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PowerBook Updates -- As Early as Next Week?
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yeah
yeah, I'm just getting angry because I want a powerbook and the current models don't seen much faster then my Powermac G4 400mhz. I might just the sonnet 1 ghz upgrade for $340 and hold off for the G5 PBs.
yeah, I'm just getting angry because I want a powerbook and the current models don't seen much faster then my Powermac G4 400mhz. I might just the sonnet 1 ghz upgrade for $340 and hold off for the G5 PBs.
Re: PowerBook Updates -- As Early as Next Week?
I'm tired of these rumors getting our hopes up. I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm tired of these rumors getting our hopes up. I'll believe it when I see it.
the number of sales and revenues.
Are you sure that the 15" 1GHz is not faster than your 400MHz PM??? I mean my 867 PB is faster than a 800 ibook - noticably... i think a step up on g4s a bit better graphics more L2 usb2 and fw 800 AE Al and BT across the board more internal RAM maybe a bit higher resolutions on the 15" and 17" are all compelling reasons to buy a g4. if i had money i would buy a new 15" in the first few months of introduction...
The 15" 1ghz is a lot faster then my 400mhz, but not enough to spend over $3000 on.
I have 896mb of Ram and a Radeon 8600 video card. For just a few hundred bucks I Can get an upgrade card that should satisfy me for the next year until the powerbook G5 comes out.
I just bought SOUNDTRACK and it won't even run on my G4 400mhz, but it will if I upgrade it.
I think you forgot about the system controller, which could be the most important part of a G5 notebook design. You would probably also need HyperTransport which would mean a complete redesign of the chip interconnect and i/o system (from the existing PowerBook designs). While there is nothing that would have absolutely prevented Apple from starting such a design several years ago (let's say 18 months ago) that is a completely different story than saying "that all the pieces are in place for a G5" PowerBook and that there are "no excuses left" for waiting until next year.
Well, as far as G5 PowerBooks...I am all for power and speed in my computers, I'd love to have the latest and greatest, but honestly, games depend more on pure raw GPU and RAM than the CPU itself, and besides games, I mostly just use Word, browse the internet, download, chat, and a few photo renders...all of which run on a G3 just fine, so on a G4 would be even better. I wish more than anything that there is a G5 in the PowerBook coming up, but honestly, as long as they put a better GPU in the PowerBooks along with the modest upgrades to everything else that has been predicted, I'll be smiling the whole time I am configuring my new PowerBook at the Apple Store. Besides, it seems to me that what will really unleash the speed demon in our computers is Panther more than anything else...
Yeah I mean.. I know my next computer is going to be a Mac.. that's certain.
Tuesday seems so far away!!!
There are two main issues I see here.
First, and most importantly, is this pervasive notion that "it's too early for the G5 laptop". There is simply no such thing as "too early"...but there is such a thing as "too late". If the tech is there today, then Apple needs to get on the ball and release it. There is no law that says "laptops have to be released 3 years after their desktop counterparts".
The second issue is the value proposition. Here is what I think. You can get a Dell Inspiron laptop with a 2.2 GHz P4 and a 400 MHz bus for $1400. This laptop will be 1.5-2x as fast as the fastest Apple laptop. The Apple costs more. A lot more. But it runs OSX. It also includes some peripherals and other extras in the cost. So how much are the extras worth on a machine that runs half as fast? What I am hearing from many posters here is: "it's worth it, I don't care about speed, speed doesn't matter, it looks nicer, and it's worth the extra money". Now I'm not a psychologist, but what that sounds like to me is an apology or an attempted justification.
Yeah, OSX is great. But how long are we going to allow Apple to give us iBook performance at powerbook prices? When are we going to start demanding what the rest of the industry already offers--high performance at low cost? If we, the consumers, do not demand this, then we are ourselves only dooming our preferred platform. Because with time this policy will create an exodus away from the Mac, as more and more people reach the threshold where MacOS is not worth the price/performance premium. This has been happenning for quite some time now...and unless something changes, it can only continue. Change...that means changing the idea that something is "good enough", that something else is "too new" or "too fast". These phrases are phrases of resignation, phrases of conceded defeat.
