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New G4 iBooks

Re: Re: OMG

Originally posted by QCassidy352

Ok, that's it, unless I'm missing something. So how does the ibook even come close to winning? from where I sit, the PB is by far the better deal.
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Well, I just ordered an iBook with 60GB drive, 640MB RAM, and Bluetooth built in for $150 less than I was going to pay for a PowerBook with 40GB drive and 256 MB of RAM. I feel like a got a really good deal, because I'll get more utility from having a larger hard drive than I would've gotten from having a slightly faster CPU. And I'm even *saving* money. Not to mention I still think the iBook looks better. Lots of companies have had metal cases (Fujitsu, Sharp, etc.), but there's no computer that looks remotely like the iBook.

So for me, the iBook is the better computer because it's giving me more of what I actually value, and not charging me for things I don't particularly value (e.g. DVI, dual monitors).
 
on iBook G4 chip power consumption

For those of you who are curious how the G4 will affect the power usage in the new iBook, I'll provide some useful analysis (800 MHz only).

First, there are two versions of MPC7455 that Motorola produces (ignoring the MPC7445 for now), they are designated by XPC7455RX800LC and XPC7455RX800NC. The LC version, with a core voltage of 1.6V is the one that's published on Motorola's website, it has a power rating of 17W (typical) and 24W (Max), which is terrible for notebook application. The NC version, on the other hand, has a core voltage of 1.3V and its power rating is 11.2W (Typical) and 15.9W (Max) which is reasonable. I believe this is the version that Apple's using in their 12'' iBook G4.

You can see for yourself at http://e-www.motorola.com/files/32bit/doc/data_sheet/MPC7455RXNXPNS.pdf
 
Originally posted by jouster
Kodawarisan will tear one apart the day it arrives.
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BEST SITE EVER. Those Jap reviewers have got balls. And their mods shame any fancy light kit 'mod' on HardOCP.
 
Re: Re: Re: suggestion

Originally posted by acherkasky
Thanks for the above...however, being anovice in regrads to much of the tech stuff...will the 12" IBook suit me well for email and for surfing? I do like the 12 inch size (so does my wife!)
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I bet she does! :p



oops, sorry, you were referring to the ibook. can someone mod me before i get beat up?
 
Re: Re: Re: OMG

Originally posted by ThorPrime
14" screen at the same rez is a better idea to me
I'de rather have VGA and S-video than DVI any day of the week for presentations and I'de never use spanning.
I'de never use bluetooth, ever
I'de rather have plastic than alu any day of the week.

the iBook wins in my opinion.
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I can understand the preference for the bigger screen. Many feel, however, that if you're not getting more space to work with, it's added size and weight for no reason. A laptop is about portability, after all.

Worth noting that the PB comes with a DVI-->VGA adapter, and that with either machine, you'll need to buy a $20 adapter separately to do S-video.

may i ask why plastic over Al? Yes it's more durable, but it scratches something awful, and the solid keyboard on the Al is wonderful.

Originally posted by Imalave
Well, I just ordered an iBook with 60GB drive, 640MB RAM, and Bluetooth built in for $150 less than I was going to pay for a PowerBook with 40GB drive and 256 MB of RAM. I feel like a got a really good deal, because I'll get more utility from having a larger hard drive than I would've gotten from having a slightly faster CPU. And I'm even *saving* money. Not to mention I still think the iBook looks better. Lots of companies have had metal cases (Fujitsu, Sharp, etc.), but there's no computer that looks remotely like the iBook.

So for me, the iBook is the better computer because it's giving me more of what I actually value, and not charging me for things I don't particularly value (e.g. DVI, dual monitors).
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wait, what config are you talking about here? Seems it would have to be the 12" ibook with edu pricing...

If that's the case, no offense, but I was talking about the 14" as compared to the 12" PB. There's no question that the 12" ibook, with it's *much* lower price, hits a different target than the big ibook or little powerbook. I was responding to the comment that the 14" ibook would destroy sales of the 12" PB.

don't get me wrong fellas, I love ibooks. I owned a 12" 600 mhz and a 14" 900 mhz, and they were both fantastic. Now I have a 12" PB, and I can see purchasing any of those makes/ sizes when I need a new laptop in the future. All fabulous. BUT, I very strongly disagree with the statement that there's no reason to buy the 12" powerbook anymore. I think it is still set apart in many ways from both sizes of ibook, and that all three are viable choices.

(That's what we want, right? Better to have several options that appeal to different needs than to have one machine be clearly better than the rest -- as was the case with 1 Ghz combo emac when the 15" imac was at 800 mhz. The emac was far cheaper *and* much more powerful. Buying the 15" imac at that point seemed insane to me, which is not a position I think any of apple's products should be in.)
 
