Powerbook Vs. PC

[iChan]

Hello all, I've just bought and paid for a 12.1" powerbook with Superdrive, 60gb HD and 640MB Ram.

is this fast? I don't know as I am a switcher and this is my first MAC!!! YAY!!!

I currently have a Sony Vaio, 550/700Mhz, 64MB Ram...

Woul my new powerbook knock this vaio out of the water?

If so, what kind of Wintel Laptop would the power of my Powerbook be equivilent to?

Thank in advance for any info!

PS. I'm still a little worried about switching, I may have made a mistake, because I'm worried that the powerbook is not going to be that powerful...

 

[morlium]

The 12" PowerBook is roughly equivalent to low-end (1.2 GHz) Pentium 4 chip.

There'll be a significant speed increase over your Vaio, that's for sure ... not to mention the ease and wonder that is the Apple OS.

You made the right choice.

 

[iChan]

but I could have bought a high-end 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 for the money... oh well... I had to try it some time I guess...

Thanks a lot

 

[macmax]

in 3 weeks you will be as happy as you can be and will never want a pc again, you will see

 

[TheMightyG]

I love OS X, but I find that while it is very stable, Mac OS X is still nowhere near as "snappy" as any flavour of Win XX on an X86 platform, or OS 9 for that matter. The OS X GUI is a CPU/GPU hog. An aesthetically pleasing hog, but a pig nonetheless.

Your 12" PB has Quartz Extreme and Jaguar, both of which helps with speed issues, but I still don't think that the subjective "quick" feeling that I have experienced with Windows on Intel/AMD/whatever is reproducible at this time with OS X on a single processor G4 (at least on mine). I think that Apple and ATI/Nvidia have lots more optimizing to do yet to improve the responsiveness of the OS.

Examples: Word 97 opens instantaneously on my work-mandated Windoze box (1.7Ghz Compaq P4 with 256 RAM). Conversely, it takes at least 6-7 seconds (6-7 dock bounces) for Word X to open on my 667Mhz Tibook with 512 RAM. Switching between Endnote and Word always brings up a spinning beach ball in OS X, instant in Win 95. Is it M$'s fault? Apple's? Who knows and who cares...its just the way it is.

So....your PB will be fast, but OS X may feel slower than what you experienced on your Sony PIII.

NB. Despite all my gripes, I do prefer OS X. I just wish it felt faster.

 

[Macmaniac]

Did you try to repair permissions in Jaguar? That may be causing slower boot times.
Also word97 and X are worlds apart. X is a much more powerful application and its much larger, thats why its slower. Also M$ is not known for optimizing software to mac OS.
My mouse software form M$ works like crap, I can't scroll in Apple works

 

[Ziggyzee]

I certaintly do not care that it take 5 seconds longer for me to start a program and this is why...

The more programs you add and delete in a windows box the slower your computer will become. Eventually it will crawl like a worm and the only recourse is to spend hours cleaning up the system or reinstalling the OS.

I just reformatted my win box for the third time in 9 months and now it screams. This time I am only adding crucial apps that I must use. I don't care how much ram or how fast a processor you have, once you start bloating the registry you puter will suffer.

I have 3/4 of my Mac filled with no noticeable slowdown whatsoever. At least it is consistantly slower, but, were talking seconds here!