First, and most importantly, is this pervasive notion that "it's too early for the G5 laptop". There is simply no such thing as "too early"...but there is such a thing as "too late". If the tech is there today, then Apple needs to get on the ball and release it. There is no law that says "laptops have to be released 3 years after their desktop counterparts".
The second issue is the value proposition. Here is what I think. You can get a Dell Inspiron laptop with a 2.2 GHz P4 and a 400 MHz bus for $1400. This laptop will be 1.5-2x as fast as the fastest Apple laptop. The Apple costs more. A lot more. But it runs OSX. It also includes some peripherals and other extras in the cost. So how much are the extras worth on a machine that runs half as fast? What I am hearing from many posters here is: "it's worth it, I don't care about speed, speed doesn't matter, it looks nicer, and it's worth the extra money". Now I'm not a psychologist, but what that sounds like to me is an apology or an attempted justification.
Yeah, OSX is great. But how long are we going to allow Apple to give us iBook performance at powerbook prices? When are we going to start demanding what the rest of the industry already offers--high performance at low cost? If we, the consumers, do not demand this, then we are ourselves only dooming our preferred platform. Because with time this policy will create an exodus away from the Mac, as more and more people reach the threshold where MacOS is not worth the price/performance premium. This has been happenning for quite some time now...and unless something changes, it can only continue. Change...that means changing the idea that something is "good enough", that something else is "too new" or "too fast". These phrases are phrases of resignation, phrases of conceded defeat.
I did not forget about the system controller or hypertransport etc. That is part of Apple's design process. As I mentioned, the only thing left is Apple's motherboard design. Which they should have done concurrently with the desktop design.
There are indeed no excuses left--no excuses outside of Apple. Everything else is in place. But if Apple hasn't done the design, then once again we are stuck behind.
Think of it this way. All the other manufacturers are able to design and produce fast notebooks. Why can't Apple?
I would dare every dell in the world to create a true portable - not a 10 pound 3" thick monster with a 2ghz P4 and all that stuff they put. maybe my previous post didnt catch your attention but in a level playing field (that of thin and light notebooks) Apple has a very competitive product. I didnt even mention the fact that even a 12" iBook that costs 500$ less than the powerbook can compare favourably to the PC side solutions.
I didn't find even one 15" or 17" laptop that is not too heavy or too bulky to be called laptop. I also believe that if Apple wanted to fix a 10 pound 3" monster they would be able to stick a dual G5 and a 9800 Radeon just like everybody else but they don't. They are known for class and usability. I don't see the reason of a huge laptop in the product line of Apple. For that you can spend 2000 and buy a G5 desktop. Apple has managed to offer a decent performance with a lot of standard components in a very protable size. Again have you seen the latest 17" from toshiba? I could never imagin Apple making such a monster only so they could stick the latest and gratest in CPU and GPU power. If you want raw power get a G5 desktop if you want raw power on a laptop go to the gym and a few months later buy the 17" Toshiba - i didn't notice specs but i do expect a 3GHz desktop P4 with 1 hour battery life, if you actually want a decently fast laptop that is actually portable buy a Mac. I think that Apple does not compete in the luggable department.
For me between the 17" Toshiba and the 15" Dell the Apple equivalents are true portables and have enough speed. If i want more speed i will order a G5.
I didn't find even one 15" or 17" laptop that is not too heavy or too bulky to be called laptop. I also believe that if Apple wanted to fix a 10 pound 3" monster they would be able to stick a dual G5 and a 9800 Radeon just like everybody else but they don't. They are known for class and usability. I don't see the reason of a huge laptop in the product line of Apple. For that you can spend 2000 and buy a G5 desktop. Apple has managed to offer a decent performance with a lot of standard components in a very protable size. Again have you seen the latest 17" from toshiba? I could never imagin Apple making such a monster only so they could stick the latest and gratest in CPU and GPU power. If you want raw power get a G5 desktop if you want raw power on a laptop go to the gym and a few months later buy the 17" Toshiba - i didn't notice specs but i do expect a 3GHz desktop P4 with 1 hour battery life, if you actually want a decently fast laptop that is actually portable buy a Mac. I think that Apple does not compete in the luggable department.
