Powerbook and PowerMac Updates - October 19th?

[g0gie]

Yes, I really think that, that's why I posted it.

They said they'd be shipping Intel Macs by mid-2006, with the migration to all-Intel complete by the end of 2007, right? Who ever said that there would be just a single revision of anything? Maybe the Pro machines, PB included, will be the ones that will run through 2007 - with multiple revisions of a G5 PB to come. We'll find out next week.

I stand by my claim that if they are going to call it a Powerbook HD (which nobody is sure of yet, of course), it better be able to edit HD, not just play it and not just have a 1920x1200 screen.

The funny thing is- even if they did have a 1920x1200 screen (1080p) the current g4's come nowhere close to producing enough processing power to get decent frames. my 1.67 pb cant even do 720p wihtout dropping almost half the frames. but still for other things the res would be nice

 

[philoye]

BTO PBs have had 3-5 day shipping times for awhile now; Apple seems to be getting better at "cloaking" telltale signs such as the shipping times that used to be good indicators in the past. Have there been a lot of PBs refurbished and offered up in special deals? That tends to be a better indicator.

Actually, it is 3-5 days for stock configurations for the 15" and 17" PBs. 12" are still both available within 24 hours.

BTO configurations for the 15" go to 5-7 days.

I want to get a new 15" PB before next Friday. I'm leaving on a two week trip and I need something faster. Should I order a 15" now and hope it gets upgraded? If it doesn't, I can cancel on Tuesday.

Thoughts?

 

[tekmoe]

BTO PBs have had 3-5 day shipping times for awhile now; Apple seems to be getting better at "cloaking" telltale signs such as the shipping times that used to be good indicators in the past. Have there been a lot of PBs refurbished and offered up in special deals? That tends to be a better indicator.

BTO Powerbooks have been at 5-7 days. (they were 6-8 yesterday and i'm curious if they switch over to 4-6 tonight.) the STOCK machines just switched over to 3-5 days earlier this evening. i've been hoping all day they would switch to 3-5 just because of the fact that the powermacs are at 3-5 as well.

this is looking gooooooooooooooooood. =)

The funny thing is- even if they did have a 1920x1200 screen (1080p) the current g4's come nowhere close to producing enough processing power to get decent frames. my 1.67 pb cant even do 720p wihtout dropping almost half the frames. but still for other things the res would be nice

i don't think the res will go that high, but i could be wrong...

what are other 17" laptops pushing?

 

[g0gie]

i don't think the res will go that high, but i could be wrong...

what are other 17" laptops pushing?

Other ones push 1920x1200 hHAHAHAHHAH. thats the dell UWXGA at least as well as a few other ones from toshiba ect ect

 

[fklehman]

And the 12" PB BTO still ships within 1-3 days...doesn't bode well for it huh.

 

[RHMMMM]

i don't think the res will go that high, but i could be wrong...

what are other 17" laptops pushing?

Other 17" laptops are at 1920x1200 - it's called WUXGA+ or something. I ordered my Dad an Inspiron 9300 with that screen and everything is super tiny. Actually, they have 15.4" laptops with that resolution also, which is insane, IMO.

 

[Superhob]

And the 12" PB BTO still ships within 1-3 days...doesn't bode well for it huh.

I think the 12" PB is either going to remain unchanged or it will be replaced by a 13.3" powerbook, to make all the powerbooks have a wide aspect ratio. I'm hoping for the latter, as long as the weight stays the same or slightly heavier than the current 12".

 

[fklehman]

Well if the PB does go high-def it might just push Apple toward PCIe after all. An X800 would rock, but it would be totally unlike Apple to put a ship-of-the-line GPU into its pro laptop. I'm typing on my Pismo with its dreadful 8MB ATI Rage Pro (which was also dreadful at the time), so I'm used to getting hosed GPUs.

 

[MacQuest]

Other ones push 1920x1200 hHAHAHAHHAH.

Yup. As noted however, everything looks like tiny little pieces of ***** and renders practically everything, except for watching HD movies, useless.

I'll watch movies in HD on my tv. I'd rather be able to see what's on my desktop and not have my application icons, etc. be so tiny that they just look like dead pixels.