Originally posted by tutubibi
New 12" iBook G4 is probably the best value in the current Apple lineup. I must admit I was suprised with price/features of new iBooks.
Way to go Apple!

I was always hoping that Apple will rename G3 iBook to something like eBook and update new iBook to lower G4s. That would be equivalent to eMac/iMac on the desktop side.
So now that iBooks are G4 and priced at bellow $ 1100 USD, does this make eBook more likely? Can Apple make G3 notebook for something like $ 699?
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I can see the pros and cons to your ideas. I would love to see a budget-level e/iBook for the money-strapped consumer (hey, it's still better than $2000 for a laptop several years ago), BUT I don't think Apple wants to diversify itself too much, otherwise it might start confusing the consumers too much. Supposedly, in the mid-90's, Apple just had too many different models, and they didn't really differentiate enough between each other, which made some selections a little difficult. Even consider the Cube. Cool idea, but it didn't quite fit into a very good, solid niche, such as Consumer or Prosumer, which Apple divided quite cleanly around 1999 with the quad-grid (iMac, PowerMac, iBook, PowerBook).

But, for a little time, refurbished G3 iBooks might start selling cheaply at Apple.com.
 
surprised

i tought they were going to wait till january.... no superdrive option... my 12 inch rev b pb still looks like the right choice for me...

this will bring a lot of switchers! go apple!!
 
Re: Re: Re: iBook == Consumer =/ CHEAP!

Originally posted by bankshot

It's exactly the same thing with the iPod. People scream that they should continue selling 5 GB iPods but for $100-200. If Apple could make them and still turn a profit at that price point, I'm sure they would do it in a heartbeat. But just using a lower capacity hard drive doesn't magically cause the whole thing to cost less to build. I'll bet the iPod costs at least $200 to manufacture with those electronics in that form factor, with any capacity hard drive of that physical size -- even half a gig. There's a cost barrier there, and it's higher than the relative value to the market, so that product simply can't sell for profit. It will never exist.

So why can the PC manufacturers sell $500 and under PCs? One, because of economies of scale - a 95+% PC market affords them this luxury versus Apple. And two, because of Apple's minimum quality standards as I mentioned before. Apple as a company simply isn't interested in making a $500 piece of crap computer that sucks just to gain marketshare. So while I'm sure they'd love to offer a quality lower end computer at sub $500 prices and maintain profitability, it simply can't be done.
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This brings up several interesting ideas. If I buy a 40 GB hard drive verses a 60 or 80 GB HD, do any of those drives cost the company (Maxtor, etc.) any more to produce them, but they know that many people will pay more to get the extra storage room? So would a 5 GB HD ultimately cost less than a 40 GB HD for an iPod? And who HAS 40 GB worth of music? Even if I ripped every one of my 250+ albums, that MIGHT break 11 GB, and I certainly don't listen to all of my CDs enough to require that much drive space (so I just use my iPod to back up files. :) )

The next quote I strongly agree with is that Apple has a particular level of quality and standards is tries to meet. While Apple would probably love to have 100 million customers, they just aren't built to support that right now. Apple occupies several niche markets, just as Porsche has its own niche market. A Mac can usually do just about anything a PC can do (sometime more, sometimes less), just like a Porsche can do what a Ford can. There are just some standards which are higher. If I were to buy a PC, I'd probably go for something like an Alienware case...those are about the only PC cases that I've liked. Interesting, different, and not too beigey or boxy. I've been spoiled by Apple's sense of style. I'm probably going to very picky when I get a new car some year.
 
Re: iBook == Consumer =/ CHEAP!

Originally posted by #Johnny5
Yes, these new G4-based iBooks are great. And they're priced great, too. But I hate how Apple always alienates such a huge part of their potential userbase by dropping older, slower hardware from their lineups. I want a portable Mac to use as a secondary computer to my tower. And that means I don't want to spend more than 600, 700 dollars on it. I want it to use almost in the same way I would use a PDA, only be able to do real work on it (Office, Quicken, iTunes, etc.). That means I have no use for Altivec - even if the whole OS is faster. I just want a cheap Mac. Right now, Apple is selling the G3 iBook in the Education site for $900. The G4 iBook sells there for only $50 more, and has the better video card, DDR ram, not to mention the G4. So Apple could have easily set the price of the G3 iBook closer to $700 and still pulled a HUGE profit. And people like me might actually but one. Now, I'm stuck looking at Dells, cause I only have so much money to spend, and $1000 is a few hundred too much. Or more likely than not, I'll end up sitting with what I have for another year until I win the lottery.

The iPod is the same way - if Apple would just offer a cheaper version, they would be selling a TON more!
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There will be resellers around the country selling brand new $800 (or less) G3 iBooks. Check out Smalldog Electronics. They have a few sub $800 iBooks.
 
