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New PowerBooks - Finally

Originally posted by jade
Last week I spent 2.5 hours trying to troubleshoot why my computer (win 98) couldn't install the drivers for my network card and wireless keyboard and mouse. That is one PC thing I am all to happy to leave behind. Time savings like those are priceless.
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Ah, of course. Windows 98. The OS from, what would that be? Five years ago? So you're comparing your experience to getting them to work on OS 9 as well, I assume? No, of course not.

I'll 100% absolutely concede that Windows 98 sucks. I don't, however, see why that implies that XP sucks. Its not quite as nice as OSX, but its really surprisingly good at a lot of things.

-Richard

EDIT: I'm sorry, OS 9 wasn't out until '99, was it? So you're comparing a modern Mac to the Windows equiv. of Mac OS 8? Please, forgive me for my lack of sympathy to your point.
 
Why are you here?

Originally posted by rjstanford
Just like infrared and smartcard readers don't matter to you. Its all relative.Er, that's all software. Which I said that OSX was better at. Although, I can do all of those things very easily with my XP machine as well, quite frankly. As for the security patches, both Apple and Microsoft have their update services, running either system without the updates is not a great idea. Yeah, I was responding specifically to your comment, "Hardware is perhaps the ONLY respect that Apple lags behind and then even, ONLY in their portables, and then even, ONLY in raw speed." if you check the thread.

-Richard
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Richard,

You sound an awful lot like a Dell flack, and you are from Austin. Hmmm!

There is really noting wrong with liking Windoze. Some people enjoy pain. (Yes, I have used Wintel to design and write from 3.0 on a PS/2 to XP PRo on a G4 1.8)

The new PBs are not as fast--clock speed--as Wintel notebooks. But with the new Apple/IBM partnership, that is a very temporary situation.

In the meanwhile, we Mac users will enjoy a vastly more productive OS, more intuitive apps, and the delight of every new feature and capability in our world.

The glass really is half full!
 
Originally posted by SiliconAddict
The C400 I think is. *shrugs* At least close inspection it appears that way. I'll bring in a magnet tomorrow. To be sure :p

Quote from Dell's website for the C400
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Too bad they are still putting the chassis on the inside of the machines and the cases on the outside. Perhaps a continuity test would provide more accurate results for that shiny candy like Dell case? :D
 
Re: Why are you here?

Originally posted by gloftis
The new PBs are not as fast--clock speed--as Wintel notebooks. But with the new Apple/IBM partnership, that is a very temporary situation.
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I sure hope so - why do you think so many people were disappointed to see a Motorola chip in the powerbooks? Besides, if you read back through the quote, many people were claiming that the 1.25ghz G4 was actually faster than intel's 1.6ghz Pentium-M, instead of being at best as fast as the 1.3ghz P-M (possibly an optimistic claim itself). That's the only reason we got onto the subject. I never said that they weren't nice, or that OSX didn't rock, just that they weren't all that fast or cheap.

-Richard
 
Originally posted by rjstanford
Actually, we're on GSM now, so that's evened up. And even the crappy Dells have bluetooth in 'em. Nah, the infrared is for my running heart-rate/position gizmo to interface without cables (like I said, it matters a little to me but not a lot).
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Congrats for getting GSM.

I use OTAG Training Log and a USB cable with my Polar HRM. It's more reliable than using the Infrared on my Toshiba. I use the USB cable on my Toshiba as well for that matter.

And the Windows Bluetooth implementation sucks big ones IME. It's just not as slick or as reliable as Apple or as feature rich.

Firewire - sure you can add a PC card with it on but it's nice having it there already and good video software like QT Broadcaster, iMovie built in also. There isn't a cheaper web broadcasting solution than QT Broadcaster, a Powerbook, QT streaming server and I looked good and hard.
 
Originally posted by singletrack
Firewire - sure you can add a PC card with it on but it's nice having it there already and good video software like QT Broadcaster, iMovie built in also. There isn't a cheaper web broadcasting solution than QT Broadcaster, a Powerbook, QT streaming server and I looked good and hard.
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Probably true, but since I don't take or broadcast movies, not a big deal to me :) I'd certainly see that that would be more of a win for somebody who needed a mobile studio though.

-Richard
 
Re: cache

Originally posted by iPC
I am not going to bother reading all the posts....

L2 cache is faster and more important than L3 cache is.

Doubling the L2 far outgains losing the L3. It also makes the hardware slightly less complicated, which is a good thing!

L3 cache was used as a stopgap measure before due to the inadequate amount of L2 cache on previous gen G4's.
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L2 cache is more important cause the latency is lower and the speed is higher (1/3 for L3 of CPU speed and CPU speed for L2). I bieleve it should be better on short task, but on heavy task (RC5-72 for exemple I believe it lose advantage)...but unsure.
Please correct me it's my opinion on it, but let's wait the bench.
One thing sure the ATI radeon 9600 is great, I would like to change my pb 867 15' for a new one only to get the video card!
 