 

[fklehman]

If the PB12" remains unchanged it will officially be the most neglected computer in history, if it isn't already. Not gettin' NO love...

 

[bodeh6]

PCIe it is then, my bad. Anyone know if the ram maximum will go up with DDR2? Do 1.5GB or 2GB dimms exist for DDR2, which would up the max ram to 3 or 4 gigs instead of the current 2?

They have 2GB DIMMS.

 

[~Shard~]

Well if the PB does go high-def it might just push Apple toward PCIe after all.

Apple already implemented PCIe in the new iMac, so I don't think it's a matter of pushing them at all. Now that the iMac has PCIe, it's a foregone conclusion that the PowerMac will get it. As for the PowerBook, I'm sure it's only a matter of time. The one issue that I would be concerned with is one of heat. One reason I think the iMac didn't get an even better video card is due to the heat restrictions in the iMac's small enclosure - the PowerBook would be even worse.

 

[reddelicious]

WHAT DO I DO?

here's my dilemma. i'm still a pc user but i really like the powerbook. through a special college discount i can get a new 15in 1.5ghz combo drive 80gb with Applecare for $1870 after taxes and ill probly upgrade the ram on my own for another $75. all i really use my computer for is surfing the web, word documents, messing around with photos, and watching movies but i am on it for like 8 hours a day. i always want to wait for newer and better but i dont think i can wait till the intel switch and this upgrade doesnt sound all that much better considering the price im getting now (i wont use the high def screen cuz my eyes wont pull through but the extended battery life sounds perfect and i cant help but wonder if apple has any other interesting additions up its sleaves). my other option is buying a cheaper ($1300 final cost) PC HP's dv1000 and getting a mac laptop after the intel switch. any opinions would be appreciated. im running out of time...

 

[g0gie]

here's my dilemma. i'm still a pc user but i really like the powerbook. through a special college discount i can get a new 15in 1.5ghz combo drive 80gb with Applecare for $1870 after taxes and ill probly upgrade the ram on my own for another $75. all i really use my computer for is surfing the web, word documents, messing around with photos, and watching movies but i am on it for like 8 hours a day. i always want to wait for newer and better but i dont think i can wait till the intel switch and this upgrade doesnt sound all that much better considering the price im getting now (i wont use the high def screen cuz my eyes wont pull through but the extended battery life sounds perfect and i cant help but wonder if apple has any other interesting additions up its sleaves). my other option is buying a cheaper ($1300 final cost) PC HP's dv1000 and getting a mac laptop after the intel switch. any opinions would be appreciated. im running out of time...

I say you wait. you never know whats going to be included in the new PB - especially considering that they've basically had 2 years to upgrade/update it and all they did was up the CPU speed and add sudden motion sensor anda new trackpad. Im expecting something nice, perhaps even smaller

 

[StkhlmSyndrm23]

If the PB12" remains unchanged it will officially be the most neglected computer in history, if it isn't already. Not gettin' NO love...

Well if it's eliminated Tuesday then the 12" will cease to exist, so it's a moot point. I'm still wondering what the deal is with the iBook ship times BTO...

 

[fklehman]

Apple already implemented PCIe in the new iMac, so I don't think it's a matter of pushing them at all. Now that the iMac has PCIe, it's a foregone conclusion that the PowerMac will get it. As for the PowerBook, I'm sure it's only a matter of time. The one issue that I would be concerned with is one of heat. One reason I think the iMac didn't get an even better video card is due to the heat restrictions in the iMac's small enclosure - the PowerBook would be even worse.

Yeah the heat is already pretty terrible in those things. If we get the 7448 that should help the heat situation though since it draws under 10w at 1.5 (I think it's 1.5, although I don't seem to get anything right tonight). Also I remember reading on barefeats that the new 7200rpm HDDs don't put out any more heat than the 5400s when you factor in the use efficiency gained by their faster access speeds, so maybe the 7448 could partially offset the PCIe heat situation.

 

[iEric]

not gonna get a pb until the intels are in them. i want to get ms windows to use excel.
the excel in the mac office sucks for graphs.

