Hope this is true because Id much rather have a new 15" aluminum book, the 12" is cute and all but Id really like a bigger screen.
fingers crossed.
fingers crossed.
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15" PowerBook Anticipated
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Originally posted by redAPPLE
opinions please.
does anyone agree with me, that the next pb revision would be a "major" revision?
it is basically the powerbook that we all want.
- it runs cooler (with the AL case)
- still around an inch thick
- ae
- better placing of the airport antenna
- superdrive
- hopefully same price or lower
- fw800
the only thing that is missing is that proc they keep calling the g5.
Dude, I couldn't disagree with you more. Let's go point-by-point:
*Runs cooler: Uh, no. The case won't affect the temperature at which it runs -- only heat dissipation. In other words, maybe you'll have hotter hands like lots of people have reported with the 12" PB. Gee, great, burns...
* Still around an inch thick: how is it a major revision on this point if it's the same as the old?
* AE/antenna: nice feature, yes. Wireless is the only definite upgrade here in my mind.
* SuperDrive: as before, how is it a major revision on this point if it's the same as the old?
* Price: all speculation here
* FireWire800: In my mind, what a waste. FireWire400's bus is rarely saturated. This is a sales gimmick for now and little more. The only FW800 devices out now that I know of are hard drives, and there you'll be limited by the drive itself and its concomitant rpm rather than the enclosure and bus used to transmit the data.
And then there are definite DOWNGRADES in the graphics card, and the loss of OS 9 bootability, and the loss of 54 vertical pixels...
I don't see this as a major revision...just another product to keep Apple lovers oohing and aahing over the newest thing on the block. If they introduce it, discontinuing the TiBook would be a big mistake...
i'm curious, how does the heat dissipation of Al compare to Ti? like, the elements themselves. it's not THAT different, is it? i think the 12 inch is just a little too much hot sauce for such a small bowl of chili.
i hope they go up to 5400 rpm and keep the high density. i am truly disappointed with the drive speed on mine if anything at all.
couldn't agree more. except on OS 9. i don't care, i want it gone.
don't like how you sound really annoyed that they do this, but i agree that it's not a big thing. if they go DDR 333 AND keep the 1 MB L3 cache, i think you will see an overall improvement there, looking at the 17 inch performance. that's the only other potential upgrade i see here. and honestly, i don't think any of this is really worth it (except maybe AE if you have use for it) if you lose pixels.
I did a little research on the heat conductivity issue. First, heat conductivity is directly proportional to electrical conductivity since it they both depend on moving electrons. Heat conductivity is measured in Watts per meter per Kelvin. It just so happens that Aluminum's heat conductivity is 237 W/m-K while titanium is 21.9W/m-K. These numbers are at 300K(or about 23 degrees C) and 1 atm(pressure at sea level). What does this mean? I'm not really sure. However, I can at least speculate that the higher heat conductivity value, the higher the rate of heat dissipation. That would mean the aluminum dissipates at least 10 times faster?? That would be a significant difference I think...
Does anyone happen to be an authority in this branch of physics?
Does anyone happen to be an authority in this branch of physics?
Oh, and here are my sources-
Heat Conductivity of Aluminum:
http://www.efunda.com/materials/elements/TC_Table.cfm?Element_ID=Al
Heat Conductivity of Titanium:
http://www.efunda.com/materials/elements/TC_Table.cfm?Element_ID=Ti
See the numbers for yourself.
I guess even though the discrepency is big, the fact that the titanium and aluminum are not pure plays a significant factor. However, one must wonder how much the discrepency does play a part in how hot the PB gets...
Heres a little explanation of heat, or thermal conductivity.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/thercond.html
Heat Conductivity of Aluminum:
http://www.efunda.com/materials/elements/TC_Table.cfm?Element_ID=Al
Heat Conductivity of Titanium:
http://www.efunda.com/materials/elements/TC_Table.cfm?Element_ID=Ti
See the numbers for yourself.
I guess even though the discrepency is big, the fact that the titanium and aluminum are not pure plays a significant factor. However, one must wonder how much the discrepency does play a part in how hot the PB gets...
Heres a little explanation of heat, or thermal conductivity.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/thercond.html
Ti vs Al
As for the heat dissipation properties, the Al will in fact feel warmer to the touch as it will allow more heat to escape. However, if you use an IR thermometer or other accurate measuring tool, the Al will actually have a cooler ambient air temperature while operating.
