G5 imac vs. G5 powerbook - which comes first?

I sincerely hope that it goes into the powerbooks before the iMacs--because it means I'd get one sooner

I don't have any inside information, but I think they'll go in the iMacs first--the iMacs are just so far behind consumer PCs performance-wise that Apple will really have no choice.

tibor said:

I see a lot of people posting about how they're hoping G5 imacs can't be far off with the new 90nm process and whatnot.

But, there's no way Apple would release a G5-powered consumer (imac) product before all of their pro (powerbook) lines are G5, right? That's what they've done in the past with the G4 and G3.

Technically, it would be a lot easier to put a G5 into an imac than a powerbook, but I just don't see it happening before the PBs are updated. And even then, I think it will be some time before the imacs see the G5. The difference between the two was a year with the G4.

SNIP

-d

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Whilst your reasoning is right, this has been discussed and one view was that they wouldn't hold back on a G5 iMac release if they had it ready and that the PBG5 is not going to be an easy thing to do... So we might see the G5iMac first given they need to bring out a new form factor machine to refresh the line asap and as you say its easier to do.

First, I have a laptop I'm using as we speak that has a processor putting out heat comparable to a G5 (desktop P4 laptop).

PowerPC 970 1.8 GHz: 0.13um, 121 mm2, 1.3v, 42 Watts.
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz: 0.13um, 131 mm2, 1.525v, 68.4 Watts.

So I have no doubt Apple can get around the heat problem. This thing is hot, but no inferno, and the fans are noticable only when you really push the system. So I think a simultainious (sp) release or PBs first.

I'd like to see a really innovative new PowerBook, I've been tossing around the idea of a 'modular' one (i.e. "PowerTablet," add a modular keyboard for a notebook-mode, have a 'big and heavy' desk module attachment with another processor in it, maybe a desktop video card) -- it would require some engineering feats to make sure the bus routes would be optimal through that modular connector but I think it'd be beautiful. I think if they did this they could probably get some really nice PR. One system - your desktop, your laptop, your canvas, your life. Or something like that

The redesign for the G5 Imac has to be less of a hurdle than the redesign necessary for a G5 powerbook. I would like them released as they are completed, no grand scheming.

I'm still holding to the word of Jobs when he sad that "in this the 20th year of the Mac we've got some great products to release" (please excuse the paraphrasing).

So my money is on both. But probably the PB first, but then the iMac not long after.

Though there is no sound reason for powerbook to get G5 first since one is portable and one isnt it will probably show in the book first but I hope not. At one time you could have about the same performance in a imac crt as a powermac. G4 vs G3 but Apple has kept performance out of the Imac everytime with poor video updates and crippled G4s without L3 and then holding off on the allready crippled G4 bus so we have ended up with a very overpriced and underperforming product on top of the all in one you cant upgrade. Since its crippled as a all in one it should have a top G5 and a top video system in it. It dont. Sales are not that great and so bad that Apple counted Emac as Imac sales. very sad indeed. who is to blame? G4 and Steve Jobs. They should have made a G5 Imac at the same time Powermacs were introduced only using duals in Powermac. If we do get a G5 Imac soon I feel confident that it will be crippled by Apple is some fashion so not to take sales from the Powermac. same old stupid game.

I'm hoping for apple's sake that they bin the disaster of the G4 as soon as possible.
The G5, has only 1 equal at this time the AMD 64 chips. But they are 1 step ahead, they have to laptop models currently out and 2 low power varients of the Opteron chip.

IBM are how ever @ 90nm which. But who knows they may be having trouble with chip yields.

I think they'll probably be released at the same time.

Apple wouldn't release the G5 in the consumer line until the pro line has it.

Apple's consumer line is in rough shape at the moment with G4's crappy video cards the only thing in the consumer line that is a good deal is the iBook and thats only because you don't buy a iBook for blazing performance.

Now arguably consumers are more likely to want to play games, at the moment you can buy the newest iMac and you just MIGHT be able to play the newest games coming out at minimum spec but in 6 months your machine will already getting dated in this department.

Now i think that the iMac will get upgraded before the powerbook once apple dreams up a new look for them, appropriate for the new high tech processors they are getting. Also as stated by many others the iMac will be much easier to upgrade.

Hell if apple put a G5 in the iMac in the same shape case but made the case aluminium i would take a serious look

might be bluring the line between pro and consumer though, but it would look cool

I wish Apple would stop playing these "consumer/pro" games, and just build decent computers that can compete in their respective categories. As many have said, the iMac is an embarrasment. They're considerably slower than PC's costing hundreds less. So what does Apple do? It slaps an obscene 20" LCD onto it, instead of upgrading the processor/video card. I don't care if the iMac is faster than the PowerBook. I don't think anyone else cares either. Should one product line suffer because of another? Apple is losing sales right now, and I surely hope it is not because of some arrogant attitude about putting G5's in the iMac before the PowerBook. I could see that though, Apple's business sense is sometimes lacking.

