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MWSF Announcement Details?
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wibbler said:
Are you kidding? A similarly priced PC laptop will spank a powerbook. Probably the only thing the powerbook would outperform the PC in is Photoshop and the like.
Win XP is not that bad. I use it at work and everything runs fine. Programs are very responsive too.
While PC's might not look as nice as Apple's offerings, they're far from awful. For example, IBM ThinkPads feel nice/are a real pleasure to use while Sony Vaio's look pretty slick. And they offer more bang for the buck too.
Yes, Apple laptops do have a higher resale value, but let's not forget that Apple has put out a few bad Apple's... the (flaming) PowerBook 5300, the iBook with the logic board problems, white spots on PowerBook screens,....
Maybe. But that's no reason for Apple to be slacking off when PC counterparts are offering more for the same price or less.....
sw1tcher said:
That's not true. Try running more than a couple applications at a time and you will see any new Powerbook (with adequate ~1GB ram) do much better than a PC. In addition, the Mac _is_ designed for multimedia. It will do well,in Photoshop because that's what a lot of Mac user's use it for.
The bottom line is that it's very hard to compare the two. The PC may do certain UI or user tasks faster but be less responsive in low memory conditions and/or multitasking. I feel there's no way to really say one is faster than the other.
I agree that XP isn't terrible. It has some good features on the surface, but no matter how you dress the donkey you still have an ass. The second you have to screw around with viruses, spyware, or even configuring "plug and play" software-- the Mac kills a PC.
IBM no longer makes laptops or PC's, and Vaio's have notoriously bad repair records.
I know you're able to cite the 3 incidents in Apple hostory that they shipped a defective product, but let's be fair-- the PC world has the same problems ALL of the time. Quality control in their hardware _and_ software is a major issue in the Windows commodity world.
I agree that more power is always good... but style, weight, battery life, and OS are usually more important to a laptop user than spped.
spot on frobozz
exactly how fast is a PC when it is dead in the water from a virus attack or laden down with spyware?
Sorry, but I had PCs for 25 years and Macs for the last four, and I ain't going back while PCs remain lousy bug-ridden boxes. And yes, I do use PCs, or more accurately fix them, all the time.
But at home, and for my own owrk, I use my powerbook.
And no, those Viao's are NOWHERE near as stylish as ANY portable Mac on sale today. And they DO seem to have serious reliability issues.
When I get my 17 out on a plane or a train, NO-ONE is lookign at the Viaos, Dulls or Stinkpads!!
exactly how fast is a PC when it is dead in the water from a virus attack or laden down with spyware?
Sorry, but I had PCs for 25 years and Macs for the last four, and I ain't going back while PCs remain lousy bug-ridden boxes. And yes, I do use PCs, or more accurately fix them, all the time.
But at home, and for my own owrk, I use my powerbook.
And no, those Viao's are NOWHERE near as stylish as ANY portable Mac on sale today. And they DO seem to have serious reliability issues.
When I get my 17 out on a plane or a train, NO-ONE is lookign at the Viaos, Dulls or Stinkpads!!
Until you install the mandatory security software - like a virus scanner, spyware scanner and firewall. If you don't install all that, your computer will be reduced to slag within minutes of connecting it to the internet.sw1tcher said:
Once you are running all this software in the background, consuming memory and CPU time, your great and wonderful PC will no longer perform very well.
You seem to be implying that Apple doesn't want to release faster models.sw1tcher said:
If IBM doesn't deliver chips that can run cool enough for use in a laptop, a PB/G5 isn't going to happen, period. Slapping a desktop CPU in a small case (like they did with the iMac) isn't acceptible with a laptop, because you'd lose all your battery life. And the heat would injure customers.
Frobozz said:
I don't expect the PowerBook to compile as fast as the Linux box. I do cross build to x86 on the Mac, so I'm building the same binaries, and the linux box might take 30 seconds and the mac would take close to a minute 15. A 2 ghz PC system would still be faster by far.
I watch the results just fly by on the PC, while the Mac seems to choke on it.
