New 12" PowerBook: first thoughts

[Abstract]

People, ie: actual users here at this board, have reported 5+ hours of battery life.

Forget it. I'll just believe the 3 or so people who told me that they're getting 4.5 hours and greater.

Thanks?

 

[oingoboingo]

QUESTION: What's the battery life on the rev C 12" PB's?? I've been trying to get a straight answer, because people keep telling me their rev C's last over 5+ hours. That's insane! I know that the rev C's use a new battery, but how long does your rev C last, and under what settings? (screen brightness, energy saver settings?) My rev B can last for 3h20min to 3h40min while working on MS Word and Excel, with Energy Saver set to AUTO and screen brightness set 1/2 or 2/3 full. If I turn on iTunes, it'll last 2h50min.

I'm getting around 4:10 to 4:30 editing an MS Word document, with AirPort and Bluetooth turned off, screen brightness at about 1/3rd, and power settings at 'auto'.

 

[chasingapple]

I shall be adding one of these beauties to my arsenel soon! I have a buyer for my iMac 17" so me and the wife will be notebook only people

 

[hi_im_rob]

Of both the rev B and Rev C powerbooks I have, the part number for the batteries is different. The Rev C last over an hour longer.

-Rob-

 

[tekno_geek911]

Hello oingoboingo, after using your Rev C PowerBook for a few weeks is the graphics memory really that much more noticeable(mostly in Unreal 2004) than your Rev B? Im not too concerned about the speed bump since my Rev B is plenty fast for what I use it for.

Im not sure if I should save up and buy some accessories for my Rev B(larger external LCD,Airport Express,BT keyboard/mouse,1GB RAM and maybe an external DVD writer) and wait for the G5 PB or save up and get the Rev C.

Thanks again!

 

[ingenious]

Allot of people talk about gently pressing the wobble corners down to straighten the chasis out. Check the boards to see if anyone has caused any problems with it.

Hows the underside heat when using it intensly?

My Rev. A wobbles a little bit, but not as bad as others I've seen. What's the deal?!?!? My battery lip is also loose.... uh oh... Although, maybe it could get me a new laptop....

 

[titaniumducky]

I just got my new PowerBook yesterday and im very impressed.I am a switcher and this is my first mac. I have used macs in the past at school a little, but its changed a lot since then. I have had no wobbleing or uneveness
problems. None of the noises It made seemed out of line for a laptop. Getting on my network took about 0.001 seconds. Messed with some prefrences. Love expose'. Love the UNIX (Im a developer). I was really impressed with Garage Band. Its way more than any Amature deserves! I lost 2 hours just abusing a drum loop with effects! Awsome. Performace was snappy, but i will need some more memory If I'm gonna play with that a lot.I found the screen to be very bright and as sharp as any Laptop screen I have ever seen.This laptop is Perfect. Its so Perfect I'm afraid to touch it! Wanna Keep it mint!

The 12' (foot) PB! That thing must have an awesome resolution!!! And at only 50 lbs, it's perfect for the artist on the go! Starting at just $29,999...

 

[puckhead193]

What's apple's policy on dead pixels on a powerbook?

 

[ToastCabbit]

What's apple's policy on dead pixels on a powerbook?

Dang. I can't find it and I searched all over Apple's site! (Swear I've seen it on there.) Now watch – someone will post right after me with the information.

 

[abhishekit]

review pb

I bought a new pb on saturday. And its one awesome machine. Finished to perfection. Trackpad click is real silent. Everything perfectly aligned. Beautiful as an angel, fast as a bitch.
I have noticed something though. I will try to explain it. When you keep it in your lap, then the 'thickness' side which is touching you, not the base. On that side, the right part is not solid, it goes in a bit if you push it. Did anyone else notice it?

cheers

 

[adamjay]

When you keep it in your lap, then the 'thickness' side which is touching you, not the base. On that side, the right part is not solid, it goes in a bit if you push it. Did anyone else notice it?

cheers

is the battery a little loose?

this is a general and common condition.

 

[SuperChuck]

I just got a new 12" Powerbook, as well. Thanks to everyone at Macrumors who helped me make my decision to go with the 12" PB.

I am very glad to report that I have had none of the craftsmanship issues that many people have reported. No wobble, no dead pixels, no lopsided trackpad button, the battery is nice and flush.

