SiliconAddict said:
That appeals to me in a big way. I get my 17" screen wherever I go. Ill get my fast processor wherever I go. But for me this all hinges on the G5. Sorry but from all the benchmarks Ive seen and even playing with the current 17 1.5Ghz G4 PowerBook the system is sorely in need of a massive overhaul both in terms of the system bus, CPU support, and available hard drives. (How about a 7200 RPM drive Apple?!?!?)
Power expenditure, as you well know, is a big deal. Unless those 7200 RPM drives are going to be heavily cached and thus not tapped as often, they're probably only a good idea on laptops that are intended to be wall-plugged "desktop replacement." I've never really gotten the idea of designing a laptop that you can't keep away from an outlet for hours on end. All of the things that you harp on are going to eat more power and produce more heat, and most will add more cost to the design.
Two times faster on a system only 300Mhz faster?!!?
Unless you are forced to edit in the field, the PowerBook G4 is a bad choice for a Final Cut Pro "editing station."
The G5/1.8MP Power Mac was over TWO TIMES FASTER than the 17" PowerBook G4 (1.5GHz) running our FCP4 render tests!
Sure, that second, higher-clocked CPU had nothing to do with the results. It's all the 300mhz difference that did it...
🙄
Please. You nor anyone else on Macrumors has any idea what Apple has planned for the PowerBook nor any idea how long theyve been working on a G5 PowerBook design. And yah that obviously includes me. You can't say one way or another about the G5 in the PowerBook.
We can point at known facts and the principles of physics, though. It doesn't mean that Apple won't find a way around the issues, that they don't have a surprise up their sleeves, or even that they might be marketing a different chip as the G5-M or something like that... You're right that people on this board don't know for certain that there will or won't be a G5 PowerBook in the immediate future, but you're wrong that we can't speculate within reason about what the issues facing the design would be.
Frankly if Apple continues to use Moto they are going to be in the same boat they were in Pre-G5 with the PowerMac. They WILL be getting soundly thrashed by Intel's-90nm-2MB-cache Dothan-Pentium M chip. That and what will Apple do when Moto pulls another manufacturing fiasco like what reportedly occurred with the delay of last year's PowerBooks?!?
The whole industry is experiencing technical issues, and while the actions of the company formerly completely under the direction of Motorola seem to be inexcusable form the standpoint of mac consumers, it's not the same company anymore. FreeScale is aggressively moving after the PowerPC and they've already brought one new design to market (the e500 embedded processor), with plans for two more that are almost surely intended to more high-end applications.
At least IBM has the legit reason of moving from the 130nm to 90nm process as an excuse for delays. What was Moto's other then incompetence? That company has screwed over Apple in so many ways they could give a cheap whore technique lessons.
The legitimate reason in this case is hobbling by the Motorola parent corporation, which is no longer an issue. If FreeScale can move away from their past and put this new Crolles facility to work for them, then good things could come for Apple.