Re: Re: Re: max memory?

Originally posted by flipflash77
I believe it was removed because it was in error. The Canadian site says:

Single 1.25-inch standard SO-DIMM slot (3.3V) supports up to 512MB SO-DIMM for a total of 640MB of SDRAM

That more accurately reflects the 128MB soldered onto the motherboard. Also goes with the theory that it's the same basic reference design as in the 12" PBG4. <shrug> Blame the guy who copy-and-pasted the iBook tech specs from the PBG4 page. ;)
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Sheeesh...... I swear Apple must have spies floating around these forums. It's like the minute you point out something "like this".....and then it's removed from there page. Error my Azz!!!!!!!

If it's basically the same mobo design as the "old" 12" Powerbook, I don't see how they can cap (cripple) the memory limit to 640mb, when the 12" supported the 1gb Dimms.......unless they can cripple it in firmware like they do with monitor spanning on the Ibooks.
 
Re: on iBook G4 chip power consumption

Originally posted by mariner77
For those of you who are curious how the G4 will affect the power usage in the new iBook, I'll provide some useful analysis (800 MHz only).

First, there are two versions of MPC7455 that Motorola produces (ignoring the MPC7445 for now), they are designated by XPC7455RX800LC and XPC7455RX800NC. The LC version, with a core voltage of 1.6V is the one that's published on Motorola's website, it has a power rating of 17W (typical) and 24W (Max), which is terrible for notebook application. The NC version, on the other hand, has a core voltage of 1.3V and its power rating is 11.2W (Typical) and 15.9W (Max) which is reasonable. I believe this is the version that Apple's using in their 12'' iBook G4.

You can see for yourself at http://e-www.motorola.com/files/32bit/doc/data_sheet/MPC7455RXNXPNS.pdf
Click to expand...

Still, an 800mhz PPC 7455 drawing 11.2w (Typical) is not as attractive as a 1ghz PPC 750GX drawing only 8w (typical).

Even more so, the PPC 750FX used in the last Ibooks drew only 5.4w @ 800mhz. There is your comparrison........ the CPU in the current 800mhz G4 Ibook draws twice the power compared to the 800mhz 750FX G3. I don't know how much of an effect power consumption has over heat produced..... maybe it increases linearly, or worse, exponentialy?
 
i disagree with those of you complaining about the 800Mhz processor, i think it's more to do with battery life than keeping it bellow the powerbook.

PowerBook: 5 hours
iBook: 6 hours
 
Re: on iBook G4 chip power consumption

Originally posted by mariner77
I believe this is the version that Apple's using in their 12'' iBook G4.
Click to expand...

Why would they use the 7455 instead of the 7445? If you don't need the L3 cache, the 7445 provides lower power consumption.

It's also possible that Motorola has gotten their act together and produced a part at 0.13. Then again, nah...
 
Re: Re: suggestion

Originally posted by rjstanford
Well, on a price standpoint they're starting to compare. For example, take a look at This Dell:

1.4ghz Centrino
256 mb RAM
14" SXGA+ (1400x1050)
30gb Drive

Add:
CD/RW + DVD (Combo Drive)
TrueMobile 1300 Card (Airport Extreme)
Free router (Airport Extreme basestation)

Price goes to $1517 - $200 rebate = $1317 - $100 coupon ( 951F40158E42 ) = $1217

The 12" iBook model (chosen as the cheapest offered) with the AE card is $1198, doesn't come with free shipping, and doesn't include a free wireless router. And its quite a bit slower, and has lower resolution. It is available with Mac OS X however, which is its saving grace. Don't forget to compare street price to street price. You could add $200 to the Apple to get the 14" version (still lower res, and the Dell has 1024x768 as a no cost option), the Dell price would go up by $59 for the larger hard drive.

-Richard
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On the Dell, you can not use the $100 coupon together with the $200 rebate. If you had read the fine print, you would have seen that you could only choose one or the other. So the price would have been $1317.

It does not really matter now though because it looks like Dell no longer offers the rebate. So now the price with the coupon is $1417.

Since the Dell is a 14" then you probably should compare it to the 14" iBook with the 933Mhz G4 which is available for $1299. That is cheaper than the Dell. If you upgrade the Dell to a 40GB HD like the iBook has, then the Dell price goes up to $1476 ( $177 more than the iBook ).

Although you claim that the Dell is faster, the 933Mhz G4 running Panther ought to outperform that 1.4Ghz Pentium-M in many real world tasks.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: iBook == Consumer =/ CHEAP!

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
I didn't call it a definition. It's an essential characteristic, not a definition. The G5 is a 64-bit IBM processor with Velocity Engine.



