Tibook vs wintel portables

[Geert]

Does anybody have detailed info on comparison of the Tibook vs recent wintel portables.
I bought a PC magazine where they tested 30 of the latest notebooks choosing the best/ blablabla.
Tibook is discribed as a pretty looking thing/long battery life and that's it.
An HP Omnibook 500 and a Dell Precision M40 came out as best.
Yeah right.
If I had some tests (that compares them) proving that the Tibook is better or as good as those 2 I will grrrrmm:mad: send them a small note :D.

I've chosen to pick up the gauntlet, and battle for Apple.

:cool:

[Mr. Anderson]

What magazine? I'd be interested in seeing what they had to say. There's a lot more than just pretty looking and long battery life.

I work on a TiPB and I wouldn't use a PC laptop for work, given the choice. Its so much more elegant.

[iGav]

But do you really expect that a PC Magazine would rate an Apple above a PC.....??? :D

Same way as Macworld or Macuser would never turn around and say a Dell is better than a Mac.......:p

The people here know the truth,...... it's ashame though that a magazine cannot equally compare like for like with regards to 2 different machines, and give an honest account of said machine!!

T3 magazine normally gives a fair review to machines regardless of what OS they use!!!

http://www.t3.co.uk/

[AlphaTech]

Not just more elegant, but the TiBook has better features (at least for a lot of people). Since they are made by Apple, they are also easier to maintain and repair then wintel laptops.

I remember reading in a pc magazine how the TiBook was one of the best products (think it was last year). Being, thinner, lighter, and all around better then any pc laptop with a screen size that even came close (some are just now getting into the 15"+ LCD sizes). Sony does have a few offerings that are almost the same thinness as the TiBook, but they don't have any optical drives inside them.

Compare all the features, and the TiBook beats them in just about every feature except for the MHz rating of the processor. Then again, the G4 550 will blow away any celeron, and all but a GHz+ p3 (mobile).

[iGav]

Here Here! Alphatech.....

I've yet to see a PC laptop that packs all the features of the TiBook. in a similar sized case!! And one that looks so cool aswell!!

I still think at MWNY we're are going to see some real fireworks with regards to the Pro line at MWNY.....:D

[Geert]

Why I'm reading PC magazine?
Simple, I was browsing through all Apple related sites.
One of the is called:
http://www.macfundamentalist.nl/
In dutch, the guy that hosts the site states on one of the links that there are 30 good ways to promote Mac, and one of them is buying PC magazines and always go through reviews and if no accurate info is provided, send a letter/mail correcting the faulthy info.:D

[mcrain]

I had a top of the line IBM business laptop. It had every bell and every whistle, and had a screaming mobile pentium (at the time, it was as fast as they came). After having used that on the go for quite some time, I became very familiar with its shortcomings and its strengths.

I had an opportunity to use a TiBook (rev a I think) that was running at 500 Mhz. At first, I was taken by the looks and lack of things to break off or get nasty looking. After that, I found that I liked the screen and general appearance of the desktop.

Once I had a little more time with it, I was amazed more and more by the light weight and thinness.

That being said, light weight and thinness are the first thing I am willing to give up if it means that the portable will do what I need it to do. So, I started actually using the computer, and found that once I figured out how to use OS9 and OSX, and how to find the things I needed (for a new user, that's always a challenge), I really started to like how "using" the machine worked. In addition, I kept finding that everything that I liked about the IBM was done equally well on the Apple, if not better.

After using the TiBook, I came to the radical conclusion that all my mac bashing in the past may have been ok as to the silly looking blueberry gumdrops or old PowerPC based machines, but the new products apple was putting out were amazing.

I'm now a PC user waiting for the next revision to the TiBook so I can become a Mac user.

