apple

[Ohreally_factor]

The Radeon 9700 Mobility with 128 MB VRAM is a BTO option on the 15" and the 17" Powerbooks (sadly, it's not an option on the 12" PB). Are 9700 Radeon Mobility graphics standard on consumer level laptops that are comparable to the iBook?

Re:Today's Theme: Enterprise

[Bombcar]

Get the 17" iMac G5 - it has a 1.8 GHz processor and included monitor. And at $1499 it is the same price as the single G5.

big difference in screen

[rickward]

I have been comparison shopping recently, and believe me when I say there's a big difference in the viewability of the 12" iBook and the 12" PowerBook. The PB has much more contrast and can be viewed from a wider angle.

Re:Price Matching now?

[Hillie]

Yep. OS9 comes with OS X Panther, and the classic environment allows you to run classic apps.

Re:Price Matching now?

[SmittyTheBold]

OS9 itself may not boot in a stand-alone fashion (I'm not sure about the remaining G4 machines, but the desktop G5s cannot boot OS9) but the Classic environment still functions extremely well as a compatibility environment if you want to run older Mac OS apps.

Re:Price Matching now?

[SmittyTheBold]

You will also ALWAYS get an integrated graphics adapter on a laptop.
Your two definitions of "integrated" got confused. He was saying it's not integrated into the chipset as part of the northbridge, as many x86 machines are. You know the ones, where they have video memory "shared" with system RAM. On the iBook, the Radeon is separate from the system chipset. It has its own memory, and hence its own bandwidth. This is a better solution from a performance point of view, though a bit more expensive to produce since it makes the motherboard bigger, and requires extra memory.

Re:Graphics chips and Apple

[prototypical]

The Sager notebook you linked to is a Pentium 4 (hence a battery hog), and looks like it's going to be their replacement for the Sager NP8790 high-end. If you check their website, [sagernotebook.com] it seems that you're paying at least twice what you'd pay for an iBook.

The PowerBook, on the other hand, offers 128MB Radeon 9700 graphics as a BTO option for, as I recall, $50 to upgrade. Oh, and it gets more than an hours of battery life, what with drawing 12 watts instead of 105 for the processor. Perhaps a more fair comparison is the Sager NP1280, [sagernotebook.com] with a lower screen size, a Pentium M for battery consumption, and (gasps of shock, all around) shared-memory Intel Extreme 2 graphics. At least it's only $400 more than the iBook, right?

Re:Off Topic Apple Question

[the_2nd_coming]

I have a 400 MHz G4 Powermac with 512 MBs of RAM and a GeFroce 3 Ti in it (the GFX card was flashed). OS X works fine, though I will be upgrading to 1 GHz sonnet G4 CPU and a Dual layer DVD burner so that I can start using iDVD.

Stop spreading FUD

[billybob]

I'm no fan of dell but the figures you just listed are pure crap.

My girlfriend has an 1100. Now it is a bit bulky and the warranty is totally gay. However, most of your other points are just wrong.

* The battery life is around 3 hours, whic his better than any mac laptop I've ever owned/used.
* It has a radeon 9200.
* It has a CD-RW/DVD combo drive.
* It has svideo out.
* It has firewire.
* It has a PCMCIA slot for a wireless card, which she has. (All mac laptops come with airport built in these days, but that's a very recent change, it used to be only the high end ones, otherwise you had to spend 99 dollars for a card, which is a total rip off. Wireless cards for PC's are 30-40 dollars which is a negligible price difference).

So let's see... that's 6 points that you were totally wrong about. Good job.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Powerbook soon to follow

[webteeth]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/10/19/ibook/inde x.php

And I quote ""This new line-up of iBooks, along with the current PowerBooks we have will make-up the complete portable line-up we will be offering for the holidays," said Moody."

David Moody is the vice president of Worldwide Mac Product Marketing.

Re:Price Matching now?

[jht]

Absolutely (see the AC post for the legal part). The company that authorizes the dealer can give themselves the right to set MAP through a contract, but that's contract law basics. There's no criminal penalties involved in breaking the MAP rule - just the possible loss of authorization and (more likely) the loss of marketing funds.

If Apple said "thou shalt not sell the product for less than $$$", that would be illegal price fixing on their part - cases like this pop up in the news periodically. That's also one reason why prices in ads are sometimes left out and instead hyped as "TOO LOW TO MENTION!", because the actual price is below MAP.