Steve
I use both PC and mac. I feel that PC makes better desktops and mac make better laptops...so I buy them accordingly. Also...if you build your own PC you get a much better deal (the PC i'm using now cost me about $600 and it can run anything i can throw at it :/). They simply don't make good PC laptops anymore unless you want some 10 lb cinderblock... Most companies don't even give PC laptops video cards anymore b\c the PC world is very uninformed about those kind of things and think mhz is everything... Anyways, I'm waiting for the next mac update until I buy a 12' powerbook to replace my aging one here.
Like I said, we're all mac users here. All this PC-bashing talk isn't really necessary. I think a lot of people, including myself, are saying that Apple isn't delivering what it should be to the line of powerbooks. Regardless of whether they are or are not, I'll be buying Apple computers. But when I see a 1.8ghz Pentium M in a small form factor laptop with Radeon 9800 graphics, maxed out ram, and a widescreen, it envokes envy... we want the PC people to be envying us. Right now they can only do that in the looks / OS department. Let's hope apple can get their laptop hardware up to snuff. They're not doing too badly in desktop land.
-Kevin
-Kevin
It's very easy to throw around accusations, but it's foolish.spaceballl said:
Yes, we know that the notebook Macs haven't been updated in quite a while.
Yes, we know that the performance gap between the desktops and the nodebooks has increased greatly as a result of this.
But to go that next step and claim that this is proof of some kind of incompetance or apathy is simply unwarranted. Does anybody seriously believe that they don't want to ship a faster PB? Do you think Jobs is deliberately crippling PB development in favor of iPods? Do you think that maybe IBM's problems developing low-power G5 chips might possibly have something to do with all this?
It's perfectly reasonable to point out that the current PBs are getting a bit old and that they really have to ship some upgrades soon. But the posts I'm seeing here are insane. Accusations? Threats? Promises to swich platforms?
What next? Hunger strikes? Do you seriously think any of this ranting is going to accomplish anything? Aside from making yourself sound just like the stereotypical hysterical zealot Mac user, of course?
Why? They need all that power to run a basic web browser, thanks to the massive overhead of their system software and all the obligatory security software.spaceballl said:
In case you haven't seen the news, PC users are envying the Mac. They envy the fact that Mac users can do real work with their computers instead of spend all their spare time patching the system software.
Apple Store refurb units are available for eMacs in both versions - 12" powerbooks - and PM G5's in all speeds. I don't think the G5s being there is significant, but the eMacs and 12" powerbooks being there probably is.
I didn't expect to get an immature reply. They could have moved the G4 to a 200 mhz FSB and given us DDR400 memory. 7200rpm notebook harddrives are nothing new, and their power consumption / heat output is comparable to 4200rpm drives. etc etc etc. This isn't worth arguing though because when macs are hot, you'll shout that they're the best thing since sliced bread. If a certain apple product is having a crappy lifecycle, you'll pat the company's back, tell them it will be okay, and that you'll buy a mediocre product anyways rather than always demand the highest quality.shamino said:
-Kevin
P.S. I promise i'm a staunch mac user cuz of the OS, architecture, style, usability, etc etc etc etc. I LOVE macs! I just give criticism where criticism is due, and many people would agree with me that the Powerbook line is one area that Apple could use a bit of criticism.
darkwing said:
The x86 compiler module of gcc is, understandably, NOT at all optimized for the PowerPC. It runs, and allows for that functionality, but the Apple gcc focus is entirely on native applications. The logic being, of course, that a cheap Linux box is a better choice for compiling x86 binaries than your Mac. And the Linux box would give you the definite advantage of being able to actually test and debug your code as well.
Personally, I'm quite impressed with compile times on my dual 1.42GHz Mac. On my project at least, it's significantly faster to compile my app for OS X than it is to compile for Linux on a 2.4GHz P4. Both machines are a bit out-dated (my home 2x2 G5 does the build in less than a third of the time the G4 at work takes), but they represent a pretty clean snapshot in time as they were ordered within a month of one another and both cost about the same. 'Course, Microsoft's compiler on an identical 2.4GHz P4 blows the pants off either of them (not as fast as my G5 at home, but close!) making the Windows code.