And even though I ddo have win 98 @ home, I have xp a too. And i agree xp is much improved, but I haven't had a horrible experience with Win 98. I have been using pcs since dos, ....there are somethings you really don't relize you need until you use an apple.

But the real point is somethings still take a lot longer to configure on a windows machine. Sure hooking up my pocket pc was easy, and when i hooked up my camera in xp it read it just fine, but i do think being able to rename my photos, do basic editing and email and prints in iphoto without installing my cameras software. Ejecting my USB flash drive, and configuring less with networking. I'll take os x anyday. (but I really like spider solitare). What I really like about OS X, it has encouraged me to have fun with my computer again and do more with my computer than I had imagined using my PC.

PS I hate os 9, and I thought Apple's were the worst computers ever. Windows 98 was far superior. No multitasking, and it always crashed on me without fail. I really think that XP is really the OS that puts windows and mac closer together and the differences between the two isn't that major.



Originally posted by rjstanford
Ah, of course. Windows 98. The OS from, what would that be? Five years ago? So you're comparing your experience to getting them to work on OS 9 as well, I assume? No, of course not.

I'll 100% absolutely concede that Windows 98 sucks. I don't, however, see why that implies that XP sucks. Its not quite as nice as OSX, but its really surprisingly good at a lot of things.

-Richard

EDIT: I'm sorry, OS 9 wasn't out until '99, was it? So you're comparing a modern Mac to the Windows equiv. of Mac OS 8? Please, forgive me for my lack of sympathy to your point.
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Originally posted by ethernet76
Well, 512k L2 is decent, and the largest in commercial products, I think the DDR RAM will make up for the lack in L3 cache, as the 15 had SDRAM before.
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No, it had DDR before.

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Sleek styling and durable magnesium chassis
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The iBook has one too.

Originally posted by Hugin777
As a recent switcher I still do not understand Apples OS policy, other than getting money. Everyone should get the newest version. That would be easiest for all, also for Apple. But on the other hand I appreciate that the $100 OS subscription is optional ;)
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I think far less people would complain if Apple made a major revision of the OS every three years instead of every year. You didn't mind paying $200 for every major Windows revision, after all!

Here's what you do: You buy Panther, and you pretend that it's the newest version of Mac OS X for three years, then you buy 10.6. It's that easy! And guess what! It keeps working!

Originally posted by haiggy
I read on this page (linked from macrumors.com) that all of the PowerBooks use the 7457 chip.
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It's the 7447. Someone assumed the 7457, but it really wasn't.
 
hard drive option - heat problems?

I'm going to get a new PB G4 15" (upgrading from an old friend - PB G3 (333mhz model). My G3 gets pretty hot with only 384 MG of RAM. Now I'm planning on put in 1 G of Ram and I'm trying to choose between 80 G 4200 hard-drive and 80 G 5400 model. Can anyone give me some advice (hopefully based on knowledge/experience) about the difference in heat/noise between these two drives - 4200 and 5400??

thanks, Hillel
 
"Chassis" means the frame, so in the case of the Dell C400, it's most like a magnesium alloy frame with plastic or metallized plastic panels mounted around it. Don't know for sure, though, but I seriously doubt Dell would put any money into an all metal case.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=chassis

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
The C400 I think is. *shrugs* At least close inspection it appears that way. I'll bring in a magnet tomorrow. To be sure :p

Quote from Dell's website for the C400

Sleek styling and durable magnesium-alloy chassis.
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512 KiB L2 is not "largest", it's middle-of-the-road

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac

----
Well, 512k L2 is decent, and the largest in commercial products, I think the DDR RAM will make up for the lack in L3 cache, as the 15 had SDRAM before.
----
No, it had DDR before.
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Also, the Pentium M (the Centrino) has a 1 MiB L2 cache, and all of the current Pentium 4 series above 2.0 GHz have the 512 KiB Cache.

So, rather than "largest", it merely equal to the P4 and half the size of the Centrino!

[edit]

Today Intel announced Pentium 4 at 3.2 GHz with 2 MiB of L3 cache on-chip....

http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-5077654.html
 
i think after the months of waiting anything short of a "G6" processor in the pb would be a disappointment.

there could be some minor improvements, but as a whole it is a very strong line.
 
Originally posted by sacrilicious
:) Me, too.
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me three....or three hundred I dunno yet, haven't read all the posts...see it's that damn iPod it's the gateway drug....maybe more like the red pill to awaken us from a PC nightmare?
 
funny...

Originally posted by Photorun
Damn. I'm so far down.

Anyways, you G5 naive babies were ALL WRONG!!!! I was right. Sooo... I TOLD YOU SO! I TOLD YOU SO! I TOLD YOU SO!
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I used to respect some of your posts now I only wonder who the "naive baby" is, and I wasn't even a G5 believer only a defender.
 
Originally posted by singletrack
Whilst I agree about this probably being the last G4 in the powerbooks, the 7447/7457 were a new process for Moto hence the delay as they didn't invest in building a new plant as early as they needed to and the 7457 comes in at $189 per 1000. The 7447 even less. It's cheaper than the 7455 previously used, at least for Apple. It's probably costing a lot more for Motorola if the low yield stories are true.