(of course, usually they do that in ads just to hype the ad)

Ironically, gross margins on Apple products are so low for resellers that there's virtually no room to squeeze prices anyways on most of them.

And just to be straight-up on this: I don't sell any products in my business, let alone Apple ones. However, I am an ACN (Apple Consultants Network) member, and I do make a decent part of my living from supporting them.

Re:Price Matching now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely get her the $999 iBook (used to be $1099, and it just got faster and cheaper). Comes with everything most people need. Buy more RAM from a third party if you have the budget; 256MB standard is ok but could be better, and Apple factory-installed RAM is a little expensive.

Plus you will spend SO much less time fixing stuff, sending it back to Dell, etc. -- if you can find the extra $200 now it will pay you back tenfold in the future. Or find one on eBay that's a few months old.

The OS 9 emulation works well. As others said, the machine won't boot in OS 9; instead OS 9 runs as an OS X application/emulator. But she probably won't need it unless for a very specific app that has no X equivalent.

Re:Broadcom

[Wesley Felter]

Apple chose Broadcom wireless chips because those were the first pre-802.11g chips available, and Apple stays with the same wireless chip vendor for an entire generation. Maybe when Apple moves to pre-802.11n they'll choose a more open vendor (assuming such a thing still exists).

Apple should decide whether they want Linux users using their hardware (and the resulting money) or whether having total control of their platform and product is more important to them. They can't have it both ways.

That is correct; Apple doesn't care about Linux. How much clearer do you want them to be?

The number of PowerBook Linux users is so small that you discredit yourself by threatening to switch to another platform.

Re:Price Matching now?

[dtfinch]

They hope you forget to send in the rebate form, while still making the buy decision based on the after-rebate price, and have the money to pay the before-rebate price. And they have lots of restrictions to disqualify people, like only sending rebates to certain types of mailing addresses, requiring the rebate to be sent in by a certain date, and only sending one rebate per address for all time. Plus they can send you targetted advertisements and such.

Imagine buying two of those only to realize you can't get a rebate on the 2nd one, or you're otherwise disqualified from getting rebates altogether. Works great for them.

Re:Still mirrored video

[Smurf]

Should $1800 really be the cost of entry for a dual-head capable laptop in 2004?

Apart from the hacks for the iBooks that everyone and their mother mentioned, allow me to nitpick by saying that the 12" Powerbook starts at $1600, not $1800.

Re:Stop spreading FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting comment about battery life. My iBook easily gets four or five hours, and if I'm just listening to music, I can get almost eight.

I scoff at your "three hours." ;)

Re:Stop spreading FUD

[Dorothy 86]

I just purchased a Powerbook and I get c. 3.5-4 hours battery life... I don't know what problems you were having with the macs you tried...

Re:Stop spreading FUD

[kavi_3]

I have a 12" PB and my battery life is well over 3 hours. 3 hours is not bad but unless you have a Centrino processor you PC laptops are going to have much less than 3 hours.

Re:big difference in screen

[dcstimm]

I work for apple, they use the same screen.

Re:Also new Xserve RAID; pricing

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

" Question, how useable is a pII-450 (or a pIII-450 if they existed)?"

Very usable. I have a PIII-500 in my notebook ($300 on eBay) and a Celeron 300A in an old desktop I have.

Both run XP hreat.

"Windows XP is sluggish on my p4 3ghz machine with a gig of ram."

Perhaps you should scan for spyware. The 2.6GHz Northwoods around the office were extremely sluggish until we realized that spyware was stealing all of our memory and cracked down on software installation. Since then, everything is simply nto true.

"I feel perfectly comfortable saying a G5 1.8ghz would smoke a p4 3.4ghz"

You might feel comfortable, but it's simply not true. The G5 is a fast chip, but in the vast majority of applications it performs similarly, clock-for-clock, to the Athlon 64/Opteron. P4 2.6 (Northwood) or P4 2.8 (Prescott) would be a more accurate comparison.

That said, P4 Prescott sucks. It's just that simple. It is hot, expensive, and, compared with Northwood or Athlon 64, slow.

The fact is, PCs are cheaper at the low end. PC, 17" CRT, and printer - with XP pro - for $400 is not uncommon. Hell, there's a PC package at Best Buy right now with a Celeron D (the non-evil Celeron) 2.66GHz, 256M PC2700, DVD/CD-RW combo, 60GB disk, 17" Monitor, and Lexmark printer - for $370 (albeit after rebates).