MoparShaha said:

I wish Apple would stop playing these "consumer/pro" games, and just build decent computers that can compete in their respective categories. As many have said, the iMac is an embarrasment. They're considerably slower than PC's costing hundreds less. So what does Apple do? It slaps an obscene 20" LCD onto it, instead of upgrading the processor/video card. I don't care if the iMac is faster than the PowerBook. I don't think anyone else cares either. Should one product line suffer because of another? Apple is losing sales right now, and I surely hope it is not because of some arrogant attitude about putting G5's in the iMac before the PowerBook. I could see that though, Apple's business sense is sometimes lacking.

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I wonder is they are holding off on the long delayed iMac update because they are making a major change. I wonder if the 20" was just to test the waters with a big screen and to hold the line over until their new G5 iMac was ready. If so we could be waiting a while given delays to G5Servers, G5PM Sec Rev, iPod Mini shortages etc... End of June?

Here's hoping...

aswitcher said:

I wonder is they are holding off on the long delayed iMac update because they are making a major change. I wonder if the 20" was just to test the waters with a big screen and to hold the line over until their new G5 iMac was ready. If so we could be waiting a while given delays to G5Servers, G5PM Sec Rev, iPod Mini shortages etc... End of June?

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That is exactly what I'm hoping is the case. The iMac 20" upgrade was like putting a hat on a monkey, nothing new and slightly embarrassing.

In the 20th Mac year they have made promises to impress. G5 iMac 1.6gh based on the 90nm technology will put them back on track for consumer respectability.

Also, by keeping the consumer and professional distinctions means they can manipulate the profit margins much easier. Not cooking the books, just by adopting a First Class vs Coach Class kind of approach to the service. I may be wrong.

with so many ways to differentiate between products Apple needs to get off its G4 high horse and use otherways such as standard features or just the fact its a all in one means Imac can still have a top G5 and video system? whats wrong with selling 10 imacs for every Powermac? as of now they sell at a 1-1 ratio and thats adding the Emacs. Consumers numbers are so high compared to the professionals and Apple is loosing this little market they do have. Whoever at Apple that made this choice(Steve Jobs?) is so wrong and sales prove it. Apple needs a flagship computer to do battle with the Pcs and it doesnt have one in any fashion. Even Dual G5s were getting spanked by Alienware's Aurora. What happen to the fastest Pc adds? it was not honest. 2 G5s are only just on par with 1 AMD or Intel so even if Imac gets a top G5 single it still wont be in the same league as the otherside. Maybe a new OS that is 64 bit and apps to go with it will change that but maybe another year away. In the mean time a G4 is very outclassed by even those cpu's in those $600 computers.

I sold my 1st generation G4 iMac and bought a PowerMac G5 1.8MHz. I wish I hadn't - the G5 is way too powerful for my needs and is noisier than the iMac as well as being very much larger. I feel like I have foolishly bought a Porsche just to drive to the local store.

I wanted a new Mac and it just seemed sensible at the time to go for the G5, especially since the price difference between that and the latest iMac was not that great.

If a G5 iMac comes out I will sell my PowerMac G5 and buy one. The iMac is a way cool machine for the home user.

I think that the G5 iMacs and Powerbooks will come out more or less at the same time: in the revision after the upcoming one that will arrive some time in the fall.

scgf said:

I sold my 1st generation G4 iMac and bought a PowerMac G5 1.8MHz. I wish I hadn't - the G5 is way too powerful for my needs and is noisier than the iMac as well as being very much larger.

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I have put off any thoughts of buying a G5 tower, until they make a new one. That case is massive, almost 40% larger (cubic dimension) than the G4 towers. I don't care how fast it is, I don't need a computing closet sitting on my desk.

scgf said:

I sold my 1st generation G4 iMac and bought a PowerMac G5 1.8MHz. I wish I hadn't - the G5 is way too powerful for my needs and is noisier than the iMac as well as being very much larger. I feel like I have foolishly bought a Porsche just to drive to the local store.

I wanted a new Mac and it just seemed sensible at the time to go for the G5, especially since the price difference between that and the latest iMac was not that great.

If a G5 iMac comes out I will sell my PowerMac G5 and buy one. The iMac is a way cool machine for the home user.

