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G5 PowerBook "Challenge"
CarlBenda writes "MacWorld/UK has some interesting quotes from Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering at Apple concerning the possibility of a G5 powerbook. He's said that a G5 powerbook is "an issue of good, solid engineering" and that "a few years ago, nobody thought it would be possible to get a G4 processor in a PowerBook". Start saving your money."
A G5 PowerBook.. not bad for a company that has been dying for 20+ years according to the trolls.
Trolling is a art,
The DP G5 has Nine fans in it. I believe the 17" PB has two. That's a little bit of work.
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
Start saving your money.
Is that the challenge? To save enough money to buy a Mac? That is going to be tough.
- The G5 processor runs really hot
- Notebooks don't like heat
- It'll be tough to get the G5 in a PowerBook
How did this made the front page?Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
You know they wouldn't have chosen it if they couldn't make a good laptop with it.
Now, they'd better make sure they sort out that heat problem that the current 12" G4 Powerbooks suffer from.
start saving your hydrogen fuel cells to power the notebooks. Duracell lasts 10^-308 seconds on "Power Save" mode.
"With the new Powerbook G5, you'll never find your hands cramping up during long typing sessions again! The CPU/hand warmer keeps you going during even the coldest of temperatures!"
Kick in the Head
By the time the G5 Powerbooks come out, I think I might be able to actually afford a Macintosh laptop system. Here in Canada, the Powerbooks are at least $2300, and the iBooks are at least $1400. Right now, this is not feasible. But, by the time the cooling system works properly, I might be able to scrape up the thousands of dollars required.
I do applaud Apple for not releasing information on products that it is unsure about, including these G5 laptops. They have strongly hinted in the article that they are looking at it, but they did not make any promises as to when it will be released. This way, they are not forced to rush production which would result in an inferior product. They are going to make sure they have quality over timeframe, which is something some other software companies should learn. Before you set a release date, get a demo/prototype done, and do at least a minimal level of testing!
Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite, would you like some toast?
no one wants to hack it
I got a +5, Troll
Actually, I don't smell them (as in actively seek them out and sniff them -- that's someone else's job), but I ask rhetorically because if previous Apple laptop experience can be any guide, I expect to see more "Laptop burns man's crotch" stories. I saw one or two with their last generation.
As hot as the G4 PowerBooks get, they'll need some hellacious cooling on these things. Maybe they'll come with a string you can use to whirl the PB around your head, like a bullroarer. If it makes that cool sound, it'll be great.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Actually what I find irritating is that I finally get enough money to buy an iPod, go get it, and then suddenly there are brand new ones out about a month or two later which totally blow mine out of the water and make me want to shoot myself.
Otherwise, who cares about a roadmap? Are you really going to put off some major hardware provisioning decision because a roadmap claims (key word) that they will have such and such a product out by a certain time? They are almost always adjusted.
Running linux is great...but there's no reason to slight MacOS X.
Especially with the fink/gentoo collaboration.
Yes because a unix based OS like OS X is really crappy.
Uh... oh wait....
The desktop Power Mac G5 already does processor cycling in order to keep the noise/temperature/performance balance at an optimal level. Clearly a similar function will be used in the PowerBook G5, just as nearly every Wintel notebook on the market today does.
I sold a Vaio R505 that would whine up and down loudly depending on whether you were scrolling through a web page or just sitting there reading it. I just couldn't take it anymore. When it comes to choosing performance or noise level, I usually choose to have a quieter machine. But hopefully Apple, unlike Sony, will allow an easy way to control which gets priority.
5. Profit!!!
--- You know it's bad when
bash-2.05a$ fortune
bash: fortune: command not found
> Panther will also support Dolby Digital 5.1 sound when used with the G5 optical audio output.
I notice the $350 set of 5.1 speakers they're offering at the Apple Store to go along with the G5 machines, but does anyone know of any optical-connecting 2.1 speakers that might cost a bit less? I have no need for 5.1 sound, and 2.1 would be more than sufficient, but I'd like to take advantage of the new optical connections...
He's said that a G5 powerbook is "an issue of good, solid engineering" and that "a few years ago, nobody thought it would be possible to get a G4 processor in a PowerBook".
Well, yeah! Have any of you seen the heat sinks in the G5? They are absolutely huge making it very difficult to get enough cooling into a tiny space with the current chips. Furthermore, the heat sink size is combined with a rather clever cooling arrangment in the G5 case making for a quiet environment. Even going back to the original G4's the heat sinks were nowhere near the size of the G5's, so we are going to need a G5 chip with much lower heat and power requirements if portable configurations are going to be possible. Dual G4's in laptops though are not out of the question.....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
YES!!!!
The Mothership
they want to make a g5 powerbook but the current chips are too hot.