Long story, but the morale of the story is that given a little time with the TiBook, even a long time PC portable user will admit that the TiBook is, at least in my opinion, a better machine.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Geert
Why I'm reading PC magazine?
Simple, I was browsing through all Apple related sites.
One of the is called:
http://www.macfundamentalist.nl/
In dutch, the guy that hosts the site states on one of the links that there are 30 good ways to promote Mac, and one of them is buying PC magazines and always go through reviews and if no accurate info is provided, send a letter/mail correcting the faulthy info.:D

Been there, done that, got no reply from the mag/rag. They had a review of OSX (10.0.3 I think). It was after 10.1 was out for over a month. The way they made it sound, what they were reviewing was the very latest. I called them on it, but got no where. I checked the next few issues (at the store, didn't buy them), and they didn't print any retractions/corrections at all.

Those bastards... I bet they killed Kenny too.

[Baseline]

I currently have an older IBM Thinkpad (it's just short of three years old now). At the time, it was top of the line. It has a DVD-ROM and S-Video out in it, just think about that for a second, a three year old laptop with a DVD-ROM!

I really do love that Thinkpad, but I'm eagerly awaiting the new TiBook release so I can get my first Mac. The design of it is the primary seller to me, with OS X coming in a close second.

I just wish I could get a Powerbook with a Trackpoint (pencil eraser in the middle of the keyboard). I can work those things like crazy. And I hate the trackpads that are on most laptops.

Overall though, I haven't been able to find any other laptops on the market now that match the TiBook in terms of amount of features in such a tiny size.

Now if they would only give it a decent video card...

[Baseline]

Scratch that, I'm an idiot. It's almost two years old, not three. And I actually did have a point to make in my first message, but it got lost somewhere on the way to the end ;)

[AlphaTech]

Baseline, DVD-rom drives have been shipping in Apple laptops since the G3 (wallstreet) series began. Not in every model, but the top end units came with it as standard equipment. Along with an INTERNAL ethernet port, modem and the S-Video out port. All that back in 1998 to boot. I have one right here that I am looking at (not deploying it, holding onto it for when people do presentations and need a loaner laptop). The spec's are as follows (off the bottom of the unit)...
Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series, 14.1TFT/300MHz-1MB/64MB/8GB HD/4MB video/DVD/Modem

Which stinkpad do you have??? I know that the T series have crappy video cards even by yesterday's standards.

[Baseline]

I've got an iSeries Thinkpad. Pretty much comparable stats to your G3 setup (although mine has a 366 Celery, which I'm going to assume is much slower than a 300 G3).

Only problem we've ever had with it is that the DVD drive gave out about two months ago, but having purchased the extended warranty, all was good. (And in thinking about it AGAIN, it has been almost three years. I got it at the beginning of my first year of university, and I'm just about to finish up my third year).

Of course, until OS X, I wouldn't have even considered an Apple machine. We're force fed Solaris and Linux in my department at school, and I've very much become a *nix monkey, thus my now strong interest in OS X.

I don't even have an Apple machine (like I said, still waiting for the next Powerbook revision), yet I bought the O'Reilly Cocoa book today! I can't wait to actually be able to play around with it.

[jefhatfield]

let's see what apple has in store in the laptop department to counter-attack the athlon 4 and pentium 4

dollar for dollar, a minimally configured athlon 4 or pentium 4 for well under $1,500 dollars "might possibly" be the better deal for the majority of the "non-multimedia population"...i hate to say

if price was no issue, the tibook as configured at 667 is the best

so the best value will be determined once apple answers back with their newer ibooks and tibooks

and then we will see...he he:D

ps - my bet is for a 1 ghz tibook before the end of this year...sweet!!!

[Gelfin]

PowerBooks still seem kind of expensive (still paying for mine), but I think the notebook market is one of those "compromise" markets. Like when a plumber has one of those smartassed signs on the wall that says, "cheap, fast and good: pick any two." With laptops you get to pick among lightweight, powerful and cheap. There are a couple of notable exceptions. An iBook still has a amazingly high power-to-weight ratio for the cost. And with a VAIO laptop, you only get to choose either "lightweight" or "powerful." "Cheap" never enters into the picture. Some might argue that with VAIOs you only get to choose "lightweight" or "not lightweight."

(Me? Biased?)

Anyhow, a TiBook will cost you more, but it'll be well worth the investment.