I have had some weird issues, though. For the first few days, everything crashed. All the time. And then on day three, it just worked. I've had the machine for a couple of weeks now, and the crashes have stopped altogether. Very weird, but I guess all's well that ends well.

Also, the color was very wacky. Things that should have been light green were beige, white was blueish. I tried fixing the color calibration myself, but I had no luck. Thankfully, a friend of mine who is a digital color guru did a calibration and got it all fixed, but it seemed odd that the default calibration was so far off.

I love my new computer, but I have to say that it has not really lived up to my high expectations. My last computer was a 400 mhz iMac DV, and I expected this new, 1.33 ghz machine to leave the iMac in the dust. It's definitely faster, but not 3 times faster. Barely twice as fast, I would say. And the TFT display takes some serious getting used to. I love the mobility, but it comes at a serious screen sacrifice.

Would I buy it again? Yes. I just hope I can learn to love it the way I did my old computer.

 

[oingoboingo]

I love my new computer, but I have to say that it has not really lived up to my high expectations. My last computer was a 400 mhz iMac DV, and I expected this new, 1.33 ghz machine to leave the iMac in the dust. It's definitely faster, but not 3 times faster. Barely twice as fast, I would say. And the TFT display takes some serious getting used to. I love the mobility, but it comes at a serious screen sacrifice.

Are you basing your impressions of speed on subjective measures like overall GUI responsiveness and overall system 'smoothness', or have you run some benchmarks? I'd be very, very surprised if a 1.33GHz G4 based system with a modern hardware graphics accelerator wouldn't utterly trash a 400MHz G3 system with an 8MB Rage Pro 128. AFAIK, the Rage Pro isn't even supported under Quartz Extreme, so CPU, memory, bus and hard drive speed aside, you don't even get any OpenGL-based hardware acceleration of the OS X GUI.

Can you come up with some benchmark figures (doesn't have to be complicated...maybe something like MP3 encode time from a WAV file on the hard drive, frames per second in a 3D game, or perhaps an iMovie effects render time) to show the small gap you perceive between your 400MHz G3 and the 1.33GHz G4? If there truly is only a small gap in performance, maybe something is drastically misconfigured with your new PowerBook. The other problems you were having with the crashing and the miscalibrated screen are very strange...perhaps something else is going on with the PowerBook.

 

[oingoboingo]

I love my new computer, but I have to say that it has not really lived up to my high expectations. My last computer was a 400 mhz iMac DV, and I expected this new, 1.33 ghz machine to leave the iMac in the dust. It's definitely faster, but not 3 times faster. Barely twice as fast, I would say. And the TFT display takes some serious getting used to. I love the mobility, but it comes at a serious screen sacrifice.

These benchmarks are from www.macspeedzone.com. They don't have an exact comparison for the purposes required here, so the closest comparison I can find is a stock 350MHz G3 B&W PowerMac versus a 1.33GHz 17" PowerBook. Since even the older 1.33GHz 17" PowerBook has a faster GPU than the new 1.33GHz 12", I will leave out any heavily OpenGL-biased tests. Of course the G3/350 is 50MHz slower than your 400MHz iMac DV (but has 1MB of L2 cache, whereas the iMac has only 512K) but it's the closest I could find. It shouldn't be too far off.

iMovie Effects Render ('Aged' effect, applied to 175MB DV file)
G3/350: 449.44 seconds
G4/1.33: 130.56 seconds
(G4 3.44 times faster)

AppleWorks Search and Replace test
G3/350: 329 seconds
G4/1.33: 60.19 seconds
(G4 5.5 times faster)

Microsoft Office X Word Macro (500 page document)
G3/350: 238.95 seconds
G4/1.33: 68.34 seconds
(G4 3.5 times faster)

Barefeat.com's suite of 20 PhotoShop actions
G3/350: 173.87 seconds
G4/1.33: 41.24 seconds
(G4 4.2 times faster)

QuickTime encode (5MB movie)
G3/350: 92.33 seconds
G4/1.33: 34.31 seconds
(G4 2.7 times faster)

CineBench 2003 single CPU test
G3/350: 35 points
G4/1.33: 121 points
(G4 3.5 times faster)

Granted, this is an approximate comparison, since neither of the machines in the benchmark are the actual machines you want to compare. But they are close. With a G3/400, you should still be expecting to see at least a 3 times speedup on tasks as diverse as Microsoft Word, Photoshop, iMovie and CineBench. The tests I have mentioned here do not include any OpenGL-related or Quartz Extreme benchmarks, where I think the performance gap will be even larger due to the G3/400s lack of modern 3D graphics hardware.