:D
solution: cooling??!??!?!?
seriously, not a lot to discuss. the cool part of that article is the info that panther will run dolby 5.1 out the optical port. that's very intriguing for music makers/sound engineers and people who watch a lot of movies on the comp. i'd definitely like to hear more about that.
Don't shoot yourself - Have you filled up the one you already have, or do you still have some spare capacity
... then they aren't working on anything remotely resembling a product. If they were they'd be keeping very quiet about it all. This article has the tone of GM execs talking about flying cars.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
> As hot as the G4 PowerBooks get, they'll need some
> hellacious cooling on these things.
While I realize that the parent post is a joke, this is a fairly common misconception I figured should be addressed eventually.
The reason why PowerBook G4 systems get hot tends to be the hard drive and has little (if anything) to do with the processor (which runs at a much lower temperature than anything Intel has offered in years).
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I'd like to by FreeBSD isn't quite ready for prime time on these things yet.
I like my Compaq X1000 just fine thank you. 6.5 Lbs. 15.4 screen. 1.5" thick. A G4 chaser for sure, but does anyone really need the power of a G5 in a notebook?
I'd love to work for a company like Apple that still believes in good, solid engineering.
I'm just happy I can be x86-free on the road!
Well... I must be immune then. I have a 12" PowerBook, and yes it does get hot... but that hot?
What do you run to heat it up like that? A furnace simulator?
"an issue of good, solid engineering" and that "a few years ago, nobody thought it would be possible to get a G4 processor in a PowerBook"
Sounds like...."One day, computers will only take up one room in a house and cost under $100,000" the old Popular Science quote.
can't you just imagine a beowulf cluster of G5 Powerbooks?
..."
err, maybe that should be "imagine a cluster of imaginary G5 Powerbooks".
or maybe, "imagine how much heat your lap would be subjected to with a cluster of
ahh, nevermind...
They could make one with a G5 tomorrow. But, it would only be maybe a little over 1GHz (10-15 watt range for the G5)*. That is certainly doable in a laptop and Apple has made them in that power range before. Ufortunately, the clock speed won't be any higher than the G4 and you wouldn't be able to take advantage of huge amounts of RAM (that won't happen for years). So, from a marketing perspective the G4 is still an easier sell.
People just assume that G5 consumes this enormous amount of power because of all the fans in the G5 desktop. This isn't true. Even the 2G takes only about 40 watts or so. One P4 3G takes in the range of 80 watts of power. All of the extra G5 fans are to make the cooling quieter.
*note that in the PC world 20-30 watt peak power consumption has been considered useable in a laptop.
We can only start to hold our collective breaths (for a significant time) until IBM kinda announces a G5 revision that's suspiciously low-power and is much cooler (surely helped with some of the latest IBM fab breakthroughs). They might or might not talk the same Moto gibberish of aiming at the embedded market, blah blah.
Only then Rubinstein and his faeries can reasonably start to work their magic. Supposedly, once bi'blue hints them they can start engineering the wondruous shrinkage of the original G5 motherboard without actually having a G5' sample. After that heroic feat, that industrial design archangel and his minions will come down and design yet another striking enclosure...
By then, a couple of revisions of the motherboard will have shipped, as well as a couple of G5 tower speed bumps. Besides, one might expect that preceding the mobile G5 we will see the infamous speedy G3+Altivec (IBM's G4) that bi'blue is secretly eager to hurl into Motto's face, to prove their incompetence.
My two eurocents. You can safely spend your money now
dani++
...OS X 10.3 to ship preinstalled.
.1, .1 to .2, 9 to any 10.x) upgrades to work on their G4s.
About that time the major quirks will be worked out of the G5 desktop hardware and it'll be safe to run Panther on. I've heard many stories (vocal minority, yada yada) with bad endings about people trying to get OS X (10.0 to
I'm drooling heavily over the dual-G5, but I'm not going to buy it without the new OS.
I really hate upgrading operating systems. It's a safe bet you'll have a smoother experience with the new software by just installing it from scratch.
Or better yet, having the manufacturer install it for you.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Do not use laptop while nude or Mr. Pecker will get burned, like this d00d
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
At least thats what they could say and just do what IBM has done with their Thinkpad MAMOTH series (the ones that are like 8lbs, but have a real P4 in them)
Either way I think their wide screen idea (17" laptop) is fucking HUGE but very sexy and easy on the eyes.
Ave Molech Setting
While putting the current .13 micron G5 in a laptop would be hard, it's not impossible. The chip itself is hot, but at lower speeds, it's not particularly hot. Desktop P4's are being put in to laptops, and those do upwards of 90wts of heat(with Prescott set to surpass 100wts), which makes for a hot laptop, but isn't impossible, as it results in a powerful "desktop replacement" machine.