Most thin laptops, regardless of case will have a concentrated heat spot on the case.
Titanium, while a 'wow factor' material, is actually a tough material for Apple to work with. While it can be anodized its not easy and looks 'odd', it is hard to work with in terms fo milling, molding and fabrication, its more $$$ than other materials, and it inherently does not let things like paint stick to it well. Al on the other hand is cheaper, easy to work with, can be colored, and painted easier. The Al will remove heat better, and thus cool down a hot processor faster than Ti, but would not feel any cooler to the touch if all things were equal.
Since Ti is mostly known for its strenght, and no one advises dropping powerbooks, its all moot to use it. I think it was very wise for Apple to move to Al, and I look forward to new Al Powerbooks soon .
As for the heat dissipation properties, the Al will in fact feel warmer to the touch as it will allow more heat to escape. However, if you use an IR thermometer or other accurate measuring tool, the Al will actually have a cooler ambient air temperature while operating.
Most thin laptops, regardless of case will have a concentrated heat spot on the case.
Titanium, while a 'wow factor' material, is actually a tough material for Apple to work with. While it can be anodized its not easy and looks 'odd', it is hard to work with in terms fo milling, molding and fabrication, its more $$$ than other materials, and it inherently does not let things like paint stick to it well. Al on the other hand is cheaper, easy to work with, can be colored, and painted easier. The Al will remove heat better, and thus cool down a hot processor faster than Ti, but would not feel any cooler to the touch if all things were equal.
Since Ti is mostly known for its strenght, and no one advises dropping powerbooks, its all moot to use it. I think it was very wise for Apple to move to Al, and I look forward to new Al Powerbooks soon .
In real world terms. It means that an Al case will cool faster than a Ti case. So both cases WILL get warm, but the Al will release the heat to the surrounding air faster and more efficiently, thus cooling the powerbook better, although to our feel it would appear to be the same.
haha! i was right. the 12" is just too much hot sauce for that bowl of chili!
I think this would mean, on bigger alubooks, that they will handle the heat better. i mean, one of the problems i see with my TiBook is that after it get's hot, it tends to stay hot, and the fans stay on for quite awhile. most people honestly don't spend most of their time working their computers hard, so it would be nice if, after they did, the things would cool off real snappy like.
Oh it's great that people ooh and aah...it's what keeps Apple in business with its relatively small market share.
But the bad part about it is that such a loyal user base really doesn't demand terrific innovation from Apple. Case in point, you refer to DDR333 RAM, which would be good, except for the fact that the PowerBook will use a 7455 PPC processor, which can't take advantage of DDR-RAM. That sucks. Granted, there's a strong argument to be made that Motorola's slow development on the 7457 processor line isn't Apple's fault...but if I were Apple, I would have been looking at other chip options starting a long time ago.
have you looked at my sig? i'm not a fan of Moto either
. regardless of whether DDR is instrumental in speeding the system, it DOES give minor speed increases, as demonstrated by the Powermacs' delve into this area. if they ADD DDR without taking away L3 (which they wrongfully [i think] took out of DP 1 GHz PMacs when they added DDR with the advent of DP 1.25 GHz PMacs) there should be a net speed increase. there is of course a bottleneck at the system bus, but it still gets help, i think. or was that just because they upped the PMacs to 166 MHz buses that time around? bah, i dunno. we'll see.Re: Convince Me..
Hi Jeff - as someone has already mentioned, (existing) Airport cards certainly work with the Linksys 802.11b WAP (and presumably the new Airport Extreme do as well). BUT I have had problems getting my Airport card to work with the Linksys WAP when 128bit WEP is enabled. Maybe it's just me, or my config, but the Airport card only operates well with WEP once the Linksys WAP is rebooted and no other PCs are trying to access the web at the same time. Fortunately this is not a problem at our home, and I would rather occasionally have to reboot the WAP, than have a neighbour accidentally log onto my network
Re: Re: Convince Me..
I don't use encryption, myself, but i do use MAC address limitation. i guess you can spoof that though, huh? but don't you have to know what address to spoof?
Originally posted by iAndy
Hi Jeff - as someone has already mentioned, (existing) Airport cards certainly work with the Linksys 802.11b WAP (and presumably the new Airport Extreme do as well). BUT I have had problems getting my Airport card to work with the Linksys WAP when 128bit WEP is enabled. Maybe it's just me, or my config, but the Airport card only operates well with WEP once the Linksys WAP is rebooted and no other PCs are trying to access the web at the same time. Fortunately this is not a problem at our home, and I would rather occasionally have to reboot the WAP, than have a neighbour accidentally log onto my network
I don't use encryption, myself, but i do use MAC address limitation. i guess you can spoof that though, huh? but don't you have to know what address to spoof?
