15" PowerBook Anticipated

[john123]

Originally posted by kidtronix
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.

😱

Hmm. I don't think so on some things.

First of all, people are assuming it'll be DDR333. We may just see DDR266, thereby separating the 15" and the 17". Just a thought.

But anyway, since the SuperDrive in the 17" will be 1x, the SuperDrive in the 15" will be 1x as well.

Resolution with be 1280x800. That's been all but confirmed.

And my guess is you'll see a GeForce 440Go in there.

 

[DavPeanut]

Originally posted by macphoria
-----Uh...did those of you who wrote the last two posts finish grammar school?

-----15 - 12 = 3, not 2....

Ha, you are right. Alright then, 14 inch PowerBook it is!

13 inch, not 14!

 

[macphoria]

-----13 inch, not 14!

Yea well, the original argument was for making 14 inch PowerBook vs reason for not making one. And my argument, though mathematically flawed it was, was that PB line varied by 2 inch increment, making it unnecessary for 14 inch.

At any rate, I believe 12 and 15 inch versions are perfect. 12 inch has nice compact form factor whereas 15 is still portable and powerful. There is no need for something to go between. I think 17 inch is an overkill, though I would never return it if someone gave it to me for free.

 

[NanoDoc]

Originally posted by macphoria
-----13 inch, not 14!

Yea well, the original argument was for making 14 inch PowerBook vs reason for not making one. And my argument, though mathematically flawed it was, was that PB line varied by 2 inch increment, making it unnecessary for 14 inch.

At any rate, I believe 12 and 15 inch versions are perfect. 12 inch has nice compact form factor whereas 15 is still portable and powerful. There is no need for something to go between. I think 17 inch is an overkill, though I would never return it if someone gave it to me for free.

The point that is really being missed by the original poster of this hypothetical 14" PB is that there is NO way that Apple would crank out 4 seperate PB's. I mean, seriously, think of what is really happening here behind the scenes. Apple would be cranking out four entirely seperate production lines. Two of them would be so closely related (14&15) that people would clearly choose the 15 most often because the larger size w/o any "real" increase in weight. So, why would they put any money into developing, marketing, and producing a fourth PB.
Next, as far as the ATI vs. Nvidia debate, wake up because this is not a debate. Clearly, Apple has chosen the Nvidia company to make their video processors for this revision to the PB. Which, if there is a 15 Al PB out there in waiting, it will be part of this grand switch from Ti to Al PB's. Why would they contract with two seperate companies for their laptops? It is to much extra hassel to do so. In the case of the PowerMacs that one can switch out a video card with the greatest of ease, allows for having multiple companies, but with the PB you can not just plop a different vid. processor onto each motherboard.

 

[Death2PCs]

http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html

thats solves your aspect ratio. its 4:3

as far as a 14 pb... it wont happen. theres no reason to have it. as stated eariler, the 12 is nice and compact... the 15 is where the features come into play.

the 17 is in a league of its own, and realistically apple cannot plan on selling quantities of the 17inch on a comparable level with the 15inch. reason being... the 15 is enough for almost anyone. the 17 appeals to a business market, and as far as the basic consumer is concerned, unless you have an extra $500+ dollars sitting around you wont get it.

 

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Death2PCs
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html

thats solves your aspect ratio. its 4:3

what is? the 12 inch is, yeah.

the 15.2 is 3:2.

the 17 is 16:10.

15.2-inch (diagonal) built-in TFT display (15-inch models)
- Support for millions of colors at 1280-by-854-pixel resolution
- Support for resolutions of 1280 by 854, 1152 by 768, 896 by 600, 720 by 480, and 640 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio
17-inch (diagonal) TFT display (17-inch models)
- Support for millions of colors at 1440-by-900-pixel resolution
- Supported resolutions: 1440 by 900 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio

They do non-native resolutions that are 4:3 by letterboxing them in. they do their native resolutions at 3:2 for the 15.2 and 16:10 for the new 17.

 

[jamilecrire]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
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.

