How much better will the 17" A|PB be than the 15" TiBook?

[GeneR]

Hi, I know there's an old saying, "Better to remain silent and let people suspect the worst about you, than to open your mouth and to remove all doubt." Or something like that. Anyway, I'm putting my foot in my mouth on this one...

I see that the 17" A|PB is going to be bigger than the 15" TiBook, but is there really such a big difference in performance? I know that it now has Airport Extreme and Firewire 800, but given (what appears to be) a much larger shell, couldn't the nice people at Apple put a little more in it? (i.e. a slot for a second battery, more HDD?)

I'm not a big techie but I'm trying to understand this. I would appreciate anyone who might have an inside track on this new PB to please share their POV. Thanks!

 

[altair]

just a little something

I have a SD 1ghz Tibook, and just thought I would throw you a bit of info.

I have heard a bunch of people talking about wanting to have an option for a second battery in the machine. I have two battery's and believe me, its not that hard to just pop one out and the next in. I never bring my power adapter to school with me, just the two batterys, and even then, rarely use the second battery. Unless you are using Airport for multiple hours, than I pop the next battery in. But I really wouldn't want both battery's in at the same time. Part of the joy of the powerbook is that it weighs 5lbs, of which I am sure 1.5 is just the battery.

If you buy the 17 inch, you are buying it for the 17inch screen. It would be the most amazing screen you ever saw, and honestly I don't know what you will use it for, but the current setup is way more power than for what I do. Occasionally i run photoshop, and it works great. I haven't had any complaints about my machine, its amazing. So don't worry about performance, you will be the happiest person on earth if you get one of those beasts

peace

 

[HasanDaddy]

The 17" is not much better, mainly because the 1 ghz processors are the same.......and there isn't too big of a difference between everything else

BUT......obviously, 17" has more potential to be upgraded to enormous performance capabilities (Dual processors?)

 

[Over Achiever]

The only advantage of the 17" performancewise is the DDR ram which runs on a faster FSB (167 MHz).

The video card on the 17" might be worse...but NVIDIA does have better drivers which might make up the difference.

The 17" has a backlit keyboard. Cool feature, has nothing to do with performance.

Battery life on the 15" should be better (last longer).

All and all i think the 17" should only be slightly faster because of the faster FSB (and DDR ram).

 

[macstudent]

2 inches better

 

[pretentious]

I don't know if this has been discussed about before (probably has).

Why didn't they toss in a 1.25 Ghz instead of the 1 giger?
The 17"er is obviously a desktop replacement portable computer, its just too big to be used as a laptop. Why didn't they put in there highest rated desktop processor (at that time) in there?
Other than battery life I couldn’t think of why (heat??), and since this isn't going to used as a laptop in the usual term, so that shouldn't be such a problem.
So does anybody have an idea why?

 

[Das]

The 17 has an ATA 100 hd instead of ye olden ATA 66'. As for the GFX card, the 440 has better results with older games at lower resolutions, but the 9000 is faster on some games and includes pixel shaders (DX8-like) which the 440 doesn't support. Meaning that games like Doom 3 wont run on the 440, but then again, you aren't going to go above 5 fps on Doom 3 on a PB anyway you dice it, so the 440 might be more suitable for everyday needs.

 

[Bear]

Main differences are that the 17" has:

• Higher screen resolution
• faster memory bus
• FireWire 800
• Airport Extreme
• Backlit Keyboard
• Anodized aluminum
• Built-in Bluetooth
• And physically it's bigger and weighs more.
• And of course a 6-8 week leadtime currently.
• Not to mention the higher price tag.