I can't see Apple using it anymore, not because of speed issues, as Moto should be able to ramp up the speed more now they are on 0.13, but more because it still uses RapidIO and doesn't support DDR yet when Apple are heading HyperTransport and full on DDR with the G5. Still, it's impressive power/heat wise and would do ok in a future iBook if it wasn't for IBM's Moave 750VX on the horizon and Motorola's prior history.
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yeah exactly, the low power G4s are fine, but it's a little too late. Apple is going to hang onto IBM as long as they are producing which I see no reason why they would fail. We need actual DDR ram performance that shows not just expensive DDR ram. I would only buy one of these if I was desperate for a new Powerbook otherwise wait 6 months for the G5.

Tyler
 
Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
quote:
Originally posted by ethernet76
Well, 512k L2 is decent, and the largest in commercial products, I think the DDR RAM will make up for the lack in L3 cache, as the 15 had SDRAM before.


No, it had DDR before.
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Actually, it had SDRAM, the Mobility 9000 had DDR SDRAM though.

Also - (not sure if any posted this yet) - did anyone notice the superdrives are 2X now?
 
I bought my 12" PB and 10GB Ipod one month ago based on the assumption that if a new 12" PB came out, it would cost more or at least not be offered with the same rebate. Looks like I was wrong on both counts. On the other hand, my "old" 12" PB does well everything I need it to do, and I am a very satisfied customer. I will use my PB happily until the G5 arrives. Congrats to everyone getting the new PBs. They look fantastic!
 
Delays-15vs17-keyboard-Dells-My2cents

I ordered a new 15" this morning (posted previously about the frustrating delay). I opted for the full 2GB of RAM, as it pays off in speed now and ease of resale later. Now that someone has brought it up -I had to wait longer for my TiBook because Apple put it on sale before it had the RAM chips in stock for the 1G upgrade. History repeats itself...

I've been using a 667 TiBook and a 1G 17" Al for some time now. Based on real world use, here are some thoughts: I love the larger screen - but even carrying it back and forth from work got to be a drag. If you're a laptop user who keeps the machine at home 90% of the time I guess it's okay. If you actually intend to port your portable, the 15" is much, much more convenient.

One of the features I most wanted in the new 15" Al (hooray!) was the illuminated keyboard. I'm a touch typist, but there are some keys that didn't exist back in the dark ages when I learned to type -so it's nice to be able to see them. No one else has commented, but the physical layout of the Aluminum laptops is a little awkward -the keyboard is very high up, if you know what I mean. For touch typists it can feel a little strange -and throw off your "feel" for the top/number row.

As fate would have it, I had to help a friend from work with his new (just out of the box) Dell laptop yesterday. His goal was to configure his laptop to access the 'net via ethernet/cable modem from home and DSL at work. He also needed to configure Outlook to access his personal and work email. Three hours of work, and we didn't quite make it... The Internet set-up and location manager software for Windows XP is <NOT> anywhere near as user-friendly as that of OS X. I'm pretty IP-saavy, and I was amazed at what MS expects the average user to know offhand. The setup was hampered by a recurring problem with Windows which caused the machine to shut down (due to a communications error??) after two minutes online. A little window opened so we could inform MS of this problem -but the problem literally kept us from remaining online for more than two minutes at a time. We were never able to get Outlook to work. I configured another mail reader for him, and showed him how to access web mail from his Earthlink account -But no matter what I did, Outlook refused to send or receive email. He only called me after spending <four> hours on the phone (mostly on hold) with Earthlink, Dell, and Microsoft. They all pointed fingers at each other, of course... (to be fair, I've had Apple and HP do that too...) Here was a grown man, reduced nearly to tears, trying to use his brand new computer... Sad. He kept looking at my TiBook and saying, "I should have bought Apple, right?" I tried to reassure him by saying that a true Windows jock might be able to get things going easily... But my heart wasn't in it.

I'm not sharing all of this to bash MS (tempting though it may be) or Dell -Just to point out that the true cost/value of a computer has to be calculated beyond processor speed and/or price.

Hey -Two cents goes a lot farther than it used to... ;)
 
Originally posted by Photorun
Explain exactly the true advantage of a backlit keyboard aside from the "oooh ahhh" factor?
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The lighted keyboard would help me if I'm taking notes from the Professor who's giving a lecture from the overhead projector and the lights are out. Since my typing absolutly sux, this would allow me to see the keys as I backspace and correct my typing. Plus while he's giving the lecture, not only could I make the corrections, I could slip the "corrected" homework to his e-mail address;)

Edited 2 secs later for typos -Bruja
 
Why did Apple do this to me... now I have to decide between a 17" with more weight that's thinner and has a faster processor and a 15" that's a little bit thicker and has a slower processor but is much lighter....

SOMEBODY HELP!!! Which one do I choose? I'll use it around my college campus and will be lugging it long distances. What do you guys think?
 
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