For me between the 17" Toshiba and the 15" Dell the Apple equivalents are true portables and have enough speed. If i want more speed i will order a G5.
I agree. Let's also not forget that Apple claims to have been working with IBM for 3 years on G5.(it says so in the G5 mag ads.)
I'm not saying that they are coming out this tuesday, but it could be a posibility. It won't be a duel 2ghz machine, but a 1200mhz G5 Powerbook looks promising.
Ah. That three years never stood out before. Maybe this'll be like the last 15" update where the SuperDrive just appeared, regardless of the consent of these damned boards.
Okay, now I think you've revealed your true nature. Apple's notebooks are __still__ among the best designed in the industry. The fact that they may be slower in some tasks than other top-of-the-line PC offerings doesn't completely invalidate their other fine points. Such things as outstanding graphics support (DVI, above average GPUs and LCD displays), industry leading form factor and weight, 6-pin Firewire and Firewire800, gigabit ethernet, and the world's best support for wireless connectivity.
I will, however, admit that the PC manufacturers have after many years of trying finally managed to produce a line of notebook computers that can actually compete with the PowerBook and/or iBook. I'm taking about the Centrino Pentium-M products that currently are probably Apple's only real competition (as a total package -- sum of all parts).
However, in my opinion Apple doesn't need to produce a G5 PowerBook today in order to compete (or beat) the Centrino. Just give us a G4-based system at around 1.3GHz in an improved 15" enclosure with updated graphics and USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 and I'd be plenty happy (Airport Extreme and Bluetooth are pretty much a given and, of course, we could all use a little more battery life).
High performance at low cost means no R&D budget and that means Dell. When you buy a Mac, you're not only paying for the sum of the parts and a profit margin, you're also bankrolling Apple's R&D effort. You're paying for Airport long before the Windows world knew what WiFi was. You're paying for FireWire while PCs were still employing parallel ports or awkward add-on SCSI solutions. You're paying for GUI acceleration in hardware on 16MB GPUs while Windows users wait for Longhorn and who knows what kind of system requirements. You're paying for a slew of iApps that are well-designed and useful.
Yes, you can get a faster notebook that runs Windows, weighs 9 pounds and gets marginal battery life. And if is raw speed is your primary goal, that's probably what you should get. Owning a Mac has never been about having the fastest computer on the market. It's about spending more for better design, better software and a better user experience.
I don't think there is *too* much of an issue here. Everyone would like a faster laptop, but then at the same time if you want performance you don't buy a laptop.
Pound for pound/dollar for dollar, Mac laptops are better value for the same specs, and Macs perform better at those specs. Also Macs have a longer useable life than PC's, so with a PC you could get marginally better performance at a high premium, need to replace it sooner and still not reach desktop level.
At the same time if Apple want me to test their prototype quadruple G5 laptop running at 8GHz, I'm sure I could stretch to it.
AppleMatt
Pound for pound/dollar for dollar, Mac laptops are better value for the same specs, and Macs perform better at those specs. Also Macs have a longer useable life than PC's, so with a PC you could get marginally better performance at a high premium, need to replace it sooner and still not reach desktop level.
At the same time if Apple want me to test their prototype quadruple G5 laptop running at 8GHz, I'm sure I could stretch to it.
AppleMatt
Hmm... I agree that Apple makes some nice designs, but Dell has an Inspiron 600 which is 1" thick and 5.3 lbs at $1300. I'm sure it has some problems (including the fact that it is ugly, and it runs windows), but really that's not too bad. That one has a 1.3-1.7 Centrino, which I understand is faster per-clock than the P4 (like the G4/G5). It also has a 400 MHz bus. This computer will be much faster than any existing powerbook.