Also realize, of course, that compilation is very disk intensive. The restricted drive paths of the laptop will always slow bown a build there.
jettredmont said:
Compiling the same code natively for the Mac bogs compared to building on Linux as well for its native platform. The real problem here may just be that gcc for the mac sucks period, and not any platform related module. Maybe that's the problem.
jettredmont said:
I thought of this at the time and catted all the files to /dev/null first. This puts them in the dcache so disk speed is sorta irrelevant.
Steve
iMac announcements?
I know the G5 iMac is pretty new, but is there any chance of a price drop between MWSF and, say, early February? I am thinking about getting one, but I will definately be waiting till after MWSF, and could wait till sometime in early/mid Feb...
Rob
I know the G5 iMac is pretty new, but is there any chance of a price drop between MWSF and, say, early February? I am thinking about getting one, but I will definately be waiting till after MWSF, and could wait till sometime in early/mid Feb...
Rob
The rumoured Powerbook updates seem to arouse a lot of discussion (yet again). And many people are complaining about the lack of G5/dual-core G4. But it's a simple fact that Apple cannot use these processors in the PB yet and that's the end of it. People at Apple know that they need to upgrade the line but the only thing they can do now is to get the best possible performance from the old G4 as a stop gap measure. However, I would imagine that people vote with their wallets and the decreasing G4-PB sales figures should mean that the next-generation PB should be/become a very high priority for Apple R&D.
However, I'm happy with my G4-PB, bought in the beginning of May, for at least until revision B of Powerbook G5 comes out (whenever that is)...
However, I'm happy with my G4-PB, bought in the beginning of May, for at least until revision B of Powerbook G5 comes out (whenever that is)...
newportnews said:
Wow. I hope Evan doesn't mind you sharing his cell phone number with the world...
New eMac Design?
What do you guys think about the new design of eMac G5?
I think the they will come up with white shiny, boxy design with 17" CRT screen (similar to iMac but longer becauce of screen), slod load drive, but no aluminium stand. Which is might be interesting or blaaaaa...
What do you think?
What do you guys think about the new design of eMac G5?
I think the they will come up with white shiny, boxy design with 17" CRT screen (similar to iMac but longer becauce of screen), slod load drive, but no aluminium stand. Which is might be interesting or blaaaaa...
What do you think?
I am wondering of there will be a powermac speedbump and if pci-x will become pci-express. I do hope so.
Bu since the dual 2.5's are only shipping for 2-3 months the update time for those machines is quite short. But the dp 1.8 and 2.0 machine's have been around for 6 months now. So maybe only a speed bump for those (2.0 and 2.3)
If they drop pci-x that market will become a very small one so it will be harder to expand your mac for users with those slots.
But for apple it would be better to change to pci-express, as they might have learned from the nvidia 6800 delivery problemo's.
Bu since the dual 2.5's are only shipping for 2-3 months the update time for those machines is quite short. But the dp 1.8 and 2.0 machine's have been around for 6 months now. So maybe only a speed bump for those (2.0 and 2.3)
If they drop pci-x that market will become a very small one so it will be harder to expand your mac for users with those slots.
But for apple it would be better to change to pci-express, as they might have learned from the nvidia 6800 delivery problemo's.
19" eMac monitor
A strong economic agrument can be made, by putting the current iMac motherboard and all of its components into the eMac without much modification. I think a 19" monitor may be necessary, because a 19" provides a bigger base. The cost difference between a 17" and a 19" CRT monitor is very small (if at all), however, the cost to design a new motherboard for the eMac is much more.
-Chomo
Phaeox said:
A strong economic agrument can be made, by putting the current iMac motherboard and all of its components into the eMac without much modification. I think a 19" monitor may be necessary, because a 19" provides a bigger base. The cost difference between a 17" and a 19" CRT monitor is very small (if at all), however, the cost to design a new motherboard for the eMac is much more.
-Chomo