The 17" is cool compared to most laptops (my Pentium 133 mmx, Pentium III 1130, Apple Powerbook 867). The 133 is warm, the 867 is borderline hot, and the 1130 is piping hot > two fans that sound like a jet engine. I've handled a 17" at the "local" apple store and it was significantly cooler than the 867 Powerbook. They didn't have any 1GHz TiBooks on display to compare with but they did have a 800MHz TiBook which I heard was a heater.

 

[aytoun]

pb 15"

i'm personally looking forward to another 15" pb.
don't get me wrong, i love the look of the 17", but
it is a bit much to carry around. i cycle 10 miles a
day and carry my pb G3 with me in a back-pack,
and travel to NYC by plane regularly. in both these
situations weight and size are premium and i think
a 17" is a little too large, so it's the 15" for me.

fortunatley i have a budget currently going through
approval so in a couple of weeks i will be in a
position to buy... hope the new pb 15" machines
are available, i don't really want to have to wait...

 

[shadowfax]

Re: pb 15"

Originally posted by aytoun
i'm personally looking forward to another 15" pb.
don't get me wrong, i love the look of the 17", but
it is a bit much to carry around. i cycle 10 miles a
day and carry my pb G3 with me in a back-pack,
and travel to NYC by plane regularly. in both these
situations weight and size are premium and i think
a 17" is a little too large, so it's the 15" for me.

fortunatley i have a budget currently going through
approval so in a couple of weeks i will be in a
position to buy... hope the new pb 15" machines
are available, i don't really want to have to wait...

lol, it sounds like you need the ultraportable 12 inch, unless you do some heavy lifting that requires 1 GHz &c.

 

[macphoria]

I know rumors suggest 15 inch PowerBook in February, but I think it just won't happen till middle of this year.

 

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by macphoria
I know rumors suggest 15 inch PowerBook in February, but I think it just won't happen till middle of this year.

I'll bet that's going to butcher 15 inch sales, but maybe that is how apple will try to push the 17" on people.

 

[Death2PCs]

i just want to make it clear that i REALLY want the 15 inch powerbook. ive ben anxiously awaiting this since 1/7/03.

apple wont wait much later to release the 15in albook, because people (like myself) will wait until it is availible to buy one. waiting (that long) will only hurt their sales.

the 12 inch is nice but i want (as im pretty shure that most people do to) the faster processor and other features that you will find in the 17 inch model. and i think most people find the 17 inch model overkill for everyday use, and are hoping that the 15 inch features will be nothing [much] less than the 17 inch.

so... by putting off the 15 inch model for an extended period of time, i think they will only kill sales of the 15 inch, and not entirely "force" people to get the 17 inch. from my own point of view... [if there was no 15 inch] i would get the 12 inch before the 17 inch.

i dont necessarily think that they will release the 15 inch this month, i think that all this hype will get many people making unrealistic guesses and conclusions as to what apple will do. but, as we all know, apple has been known to do alot of unexpected things/announcements. i believe you can expect 15 inch powerbooks in the near future. maybe not this month, but definately before summer (probably sometime in march to early april)....

but what do i know, im just making guesses like the rest of us.

--

 

[NicoMan]

Originally posted by Death2PCs
i just want to make it clear that i REALLY want the 15 inch powerbook. ive ben anxiously awaiting this since 1/7/03.

apple wont wait much later to release the 15in albook, because people (like myself) will wait until it is availible to buy one. waiting (that long) will only hurt their sales.

the 12 inch is nice but i want (as im pretty shure that most people do to) the faster processor and other features that you will find in the 17 inch model. and i think most people find the 17 inch model overkill for everyday use, and are hoping that the 15 inch features will be nothing [much] less than the 17 inch.

so... by putting off the 15 inch model for an extended period of time, i think they will only kill sales of the 15 inch, and not entirely "force" people to get the 17 inch. from my own point of view... [if there was no 15 inch] i would get the 12 inch before the 17 inch.

i dont necessarily think that they will release the 15 inch this month, i think that all this hype will get many people making unrealistic guesses and conclusions as to what apple will do. but, as we all know, apple has been known to do alot of unexpected things/announcements. i believe you can expect 15 inch powerbooks in the near future. maybe not this month, but definately before summer (probably sometime in march to early april)....

but what do i know, im just making guesses like the rest of us.

