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Apple Releases New PowerBooks

powermac666 said:
I guess it shouldn't surprise me, but I just don't get all the negative (currently 617 to only 515 positives) ratings on this thread.
Click to expand...


Maybe because the new powerbook is still using the same casing that deteriorates due to sweat and pitting, the processor of 1.67ghz will do nothing for speed and only drain the battery more. It only gets 2 hrs of life with the 1.5ghz, expect that to drop to 1hr 30min of battery life. The 30in monitor support is great but should be on standard configs not bto and not $100 option.

I figured the cost of a 15in powerbook with the 128mg ram and 100gb hd and the applecare warranty $350 and the total was $2850 with tax its $3021. Thats a crappy deal in my opinion. There is not even a real speed dirrerence between the 1ghz G4 and the 1.5ghz G4, just hotter and sucks the battery.

I will stick with my 1ghz Titanium Powerbook that gets 4.5hrs of battery life, has a 60gb 7200rpm hard drive, dvi out, superdrive and is solid as a rock. There is just no reason to upgrade to the cheap flexing pitting aluminum aircraft grade or not. If its not a dual core its not going to cut it. If they dropped the price by $500 it would be worth it.
 
Caiwyn said:
The MPC7448, which was expected to be available in early 2005. With lower power draw, a doubled L2 cache, and a 200 Mhz bus, it could have offered a significant performance increase, even at a minimally higher clock speed. I guess it wasn't a reality yet, though.
Click to expand...

Even if Apple releases a G5 Powerbook in June (WWDC) or September (Paris), wouldn't it be nice if Apple released a 7448 based Powerbook (maybe at 1.8 Ghz) in April when these chips become available.

What if the G5 Powerbook released at the WWDC is 1.5'' thick, weighs 8 pounds, is clocked at 1.6 Ghz (same performance as current low-end iMac minus a slower harddrive) and gets an official 3 hours (2 hours reality) of battery life. Wouldn't it be nice to have a 1.8 Ghz, 200 Mhz FSB, lighter alternative to it?

And if the G5 Powerbook comes not before September or even January 2006
(but then with a special G5 mobile, either the 970GX or even 970MX or something completely unheard of yet, or G4 dual core with fast FSB), wouldn't it be nice to have something 7448 based in April or June or whenever the 7448 is ready?

I know it won't happen, Apple will not release a new Powerbook just after three months, nor with such a minor speedbump (although the 200 Mhz FSB would be a 20% improvement and the doubled L2 cache would also help a lot as well). And certainly Apple will not release a 1.8 or 2.0 Ghz 7448 based Powerbook, just to release a 1.6 Ghz G5 one later.

Nor would most people here be happy with such an update.

But it would still be nice if any improvements on the processor side would be implemented right away as the chip becomes available. And the 7448 should become sample/become available during the first half of 2005. But politics and commercial logic probably will stand in its way.
 
well, its done.. I ordered the 12" w/ superdrive .. im now a mac-head. do i get a membership card ? :)

Its been one hell of a long wait , but it was worth it .....


see you all next tuesday , i heard G5 powerbooks have been shipped :p
 
powermac666 said:
I guess it shouldn't surprise me, but I just don't get all the negative (currently 617 to only 515 positives) ratings on this thread.

Apple finally offers some updates to this line, improving the PowerBook G4 in virtually every area, and about as much as anyone could reasonably expect at this point in its life-cycle, and dropping the price to boot:

• minimium RAM is 512MB
• 167MHz (pretty minor) speed bump
• 80GB 5400rpm drive standard, with a 100GB as BTO
• backlit key standard on all 15" models, and brighter than before
• new scrolling touchpad feature
• hard drive drop detection/protection
• 8X SuperDrive
• BlueTooth 2.0
• support for 30" Cinema Display
• optical audio
• $100-200 price drop


Apart from miraculously increasing the FSB to 533MHz or something, what is the problem here? Okay, so it's not a G5 or a dual core G4, and it's not $500 cheaper across the board, but did you really expect it to be? Can you really say you are disappointed that this is just a minor update?
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more, I don't understand why people are disappointed. This update reflects what we could realistically expect. Apple even added two nice things, touchpad scrolling an sudden motion sensor.
 