I'm a bit puzzled as to the lack of performance improvement you say you are seeing. Given the crashing problems and the colour miscalibration you had earlier, have you considered performing a clean re-install of Mac OS X? It may also clear up whatever strange performance problem you are seeing also.

 

[SuperChuck]

Thanks for your concern! I haven't done any serious benchmarking or anything, I was merely basing my assessment on my perception of the time it takes for apps to open and for the computer to boot up, etc.

I did consider a clean install of Panther, but after the crashes stopped, I thought it unnecessary.

As for the performance issues, after reading your posts, I decided to do a simple timed test, and it is roughly 3 times faster. It just doesn't "feel" as fast as I thought it would. I guess I expected Photoshop to just pop open, and it is still a moderately lengthy process. Since my expectations were incorrect, it feels slower than it is.

I guess I need a dual G5 if I want my apps to fly open immediately. That'll be my next purchase.

Thanks for the benchmarking info. That was awfully nice of you to look up.

 

[Abstract]

Dude, if I were you, I'd do a clean install of Mac OSX now. Its better than waiting for later when something else happens and you have heaps more files and what not. Its usually a good idea to do a clean install after getting a new system anyway, and in your case where you had a lot of crashes and a weird colour display.....sounds suspicious. Maybe there's nothing wrong now, but I'd do a clean install now.

 

[tekno_geek911]

Thanks for your concern! I haven't done any serious benchmarking or anything, I was merely basing my assessment on my perception of the time it takes for apps to open and for the computer to boot up, etc.

I did consider a clean install of Panther, but after the crashes stopped, I thought it unnecessary.

As for the performance issues, after reading your posts, I decided to do a simple timed test, and it is roughly 3 times faster. It just doesn't "feel" as fast as I thought it would. I guess I expected Photoshop to just pop open, and it is still a moderately lengthy process. Since my expectations were incorrect, it feels slower than it is.

I guess I need a dual G5 if I want my apps to fly open immediately. That'll be my next purchase.

Thanks for the benchmarking info. That was awfully nice of you to look up.

Also make sure you have "Processor Performance" in Energy Saver set to highest.

 

[oingoboingo]

Thanks for your concern! I haven't done any serious benchmarking or anything, I was merely basing my assessment on my perception of the time it takes for apps to open and for the computer to boot up, etc.

I did consider a clean install of Panther, but after the crashes stopped, I thought it unnecessary.

As for the performance issues, after reading your posts, I decided to do a simple timed test, and it is roughly 3 times faster. It just doesn't "feel" as fast as I thought it would. I guess I expected Photoshop to just pop open, and it is still a moderately lengthy process. Since my expectations were incorrect, it feels slower than it is.

I guess I need a dual G5 if I want my apps to fly open immediately. That'll be my next purchase.

Thanks for the benchmarking info. That was awfully nice of you to look up.

No problems. Photoshop takes a while to start up even on my 1.6GHz G5 with its 7200rpm SATA hard drive...I think with all the filters and plugins that it has to load at startup, it's a slow starter on all but the very fastest systems. Not much you can do about that. If you run into any more weird problems like crashing or colour calibration problems, I'd recommend (as others have already) a clean install of Panther. That's probably one of the things that Apple will suggest first up if you call them for support anyway.

Well, hopefully the 3 times speedup starts to sink in after a bit of usage, and you 'get that feeling' about your PowerBook the same way you had with your G3 iMac. The 12" PowerBook is a great machine...it grows on you with time as you realise just how damn portable and convenient this thing is, as well as being a solid performer.

 

[iamartboy]

Wobbling

I swear by my Roadtools 360º pad. It's small; raises the book about a 1/2" to improve cooling;keeps the bottom of PB out of whatever sticky goop that's on the coffehouse table; and gives you the ability to spin the thing around, which is fantastic in meetings. It would also make the wobbling issue moot

 

[johnnyroesco]

I'm a new mac user too. I'm on my second new 12" PB. This one seems great.
The first one had a major glitch right out of the box. It would'nt really turn off. Even after removing the battery. Put the battery back in and the PB would heat up and run the battery down.
Sent it back to apple and it came back promptly. It not only still had the problem but now showed evidence of additional heat induced damage.