[Baseline]

Well, I'm definitely NOT a multimedia-guy, but I'm still going to buy the next Powerbook, for two reasons:
1) OS X
2) Look/size of the TiBook.

I could get a very high powered PC laptop (with a GOOD video card) for less than a TiBook (with educational discount, a 667 TiBook with the 3 year warranty is going to cost me about $5500 CDN). However, I'm in love with the look of the TiBook, not with the look of some Dell machine.

And I'm dying to get to play with OS X. Finally, a really really nice GUI for a UNIX environment. No more Gnome or KDE!

I'd go order a TiBook right now if I wasn't so sure that a new revision is just around the corner.

[jefhatfield]

who cares about canada

they cheated in the olympics:D :D :D :D :D

[Baseline]

Haha, don't even get me started on that!

The REALLY funny thing is that our figure skaters got the gold not because of the Canadian public getting angry (although we weren't happy about it), but because of the American media's uproar over the situation.

For once, the American media did something good and worthwhile. ;)

[mcrain]

Canada: America Lite.

You know, why are most Canadians clustered near the border with us, and not the other way around??

:confused: :confused:

[mcrain]

Originally posted by Baseline
The REALLY funny thing is that our figure skaters got the gold not because of the Canadian public getting angry (although we weren't happy about it), but because of the American media's uproar over the situation.

For once, the American media did something good and worthwhile. ;)

Actually, it wasn't the American media, it was the American desire for some of that Canadian skater babe. Va va va voom!

[jefhatfield]

i am just joking because i am in class with jenny from vancouver, thats all:)

[Baseline]

Jenny from Vancouver? She died.

[Baseline]

Heh, I'm sorry, that's sort of an inside joke.
In their current round of amazing commericals, Molson has one where someone at a party asks a Canadian "Oh, so you're from Canada, eh? Do you know Bob, I think he works in an office?".
To which the Canadian replies: "Oh yeah, Office Bob. He's dead"

[jefhatfield]

8675309:D

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by mcrain
Canada: America Lite.

You know, why are most Canadians clustered near the border with us, and not the other way around??

:confused: :confused:

Uh, hello? You ever been to Northern Canada? Its not exactly the most hospitable place in the world. I've been to Northern Alberta, absolutely gorgeous, in the mountains. I'd love to take the AlCan highway, do a Seattle to Anchorage drive one summer, I absolutely love Alaska, too.

No picture will ever do it justice, because no matter what, you just can't capture the emmensity of the country. Beleive me, I've tried.

Here's a pic to set the mood, Athabaska Glacier, on the road to Jasper from Bannf in April 1999.

[Rower_CPU]

I attended a technology briefing that Sony held on my campus today, and they discussed their VAIO laptops.
What interested me the most is how the salesman flat out said that Sony is not trying to compete with low-end laptops. The see themselves as a premium computer manufacturer that deals in high quality machines. Now, as far as PCs go, VAIOs are definitely above and beyond anything Dell/Compaq/HP and crew can come up with. They do a good job designing sleek, good looking laptops. But, the one thing that gets me is that their top-of-the-line model aimed squarely at the TiBook is nowhere near in terms of design OR functionality. Let's take a look:

TiBook: $2,798.00
550MHz PowerPC G4 @ 100MHz
256K L2 cache @ 550MHz
256MB SDRAM memory
48GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon w/ 16MB DDR video memory
Gigabit Ethernet
56K internal modem
1 FireWire & 2 USB Ports
Airport
15" TFT Display
5.4 lbs
1" thick
Battery Life: 5 hours


VAIO: R505DSP $2399.99
Pentium® III @ 1.13 GHz-M
40 GB
256 MB
802.11b
SlimDock™ Docking Station with CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive and Floppy
10Base-T/100Base-TX Ethernet and V.90 Modem
Center Jog Dial™ Control
Memory Stick™ Media Slot
iLink
2 USB Ports
1 PC Card Slot
12.1 " TFT Display
4.37 lbs (w/out Docking Station)
~ 1" thick (w/out Docking Station)
Battery Life: 2.5 - 3.5 standard, 5.5 - 7.5 with optional double capacity battery


That's the closest I can come to an even comparison...now let's look at the differences.

