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17 inch Powerbooks shipped!
- Thread starter iJon
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Key Color
As I am catching up on this thread by reading while in bed with the lights off and the 17" in hand I can say with confidence that the key color is white. Although I must admit it did look blue in Apple's movie.
My wife feels this computer has already paid off. This is the first time in a looong while that I've gone to bed the same time she has.
As I am catching up on this thread by reading while in bed with the lights off and the 17" in hand I can say with confidence that the key color is white. Although I must admit it did look blue in Apple's movie.
My wife feels this computer has already paid off. This is the first time in a looong while that I've gone to bed the same time she has.
Re: Key Color
iJon
you hear that boys, start sleeping on the couch until your wife buys you a powerbook so you will come back to bed.Originally posted by FlashBIOS
As I am catching up on this thread by reading while in bed with the lights off and the 17" in hand I can say with confidence that the key color is white. Although I must admit it did look blue in Apple's movie.
My wife feels this computer has already paid off. This is the first time in a looong while that I've gone to bed the same time she has.
iJon
Thanks for the pix guys. That is one beautiful computer. (sigh) If it has the solid, precision feel that the 12" has, unlike the wobbly delicate feel of the TiBook, (sigh)...
so anymore information available? hows the battery life lookin? are the speakers better then other laptops? any one care to do a detail review of it?
It's one of the function keys, I'm looking up which right now in the manual (I don't have the pb yet)
Aha, found it.
F8 = backlit keyboard off
F9 = Backlit keyboard dimmer
F10 = Backlit keyboard brighter
The keyboard is white with a VERY slight hint of blue. So much that I hesitate to meniton it. It's more of a daylight white than a tungstun white. It is NOT the color that it was in the commercial.
The keyboard backlight is completely adjustable just like the volume. Little f-keys for brighter, darker and off.
I spent last night re-charging after my full run-down of the battery. No 'real world' tests yet really. iTunes ripped at up to 10.2x while I was watching.
Also on the keyboard is an eject key - very nice and handy.
DVD's looked OK. not great - but OK. They put a free blank DVD-R in with the powerbook - pretty cool of them.
No more problems with my SuperDrive. I still love this machine as much as I did yesterday.
The thing that really screws with me is the apple logo. On the pismo it was the other direction so I keep setting my PB17 down the wrong direction.
The speakers are the best *I've* heard on a notebook. I haven't heard all that many though. There is more bass than most, but the really low end isn't there. You'll still need external speakers but these would get you by in a pinch.
Final Cut express looks great on here. The amount of room for my pallets and such is great. The timeline is HUGE - ahhhhhhhh.
This is the perfect size laptop for me. I'm SO glad that I didn't cancel and just get a 15. This is simply stunning. I can certainly see how it's too big for some. Not me - this is what I've always 'needed' for my portable computing.
One thing I noticed after folding for a loooong time is that the heat dissipation is reallly really nice. It was a little hot sitting on my desk and I lifted it up and voila - heat was gone almost instantly. I'm really thinking about some sort of 'prop' for it. to aid airflow.
I think that the fan does have two stages. Stage two is still very very quiet. It shouldn't keep anyone awake. Everyone should sleep like a... well... Chloe!
I'm also keeping the little piece of foam stuff that covered the keyboard when it came out of the box so that I can keep the keys off the screen for sure.
Maybe I wouldn't be as impressed if I hadn't been working on a Pismo for 3 years - the speed difference is unbeleiveable - but this machine is the best.
The keyboard backlight is completely adjustable just like the volume. Little f-keys for brighter, darker and off.
I spent last night re-charging after my full run-down of the battery. No 'real world' tests yet really. iTunes ripped at up to 10.2x while I was watching.
Also on the keyboard is an eject key - very nice and handy.
DVD's looked OK. not great - but OK. They put a free blank DVD-R in with the powerbook - pretty cool of them.
No more problems with my SuperDrive. I still love this machine as much as I did yesterday.
The thing that really screws with me is the apple logo. On the pismo it was the other direction so I keep setting my PB17 down the wrong direction.
The speakers are the best *I've* heard on a notebook. I haven't heard all that many though. There is more bass than most, but the really low end isn't there. You'll still need external speakers but these would get you by in a pinch.
Final Cut express looks great on here. The amount of room for my pallets and such is great. The timeline is HUGE - ahhhhhhhh.
This is the perfect size laptop for me. I'm SO glad that I didn't cancel and just get a 15. This is simply stunning. I can certainly see how it's too big for some. Not me - this is what I've always 'needed' for my portable computing.
One thing I noticed after folding for a loooong time is that the heat dissipation is reallly really nice. It was a little hot sitting on my desk and I lifted it up and voila - heat was gone almost instantly. I'm really thinking about some sort of 'prop' for it. to aid airflow.
I think that the fan does have two stages. Stage two is still very very quiet. It shouldn't keep anyone awake. Everyone should sleep like a... well... Chloe!
I'm also keeping the little piece of foam stuff that covered the keyboard when it came out of the box so that I can keep the keys off the screen for sure.