MacTruck said:
I figured the cost of a 15in powerbook with the 128mg ram and 100gb hd and the applecare warranty $350 and the total was $2850 with tax its $3021. Thats a crappy deal in my opinion. There is not even a real speed dirrerence between the 1ghz G4 and the 1.5ghz G4, just hotter and sucks the battery.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. The main thing I noticed when I went from a rev A to a rev C is that VPC6 ran much slower, probably due to the lack of L3 cache.

Steve
 
I realisticly expected this 2 years ago.

Boxer and star trek T clad fanboys flame on.

Zaty said:
I couldn't agree more, I don't understand why people are disappointed. This update reflects what we could realistically expect. Apple even added two nice things, touchpad scrolling an sudden motion sensor.
Click to expand...
 
MacTruck said:
Maybe because the new powerbook is still using the same casing that deteriorates due to sweat and pitting, the processor of 1.67ghz will do nothing for speed and only drain the battery more. It only gets 2 hrs of life with the 1.5ghz, expect that to drop to 1hr 30min of battery life. The 30in monitor support is great but should be on standard configs not bto and not $100 option.

I figured the cost of a 15in powerbook with the 128mg ram and 100gb hd and the applecare warranty $350 and the total was $2850 with tax its $3021. Thats a crappy deal in my opinion. There is not even a real speed dirrerence between the 1ghz G4 and the 1.5ghz G4, just hotter and sucks the battery.

I will stick with my 1ghz Titanium Powerbook that gets 4.5hrs of battery life, has a 60gb 7200rpm hard drive, dvi out, superdrive and is solid as a rock. There is just no reason to upgrade to the cheap flexing pitting aluminum aircraft grade or not. If its not a dual core its not going to cut it. If they dropped the price by $500 it would be worth it.
Click to expand...

I get 4.5 Hours of battery life on my 1.5 Ghz Aluminum. Those who are not do not follow Apple's knowledgebase solutions for recalibrating the battery.

Also the Titanium paint has chipped on many people's Titanium Powerbook. So don't think that Aluminum is any less destructable than Titanium. You may have been lucky. So far I haven't heard of cases that Aluminum paint has chipped, but have seen Aluminum warp a bit from the heat, or not paying attention to bumping the computer against something hard. Aluminum's airport reception is much better than Titanium. Part of that is that the Aluminum puts the airport antenna in the screen.

There are many reasons to go Aluminum. I found my 1.3 GHz Powerbook well over 50% faster than my 800 Mhz G4 iMac. Apple replaced that under AppleCare because the fan would intermittently have trouble being controlled with a 1.5, and that is a good 50% faster than my 1.3. So Mhz for Mhz, even G4s you can't compare to each other. There are other advantages that make it worth it.
 
You know, the chips they have available to them support L3.. Kinda makes you wonder why they wouldn't want to get every last bit of speed out of these pathetic hot plates.

darkwing said:
I agree with you. The main thing I noticed when I went from a rev A to a rev C is that VPC6 ran much slower, probably due to the lack of L3 cache.

Steve
Click to expand...
 
How much can I realistically get for my now obsolete 12" PB 1.33Ghz with Superdrive?
 
MacTruck said:
The 30in monitor support is great but should be on standard configs not bto and not $100 option.
Click to expand...

Except that there are many people who don't need that. Making it a BTO option makes a lot more sense than making everyone pay the extra. This allows Apple to have a lower price point for users who don't need particular features. Good job Apple.
 
Whoopdeedoo...