--

Well the thing is, most of us always wait for the next revision of anything and everything, and I would say that most of the time Apple don't and won't care, because Joe Public goes to the Apple Store and buys the stuff.
Now, in this instance, rumour sites have been going on about this update for almost 1.5 months, ever since the 2 new AlBoolks came out. So (smart) Joe Public is starting to think that a new 15" is going to come out (it MAKES SENSE). And he doesn't need to read Macrumors.com to come to that conclusion (that helps but he can think it over...). And that's when it becomes a problem for Apple, because it impact sales of the existing model.
So, my point is, NO, I don't think that Apple can keep it for much longer before updating the 15". Some not-so-common sense would say just after the first 17" are received...

NicoMan

 

[gameboy]

Just observation from UC Irvine

The computerstore in UC Irvine reduced the price of 15inch 1ghz superdrive to $1999 a last week (was it last monday or something)

3 units were in stock and they were sold out that morning. Then the store ordered more units (25) from Apple and they arrived this tuesday (the day before yesterday) and they are going to be sold out too.

The next shippment will arrive the next week (I guess tuesday or something and not sure how many units.) Kinda giving me a feeling that the new one will not come out next week 🙁 But what do i know.

Of course they don't have any clue about the new 15.4inch one.

Just observation...........

 

[FlamDrag]

Originally posted by NicoMan
Joe Public goes to the Apple Store and buys the stuff. NicoMan

I wish. Reality is that Joe Public goes to the Dell Store and buys the stuff. Or CompUSA/BestBuy...

 

[proff]

15.4 powerbook

Hi Guys im a potential 'switcher'! I have a sony vaio which i just broke accidently and while i never would have considered an Apple a few years ago after using the LC11 s at school, the powerbook has enticed me after I had a go with my friend's Ti500.
I want to wait though until the new 15.4 alubook comes out like most of you. This is primarily because of the new widescreen (well 16:10) "industry leading (colour saturation 75% and high brightness and contrast etc)" LCD screen, new durable and cool looking aluminium enclosure and also the fact that the new combo drive is 24x rather than 8x! bluetooth, firewire 800 and airport extreme are nice but to me personally are not that critical at the moment. Also the backlight will be an important factor for me, partly as it's cool, partly as i would use the laptop in the dark a lot and partly as it's another feature to differentiate it from the rival Wintel World!

Dunno about this new fsb and DDR RAM architecture, im hoping that the preliminary benchmarks are either not representive of real world performance (as some maintain Xbench isnt) or are the result of early preproduction drivers.

I as a gamer am dissapointed that Apple have decided to go for the Nvidia geforce 440 go but i think there is a crucial economical reason for this; cost! Nvidia blatanlty went to Apple and said give us this contract and we will undercut ATI by a significant margin. However another reason that im hoping Apple have gone with Nvidia is so that they will soon (ie in less than 6 months) upgrade the powerbook line to the new NV31M chip (this will probably be announced at Cebit March 12th along with possibly ATI's new mobile chip codenamed M10) which should blow the Radeon 9000 out of the water. I'm actually less concerned about gaming as really Apple's aren't great for that, particularly when compared to my Dell 3Ghz with a Radeon 9700 Pro. What i do care about though is battery life and DVD playback and 2D quality and I've heard this is worse with the geforce 4 440 go. is this true and to what extent?
Another factor for me, (though of little importance to die hard mac fans), is the imminent release of the new Intel Centrino chipset (wifi and Pentium-M (banias)) processor which is very fast (tomshardware outperformance 2.4 Ghz pentium 4 M in MOST (rather than just Photoshop for the G4!😉 ) situations. Also PCs with this processor can have battery life even longer than the powerbook (6 hours with one battery) and are small enough to fit into ultraportables less than 1 inch thick. This would be very attractive to potential switchers like me and if apple do not release the 15.4 update soon i will have little choice to buy a new Sony Vaio or Toshiba etc.
Also, could u clear up a couple of things, is 512MB DDR 333 RAM enough for Mac OS X, if you will be predominantly usinf Safari , iPhoto, iTunes and Office as I have heard many people talk of OS X being very memory hungry and u need 1GB ! or is that just for Photoshop and Final cut professionals? Apple is clever however as i probably wouldnt have considered a mack if had not been for the Student Discount which will save me close to £200 ($300)!
I am personally hoping that it will anounce the new 15.4 alubook next Tuesday (25th Feb) and keep the Ti line available for OS 9 until supply is completely depleted.