Wow. I must remember to word things carefully on these here forums...
The amount of energy in terms of watts generated by a laptop processor is insignificant in terms of the cooling coefficient/surface area ratio of a laptop. Meaning a 12 inch powerbook will cool like a 15 inch or 17 inch assuming the processors generate the same heat energy.
You are correct in stating that an Al book would cool faster than a Ti book. The one 12 Powerbook I saw at the Apple store was not nearly as warm as my gen 1 ti 400 runs.
Using an IR thermometer I get a hot spot of 113 F on my laptop with a range of 88 to 107 around the hot spot. I will try to take an image of the laptop with an IR camera to show what I mean. But a Al book would have an overall cooler and equalized surface temperature.
Hopefully that makes sense for everyone.
The amount of energy in terms of watts generated by a laptop processor is insignificant in terms of the cooling coefficient/surface area ratio of a laptop. Meaning a 12 inch powerbook will cool like a 15 inch or 17 inch assuming the processors generate the same heat energy.
You are correct in stating that an Al book would cool faster than a Ti book. The one 12 Powerbook I saw at the Apple store was not nearly as warm as my gen 1 ti 400 runs.
Using an IR thermometer I get a hot spot of 113 F on my laptop with a range of 88 to 107 around the hot spot. I will try to take an image of the laptop with an IR camera to show what I mean. But a Al book would have an overall cooler and equalized surface temperature.
Hopefully that makes sense for everyone.
maybe, but consider airflow. a lot of heat dissipation is from the fan blowing air through--i would imagine, on a little thing like the 12 inch powerbook, as many of the SAME things are tied into a smaller package, that the airflow is rather more constricted than on a 15 or 17 inch powerbook. the elimination of this source of heat dissipation aggravates the amount of heat dissipated by conduction onto the bottom of the laptop and (presumably) your leg. just a thought; i haven't messed with them to know they run hot, i had just heard that they did. i don't think that playing with it in the Apple store qualifies as testing it for food/leg cookability either.
so to tie this to my chili analogy, surface area doesn't just include the bottom/surface of the laptop. you have to deal with the constriction of the volume of air held in the laptop, but mostly how fast it can move it through.
-----so to tie this to my chili analogy, surface area doesn't just include the bottom/surface of the laptop. you have to deal with the constriction of the volume of air held in the laptop, but mostly how fast it can move it through.
So I presume 15 & 17 inch PB being thinner than 12 inch PB would have some sort of effect on cooling and air flow?
So I presume 15 & 17 inch PB being thinner than 12 inch PB would have some sort of effect on cooling and air flow?
it's likely, but i can't honestly speak on how different the actual air volume each holds is. i just know that the 12 inch is smaller overall, having seen one, and owning a 15 inch. the explanation is just an attempt to account for the 12 inch ones running hotter (over a period of time) than the tiBooks, if indeed such as the case. but i don't know if that's even true and am too lazy to go to read about user experiences right now.
14" Powerbook ???
I have seen no speculation on this so far but with the PowerBook line expanding down to 12"and the next 15" increasing in size to 15,4" this leave a nice gap for a 14" powerbook with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
There is a 14" iBook why not a 14"Powerbook?
A 14"model could be some 3.5 cm less wide. It should be cheaper then the 15.4"as the 14"screens are standard issue but still have DVI out and a PCMCIA port. A nice pricepoint would be $2399.
I would buy it!
I have seen no speculation on this so far but with the PowerBook line expanding down to 12"and the next 15" increasing in size to 15,4" this leave a nice gap for a 14" powerbook with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
There is a 14" iBook why not a 14"Powerbook?
A 14"model could be some 3.5 cm less wide. It should be cheaper then the 15.4"as the 14"screens are standard issue but still have DVI out and a PCMCIA port. A nice pricepoint would be $2399.
I would buy it!