This is mostly due to the fact that nothing in the powerbook line has been significantly updated, and is not even rumored to be updated, for a very long time. What we need now is the G5. The meager 1.3 update doesn't cut it, at existing prices. Someone above mentioned that they can't tell the difference between a Ti667 and a 1gig G4. Imagine how little difference a 1.3 update will make, then.
I disagree. The iBook is extremely slow IMO. I use one regularly, and to me it is almost unusably slow.
I dunno, I'm pretty much in the camp of a faster G4, updated graphx and some goodies thrown in. They could rush a G5 PB out the door, but why? The G4 PB is still pretty nice in comparison with truly comprable PC notebooks (performance/weight etc.) now and they can release the G5 PB fully tested in 6 months.
I care more about the reliability as do most apple pro-audio users over power, and I just have a hard time seeing a rushed G5 PB meeting that reliabilty (call it gut instinct). If they did come out tues. I wouldn't buy one, especially after getting screwed by the G4-USB-audio fiasco when the G4 first hit the market.
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Feel the weight of it, weight is a sign of reliability, I always go for reliability... and if it doesn't work you can always hit him with it. -Borris the Blade, snatch
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I care more about the reliability as do most apple pro-audio users over power, and I just have a hard time seeing a rushed G5 PB meeting that reliabilty (call it gut instinct). If they did come out tues. I wouldn't buy one, especially after getting screwed by the G4-USB-audio fiasco when the G4 first hit the market.
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Feel the weight of it, weight is a sign of reliability, I always go for reliability... and if it doesn't work you can always hit him with it. -Borris the Blade, snatch
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I don't know what you mean by this.
Many tasks, I will argue.
I agree there there are a number of good things about the powerbooks, things which are better than PC laptops.
Well, this is where we disagree. To a 1.3 GHz G4, I say "why bother". If it is an easy change to make, then sure why not. I have already pointed out why this will make little difference. On the 15 you may notice some speed gains, but not on the 12 or 17. And we will still be significantly slower than Centrino laptops, 1.3 G4 or not. I would rather see price cuts on existing models, until the G5 is released at the existing price points and the G4 powerbook internals are dropped into the iBook for a long-overdue upgrade on the latter. If we want to compete with Centrino, we need the G5 and the fast bus. Then the Apple price premium is justified (better OS, better periphery stuff, better design).
ok, here ya go.
All of the below use the centrino processor. multiply the processor speed by about 1.9 to get the equivalent pentium 4 speed.
http://www.alienware.com/system_pages/area-51m_sentia.aspx
Alienware Exclusive Chassis
Intel® Centrino Technology
Intel® Pentium-M Processor 1.6Ghz
Intel® 855GM Chipset
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100
14.1" SXGA+ LCD Screen
512MB DDR PC2100
40GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
Price: $2,120.00
here's another
http://www.voodoo.ca/systems/m355.aspx
and another:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/hpdirect/shopping/scripts/home/store_access.jsp
Presario X1000 series
integrated wireless from Intel Centrino mobile technology
features amazing new widescreen displays
thin and light at just 6.5 lbs., 1.3" thin
customized options for XP Pro and Microsoft Office
from $1,299.00*
(after rebate)
as low as $42/mo +
and another:
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/tm800.htm
More than eight hours with the AcerMedia Bay second battery
Intel® Centrino mobile technologies with intelligent power distribution and optimisation
Intel® Centrino mobile technologies
ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000 graphics chipset with 64 MB of DDR VRAM
Generous 15" LCD SXGA+ screen
Up to 2048 MB of system memory
5400 rpm high-capacity hard disc give you all the memory you need*
Only 2.5 cm (one inch) thick and weighing less than 2.5 kg**
Featuring Acer's unique ergonomically designed keyboard
...
All of the above have been rated high marks by various respectable review sites around the net. (cnet, et. al.)