The reason we're not seeing a PB G5 is because the kind of "desktop replacements" being made out of P4's are unreasonable as far as Apple's concerned. Apple wants something sleek, and they're willing to wait for it. Still, compared to the P4, the G5 is far less of a challenge to implement in to a laptop.
If they were like, "the G5 Powerbooks will be coming out in 6 months", they would have a hard time selling any full-priced G4 laptops. So they wait as long as possible. It's the same reason car companies disguise their prototypes.
I bought a Powerbook 12" right before they announced additional price cuts for education users back in May... but if they announced it too early, it hurts sales. Of course, I bought 2nd gen iPod for 50% off after the 3rd gen ones came out, so when knowledge is out their, buyers can win - but then apple loses.
I have blog like everyone else
I am not sure that my Performa was cool.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Run fluxbox.
We do have X11, you know.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
What would be really cool is if Apple released a notebook with a 27" Trinitron CRT television built in.
I was already saving for a G4 powerbook. Now I have to start saving for a G5 powerbook. At this rate I will own a powerbook when the sun is a cold, dark lump of coal. Great business model, Apple.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Remember, no-one has said that we'll see the Desktop G5 processor (a PowerPC 970) in a portable form-factor. Just like we never, ever saw the first Desktop G4's processor (a PowerPC 7400) in a PowerBook. What the portables got were more power efficient, less hot chips -- like the PowerPC 7410, which popped up in the first titanium PowerBooks.
Since Apple can still call these revised chips "G4", "G5", etc, it may seem like they've accomplished this incredible engineering feat in getting the big ol' chip inside that teeny case -- but the first breakthrough is the improved processor, over at Moto or IBM. They still have thier work cut out for them, but at least Apple doesn't need to ring the entire case with fans...
What I'm really looking forward to is, apparently IBM is working on adding an AltiVec-compatible SIMD unit to the G3 processor, and ramping up the clock speed. A couple of those would make a sweet laptop.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Compile KDE
I'm a very happy Apple user having switched a little under half a year ago.
Not true.
But this is such a non-story it shouldn't have even been posted here.
True.
There are already CPUs in laptops today that can give the G5 a run for its money.
Not true.
They may not have great battery life, but heat issues have been taken care of.
Not true.
There's nothing unique about the G5 that makes it any more difficult to get into a laptop than any other CPU design.
Not true.
That Apple is talking about a G5 laptop as if it's a big technical deal has me worried.
Not true.
The newly released Powerbooks are already up to half as slow as their Centrino counterparts which sport similar or better battery life.
Not true.
Perhaps the G5 Powerbook won't see the light of day until next fall when the G4 Powerbook will be tremendously outclassed.
You can hope, you pointless troll.
This is exactly right. Apple whould reward Moto's record of reliability in delivering the chips, and their research investments in advancing the chip design. (sarcasm)
Reward them by dropping moto entirely and just using the IBM stuff.
God knows the chip is probably faster than the standard G4 and cooler to boot.
Come on Apple, give me a nice power-sipping G3 in my next powerbook... Please! You can even clock it up to 1+ ghz if you want...
Cuchullain
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
These kinds of statements always make me think of this scenario:
Guy: dude, we're gonna be late, let go!
Driver: yeah, but I need gas. Gas is high today; it should go down tomorrow, I'll buy it then and then we can go
Guy:
Driver: I know, I know; but gas is too much! I'll save more if I wait and buy it tomorrow!
....
AC comments get piped to
Would that be the same "good solid engineering" that produced the extremely overpriced TiBook, which had trouble with airport range due to the materials it was built with, the same engineering that flaking body paint?..
Would that be the same engineering that allows for body and hinge fractures?
Wow, thats some damn good engineering!
There is no "one-size-fits-all" for laptops. Different users have different needs. A road warrior who is flying 2 or 3 times a week probably wants as lightweight a machine as he can get away with. And he is will to trade screen size, processor speed, and keyboard comfort for a few less pounds to drag through the airport.
Other people like a laptop because they can carry it from their desk to the conference room easily. They wouldn't care if it weighed 20 pounds, they want a full desktop replacement that is portable enough to move around the office and be carried home occassionally.
I'll tell you who cares about a roadmap - virtually every corporate, government, or large education buyer on the planet. I know all the koolaid drinkers love Steve's little games, and don't care about Apple's gestapo tactics towards anyone who says anything about their plans. But grown-ups who actually plan ahead and do multi-year budgets and IT plans need to know what is coming. You want to know why people buy Dells and Intel chips - because those guys put out a roadmap to the big customers. (The fact that Intel has taken to lying their asses off about the actual time scale for rolling out chips is another matter) That way, if I am a fortune 500 company trying to decided on my 3 year desktop replacement budget and plan, I have something to base it on. Corporate buyers are not going to base million dollar decisions on what macrumors or clarus-cornhole.com says Steve will announce to the cult at the next big Expo. OS X is a great OS, and the new G5 chip is a big step forward. But no one who does decent planning can afford to play magic 8 ball with their future plans.
