Powerbook/iBook Specs Roundup

[MacRumors]

So many potential rumors have been floating around about the expected laptop upgrades... here is a summary of what is likely in the near future.

Very Likely
Powerbook 800Mhz-1GHz with Superdrive
iBook G3 up to 800MHz

Probable
November 5th, 2002 Release Date

Possible
Bluetooth

Uncertain
13" iBook Screens
Radeon Mobility 9000

This information is consolidated from known rumors and sources at this time.

[DannyZR2]

I thought I had heard of a dvd-r that was slot loading capable.. i thought new a05 pioneer drive was such. Hopefully this will be the drive used in the new powerbooks.


I would love to go portable, but with all the desktops with dual processors.. I can't justify paying so much more for less!

I would be very tempted by a dual powerbook.. hopefully it will happen with the IBM 970 since it was built for SMP.

[Awimoway]

It's sad that Bluetooth is not considered a slam dunk. With iSync out there, I think it ought to be standard as of now on all Macs.

[actripxl]

Well all I can say is I'll be the first in line to buy an Ibook and make the switch the day they come out.

[kcmac]

iBook up to 800 Ghz? Hope not...

[akula47]

Hmm, what the hell. I wonder why they are saying "Uncertain
" about the ATI 9000. I thought this was a done deal? I mean come, you gotta update that 7500 in the powerbook.

[rjstanford]

Personally, the Bluetooth would be very useful but the real win for me would have been some mention of integrated 802.11a/g networking. Having the external antenna and larger power drain from a PC card really conflicts with some of the reasons that I'm looking to pick up a Powerbook, but the 11mb transfer rate just doesn't cut it in my office.

Ah, well.

The Superdrive is a good plus, and may push me over the edge (assuming that a faster internal wireless card will be forthcoming and available as an upgrade, I can probably live with an external antenna while at work). I guess we'll see what happens when they're officially released.

The real win for me would be a better resolution (the Dell I'm typing this on does 1600x1200 for crying out loud), but I think that I'm just out of luck there. I guess its a tribute to the quality of the hardware/OS that I'm even buying one considering the 50% real estate reduction (and 30-40% DPI decrease) though.

-Richard

[dethl]

I wonder if Apple is killing the ability to boot into OS 9 in these laptops?

[SPG]

The Pioneer A05 DVDR is a 4x burner which is nice, but it ain't slot loading yet. There was a report a couple months ago about a demo of a slot load DVDR in Tokyo, but I can' tremember if it was Pioneer's (I'm thinking not). There is a slot load DVDR drive out there right now, (Panasonic? Sony?) but it's not a slam dunk that it will be in the powerbook, since it's not the standard vendor that Apple's been using. I know that's a minor detail, but don't underestimate Apple's commitment to Pioneer.

[akula47]

Originally posted by rjstanford
The real win for me would be a better resolution (the Dell I'm typing this on does 1600x1200 for crying out loud), but I think that I'm just out of luck there. I guess its a tribute to the quality of the hardware/OS that I'm even buying one considering the 50% real estate reduction (and 30-40% DPI decrease) though.

-Richard

Ahh.. 1600x1200 is just inanse on a small laptop screen. If the option was there, then fine. But like on PC machines, if that is the optimal res, then anything lower looks like ****. SO, it is not acceptable to force everyone to look at something as small as 1600x1200 if everything below it is ****.

[Bradcoe]

Native resolution sucks on LCD's. I hate not being able to change it. I want the maximum resolution that will fit, but Mr. Joe might want something a little less for his own eyes, but then Mr. Joe has to look at a horrible screen when it's not running in native. This is the LCD's one downfall. The ability to adjust the resolution to a lower one should be improved so it looks nicer. THEN sell a 1600x1200 laptop display.

What about the possibility of an LCD display being able to scale higher than its native resolution? Right now it would require pixels to act as multiple pixels, but maybe new hardware would allow this somehow, or maybe its just impossible with LCDs all together.

[e-coli]

my biggest beef with the powerbooks is the low resolution, too. they need a higher-res screen.

[moo083]

a. There were rumors a while ago that sort of died down that there was going to be an enhanced display on the new powerbook.

b. Thereis a minor detial people are missing. Look at the original Powermac versus the current one. There has been several casing changes since late 1999 and perhaps the case will changed slightly now for the powerbook. If this is the case (and look and yourdailymac.com) then perhaps different things are to come. Though I doubt the picture on your daily mac is acurate because Apple hasn't forced them to take it down (though maybe this is a new Apple tactic), it is a possibility which allows ideas such as tray dvdrs etc.

c. Just because the Powerbook MAY not be upgraded to a radeon 9000 mobility does not mean it is not going to be upgraded. I wish (since I am buying one of these babies) that it will be a 9000, but any upgrade would be appreciated.

[JtheLemur]

What I REALLLLLLY want is a SMALLER iBook.

Even if it's say, a Special Edition one. What I wouldn't give for the current iBook (12" screen and all... maybe a little faster...) to be wrapped in a thin metal instead of a thick plastic!

Or, even if they cut DOWN the screen size and made the whole thing smaller overall... even eliminated the CD drive! That would be great. Since they're doing the XServe, why not a subnotebook? Every tech I know that does their share of on-site work has a Sony PictureBook since they are just damn portable, MOST are even running Linux. It would be great if Apple could make a MiniBook. =D

Here's hoping!

*justin

[mcrain]

A new powerbook with bluetooth, internal dvd-r, faster processor, maybe even a better screen....


Oh, I think I just got an *rection.

[cubist]

... was from Matsu****a (Panasonic).