They all are portable, light and have battery life of roughly 5 hours.They are all faster than the powerbooks, have better, more up to date components, and cost roughly the same if not less.
yeah yeah, everyone will say the main draw back is windows.. but I'm talking about hardware here.
On the hardware side, apple is getting spanked in the notebook arena.
That's why I'm waiting to see what apple comes out with before I buy. That's why I'm frustrated. That's why Apple needs to release a G5 powerbook as soon as possible.
*WHEW!*
*pant* *pant*
rant over with.
thanks for letting me vent.
I would call very little of this R&D. I believe Apple had a hand in the technical development of firewire, so that is research, or applied research anyway. But as for the rest--these are just things that Apple decided to put in their systems ahead of time. Which is fine, but it is not R&D and it is not something that justifies higher cost as such, certainly not now long after the fact. As far as the iApps--yes they are very nice and well-designed etc. But R&D? Large budget? No, I would not say that. Certainly not the stuff they bundle with the machines. Open-GL GUI acceleration, now that is something pretty cool. But I would put that in the same "advantage cubbyhole" as OSX itself.
OSX...now that is the really big advantage of the Mac, and the thing that justifies a premium price. But even with this it is somewhat misleading to say that Apple's costs are higher than Dell's, just because Dell doesn't make an OS. PC laptops come with an OS too, and although the OS is a piece of junk, it still costs a lot of money to make. On the cost side, I will admit that economies of scale increase the per-user cost of MacOS relative to Windows. And certainly, on the value-to-the-consumer side, OSX deserves a higher price. But PC laptops include a software budget in their price as well.
Incidentally, it has not always been that way. The IIfx comes to mind.
And besides, it doesn't have to be that way now either. Better design, experience and UI do not preclude speed. If powerbooks are significantly more expensive than PC laptops, then I'd say they should match PCs on speed and have the extra usability goodies as well. If they have the extra goodies but are slower, then they should not command as high a premium as in the former case.
Edited for correct quote attribution.
Sanford, while I agree with many of your points I think the Centrino line of PC notebooks pretty much ends the "9 pounds and gets marginal battery life" argument. Centrino-based systems are light weight, have very good battery life, and offer raw performance that is comparable to their bigger, 2+ to 3 GHz P4 cousins. IMO, the Centrino line is Apple's only real competition. Of course, the Centrino line currently tops out at 1.7GHz, with 1.3GHz and 1.4GHz being the typical offerings.
I just configured a 1.7GHz Dell Inspiron 600m (Centrino) to match as closely as possible to an imagined (new) G4/G5 PowerBook (for example no floppy, but added DVD+R/W, 802.11g, etc.) and the price was $2619 (U.S. Dell direct). Dell says that the weight of the 600m model starts at 5 pounds and it is 1.29" thick, but I don't know how much the options I added would change that weight (probably not by much, only the DVD+R/W might make much of a difference). The Inspiron 600m has a 14.1" display and I configured SXGA+ resolution with a 64MB ATI Radeon 9000. I also selected a 60GB HD and 512MB DDRAM.
This, obviously, would be a very nice notebook and I expect that the raw performance would even exceed any current (or near future) G5-based system that Apple could produce. However, it has a smaller display that the current 15" PowerBook, no DVI video (which I think is a fabulous feature on the PowerBooks), no Firewire (apparently), and no internal support for Bluetooth. You could, however, add Firewire via it's PC-Card port (so add $50 for a FW400 PC-Card and some additional inconvenience).
Is this a "better" notebook than the existing 12" or 15" PowerBooks? Yes, probably (but not with certainty). Is it "better" than any possible upgrade to the G4 PowerBook line? I think that is certainly debatable and it probably comes down to software (i.e. OS X versus Windows XP, and the iApps versus Dell's bundle of multimedia applications).
Of course, the Dell system is shipping today (at least I think the 1.7GHz model is available, but certainly the 1.3 or 1.4GHz models are). So in this case maybe one in the hand __is__ worth two in the bush, even if those "two" were a G5.
