Apple Releases New PowerBooks

[maya]

OK I need a serious question answered.

In Imovie, for example, how much faster would a single G5 1.8 be over a G4 1.67?

Are we talking nano-seconds when rendering a transition between clips?

How bout in Final Cut? Is the difference in performance substantial, or negligable?

It's important (to me) that I have this question answered.

Thanks!!!

Rem

Considering that the PB uses PC2700 and the iMac G5 uses PC3200 ram...if you have the same amount of ram installed on both.

Considering that the PB has a 166 bus and the iMac G5 a 533-600 bus speed.

Considering that the PB has a 64-128MB GPU and the iMac G5 a 64MB GPU.

I would say the iMac G5 with its SATA HDD has the slight edge over the PB in iMovie and FCPHD.

 

[maya]

I am getting ready to buy a 15-inch PowerBook. I, for one, am very pleased with these updates, thank you very much. Just because you're not in the market for one doesn't mean you can make such unsubstantiated statements. That makes you the fool.

I for one never stated that these updates were not good, however this should have come months ago. I also stated that its great for newcomers and switchers who want a Power portable.

 

[maya]

These updates and price drops make the 14" iBook w/SuperDrive seem expensive. Should we expect updated iBooks soon?

I would really love to get a PowerBook 15" 1.67 GHz w/128MB of video RAM, ah yeah!

iBook updates should come about ~April 2005.

Since if they update it now they might as well just stop selling the 12" PBG4.

 

[tabbeus]

Hi, where do you try to evaluate the resale value of your old PB? Do you take that into consideration when drooling and fantasizing over a new one? I was thinking, no way can I afford a new one, but then I realized I might get something for my old one (12" 768 RAM, super drive) and be a leg up on the new price?

Or perhaps I am dreaming still!

Message me, I might purchase it from you.

 

[punkmac]

I thought it was me!

in the educational pricing when you downgrade the 17" from 100gig HD to the 80 it jumps up 10 dollars

I saw the same thing when pricing. I must have tried it 10 times!

WTF? Is that for the labor of removing the 100 gig and replacing it with the 80?

Not a bad deal for the 17" now. I upgraded the 15" to 17" specs and there is only a $200 gap!

It's a shame the MINI will come close with its 1.4 all for $2000 less!

Oh well I still want one.


I.

 

[joeconvert]

Missed the Point

Well, this is about the most specious reasoning I have heard today. Pointing out the obvious = hatred. Apple turned to RISC and motorola at the prior times, and now what are they going to do when their business decision was nolonger paying off ? Switch to X86 ? That would make them the lauging stock of the X86 community, which is just about 9 out of every 10 people who use computers. Not like that X86 and RISC are practically different these days, there was once, when the implementations in practice followed the theoretical papers, and that has long since passed. Apple wants its PR, and admitting that they have a hardware deficiency would be corporate suicide, then it is up to the end users like us to determine and razor through the marketing mumbo jumbo, and the emotional hoo-haa upon seeing cute animations and sleek exteriors and arrive at the unfortunate situation that the hardware under that aluminum is comparatively deficient. For starters, the FPU of the G4 suffers from pipeline stall after certain instructions to flush, any other latest cpu out there has Piplined FPU units, RISC or x86, even G3. Secondly the branch predictor of the G4 puts it squarely in the camp of the PIII, just slightly behind the PIII. Then, the 128bit VMX executor which gets starved by the 64bit FSB running at 167 Mhz. Sorry Apple, but using DDR333 doesn't hide the G4's 167 fsb shame. AGP 4x ? The garbage can is getting a little full here... How about a screen with a contrast of 200 : 1 , and a brightness of 150 nits, well, that's what you'll find in a powerbook these days, a 3000 dollar laptop...

If you love apple, or rather, the clever engineer teams covered by the corporate brand Apple who produced some elegant products, that's fine, other than the problem that you love abstract ideas, or inanimate objects. But if you really think that apple has kick@ss hardware when it comes to powerbooks, then you better stay just skin-deep with your powerbook, because thinking outside the box, is dangerous and can get you lots of flame these days.

Flamed? No now you are getitng flamed. A couple of half way intelligent people on this forum that actually use Windows based x86 hardware have done some decent feature by feature analysis. Seems the majority of the people here just have a hard-on for the G5 and/or finding some incredible lacking on the part of Apple's mobile line up. This is a damn rend farm, it's abloody mobile computer that you take on the road, through the airport and onto the plane.