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Way to powerful? what do you do with it mail and internet? I guess you arent running any cutting edge software or games for that matter. A 1.8 single G5 isnt all that strong when you start looking at benches in the Pc world. It should last you a long time then scgf. I feel if Iam going to spend 2 grand I want a machine that zips through everything(games also) like lightning. My choices have narrowed down to a dual G5 or Alienware with a AMD64- 3200 or 3400. From the benches this machine can handle a dual G5 and still cost the same as a Imac 17". sure it doesnt have a monitor but it does have a Cpu! I cant even consider Imac in its current form because of its very stagnate overpriced hardware. Id like to but how long will it be for a G5 Imac and then it may only be a 1.6 G5 thats crippled. Ill give Apple 2-3 months and if they do nothing then its off to some Alienwarehttp://www.alienware.com/main.aspx if I can wait that long.

imac needs videocard/prozessor update in june ...even the powerbook is outselling the emac and imac together
the imac should be the consumer machine and outselling the powermac by factor 3-4 and not selling less

btw:
i was at the local apple store here today and tested the machiens they had there (not the whole laptop/powermac line up sadly) i was pretty impressed with seeing macos x (which i only knew from screenshots before) and the way it worked without feeling slow on the 15" imac which only had 800 mhz (but 512 mb) i wouldn't recommend it even with seeing how seamless everything worked, i just don't like the idea of the attached screen , which is a nice feature but it should be removable in some way
but the G5 with 20"apple display ..it just screamed 'BUY.. ME..' (anybody remember 'Alien' ?) i just like this little white LED which glows there and of coures i was pretty impressed by those huge screen

me (sitting in front of computer clicking on those dock icons) : "is this the 23" ?"
guy from the shop: "not that's only the 20" screen. Sadly we haven't got a 23" around at the moment. but the 23" would be like this "(showing how much bigger the 23 is with his hands)
me (impressed): "ohhhh i see ..."
and then he started the obvious 'show the clean guts' show with taking off the side when i saw those huge nearly stopping ventilators i thought "damn at home my PC with it's roaring power supply waits for me"
and the people from the shop were really friendly and helpfull,even after i mentioned that i wouldn't buy one in the next 6 months

Dont Hurt Me said:

Way to powerful? what do you do with it mail and internet? I guess you arent running any cutting edge software or games for that matter.

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Yeah, mainly internet surfing, email, MS Office, iPhoto - not much PhotoShop though.

I do transfer recorded TV programs to iMovie to burn to DVD, so that process is fast using a G5.

I suppose you are right - a 1.8 single-processor is not *that* fast now, but I do miss the form factor of the iMac. I just feel that a small form factor is the way to go for the future. I can't see huge boxes having much of a future, particularly next to my G4 800MHz iBook - which doesn't feel much slower than the G5. I think Apple have made Panther nicely responsive on all current hardware.

takao said:

imac needs videocard/prozessor update in june ...even the powerbook is outselling the emac and imac together
the imac should be the consumer machine and outselling the powermac by factor 3-4 and not selling less
SNIP

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Yep, better video card (options would be lovely), G5 processor, bluetooth standard (its only $50 and mass produced should be very cheap).

Optional bluetooth keyboard and mouse when purchasing.

Optional speakers...new form factor speakers? Mounted below screen?

scgf said:

I sold my 1st generation G4 iMac and bought a PowerMac G5 1.8MHz. I wish I hadn't - the G5 is way too powerful for my needs and is noisier than the iMac as well as being very much larger. I feel like I have foolishly bought a Porsche just to drive to the local store.

I wanted a new Mac and it just seemed sensible at the time to go for the G5, especially since the price difference between that and the latest iMac was not that great.

If a G5 iMac comes out I will sell my PowerMac G5 and buy one. The iMac is a way cool machine for the home user.

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I'll buy the power mac

kenkooler said:

I think they'll probably be released at the same time.

Apple wouldn't release the G5 in the consumer line until the pro line has it.

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This type of marketing by Apple is why their market share is under 3% and falling.

Savage Henry said:

That is exactly what I'm hoping is the case. The iMac 20" upgrade was like putting a hat on a monkey, nothing new and slightly embarrassing.

In the 20th Mac year they have made promises to impress. G5 iMac 1.6gh based on the 90nm technology will put them back on track for consumer respectability.

Also, by keeping the consumer and professional distinctions means they can manipulate the profit margins much easier. Not cooking the books, just by adopting a First Class vs Coach Class kind of approach to the service. I may be wrong.

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A 2 GHz chip would be what I want and earn them more respectability.

I don't agree with your first class/coach analogy. Apple hardly sells at coach prices. iMac, PB and PM lines are all priced like first class and, as such, should be packed with state of the art hardware. Look at the current iMac and PB. First class prices and a 167 MHz bus, which is akin to traveling in the freight bay.

Note to Apple- build it and they will come!

rdowns said:

This type of marketing by Apple is why their market share is under 3% and falling.

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actually last year apple sold 62% more computers in germany than in the year before now they are back on the same amount they had 1998 and first time increasing marketshare since years

new models (G5 powermac, G4 iBook) better sales .period.

a new iMac could profit on the ipod/iTMS Europe media attention very easily. i doubt apple will miss that chance. (in a interview a apple germany manager said they will release iTMS in europe as soon as possible _this year_)

edit: i forgot to completly agree on your posts rdowns