Ok Agreed if you go spec it out though as the 1GHz Ti 15" you will get a price more like 1900. Granted this is a whoping 700 without even tax added. Granted the Dell is more customisable. Granted it can take up to 2GB memory (for 2700$ extra yeap 2700$) it has a DVD+RW/+R and it is thin and light. And it has a slightly better graphics card.
I would like to comment though that my latest laptop was a 1.2 GHz P3 and my latest desktop a 1.6GHz Athlon with a Ti4200. The former had 384MB RAM the other 512MB. The laptop was significantly slower than the PB is. WC3 was NOT playable on that machine and having open anything more than word IE and musicmatch was killing it. The Athlon was a bit better but I think it is performing on par with my PB apart from games where the Ti4200 makes the game fly. However everything else from word processing to image processing to light video work to major coding/compiling seems just as fast on the PB. It is 867MHz it has only 256MB. With Panther on it can handle well over 15 apps open. with jaguar more like 10 (by apps i mean photoshop XCode on panther or the developer tools or BBEdit on jaguar several safari windows and/or tabs iTunes and VLC for radio i am running Apache and MySQL servers). So I am hard pressed to believe that a 1.3 P-M will do significantly better than that.
So if my 867MHz machine is snappy running all these a 1,3GHz G4 with a better grahpics and Panther running would be my dream machine. And for the experience of OS X and the widescreen 15" screen the Apple quality and beauty I would spend the extra 700 - 800 hundrend no prob. I have used some 7 laptops before the PB. It was worth every single cent I paid for it. I cannot say the same for 2 compaqs 2 toshibas 2 dells. The sony was the best of all but still far from what the PB is.
Maybe you should take a 1GHz Ti and compare it with one of the Dells at the dells at the kiosks in the USA malls... if you feel that a 1.3GHz PM is so much faster than a 1GHz G4 then go with it what else can I say.
ok ok. The centrino admitedly helped the PC notebooks. Agreed the laptops on freundt's post seem fast and light and with good battery lives. Not all of them are cheap and some approcach the price of a 15 1GHz especially if you try to include DVDRs.
However spec for spec they can be faster. And this is why in an earlier post I said that when you buy Apple you tend to buy elegance simplicity and a package that gives you a better computing experience.
After 7 pc laptops with sub par experience with every single one of them apart the sony i am not ready to give them the benefit of the doubt. I am not talking of the OS here which is horrible I am talking about hardware problems. Red patches on the screen, motherboards dying HDs dying after only a month of use, keyboards misbehaving from the first few weeks, CD drives dying. It was a horrible experience. And not all of them were cheap laptops. And I have countless more people with similar problems.
Being the computer guy of my uni dorm flat i serviced during 3 years BSc and 1 in MSc more than 40 laptops. All of them less than a year old many brand new. This is why I would only consider IBMs as comparable to Apples and they are super expensive. They were the only ones that worked and worked and worked. All three people that owned them had no problems after 3 years of hard use in the uni. So I would be very relactant to buy a compaq or a toshiba or a dell or an alienware. Even if they were faster and 800 cheaper.
However spec for spec they can be faster. And this is why in an earlier post I said that when you buy Apple you tend to buy elegance simplicity and a package that gives you a better computing experience.
After 7 pc laptops with sub par experience with every single one of them apart the sony i am not ready to give them the benefit of the doubt. I am not talking of the OS here which is horrible I am talking about hardware problems. Red patches on the screen, motherboards dying HDs dying after only a month of use, keyboards misbehaving from the first few weeks, CD drives dying. It was a horrible experience. And not all of them were cheap laptops. And I have countless more people with similar problems.
Being the computer guy of my uni dorm flat i serviced during 3 years BSc and 1 in MSc more than 40 laptops. All of them less than a year old many brand new. This is why I would only consider IBMs as comparable to Apples and they are super expensive. They were the only ones that worked and worked and worked. All three people that owned them had no problems after 3 years of hard use in the uni. So I would be very relactant to buy a compaq or a toshiba or a dell or an alienware. Even if they were faster and 800 cheaper.