Well, as usual Motorola disappoints. I mean, what was it, about 5 or 6 years ago that a year between updates of any semiconductor was 133MHz to 167MHz. That is about a 13MHz improvement per month.
What disappoints me about the whole thing is that this definitely means that we won't be seeing G5s until September at the earliest and realistically probably not until next January. I just don't see where the "Power" is in the "PowerBooks" now. I mean, it looks to be just a tad better than an iBook and prices are still too high. No improvement in screen resolution, no improvement in FSB. The best thing they did was improve the graphics cards, that was very much needed. Given that the MacMini has a 1.42GHz G4 and is selling for 1/3 of the 12" PB, you have to wonder if it is worth getting a PB over an iBook. Good thing is that RAM is now decent and Airport and BT are standard, so that is good. I can't understand why the SuperDrive is even an option at this point. Even sub-$1000 notebooks have DVD-burners as standard now, so you would think that someone paying considerably more would be getting one.
All in all, not that impressed. They did a lot of the things they should have done a year ago. So it is like they caught up to needs that are a year old. Still, it will probably sell like hotcakes.
 
Looks like I'm finally buying a Mac...

I just placed an order for the 15" Superdrive after looking longingly at them for quite some time. I had purchased a Student Developer membership last year with plans to use the discount but had held off buying due to information from this site and others (TS). I really wanted to wait for Tiger and a G5 Powerbook but decided this was a good entry point for my first Mac since this model should be very reliable, as any "bugs" should be ironed out by now.

The funny thing is my Student Developer membership expired last week just days before Apple upgrades the line! :eek: I was thinking "this sucks!" but went ahead and placed the order anyway from the Developer Store to see what would happen. Well of course the order got flagged due to my membership being expired, but after calling Apple and explaining the circumstances they agreed to give me the discount! :D

Here's my ordered configuration:
PBG4 15/1.67/SD/CTO
On or before
02/08/2005
1.67GHz PowerPC G4 w/ 128MB VR 065-5644
512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 SO-DIMM 065-5597
80GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400 065-5283
8x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) 065-5286
Country Kit/AirPort Extreme 065-5376
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS 065-5290
Not Applicable 065-4681
$1,919.00

Man, I hope this will not bring about a bad case of buyer's remorse... :eek:
 
Zargot said:
I just placed an order for the 15" Superdrive after looking longingly at them for quite some time. I had purchased a Student Developer membership last year with plans to use the discount but had held off buying due to information from this site and others (TS). I really wanted to wait for Tiger and a G5 Powerbook but decided this was a good entry point for my first Mac since this model should be very reliable, as any "bugs" should be ironed out by now.

The funny thing is my Student Developer membership expired last week just days before Apple upgrades the line! :eek: I was thinking "this sucks!" but went ahead and placed the order anyway from the Developer Store to see what would happen. Well of course the order got flagged due to my membership being expired, but after calling Apple and explaining the circumstances they agreed to give me the discount! :D

Here's my ordered configuration:
PBG4 15/1.67/SD/CTO
On or before
02/08/2005
1.67GHz PowerPC G4 w/ 128MB VR 065-5644
512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 SO-DIMM 065-5597
80GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400 065-5283
8x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) 065-5286
Country Kit/AirPort Extreme 065-5376
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS 065-5290
Not Applicable 065-4681
$1,919.00

Man, I hope this will not bring about a bad case of buyer's remorse... :eek:
Click to expand...

I did the same ting but i bought the ADC 2 weeks ago. Got the same laptop as you except with the 100gig HD
 
Zargot said:
Man, I hope this will not bring about a bad case of buyer's remorse... :eek:
Click to expand...

:confused: whaaat? The purchase will be one of the best things you could do in your computing life. When I bought my PB, it was the best computer I ever owned, of course, it was my first laptop ever, but still. Being able to carry a "supercomputer" with me was something all of humanity that ever existed were never able to do, until the last 4-6 years or so, I am happy of course! Plus being able to surf wirelessly is a liberating experience.
 
gopher said:
I get 4.5 Hours of battery life on my 1.5 Ghz Aluminum. Those who are not do not follow Apple's knowledgebase solutions for recalibrating the battery.