Indeed. So is this phrase from the PowerBook G4 web page:

The new PowerBook G4s feature the speedy new AirPort Extreme technology, based on the 802.11g standard — at 54Mbps, the fastest wireless connection available.

That's *triple* redundancy. It's called emphasis, it's called good marketing. When AirPort Extreme isn't hot **** anymore, they're not going to have the same triple redundancy.
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I asked where a G4 was defined as having Altivec. You then proceeded to claim "everywhere." So yes, you did incorrectly call it a definition.

Also, the quote about Airport Extreme is not triple redundant. Review the sentence structure; the sentence is not redundant at all.
 
Re: not happy

Originally posted by fuzzbucketzoe
In my travels, the 12" model is far more popular in cafes, etc -- it's lighter and more attractive (it seems there is a pretty broad consensus on this point).
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Judging from the pictures, I'd say the 14" model looks nicer now than it did before. It doesn't look like they just put a 14" screen on a larger 12" case anymore.
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh
The celeron processor was a PII for a long time.. Now it's based of the PIV, but it's basically a PII with some PIV extentions.
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Not entirely true, it was a PIII in between. And I don't think you can make a "PII with some P4 extensions", since they're completely different cpus.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Moto G4 / IBM G3?

Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
Hey don't slam my Macs! They are all I have and what I can afford for now. You can make fun of Macky and Booker, but they have been stable dependable machines from the day I bought each of them new. I would love to have a new computer, but I just don't have the money right now. I am glad they are dependable enough that I don't need a new computer right now. Slam PC's if you wanna slam someone's computers not my Macs.

I was just saying if I had the money to bet. It was just a figure of speech. I am a public school teacher so I will probably never see a million, unless I someday get money smart and get out of the business of educating kids.
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Ease up, wasn't slamming your Macs. Just making a little joke. If it makes you feel better, I'm on a 600 MHz iMac and am now putting off my 17" iMac purchase due to rumors of a G5 version coming. Besides, if you cluster your 2 iMacs, you've got a 1GHz cluster, surely something to brag about.

Any truth to the rumor that Mackey's been doing a Dell on the side?
 
I'm sorry, I haven't read the whole thread... but do we know why Apple chose not to use the 750 GX and stay with Moto? Are the 750s not ready yet? When will they be? I was expecting a move to the 750 GX for the next (that is, this) iBook update, with speeds of roughly 1.0 and 1.1 Ghz (were those the specs?). I find this move to Moto's G4 quite surprising, at a time when Apple seems to be trying to disengage itself from Moto's claws.

But it's probably too early. Maybe they'll switch the iBook back to IBM roughly when the PB goes G5.

I found the update not too exciting -- it's almost 2004 and Apple's still offering a 800mhz model... I think this makes Apple look much less contemporary and up-to-date than they actually are, especially in the eyes of potential switchers. I wish Apple was at at least 1 gig with their whole lineup.

Personally, I'm still dreaming of a sleek, tiny 10" iBook from Apple...
I know Ive could do it.
 
Re: It doesn't have AltiVec!

Originally posted by chamberlain
I'm thinking it is not a Moto G4. There is no mention of AltiVec in the tech specs. But in the tech specs of the Powerbook (and any other G4) it is very clear.
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Maybe now that there are no G3 cpus anymore, Apple has decided it's not necessary to mention Altivec anymore. The other product pages might not have been updated yet.
 
Is 800 MHz so disappointing

I would agree that if OSX wasnt advancing so rapidly, and if the PC world wasnt being given iTunes, low MHz iBooks would be a disadvantage in the marketing game, but isnt Panther going to blow the lid even more on the Mhz myth for the better. Put a poxy 800Mhz ibook against a beefy Pentium, give them some real life multi-tasking to do and sit back while Panther blows away its Windows competitor - and a bigger MHz iBook running Jaguar as well if the developers are to be believed.)

I think with the right things said, potential switchers are going to look at non-Centrino PC laptop specs and question why they have to have twice the MHz to do less work.
 
Originally posted by wizard
Interesting Question to say the least.

Personally I like this rev of the iBooks, kinda wished that they went with the newset rev of the G4 but that didn't happen.

The only problem is that this happened sooner than expected so the bank account isn't ready. I do hope that the units still unofficially support expansion beyond 640MB of memory. Limited memory capacity is one thing that would keep me away from these machines. I'm sure in the next 24 Hrs we will hear the skinny on this. I do hope that all of that 256MB of memory is soldeed in an that they arent using the expansion bay to get that number.

Dave
Click to expand...

I'd say: wait for Rev B or C of the iBookG4. I don't think this Rev is good enough to upgrade from a 12"/800, unless you can't live without AE, BT...

But it looks like a good (cheap) laptop for a new iBook user...
 
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