I personally travel with a dell X300. It's a piece of garbage. optical drive in a docking station 2 hours 20 minutes battery life on a good day and extremely subpar performance... by the way the X300 is a Pentimu M too. It's a good chip... etter than the G4 in fact, but couple that with a mickey mouse operating system and you get a fairly limited solution. I like Mac OS X. I like freebsd. Hell I even tolerate Linux despite the rough crowd you get on slashdot. The bottom line is Apple does not equal Dell. Apple is a closed solution that offers superb and highly optimized software for their closed platform. Either accept that you are dealing with a low volume niche hardware producer at the current time or move on.

I genrally don't post here often, but it is getting out of hand. There is a good amount of intelligent discussion around here, but there is also a lot of BS. I am NOT going to have a frustrated remark be labled as a flame when some jackass actually is going off about his $3200 loan and how he HAS to have a G5. Put a respectable FSB on the G4 and the G5 will be crying for momma Power4.

 

[xsnightclub]

bill gates doodles at mac daily news

To lighten up the mood in this forum check this out from
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4884/
mac daily news rocks!

 

[snkTab]

I think this sums up this thread.

low-power dual-core cells g5 powerbooks next monday?

 

[NEENAHBOY]

Something is very interesting on this thread. Obviously, everyone here is bitching and moaning about the fact that there is no G5 PB. However, if they had released it today, there would undoubtedly be some very hot computers and possibly a few explosions. If this happened, you'd all be singing a different tune, saying, "What the HELL was Apple thinking releasing a G5 PB that wasn't ready????" So, from Apple's standpoint, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Personally, I'll wait as long as need be (whether MWSF 06 or later) so they can get all the kinks worked out and end up with a stellar machine. Feel free to flame.

 

[maya]

I think this sums up this thread.

low-power dual-core cells g5 powerbooks next monday?

Meh, Mac users have gotten use to the disappointments by Apple by this time, no big surprise. We just like to complain about something that is out of our hands.

 

[maya]

Something is very interesting on this thread. Obviously, everyone here is bitching and moaning about the fact that there is no G5 PB. However, if they had released it today, there would undoubtedly be some very hot computers and possibly a few explosions. If this happened, you'd all be singing a different tune, saying, "What the HELL was Apple thinking releasing a G5 PB that wasn't ready????" So, from Apple's standpoint, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Personally, I'll wait as long as need be (whether MWSF 06 or later) so they can get all the kinks worked out and end up with a stellar machine.

All computers have kinks in them even at rev a. If the G5 was released at least we know that the is doable and that the next will will be even better, even if they took 10 years to release a G5 in a PB it will have kinks there is nothing stopping it.

Heck even the PM, iMac, eMac, iBook have kinks and those have been at rev a and beyond.

With a G4 DC or G5 at least we know where the line is heading at present its dwindling, I mean where do we go from here when the G5 has been marketed as the LIGHT and Tiger will take advantage of it.

 

[drewyboy]

AAHHH you people are pissing me off!! G5 LONG TIME! Jobs said it himself at WWSF "It WOULD be the mother of all heating problems" KEY WOULD WOULD!!! that means that they either have it done or not even working on it. If they were working it he would have said, It is the mother... not It would be. Language is an important thing in press releases. Second of all, i really dont think the we will see a new pb till WWSF 2006. In WWDC this summer will see the long awaited updates for iBook, maybe a new line, and also the much long awaited revision of the PowerMac to whatever speed they have. PB has been put on back burner. think about logically, jobs has according to him made us happy till next year. ya its a year away, but that will have to be the wait for the soon to be GREATEST laptop to mankind. I say dual tripped out G4's. This would be the best way out for apple. To get minds off the g5 crap, jobs could say that apple has introduce the first dual processor laptop! what kind of publicity would that give it. seriously. You think the g5 is around the corner at wwdc but apple has to many other things to focus on, thats why they gave this. personally this will be my first apple and my first laptop so im very excited to be rid of the peice of crap things called "pc's". they are not personal computers, they are more like personal let downs. you can always count on gates to let u down with his xp crap.

 

[Maxx Power]

Flamed? No now you are getitng flamed. A couple of half way intelligent people on this forum that actually use Windows based x86 hardware have done some decent feature by feature analysis. Seems the majority of the people here just have a hard-on for the G5 and/or finding some incredible lacking on the part of Apple's mobile line up. This is a damn rend farm, it's abloody mobile computer that you take on the road, through the airport and onto the plane.

I personally travel with a dell X300. It's a piece of garbage. optical drive in a docking station 2 hours 20 minutes battery life on a good day and extremely subpar performance... by the way the X300 is a Pentimu M too. It's a good chip... etter than the G4 in fact, but couple that with a mickey mouse operating system and you get a fairly limited solution. I like Mac OS X. I like freebsd. Hell I even tolerate Linux despite the rough crowd you get on slashdot. The bottom line is Apple does not equal Dell. Apple is a closed solution that offers superb and highly optimized software for their closed platform. Either accept that you are dealing with a low volume niche hardware producer at the current time or move on.