The absolute cheapest eMac, on apple.com, is $800 - with a smaller disk and a slower processor. Only by purchasing refurbished and accepting a CD-ROM instead of a DVD/CD combo drive can you get the price within striking distance - but at $550 + shipping, it's still at least $180 more than the (better equipped) PC.

Notebooks are a better comparison - the iBook is probably Apple's best deal right now (I'd still rather get a $1300 Compal with a Radeon 9700 and an SXGA screen). Particularly when you compare them to Pentium-M notebooks (and, let's face it, Pentium 4-M absolutely blows), Apple's notebooks are quite competitive.

So, let's recap some facts:

- PC desktops (including the monitor) are still far cheaper than any new or refurbished Apple system
- The G5, fast as it may be, is usually no faster than the Opteron clock-for-clock
- Apple's products are sometimes an excellent value (iBook, Airport Express) but are generally more expensive than their non-Apple counterparts, although they compensate for this with style and polish (Apple keyboard/mouse, PowerMac G5, iPod, PowerBook G4, etc.)

Re:Price Matching now?

[mrchaotica]

G4s can run OS9, but Apple doesn't ship a copy of it with their new computers (and hasn't been for some time now -- my iBook from (now) 2 generations ago doesn't have it, and I bought it in March).

Re:Stop spreading FUD

[mrchaotica]

My 12" 800Mhz iBook G4 (which I'm using right now, by the way) gets at least 4 hours of battery life.

Re:Also new Xserve RAID; pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

Your cousin is totally, totally wrong. All iBooks that are 700MHz and up have the necessary video card to support Quartz Extreme. Furthermore, Quartz Extreme was implemented in 10.2, not in 10.3, so it has nothing to do with the differences between 10.3 and 10.2.

Re:Also new Xserve RAID; pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

He's correct that it would not use Quartz Extreme, which is a speedup feature that uses the video card to offload a lot of work from the CPU.

No he isn't correct. Quartz Extreme is fully supported on the 800MHz iBook G3, and it has been from the day 10.2 (not 10.3) shipped.

I can't find the 1100 Dell's web site but I found

[dusanv]

four [dell.com] versions of the 1150. The low end one kind of matches what the guy in the parent thread said (I don't know what kind of 1100 your girlfriend has):
-No S Video
-No Radeon 9200 (i.e. integrated shit video)
-No combo drive for the $999 one
-No firewire
-No PCMCIA

FYI, wireless was debuted by Apple in an *iBook*. That's right, the first machine shipped by Apple to have AirPort was an iBook so no it's not a recent change. I am yet to see more than an hour and a half hours of life from any PC non-Centrino laptop (the bricks with two batteries not counted). Your girlfriend has one hell of a laptop there for $999.

Re:Price Matching now?

[danielsfca2]

When I worked at Apple, I got a sweet deal (25% off) my new 12" PowerBook. But instead of ordering it with plenty of RAM, I just ordered the minimum (256MB) then surfed over to Kingston [kingston.com] and got an extra 512MB bringing it to 768MB for like $95, versus probably $200 (retail) to have it pre-installed.

The punch line here is that Kingston gives Apple employees a nice discount on RAM, so all the smart Apple employees always buy their RAM at Kingston.

So when my PB arrived, before I even turned it on, I just opened it up and dropped in the extra SO-DIMM. Made me happy to have lots of RAM and to know I got a good deal.

Holy tangent, Batman... sorry.

Re:Customers love to get screwed by Apple

[alikat]

You can also do some research before you buy Apple products, too. Just because Apple doesn't make announcements about products coming up doesn't mean you can't turn to other sources. One source I have found helpful is the MacRumors Buyer's Guide (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ [macrumors.com]). They track the release cycles of hardware, and take into account the rumors that float about new releases; based on that information, they give the various Apple hardware ratings from "Don't Buy - updates soon" to "Buy now - just updated"). I think it's a pretty cool system myself. Not foolproof, obviously, but you can at least make a slightly more informed purchase when it comes to hardware.
As I mentioned, this site is for hw only, so it wouldn't help with a sw purchase, but it's a nice resource to have anyway.

Re:Price Matching now?

[duck_oil]

Once more point. As far as iBooks booting OS 9 goes, the previous G3 iBook models were the last machines Apple sold (except from the aforementioned G4 tower) to boot OS 9. It can't be done anymore. Apple hasn't crippled new hardware to stop you, they just stopped updating OS 9 except to make improvements in the Classic environment.