After countless hours harranging with customer service and tech and some talk about the attorney general they ship a new replacement.
Now 7 weeks after the initial order I have a nice new computer.
I'm happy with it now but apple customer service was quite tedious.

Interesting to note that the local service provider called yesterday to follow up on what happenned, a nice fellow. Apple customer service has'nt bothered to follow up yet or appologize for the ordeal.

 

[MikeLaRiviere]

Similar Thoughts

I too recently purchased a PowerBook 12 inch, two days ago in fact. This computer replaced my iBoook G4 800 12 inch. With the iBook, I experienced quite a bit of wobbling while at the desk. Also with the iBook, I had some trouble with Apple's support. The computer would fully lock up, with the screen freezing or going black. I talked to Apple support and received a new stick of RAM which didn't fix the problem. I then sent in the computer and didn't get it back for nearly a month... as one might well imagine, this made me quite angry, especially when the computer crashed immediately after receiving it back from Apple. After a few weeks, though, the problem vanished.

Like the iMac DV fellow, I really loved my iBook; unfortunately, it didn't meet my school's specifications. The PowerBook, from my experience thus far, is great. I only have 256 MB RAM in it (waiting on the 512 stick in the mail; I will not repeat the mistake of paying Apple the 170% markup on RAM), and it is quite fast. As I type at my desk, I cannot make the computer wobble. My only complaint is the dead pixel, but it is not enough of a nuisance that I would complain to Apple. So far, I like the PowerBook quite a bit. I can only hope that I become as bonded to this notebook as I was to the iBook.

If you're considering buying a PowerBook, don't hesitate, it's a great computer. If you're trying to decide between an iBook and a PowerBook, I'd recommend that you consider a few things: first, your budget; second, the requirements of your school or work; third, how often you like to upgrade. With this 1.33 GHz PowerBook, I don't imagine that I'll need to upgrade for a while. However, knowing myself, it is unlikely that I'll keep this computer long after the G5 PowerBooks or iBooks are announced and brought to market.

Mike Lariviere

 

[michaelrjohnson]

I have made the decision to purchase the Rev C PB 12". I have sold my iBook that I bought in late-March of this year, to do the upgrade. I am convinced based on reviews by you friendly people and the numbers, that I will again enjoy a hefty speed increase as well as an upgrade in style . I'm looking forward to joining the ranks!

PS I might be purchasing my new computer tonight at a local Apple Retailer. Wish me luck!

 

[tangent23]

hi!

my partner and i bought a pbook 12" recently and love it.

i have been in windows world for most the last few years, but i grew up with mac [apple II first] and i am so glad i am back

the size is right for us at home and for the occasions where i have to be mobile, it is so easy to carry around [esp with the stm sleeve].

more screen space would be good for my work [design] but as we got this as a general house machine [email, net, etc] it is perfect.

it is a beautifully built machine, and i am digging OSX, getting my head around terminal and reaquainting myself with ease and useability of mac.

recommendation without hesitation.

 

[kerb]

lots of 12" PBook users!

I'm ordering mine as soon as the UK's Cram and Jam offer comes into effect next week.

PBook and 4G iPod oooh yeeeeah

 

[juicyapple]

My 12" pb

Hi guys,

I am new to these forums and a new 12" rev c with a superdirve pb user also. I just sold my 15" iMac g4... It was a sad day. Anyways, I got a 20gb 3g iPod with the pb with the cram and jam deal. As I was reading over this thread I noticed a few similarities with my pb. It wobbles, but only on certain parts of my desk. As it sits in the center right now, there is no wobbling. But if I put it to the left , it wobbles and is very annoying. But I have come to realize my desk is uneven, not the pb. But after reading all the complaints about the wobbling in the 12", I don't know what to think. Also, I always thought my trackpad click was uneven on the right side, but I thought it was just my imagination. Is it supposed to be silent, because mine makes a clicking sounds, similar to the clicking sound on the iPod mini. Other than that I love it and it has been perfect. I have a question though that may be real stupid, but what are those lights on the bottom of the pb. Sometime they are lit up and moving, and other times they are not.

-juicy