I genrally don't post here often, but it is getting out of hand. There is a good amount of intelligent discussion around here, but there is also a lot of BS. I am NOT going to have a frustrated remark be labled as a flame when some jackass actually is going off about his $3200 loan and how he HAS to have a G5. Put a respectable FSB on the G4 and the G5 will be crying for momma Power4.

You need to read a bit more indepth of my post before you start making comments in this way. First of all, I was referring to myself being flamed for saying things that some zealots don't agree with here. Secondly, the point made toward the G4 being subpar is strictly toward your statement saying how someone hates apple hardware for pointing out deficiencies. Those are the two things you missed, and are the only things I emphasized.

However, lastly, to put it fair, if you want to realize the full potential of either G4 or G5 by saying "put a respectable FSB on the G4 and the G5 will be crying for momma", keep in mind that "put a respectable 8MB Power4 like cache on G5 and it'll trouce the opteron". There is no way the G4 can outrun the G5 in FPU code, perhaps VMX heavy code. The G5 is too much a monster in FPU and too optimized in Scalar issue. Put a memory controller and a much better branch predictor and fix up the FPU a bit on the G4, it'll be much faster than the G5 in its current iteration, that much I think everyone would agree on.

 

[Eastend]

There has been a subsequent drop of ¥10000 on the 12" iBook in Japan. (A little under US$100)
I couldn't remember what the 14" prices were so I'm not too sure about them.

i_b_joshua

Do not know about the iBooks, but the 17" PowerBook is almost 40000 Yen cheaper now. What area of Japan are you in?


Brian

 

[drewyboy]

from what i understand it was a press conference following wwsf and when asked about the progress of the g5 pb that it was he replied. i dont have a link, but i will search now and get it to u soon.

 

[~Shard~]

I don't know why there are so many negative ratings for this release - perhaps they were made by naive people thinking dual-=core G4s or G5 PowerBooks were imminent? I've been saying it for what feels like a year already, there will be no G5 PowerBooks until summer/early fall.

These updates are solid IMO, with nice updates to many aspects of the PowerBook guts - better than just a speed bump, that's for sure!

 

[puckhead193]

So now that i have an old powerbook, can i upgrade to the 8X superdrive and hard drive through apple? will it still be covered through applecare?1?

 

[drewyboy]

FosterKaniq, you were right it was a conference call, and my bad also that it was not Job's it was the CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Here is the text....
"During today's quarterly conference call with stock analysts and press, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and his gang of Apple accounting and financial geeks responded to a question about when to expect a PowerBook G5 by saying that "right now, it would be the mother of all challenges." They refused to say more about future expectations, but it's clear that if you're waiting for the PowerBook G5, you may be waiting for a long time."
Also "Oppenheimer was hesitant to comment further and stopped short of saying a PowerBook G5 was out of the question."
These come from two different sites with the same info

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=837
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/12/1810203

 

[mvc]

...Apple better have something GOOD planned for WWDC or they are screwed even further for sales. This 'bump is going to help a little but watching the reactions of people on the board there do seem to be more then a few that are saying screw this.

Well, perhaps Steve is just waiting till WWDC to put out a 3 ghz G5 Powerbook so he can finally deliver on his "year of the laptop" and "3 ghz G5" promises all in one go!

 

[drewyboy]

second of all if Job's for some reason release a g5 pb at WWDC what would the advantage be? think about it... ppl who have been waiting go and by this so when DC rolls around, ppl get pissed off at Job's and are unable to buy cuz they just bought one. Smart marketing move?? i think not. im sticking with iBook line, and rev. of PowerMac

PS.
Year of HD, what better than to make the huge update to your most powerful line of comps that handle all the video editing... So once again PowerMac update.

 

[zwida]

So now that i have an old powerbook, can i upgrade to the 8X superdrive and hard drive through apple?

These items are available through Apple Certified reseller. They're also available directly from Apple as replacement parts, but you'll pay a mint for them that way.

will it still be covered through applecare?1?

I believe that if they're installed through an Apple certified shop, you'll be OK. Of course, they won't cover the cost of the parts & installation, but that sort of goes without saying.

 

[Zmmyt]

man, however the upgrades are, at my local mac-seller the price for a 15'' powerbook superdrive just dropped from 2599€ to 2199€. just great!!!

-400€ saved,
-if i get one

tymmz

 

[TheSith]

The memory is the same type, right? Meaning I can still get this ?? http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4158153

 

[matticus008]

I agree and wish they had added the lighted keyboard on 15"' entry level one!

They did.

 

[Lacero]

The 15" PowerBook is the best deal going around now.