 

[tekmoe]

does anyone know if the new iMacs were available at any of the apple stores on the same day of the "One More Thing" event or even the following day?

i am trying to figure out if i should order the powerbook on the apple website as soon as they are released or if i should try and wait a day or two for the new powerbooks to possibly arrive at the apple stores?

not sure how this works...i just know i want an updated 17" ASAP.

 

[berkleeboy210]

does anyone know if the new iMacs were available at any of the apple stores on the same day of the "One More Thing" event or even the following day?

i am trying to figure out if i should order the powerbook on the apple website as soon as they are released or if i should try and wait a day or two for the new powerbooks to possibly arrive at the apple stores?

not sure how this works...i just know i want an updated 17" ASAP.

I doubt the new iMacs were available, They are still showing 3-5 day shipping for the 17" and 7-10 days for the 20". Probably won't see them in stores until mid next week at the earliest.

Just order the powerbook online, and you'll be one of the first to get it

 

[Chrispy]

I don't see the 12" getting any updates.... Apple seems to have forgotten about it and is leaving it for dead. My bet would be they know the 12" iBook comes so close to the 12" PowerBook that they are going to phase the 12" PowerBook out when the intel machines come out. I hope Apple puts better graphics cards in the 15" and 17" models as well. Also, I bet they will just make one 15" model and make 128MB graphics cards standard along with the DVDRW drive. Bring it on Santajobs!

 

[fklehman]

does anyone know if the new iMacs were available at any of the apple stores on the same day of the "One More Thing" event or even the following day?

i am trying to figure out if i should order the powerbook on the apple website as soon as they are released or if i should try and wait a day or two for the new powerbooks to possibly arrive at the apple stores?

not sure how this works...i just know i want an updated 17" ASAP.

Good question...I plan to visit my Apple Store this weekend to check out the new gear but wasn't able to that day.

Question about video cards: so the iMc now has the X600 instead of the 9600...what kind of performance gains do you get out of that card besides the 16x PCIe interface? And if we get PCIe in the PBs and get, say, an X700 to replace the 9700, what kind of performance gain would that be besides the 16x?

 

[~Shard~]

not gonna get a pb until the intels are in them. i want to get ms windows to use excel.
the excel in the mac office sucks for graphs.

So let me get this straight, you're waiting until Apple puts Intel architecture into a Mac, even though you want to run Windows (whereas the Intel Macs will run OS X), and the whole reason you say this is because a certain Mac version of a Windows app doesn't do exactly what you want it to?

- Intel macs won't magically make Excel's graphs better.
- Intel Macs will run OS X, not Windows.
- If Excel isn't meeting your expectations, what does the underlying CPU architecture have to do with anything?

 

[iAlan]

I would love a new machine...

but not sure if I will wait?

I have a dual 1.8 G5 and a 12" PB - I don't know if I want to treade up on the PB or not. The littel 12-ie is great, it is small, light, good quiality, can connect to my 42" HD TV for pretty good playback of DVD's (I am in Japan, which is region 2, my little PB is set to region1 so I can play DVD's from the US I pick up when on business trips or my quarterly DVD buying spree on amazon.com)...

A HD PB would be great - and I would move up tothe 15" display to be able to watch DVD on it when traveling...

I cannot justify a new PM as the one I have does what I need it to do and then some (I am not a pro user, but the iMac was a little too limiting in it's specs when i bought the PM)...

Will decide once the new beasts are released...

 

[themacman]

they would have to upgrade the processer speed if even it was by .17. that is still fine with me as long as 12'' gets new display, and front row software with the isight builtin.

 

[kodeman]

still waiting

Am I the only one who is still waiting on an ordered Power Book? I ordered my PB on the 1st of October... 15" 1.67ghz 128 video, and originally it was suppose to be shipped on or before the 4th. Apple is still telling me that they are processing the order. So does that mean that they are upgrading my laptop and are just waiting to realese the info (whenever they do) before they start building it? I have never heard of anybody having to wait this long for a PB; I'm sure its happened but I'm a bit surprised. Anybody have any input, at this point I would almost rather have my laptop the way I ordered it then wait for a whole month, especially since it was a replacment to my dropped Dell. Not to mention i'm deployeed and it will probably take another month to receive it after its been sent. Deployeed without laptop = suck fest.