Also the Titanium paint has chipped on many people's Titanium Powerbook. So don't think that Aluminum is any less destructable than Titanium. You may have been lucky. So far I haven't heard of cases that Aluminum paint has chipped, but have seen Aluminum warp a bit from the heat, or not paying attention to bumping the computer against something hard. Aluminum's airport reception is much better than Titanium. Part of that is that the Aluminum puts the airport antenna in the screen.

There are many reasons to go Aluminum. I found my 1.3 GHz Powerbook well over 50% faster than my 800 Mhz G4 iMac. Apple replaced that under AppleCare because the fan would intermittently have trouble being controlled with a 1.5, and that is a good 50% faster than my 1.3. So Mhz for Mhz, even G4s you can't compare to each other. There are other advantages that make it worth it.
Click to expand...



To put it simply, I don't believe you. Not possible. Maybe 4.5hrs in sleep mode. Also, a 1.5 is 50% faster than a 1.33? Yeah right. LOL.
 
I get 5 hours on my PB 12", if I dim the display and use only 1 app such as email or text-edit. Safari use gives me about 3.5 to 4 hours of browsing time. I turn off Airport and Bluetooth.
 
Good update for now but like many others I'm waiting for the G5 Powerbook and hope the screen resolutions improves with it. However, I have a friend that will buy one of these PowerBooks. I just hope there are enough people like him to clear out this revision inventory so the G5s can come.
 
pubwvj said:
Except that there are many people who don't need that. Making it a BTO option makes a lot more sense than making everyone pay the extra. This allows Apple to have a lower price point for users who don't need particular features. Good job Apple.
Click to expand...


Um whipped I say you are. You are congratulating apple on NOT giving us standard 30in monitor support. LOL. Its not about cost cutting. It probably costs apple $600 per powerbook to produce if that. (correct me if you have the actual cost per powerbook).

Besides its stupid for apple to not include it standard. Lets say today you don't need it but then after you buy your powerbook your monitor fails, and you get a big tax return and you say I might want to get that 30in monitor, oh crap, its only bto. They do that so you buy from them and not a reseller like macconnection or comp usa. This is how they get more sales. Its not about passing off savings thats for sure. Marketing 101.
 
Shipping!

I ordered a 15" BTO (2 gigs ram, 128 vram) yesterday and I got notice this morning that it shipped via fedex from Shanghai!

Faster than I thought.
 
Lacero said:
:confused: whaaat? The purchase will be one of the best things you could do in your computing life.
Click to expand...

I sincerely hope you're right. I guess I should clarify that I hope I don't end up wishing I'd bought a dual G5 PowerMac instead. ;) (I've got a 20" Dell LCD I could use with it; although I have taken it to work to use in place of the school's 17" LCD.)
 
i bought a 12" pb last spring. but now i am going to sell it to my brother and upgrade to the 15". yeah it won't be the g5 pb but in another few years i will probably sell my 15" and get the g5 after it has had a few revisions. plus i don't really think the G5 clock-for-clock is that much better of a chip than the G4. but i could be wrong on that one. it just seems to me that the G5 scales better than the G4, but the horsepower / clock is the same.

it seems like there have been a lot of smaller incremental upgrades on the rev. d. powerbooks from the last line. it probably won't amount to a huge performance increase from the 12" but i want more screen real estate now. and the faster drive, faster video chip, gigabit, scrollpad, and other misc. upgrades will be nice to have.

plus notebooks are always slow compared to desktops anyway. so it won't be my main workstation anyway. but man that 128mb video card option driving dual external displays...you know that would be sweet. or it could even drive the 30" cinema display. but that is excessive. (2) 23" should be plenty. :)

-jaromski
 
Dumb question

Ok, I've never had a Powerbook so cut me some slack if this is a stupid question.

Can you run dual monitors with a powerbook? I don't mean mirroring, I mean actual dual monitors like a desktop with an extra video card in it. Just wondering.
 
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