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PC Mag's First Look: PowerBook 1GHz

Posted by pudge on from the where-"first"-look-means-something-else dept.

IrateSurf writes "PC Magazine has completed a First Look review of the new Apple PowerBook, which is the first notebook from Apple with a 1-GHz G4 processor. The notebook also has a nice price cut, running $2,999 -- that's $200 less than the last high-end PowerBook model."

13 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Good to see by code+shady · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Quoth the article:
    "The processor ratings were always much higher for the Windows notebooks (2 GHz or more), but megahertz ratings between Macintosh and Windows computers aren't directly comparable."

    Its good to see a review from a PC centric publication address this, however minimally. Apple has long talked about the Megahertz Myth while the PC world has largely equated more MHZ meaning faster, when in reality its not that simple. I wonder if this will be a continued trend.
    --

    --
    Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
    Ain't got time to make no apologies
    1. Re:Good to see by WatertonMan · · Score: 5, Informative
      While that is true in the desktop, the situation on laptops is more complex as the chips don't typically run at full speed and sometimes shift speeds. I've gotten quite frustrated with my old laptop over those issues. I *know* it should be faster than it is, but it lags significantly as compared to a similar speed desktop.

      The G3 and G4 are very low power, rendering some of the heat and power considerations to change. While I've not used any Apple laptops, I understand that they are much, much more speed competitive with equivalent PC laptops.

    2. Re:Good to see by sweetooth · · Score: 4, Informative

      By and large, as long as you're comparing similar CPUs, it _is_ that simple. Of course, since PCs have been more than fast enough for 95% of users for a good couple of years now, and the people who really care about performance are smart enough to use applicable benchmarks and not marketing brochures, it's largely irrelevant.

      Actually it isn't simple even then. Compare the differances between the AMD K7 series and the Intel P4 series. While they are both X86 they are vastly differant, and MHZ means dick. Sure the Athlon 2600 (2.133Ghz) isn't as fast as the P4 3.6Ghz, but in certain situations the K7 chip does almost as well with a 1.5Ghz differance in speed. This speaks to design being more important than MHZ. You can get more performance out of a chip by boosting the clock, but you can also get more performance out of a chip with better design.

    3. Re:Good to see by norwoodites · · Score: 5, Informative

      That is because the chips used in Apple laptops are the same ones that go in the desktop unlike Intel's where there are two (really 4) lines of chips. The G3 in the iBook are newer than the ones in the G3 iMac only because G3 iMacs are no longer made. In my TIbook, I have a G4(7450) 800MHz which was used in the G4 PowerMacs. This what makes a Mac notebook/laptop very attracting.

      Disclaimer: I am an employee of Apple, these are my views, not Apples, all information here is public information gathered from before I was an Apple employee.

      Sorry for a long Disclaimer but it was necessary.

  2. I was going to post at how horrible it looked... by Guspaz · · Score: 5, Informative

    But instead I find myself shut up. The specs on the thing are actually quite nice when you compare it to the Area-51m (http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51 -m.asp) which costs about 250$ less.

    The PowerBook has a 20GB larger HDD, the same GPU, a DVD burner, and gigabit ethernet. However, I still hold reservations about the G4. Mhz is certainly not everything, but the G4 has lagged behind to the point that its outclassed by modern x86 processors. Hopefully we'll see an Apple laptop with that new 64-bit IBM processor soon!

  3. Re:I was going to post at how horrible it looked.. by linuxbert · · Score: 5, Informative

    the tibook is also half as thick, and gives twice the battery life of the alienware/eurocom unit.

    (eurocom sells its notebooks as a white label to other oems such as alienware. i sell/service both apple and eurocom at work)

  4. Re:Cool but... by GlassHeart · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If you really want to buy an Powerbook, I suggest getting an iBook instead and spend the other $1500 on a PC with a nice 17" LCD display.

    Please do not make unqualified suggestions like these, because it implies that anybody who buys the PowerBook is just stupid. I fully expect, for example, that someone who needs to run Final Cut Pro on the road would appreciate or need the extra power. I can barely edit at full DV quality on a 733 MHz desktop G4, so a top-end iBook (800 MHz G3) could be painful to use.

    Besides, one may not need, want, or even have room for the $1,500 PC with a nice LCD display.

  5. Re:I was going to post at how horrible it looked.. by sweetooth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Too bad the Area51-M has a desktop CPU in it and not a mobile P-4.

    If you start configuring the systems comparably there is little to no differance in price between the PowerBook G4 and any PC laptops. I've been looking at them over the last several months. The PowerBook also has a few things going for it that are hard to find in other laptops. The Superdrive. I've only found a couple of laptops with DVD-R capabilities, and the one from Sony which was most closly matched to the PowerBook was more expensive at the time. It was also the only laptop other than the PowerBook that at the time took up to 1GB of RAM.

    If you are looking for a desktop replacment you have few choices. The powerbook G4 is one, and something like the Sony GRX 600 is another.

    What I find more important is size and weight. The powerbook is very slim at 1" thick and weighs in under 6lbs. The sony GRX 600 starts at 8lbs with one battery and is 1.6-1.8" thick.

    There are other little differances like 10/100/1000 ethernet rather than 10/100 however that's not that important to most people. There is also the DVI output on the Powerbook and the VGA output on the pc laptops. Again, that won't matter to most people, but there are a growing number of digital displays becoming available so it may matter more in the future.