TiBook - larger display, more storage, more bandwidth, lighter and thinner when similarly configured, and longer battery life with standard equipment

VAIO - Center Jog Dial Control, Memory Stick...a little bit cheaper...

I think it's pretty plain which one comes out on top...

[AlphaTech]

Rower_CPU, drop the TiBook hard drive to the 30GB (instead of the 48GB model) and the price comes out to $2399 (w/o Airport card, $2498 with it). You can always use the 6-pin FireWire port on the TiBook to add gobs of storage later, as you need it.

To get the same functionality as in the TiBook with the Sony, you have to use the slimdock. You still have a smaller screen.

Just shows all the dia-hard peecee weenies that Apple does have better hardware and pricing then comprable peecee's. :D

Mac's rule, peecee's drool....

[Rower_CPU]

That's true Alpha, I could've specced it a little differently....
Point is that that's the LOW-END TiBook and it's better than the high-end Vaio. PCs don't even come close! :D

[AlphaTech]

Rower_CPU, true... and the TiBook is about 10x easier to use, and work on when it needs it. I don't even want to think about how adding RAM into the Vaio would happen. Can't be as easy as on the TiBook :D. The Sony unit might have the processor speed numbers, but that is about all... We all know how pee 3's rate compared to a G4 anyways :D.

[DavidCL23]

no way! the POWERBOOK G4, but it is no way as expandible as most pc laptops, I was able upgrade cpu's on dell laptops (even from one generation pii processor to a piii) memory HDD and even a video card (only on a dell inspiron 8000 series and up and the latitude equivlent).

[Geert]

Originally posted by AlphaTech


Been there, done that, got no reply from the mag/rag. They had a review of OSX (10.0.3 I think). It was after 10.1 was out for over a month. The way they made it sound, what they were reviewing was the very latest. I called them on it, but got no where. I checked the next few issues (at the store, didn't buy them), and they didn't print any retractions/corrections at all.

Those bastards... I bet they killed Kenny too.

I got a reply (the same day)from them saying that they also give compliments to Apple from time to time.
I will ask them if they need somebody to write about Apple:D , because it looks like they go like:
hey that' a cool lookin' unit, but what does it do?
Better not touch it, we might just fall in love with it!:p
I would like for them to handle the Tibook as all the others, comparing them, not just a separate column saying that it is a good looking machine and then pricetag. that is scaring people telling them not to buy it. Heck that's just false publicity!

Those bastards, killin' Kenny, that is just plain murder:D
So who's next, it might even be chef!

[AlphaTech]

Geert, I vote that they kill Cartman next... of course Butters needs to go soon too, and bring Kenny back to life :D. He must be in therapy with all the times he has died and such... Either that, or he is vacationing in Hell again :D, just like the movie.

[menoinjun]

BTW-

We recently just got a Sony VIAO laptop at compusa that has a 16 inch lcd screen. So no longer is the TiBook king of the screens. The VAIO isn't widescreen, which is too bad, but I'm guessing the thing weighs about 15lbs!! (haven't seen it yet)

-Pete

[AlphaTech]

I just looked at the compusa site and found the one you are talking about... 1.8" thick, and about 8-1/2 pounds. Talk about an anchor, sheeesh. It only has 10/100 ethernet, and spec's out a 2 to 2-1/2 hour battery life (how much less under real use???).

The ONLY good parts that I see on it are the PC2100 memory and the 32MB Radeon 7500 video.

I wonder what Apple's answer to that will be :D.

[Baseline]

Whatever the answer may be, I hope it comes REAL soon. I'm going absolutely crazy waiting for the new Powerbook to be announced.

It'll be my first Mac ever and I can't stop thinking about it. UNIX with a nice interface, that's almost too much to believe!