[Shaggy_Alien]

hhhmmm my Q. is will they ship on the 5th,
how much $$$ and is it TRUE???


Shaggy

[rjstanford]

Originally posted by akula47

It is not acceptable to force everyone to look at something as small as 1600x1200 if everything below it is ****.

<sarcasm>Wow. Its too bad that OSX doesn't let you change your font size.</sarcasm>

Assuming that you have the graphics power to run it at a reasonable rate, a higher dotpitch leads to clearer text -- especially with the modern antialiasing systems built in.

Then again, maybe you have a point. I do hate having to squint to read text on modern laser printers ... whatever happened to good ol' 300dpi where the text was shown at full size?

[sparkleytone]

Originally posted by akula47


Ahh.. 1600x1200 is just inanse on a small laptop screen. If the option was there, then fine. But like on PC machines, if that is the optimal res, then anything lower looks like ****. SO, it is not acceptable to force everyone to look at something as small as 1600x1200 if everything below it is ****.

i think this is kind of misstated. in the pc world, and under classic, 1600x1200 is an insane resolution for a laptop yes. BUT, among many other things, OS X has changed the way people use and see resolution of the screen. OS X not only takes more real estate by default, but it seems to encourage higher resolutions by its object model and gooey icons.

on another note...i also think the powerbook BETTER be the 9000. there is NO reason for it not to be. the 9000 is PIN COMPATIBLE with the 7500. anything less would be a slap in the face.

[moo083]

Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with pin compatibility. It has everything to do with amount of stock Apple has, heat, and size, though I am sure that size is not an isue. I would love a 9000 though. Please gods of grpahics, give me a radeon mobility 9000 for the graphics card on the new powerbooks!

....and oh yeah, please let them actually be announced on the 5th...

[Titanium.X]

Pioneer makes a tray-loading DVD-R drive that will fit the PowerBook. It burns DVD-R and DVD-RW discs at 2x not 4x though. Panasonic (Matsushıta) makes both a tray-loading and slot-loading DVD-R drive that will fit the PowerBook. It burns DVD-R discs at 2x and DVD-RW discs at 1x so not as fast as the Pioneer. It is also slower at burning CD-RW discs. Apple has used Matsushıta in the past for their slot-loading drives so they will going with them here, at least initially. It was announced October 3rd and was said to be available towards the end of the year. If the 3-5 day wait at the Apple Store is any indication, they may not have gotten them in time. It's 50/50 really. They could also offer it as a BTO-only option initially with delayed delivery.

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Bradcoe
Native resolution sucks on LCD's. I hate not being able to change it. I want the maximum resolution that will fit, but Mr. Joe might want something a little less for his own eyes, but then Mr. Joe has to look at a horrible screen when it's not running in native. This is the LCD's one downfall. The ability to adjust the resolution to a lower one should be improved so it looks nicer. THEN sell a 1600x1200 laptop display.

Well, a 1600x1200 display will look nice in two resolutions, at least: 1600x1200 and 800x600 (double-sized pixels).

Hoping for anything better in other rezolutions is not a very reasonable goal.

Yes, with realtime antialiasing you should be able to do it, but the simpler solution (from a processing point of view) would be on-demand resizing of all UI widgets (there is nothing saying that a scroll bar *has* to be 32 pixels across, you know!) and fonts and images in Quartz. Would have roughly the same effect, but you'd spend much less processing power doing it (widgets only need to be resized once and then drawn over and over again; at the GPU layer there would be no indication that scroll bar X and Y are really the same thing and so the scaling doesn't really need to be repeated ...) and you would get fewer artifacts introduced and more discrete detail retained than compositing everything in, say, 1024x768 and scaling as a continuous-tone image up to the LCD's native resolution. The difference for non-bitmapped stuff would be dramatic (think a line drawn on an old 320x240 screen compared to a line of the same physical size on a new 1600x1200 screen ...)

But, unfortunately, while OSX has a nice icon scaling system, I've never heard any mention of wholesale replacement of screen geometries in it's API set. It's a shame, because many people run their computers at a low resolution just so that certain UI elements are a larger "target" to hit, but have to live with the ugly screen and eye strain side effects of inch-tall pixels.

[moby1]

Panasonic's (Matsush?ta) SuperDrive would convince me.

2 X is fine. People who think they don't need a DVD-R haven't tried one yet. I hope I've burned my last CD with a measly 650 MB of storage. I won't have the cash until Jan. but even if the SD is a BTO extra - I'd go for it!

moby1

~ burn'n down the house at 1X right now : (

[Computer_Phreak]

Originally posted by jettredmont


Well, a 1600x1200 display will look nice in two resolutions, at least: 1600x1200 and 800x600 (double-sized pixels).

[think the movie 'Office Space'] Oohh, ya, ummm... I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of.... Disagree with you there... ya.. [/think the movie 'Office Space']

It would look good in 1/4 of the native resolution, 400x300, because then four pixels will emulate one pixel.

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Computer_Phreak

Well, a 1600x1200 display will look nice in two resolutions, at least: 1600x1200 and 800x600 (double-sized pixels).



[think the movie 'Office Space'] Oohh, ya, ummm... I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of.... Disagree with you there... ya.. [/think the movie 'Office Space']

It would look good in 1/4 of the native resolution, 400x300, because then four pixels will emulate one pixel.

Well, I did say "nice", not chunky like an Atari 2600 ...

For that matter it would also look at least decent (though with a black column on one side) in 533x400, 3x3 pixel blocks. And, of course, it could emulate a 1x1 single-pixel screen quite easily, although the aspect ratio might be off a bit ...