  6. Re:1 Ghz ! by GlassHeart · · Score: 5, Informative
    You can get a notebook with a 1.8Ghz AMD or 2.0Ghz Pentium for half that price.

    Compared to the Dell Inspiron 8200 (1.7 GHz P4, $1,499), the PowerBook has 512 MB RAM (Dell has 128 MB), 1 MB cache (512 KB), 60 GB disk (30 GB), DVD-R drive (DVD), GB ethernet (100 Mbps), a 5-hour battery life (2-3 hours), weighing in at 5.4 lbs (7.9 lbs), measuring 1.0 inches thick (1.75 in).

    So no, I don't think the two are comparable. Upgrading the RAM, hard drive, and video card (ATI Mobility Radeon 9000) to match up better resulted in a $2,277 package, with the PowerBook still holding significant advantages in size, battery life, and a DVD-R drive for a 25% price premium.

  7. Difficult Comparisons by slevin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I did a little comparing of all the major brands of laptops recently, and there really is nothing comparable to the Power Book. There are faster laptops, certainly. And there are cheaper laptops. But there is nothing else on the market that offers similar features.

    Only the Area51 also offers a high end graphics card. Only one of the sony's offers a large screen while staying reasonably light weight. No PC laptops at 6lbs and under qualify as desktop replacements. I've been carrying around a PowerBook G4 for almost 2 years now, and it is as heavy as a laptop should be - anything more really is too much. I'd love all the power of a top end IBM or Area51, but they are in the same price range (or more for the IBM) and both are in the 8lb range.

    If I had one thing to change, it would be the fact that the power book has both a "return" and "enter" key. As a developer, I could really use another control key to make my emacs life easier. Who says, "boy am I glad that there is both and enter and return on this keyboard - I couldn't get by without it."

  8. Got mine a month ago... by hprotagonist0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...and I'm loving it. First Mac I've had in about 10 years (my first computer was a Mac Plus - 8" screen, 1M RAM, no HD). It's gorgeous, fast, and just plain well-designed.

    About the only thing bad I can say about it is that the keyboard layout's kind of lame. Considering the amount of room made avaliable by the form factor of the LCD screen (which is beautiful), you would think they could manage to sqeeze in pgup, pgdn, and delete keys without having to do fn-key combos (fn-up, fn-down, and fn-backspace, respectively). Also, I hate using the one-button trackpad, but that's a beef with Macs in general, and easily fixed by plugging in my Logitech trackball. Haven't had a chance to burn DVDs yet, but it's nice to have the option there.

    --
    "A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
  9. 1ghz powerbook by lunartik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I recently umm.. switched-back, I guess.

    Collecting dust in my basement is a Mac LC (complete with 2400 baud prodigy bundle modem that still will connect to some things) with a 40MB HD.

    Shortly after it was purchased Apple came out with the LCII and the LCIII and suddenly my hardware was pretty out of date. I still spent countless hours using it, and it still boots perfectly if I ever get nostalgic for Phrase Craze Plus or Bomber. Eventually I migrated to a PC.

    I have always wanted to go back to using a Mac. Every time Win9x would get so buggy that it would require a reinstall, or worse, a reformat or devices wouldn't run properly I would check into Apple and windowshop. When I took a Photoshop class and the class computers were Macs I felt like somebody that came back home, to find things the same, but yet different. After a few classes it felt natural again.

    Recently, I have had the fortune to have some spare cash and the need for a laptop, so again I searched around. I decided on an iBook. Once I saw that there was no SuperDrive available I jumped up to PowerBook. Several clicks later I somehow ended up with the top of the line 1 ghz (and bumped up to 1 gig of RAM for $40 extra during the promotion).

    I am not a gamer. I primarily use a computer to create documents, create graphics, browse the web, communicate with people, and listen to music. Whether or not Mhz can be believed, if Apple products are bested in speed, matters little to me. Everything works fantastically for my needs.

    I have yet to find a P2P client worth using (even following suggestions on this and other sites) yet my iTunes library stands at over 700 songs. This is due to the ease of ripping a cd with iTunes. It recognizes your cd, you deselect any tracks you dont want to rip, press a button and an entire CD is automatically labeled and filed away.

    Anyway, if you ascribe to time = money (which, if you read this site, you probably should) the amount of time you will spend using a Mac makes it a bargain. I haven't touched my PC in a while. It sits in a room broadcasting information to my Airport (which works better than a D-Link card I previously had in a Dell, contrary to some earlier reviews I read).

    I know someone that just switched from OS 9 to OSX, and she says that its a tough switch for her, that its very different. I last regularly used a Mac with System 6.0.7 and come to OSX from Windows XP and I have found it easy to use, but probably touching on references from both.

    By the way, the REALLY expensive part of owning a Mac is that you want to buy stuff for it all the time. An iPod, a DV camera, a Wacom tablet, Creature speakers, etc, etc. It really does work seamlessly, and makes you want other gadgets.

    -DM

  10. Re:1 GHz? by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, the number of execution pipes, the kind of instructions they have to deal with and how well the rest of the system can keep the processor fed with data all have an impact on speed, clock frequency alone is a terrible indicator of performance because.. because well, it doesn't indicate performance.

    For a nice extreme example of this, compare an IBM POWER4+ @ 1.45Ghz (austensibly a PowerPC chip) with the Pentium 4 Northwood @ 3.06Ghz

    Notice that the POWER4+ beats the unholy crap out of the Pentium 4 even though it's clock frequency is below half?