Re: 14" Powerbook ???
the 15 inch is not that much bigger than a 14 in terms of space, as it is widescreen. the rumor about 15.4 inch powerbooks is based on the fact of various Apple LCD suppliers purveying 15.4 inch LCDs. i don't think they would slap an iBook 14.1 inch on a powerbook, because, as is mentioned, the size difference is negligible, but also because the 14.1 inch iBook LCD is not a very pixel-dense screen. you're losing a lot of pixels compared to the 15 inch without a significant drop in size or weight (presumably), and you aren't gaining anything in pixels over the 12 inch, while increasing the size and (presumably) the weight a good bit over it.
mostly, though, the fact that apple is not getting a really nice new 14.1 inch TFT (that i know of) really makes this rumor much more unfounded than the 15.4 inch one.
[edit]I also doubt they are going to keep the old 15.2 inch on after an update to 15.4, except as more expensive "Need OS 9 Still?" computers. i don't think this leaves any real gap. they are all stratified by 2 inches from the next one up/down. [/edit]
the 15 inch is not that much bigger than a 14 in terms of space, as it is widescreen. the rumor about 15.4 inch powerbooks is based on the fact of various Apple LCD suppliers purveying 15.4 inch LCDs. i don't think they would slap an iBook 14.1 inch on a powerbook, because, as is mentioned, the size difference is negligible, but also because the 14.1 inch iBook LCD is not a very pixel-dense screen. you're losing a lot of pixels compared to the 15 inch without a significant drop in size or weight (presumably), and you aren't gaining anything in pixels over the 12 inch, while increasing the size and (presumably) the weight a good bit over it.
mostly, though, the fact that apple is not getting a really nice new 14.1 inch TFT (that i know of) really makes this rumor much more unfounded than the 15.4 inch one.
[edit]I also doubt they are going to keep the old 15.2 inch on after an update to 15.4, except as more expensive "Need OS 9 Still?" computers. i don't think this leaves any real gap. they are all stratified by 2 inches from the next one up/down. [/edit]
Why no 14inch PowerBook?
Why no 14 inch PowerBook? Because Apple likes to keep their products distinguished in certain increments. Display lines for example has 17, 20, and 23. 3 inch increment. So in terms of laptops there is 12, 15, and 17 in 2 inch increment. 14 inch will only break the rhythm. ;-)
Why no 14 inch PowerBook? Because Apple likes to keep their products distinguished in certain increments. Display lines for example has 17, 20, and 23. 3 inch increment. So in terms of laptops there is 12, 15, and 17 in 2 inch increment. 14 inch will only break the rhythm. ;-)
OK I'm in the ring and I got my boxing gloves on...
Al.book will have a few things new (here goes!)
- DDR333 Memory (yeah yeah yeah, doesn't slow it down now does it?)
- Ultra ATA/100 (for dummies, faster harddrives?)
- Faster SuperDrive (2x instead of 1x, correct)
- FireWire 800 (stupid new format, but yeah, faster)
- AirPort Extreme built-in (hey I just bought an Extreme base so...)
- Bluetooth built-in (no stupid thing pointing out now! for my T68i)
- Backlit keyboard
- New coating (duh!)
No one knows (it's all rumors!)....
- what resolution it will have, but I don't think it will change
- if the case will be bigger (0,2"). doubt it. doesn't sound likely.
- what gfx card it will have - apple has done weird things than putting in a new
Giddy-up.
Al.book will have a few things new (here goes!)
- DDR333 Memory (yeah yeah yeah, doesn't slow it down now does it?)
- Ultra ATA/100 (for dummies, faster harddrives?)
- Faster SuperDrive (2x instead of 1x, correct)
- FireWire 800 (stupid new format, but yeah, faster)
- AirPort Extreme built-in (hey I just bought an Extreme base so...)
- Bluetooth built-in (no stupid thing pointing out now! for my T68i)
- Backlit keyboard
- New coating (duh!)
No one knows (it's all rumors!)....
- what resolution it will have, but I don't think it will change
- if the case will be bigger (0,2"). doubt it. doesn't sound likely.
- what gfx card it will have - apple has done weird things than putting in a new
Giddy-up.
The heat issue is a big one, i'd say. although i've never been hurt by my tibook, the bottom gets pretty damn hot. These past two days, i had to do a marathon edit at a coworker's house (he worked on his dual p4, i used my tibook). I used FCP and after effects for about 11 hours in a row (no restarting). When i picked up my tibook at the end of the night, the spot on the counter where it had sat all night was very warm to the touch and slightly discolored. This is the newest tibook, BTW.
Another BTW: his PC had to restart to refresh RAM every 30 minutes, and it froze twice! LOL.
Another BTW: his PC had to restart to refresh RAM every 30 minutes, and it froze twice! LOL.