 

[janey]

Originally posted by Kwyjibo
I want a 15.4 ALbook sooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad

do you want me to get you one if apple ever comes out with them?

 

[hart808]

suspicious

Seems to me ever so slightly suspicious that the rumor is 15.4", when that is the exact length of the 17" case.

Not that I doubt a replacement model on the 15", mind you...

cheers --

808

 

[wsteineker]

So is there any word when or even if we should expect a 15" PowerBook update? I'm getting a fat grant check in the next few weeks and I'd sure love to blow it all on a new 15" AlBook. That said, I haven't seen anything terribly concrete in any of these posts about updates. It seems like this is even more speculative than iPod updates. Anyone got any new info? Thanks!

 

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by wsteineker
So is there any word when or even if we should expect a 15" PowerBook update? I'm getting a fat grant check in the next few weeks and I'd sure love to blow it all on a new 15" AlBook. That said, I haven't seen anything terribly concrete in any of these posts about updates. It seems like this is even more speculative than iPod updates. Anyone got any new info? Thanks!

I think anything new and important on them will be posted on page 1 or 2 rumors, page 1 if the info is reliable. the apple hardware scene has been quite for 3 weeks or so now, so hopefully something will pop up soon. maybe your 15 inch albook!

 

[wsteineker]

Originally posted by Shadowfax
I think anything new and important on them will be posted on page 1 or 2 rumors, page 1 if the info is reliable. the apple hardware scene has been quite for 3 weeks or so now, so hopefully something will pop up soon. maybe your 15 inch albook!

Word. Thanks Shadow. I should have figured that I just needed to bide my time and keep watching Page 1 and 2. I guess PowerBook lust just got to me!

 

[Apple][Forever]

remember folks, arn was the only source (as far as i know) of 12" and 17" PB rumors befor MWSF. I think he would get reliable info before an introduction.

As for me, I love my iBook 12". Best. Laptop. Ever. Now, if I didn't have the Franken-Blue-and-White G4, I'd go for the the 12" PB... G4 for running DVD Studio Pro et al and the kickass iBook form factor.

My GF has a TiBook and it just seems too fragile for me, being an iBook owner. But... I played with a pre-production 17" PB at the Apple Store, and a 12" at Micro Center, and they both feel like they're machined out of a solid block of metal. Just unbelievable on the fit-and-finish. So, even if a new 15" AlBook comes out with nothing new but the enclosure, it would still be worth looking at.

Where one would wear a watch while using it, my GF's Ti is all scratched up- lots of paint nicks on the left below the KB. And, the screen is getting blurry too--she's taking it in for service soon. Whereas, my iBook, which has had a rougher life overall, is spotless, Concours-clean.

The iBook, with a 1280x1024 screen that goes all the way to the edges of the bezel, and a 1GHz G4, would be the killer laptop of the ages. Throw away your Pismos, your Wallstreets, your Tis, call the neighbors, lock the dog in the kitchen--that laptop would be a killer. Blood would run through the streets and locusts would descend upon Redmond, and Steve Ballmer would be hung at dawn on the outskirts of the Microsoft campus. Linus Torvalds would have a six-color Apple tattooed on his forehead and would lead the throngs of Unwashed in a mass dance party through the Capitol.

 

[Grimace]

So now that the 17s are shipping - anyone have any idea about a 15.4 release?? I have a few friends that work for Apple and they hinted at the end of the month. Any ideas?

 

[macphoria]

15" PowerBook/Albook? My guess is April/May, following Apple's 6 months update cycle.

 

[t^3]

Still patiently waiting for the 15" AlBooks to come out, I decided to do a little math to see what the size would be, based on a 15.4" screen, 16:10 ratio, and the same bezel space as the 17":

15.2" TiBook:
9.5inx13.4in

15.4" AlBook:
9.35inx14.04in

So it looks like that it'll be slightly shallower, but a good 0.6in wider than the TiBooks.