Maybe I wouldn't be as impressed if I hadn't been working on a Pismo for 3 years - the speed difference is unbeleiveable - but this machine is the best.
I've just begun to do the first of my battery tests. I've downloaded a utility called X-Charge that logs battery related events to give me a good idea of what is going on. Last night I conditioned the battery.
I've also ran a number of benchmark utilities. I'll publish the results soon.
The screen space is so luscious. I can control MIDI sequencers and write in Sibelius at the same time with ease. The heat problem that has been mentioned of other PBs is not really an issue. The top doesn't really get 'hot', more so on the bottom. Lifting it up for three seconds takes care of that quickly. A huge $ investment, but definitely worth it.
It is better than the Gateway that I was using at work. In fact, I was quite happy with it. I didn't ever have full signal strength, but I was never less than one bar down. The Gateway that I used couldn't even get a signal in one of the rooms, and was low in the other.
I work at a large college campus with cinderblock walls. The access points are made by Cisco (I believe) and 802.11b hidden in the suspended ceilings. I do not know where they are in relation to the rooms I was in, but like I said I had major problems with the Gateway and the 17" was a dream.
Benchmarks
Here are the informal benchmarks I've received from a number of benchmark utilities. The 17" PowerBook that the tests were run on has 512 MB of RAM and standard screen resolution with millions of colors.
I did not make any attempt to configure the machine in such a way to boost the results -- so they should reflect a normal machine's configuration. They were ran after a boot, and with no other applications running.
(I must stress again, these are very informal)
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
Rendering (Single CPU): 87 CB-CPU
Shading (CINEMA 4D): 116 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting): 318 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting): 163 CB-GFX
OpenGL Speedup: 2.73
**********************************
SPEEDRUN
Graphics 297
Harddrive 534
Processor 268
RAM 525
Overall 406
**********************************
COCOABENCH 1.2
Number Chrunching: 16.59
Image Processing: 21.01
File I/O: 8.45
Overall: 15.66
**********************************
XBENCH 1.0
Results: 95.07 (with disk tests)
Results: 105.06 (without disk tests)
Here are the informal benchmarks I've received from a number of benchmark utilities. The 17" PowerBook that the tests were run on has 512 MB of RAM and standard screen resolution with millions of colors.
I did not make any attempt to configure the machine in such a way to boost the results -- so they should reflect a normal machine's configuration. They were ran after a boot, and with no other applications running.
(I must stress again, these are very informal)
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
Rendering (Single CPU): 87 CB-CPU
Shading (CINEMA 4D): 116 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting): 318 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting): 163 CB-GFX
OpenGL Speedup: 2.73
**********************************
SPEEDRUN
Graphics 297
Harddrive 534
Processor 268
RAM 525
Overall 406
**********************************
COCOABENCH 1.2
Number Chrunching: 16.59
Image Processing: 21.01
File I/O: 8.45
Overall: 15.66
**********************************
XBENCH 1.0
Results: 95.07 (with disk tests)
Results: 105.06 (without disk tests)
i have no idea what those numbers mean
higher better? lower better? how does it compare with a peecee laptop?
higher better? lower better? how does it compare with a peecee laptop?
I don't know what they all mean either.
But looking at the results of other computers the machine performs very similarly to a 1Ghz desktop.You can find an Xbench comparison site here: http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/
Xbench appears to be the current favorite for performing benchmarks.
For SpeedRun a 446 is a Dual 1 Ghz and 405 is a single 1 Ghz. A 395 is a 1 Ghz TiBook.
For CocoaBench (URL ) a Dual 1 Ghz scores 19.7 and 800 Mhz PowerBook scores 13.9
I wasn't able to find CineBench results (anyone?). But that benchmarker is cross-platform.
Well folks I have my powerbook. Speed is decent. Heat ... area under left wrist is warm...I've been running folding. Battery life, not bad, about 3 hours normal, 1.5 hours w/ folding (100% CPU) running.
Any questions?
Any questions?
Folding: folding.stanford.edu
It's sorta like SETI, but it actually gets real results. I like it, its uses my CPUs unused cycles. The fan just turned on for only a minute...and it's not too loud.
Screen: I'm a bit disappointed in the brightness, but the horizontal viewing angle is good. Vertical viewing angle...so-so. Clarity, sharpness...good I guess.
It's sorta like SETI, but it actually gets real results. I like it, its uses my CPUs unused cycles. The fan just turned on for only a minute...and it's not too loud.
Screen: I'm a bit disappointed in the brightness, but the horizontal viewing angle is good. Vertical viewing angle...so-so. Clarity, sharpness...good I guess.
Screen is great - clear - sharp - bright - the works.
The bag is from Timbuk2.com - no it didn't come with it, but it fits like a glove. I'd reccommend it. Five-O blue is a nicer color though.
Folding refers to the folding at home project at Stanford. It helps find cures for protein related diseases using spare computer cycles - aka distributed computing.
The bag is from Timbuk2.com - no it didn't come with it, but it fits like a glove. I'd reccommend it. Five-O blue is a nicer color though.
Folding refers to the folding at home project at Stanford. It helps find cures for protein related diseases using spare computer cycles - aka distributed computing.