1.5 vs 1.67 PBs - maccentral suggests little difference

[ShnikeJSB]

What I am waiting for...

I currently own an '01 15.2" TiBook G4/667, and I have been waiting for Apple to significantly improve their 'books enough to replace it, but it has yet to happen. I am looking forward to some things to truly make it worthwhile. Here are the things I hope are to be introduced by the end of summer (if they are, I am 110% ready to get a new 15" PowerBook):

Processor: 90nm 1.8-2.0GHz Freescale 7448, with its faster 200MHz bus and 1MB cache. It has been said before, and I will say it again: the 7447x sucks, and needs to be replaced! Dual-core would be nice, but this is but a pipe dream for another year MINIMUM. Plus, I still believe G5's won't make the cut for a PB.

Screen: A move to 15.4" TRUE Widescreen (none of this 15.2" bull), brighter with a better viewing angle, and WSXGA+ resolution - 1680 x 1050. Our screens are an utter EMBARRASSMENT compared to Wintel offerings.

Graphics: A move to PCI-X (or PCI Express). Since the X800 Mobility is too hot/large, it is pretty much out of the question. BUT, get rid of the Mobility 9700, and throw in an X700 Mobility or Geforce 6600 GO with 128-256 megs graphics RAM. They are plenty cool and use nearly as much power as the current Mobility 9700, yet are much faster (up to 2x faster in Windows benchies).

Hard drives: Offer 7200 RPM drives. Plain and simple. I could live with some extra heat/noise for the increased performance.

RAM: Move away from DDR333, and get on over to DDR400 already! Or maybe even make the leap to DDR2-533. Hell, if they can get PCI-X in, they could do this! Latency on DDR2 has gone down dramatically as of late.

OS: Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" pre-installed.

Battery: A battery using this new technology I JUST read about a couple days ago (but can't remember where), that makes the batteriescheaper to make, last much longer, and recharge much quicker. I wish I could remember where I read this, maybe on Geek.com?

That is basically what I am looking for, and hope to GOD to see these improvements (OR BETTER!) in the next revision. Here's to hoping! -JB

 

[BigDogg]

Yes, this update did not improve the line tremendously, neverless the line was improved though.I will probably wait until the line is updated one more time before I make the purchase of a PB.I just jope they do not change the minimalist styling of which I am a big fan.

 

[Eastend]

Not that I believe XBench here are the results from my PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz 15" http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc2=98908 - I dunno what to think when I compare it to the scores of the iMac G5 1.6.

Best notebook I've ever owned, and imho it's damn fast for what I do!

Does anyone have the benchmarks for the new PowerBook using a Firewire 800 drive, like LaCie's Big Disk Extreme? I'd just bet the scores would improve using a Firewire 800 drive, at least somewhat. On a Dual 2.5 G5 I get over 250 benchmark using the internal drive, using the Big Disk Extreme I get 238, but on a PowerBook this might be reversed due to the slower internal drive. The scores might beat the low end iMac with the Big Disk Extreme hooked up to the Firewire 800 as a startup drive on a new PowerBook. Anyway it is Interesting that the Benchmarks of the new PowerBook are so close to the low end iMac anyway.

Brian

 

[cosmos]

I upgraded from a 400MHz iMac...

Wow....
I have never seen so may people complaning abouts better preformance and new features for less money.

It's a small upgrade...but it's still just that.... AN UPGRADE

Hey, I could have waited until Apple released the upcoming G9, but I needed: a 17 inch laptop for upcoming consulting work. I am coming from a G3 400MHz iMac. Even though it has 512MB and an upgraded 8MB cache drive, the new machine is still very superior.

Yes, you can have faster performance in many other machines, but I could not find a better machine for what I needed. I was not about to pay the 'bend over' prices for Apple memory, but I ordered Samsung OEM memory for less than half of what Apple wanted.

I got what I needed in a cool machine. Yes, I could have waited, but how long do you want to wait for the 'latest and greatest?'

No matter what you wait for, you will always find that if you only waited a little longer, you would have been able to have purchased the new toy.

 

[Flyinace2000]

No matter what you wait for, you will always find that if you only waited a little longer, you would have been able to have purchased the new toy.

Exactly! Hence my new powerbook

 

[Demon Hunter]

I currently own an '01 15.2" TiBook G4/667, and I have been waiting for Apple to significantly improve their 'books enough to replace it, but it has yet to happen. I am looking forward to some things to truly make it worthwhile. Here are the things I hope are to be introduced by the end of summer (if they are, I am 110% ready to get a new 15" PowerBook):

Processor: 90nm 1.8-2.0GHz Freescale 7448, with its faster 200MHz bus and 1MB cache. It has been said before, and I will say it again: the 7447x sucks, and needs to be replaced! Dual-core would be nice, but this is but a pipe dream for another year MINIMUM. Plus, I still believe G5's won't make the cut for a PB.

Screen: A move to 15.4" TRUE Widescreen (none of this 15.2" bull), brighter with a better viewing angle, and WSXGA+ resolution - 1680 x 1050. Our screens are an utter EMBARRASSMENT compared to Wintel offerings.

Graphics: A move to PCI-X (or PCI Express). Since the X800 Mobility is too hot/large, it is pretty much out of the question. BUT, get rid of the Mobility 9700, and throw in an X700 Mobility or Geforce 6600 GO with 128-256 megs graphics RAM. They are plenty cool and use nearly as much power as the current Mobility 9700, yet are much faster (up to 2x faster in Windows benchies).

Hard drives: Offer 7200 RPM drives. Plain and simple. I could live with some extra heat/noise for the increased performance.

RAM: Move away from DDR333, and get on over to DDR400 already! Or maybe even make the leap to DDR2-533. Hell, if they can get PCI-X in, they could do this! Latency on DDR2 has gone down dramatically as of late.

OS: Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" pre-installed.

Battery: A battery using this new technology I JUST read about a couple days ago (but can't remember where), that makes the batteriescheaper to make, last much longer, and recharge much quicker. I wish I could remember where I read this, maybe on Geek.com?

That is basically what I am looking for, and hope to GOD to see these improvements (OR BETTER!) in the next revision. Here's to hoping! -JB

While I can sympathize with some of your hopes, that sounds a lot like a loud, hot, thick and unstable Windows laptop.

In regards to the processor, the 7447A is hardly weak, but a 200MHz FSB would be nice. That's the only thing that would justify DDR400, since it's usually twice the bus speed (so the current Powerbook has an effective memory bus of 333Mhz, or 2x 167).

True widescreen on the 15" would give the 17" less impact... it would be nice to see a 13" though! And many people, including myself do not want WSXGA screens... yeah, they're gorgeous, but they also use more power and hurt your eyes.

And the benefits of 7200 rpm drives and higher speed memory just aren't there. It's negligible to say the least. Until the new Freescale G4+ is out, the higher bandwith is even more meaningless, since the current G4 saps all of it.