My big hopes are for a faster FSB and an GeForce4 Mobile card. Superdrive I really couldn't care less about, I'll keep to renting my DVDs instead of making my own :)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by ptrauber
BTW-

We recently just got a Sony VIAO laptop at compusa that has a 16 inch lcd screen. So no longer is the TiBook king of the screens. The VAIO isn't widescreen, which is too bad, but I'm guessing the thing weighs about 15lbs!! (haven't seen it yet)

-Pete



the thing is completely awesome...the screen is as wide as the tibook but i would say about 10 percent taller so you can get 16 inches instead of 15.2 inches

the thing is heavy so it is not what i would call portable but a desktop replacement...tibook is portable

that 16 inch screen is the equivalent of a 17 inch crt so it is almost the same as some graphic designer's home systems...not until there is a laptop with a 20 inch screen will the newspaper and catalog designers have an "equal" to their 21 inch crt monitors...they often need to see two pages side by side and have the type relativily big to see (a smaller micron process will allow for much smaller batteries and the use of glass in lcds has been replaced by plastic not to mention smaller laptop components...so we will see increasingly larger lcd displays thru the years until we will no longer have to suffer with towers, mini towers, or even micro towers)

such a laptop would weigh nine or ten pounds but would completely "replace" a graphics desktop workstation (with the assumption that the lcd gets its color calibration down to at leat 6 delta units of accuracy...but they are close)

note: in 1997, many 12.1 inch lcd screen laptops were nine pounds and they were considered portable by industry standards

my early 1999 compaq presario with a 12.1 inch lcd weighs over seven and a half pounds (without adapter) and with a better battery (LiIon), the laptop is eight pounds...so it is all relative

:D

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Baseline
Whatever the answer may be, I hope it comes REAL soon. I'm going absolutely crazy waiting for the new Powerbook to be announced.

It'll be my first Mac ever and I can't stop thinking about it. UNIX with a nice interface, that's almost too much to believe!

My big hopes are for a faster FSB and an GeForce4 Mobile card. Superdrive I really couldn't care less about, I'll keep to renting my DVDs instead of making my own :)

I'm not going crazy, I'm already there :D...

As for the dimensions of the Sony laptop, it is 1.8" thick, 14" wide, and 11.5 deep. Compared to Apple's TiBook of 1" thin, 13.4 wide, and 9.5" deep weighing in at 5.4 pounds (about 3 pounds lighter then the Sony). The display on the Sony is taller, not all that much wider, so the wide screen format is not there.

I would rather see the new Mobile Radeon 7500 or 7800, with either 32MB or 64MB of video memory, in the next set of TiBooks then the GF chipset.

Imagine Apple's answer... a laptop with a 22" LCD :D. Or two lines of TiBook, one with a 17" and the other with the 22"... As Cartman has been known to say... "kick a$$" :D

[Rower_CPU]

We'll be moving well past the realm of laptops with 17" - 22" displays...
They would be better suited for true desktop replacement as all-in-one machines, especially if they get the Superdrive.

Hmmm...all of a sudden the PowerBook is competing with the iMac!

[jefhatfield]

dats evolution buddy

congrats on 600!:D

[Rower_CPU]

Thanks...congrats on 1000!!!:D

[jefhatfield]

you're welcome

i am not a demi-god because my wife seriously hates the time i put into macrumors.com:(

and the idea of buying a thirty dollar mug...yikes!

[Rower_CPU]

Yeah, my girlfriend puts up with me to varying degrees...
But I figure $30 is a small enough price to pay to support a site I get so much out of!

[Gelfin]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
TiBook - larger display, more storage, more bandwidth, lighter and thinner when similarly configured, and longer battery life with standard equipment

VAIO - Center Jog Dial Control, Memory Stick...a little bit cheaper...


Heh. And for a few bucks more, I put a Memory Stick reader in my PC Card slot. :-)

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Gelfin


Heh. And for a few bucks more, I put a Memory Stick reader in my PC Card slot. :-)

But who would actually need that??? Considering how virtually all digital camera's (those that are worth a damn) come with USB or (in the rare cases) FireWire connections. I would rather spend nothing extra and just plug the camera in to download images then to spend extra money to do it. Also, I believe that some cameras come with media readers that are also platform independant.

With the TiBook, you get better bang for your bucks.