Well... that would explain it... that is quite a task, eh :)
Most all laptop users want a small, light-weight, cool (even after running all day) and semi-powerful laptop that has a good battery life. G5's are great procs, but they are *far* from meeting the above requirments that *most all* laptop users want. They are too hot, use too much power and too big at present... give them a few years.
The G4 has a lot of life left when it comes to portable computing.
I went to the local CompUSA where they leave them on all day running some screensaver, and felt both the 12" Powerbook and the 12" iBook. There was a VERY noticable difference. The iBook seems significantly cooler than the 12" Powerbook and the 15" TiBook was cold (Since the case doesn't transfer heat well through the casing).
As a laptop user my #1 priority is being able to use it comfortably. The Aluminum Powerbook was too hot (12"), the 17" was tolerable, and the 15" Titanium was a dream (paint chips are not acceptable either). So I chose to wait for the new Al 15" and when my local CompUSA eventually has one on display (3-4 months from now) I'll see if it's cool enough. I bought a 900MHz iBook instead and it stays relatively cool. Hell maybe I'll just wait another year and hope for the G5 powerbooks.
I'd rather have these things than a hot laptop:
Less speed (Apple already has this covered, My PIII from 2 1/2 years ago is 1.2GHz)
More Fans/Noise
Less attractive case (design is for girls, I'll take ugly and cool over cute and hot every day).
Larger/heavier case.
Until then, I'll make do with my 12" iBook. It's a G4 chaser, too, but at least it's in the same league.
When someone else has a laptop with sub-two-second wake-from-sleep, that only needs rebooting after major system updates, runs all my favorite Un*x tools, and lets me run Microsoft junk when I must, I'll look into it.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
it's been what, two days since the 15 inch Powerbook that everyone was begging for was released and we've already moved on to G5 Powerbooks? At least let the dust settle.
Since you seem to accept that roadmaps are often works of fiction, why not make up your own roadmap? Hmm, the interval between previous generations of iPods was x, so I project the next revision will be in the month of y. Then, if you delay a purchase after looking at your roadmap, you will be happy if the roadmap was accurate and new models arrived when you projected them. And if your roadmap was inaccurate, you have only yourself to blame.
If Apple published a roadmap that they didn't live up to, everybody would be unhappy about it. And there are lots of reasons why they might not introduce new models by the projected date. A manufacturer always incurs additional costs in introducing a new model so they would prefer to keep selling the old model as long as they can. If the old model is still selling well, why bother introducing a new model at all?
Wouldn't SCO not suing anyone new merit the front page?
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
What? You bought the product of a computer company, only to find out that a short time later, the company releases a new! improved! product? I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. That is totally unexpected behavior! It never happens.
It will be water cooled. And too keep the water cool in such a short circulatory path, there will be a garden hose attachment on the side.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
The only thing stopping me going out and buying a G5 right now is the fact that it only has one CD/DVD drive bay. I had a go on one at the week-end, and nearly drooled on the floor.
On a slightly different train of thought: I'd like to see a heat comparison between the 4200 rpm drives to the 5400 rpm drives? You can't get the 5400 on the 12", but I wonder what heat difference it makes on the 15".
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
I just want a roadmap on an SSH patch for OSX.
After about 10 minutes of running any cpu-intensive activity, my PB 17" is typically between 130 degrees and 140- the fan kicks in around 140, shuts off at 130. It's been sitting on my desk all day doing next to nothing(I've occasionally queued up some mp3s) and it's at 110.3 according to Temperature Monitor.
Using it on my lap, say, while on the couch, with any kind of activity, and it'll quickly get rather warm. Playing a movie or AVI file is an excellent way to do this. It gets uncomfortable within a half hour easily.
Oh, and putting a CDROM in and using it for about 5 minutes will cause the OTHER half of the powerbook to get hot and THAT fan to switch on.
Sorry, but anyone who says "my laptop doesn't run hot!" doesn't use their laptop very intensively.
Please help metamoderate.
what a troll. I am a very happy former Windows user who owns a 12" pb. The whole package (hardware, apps and OS) makes this better than any other windows platform out there. Any real switcher can tell you this.
Retail prices fluctuate all the time, but Intel gives plenty of advance notice about price cuts in wholesale quantities. Search news.com for Intel price cuts, and you'll find plenty of stories.
... because dragging the picture to the desktop with your single mouse button is to hard?
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Asbestos iPants?
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Er...OK. Please name another 64-bit laptop CPU, running a decent laptop OS.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The most frustrating thing about other companies is that they refuse to stick to a roadmap for their future products.
I'm sick of vaporware and vapor hardware!
I've been using a g4 400mhz powerbook with gentooppc for a couple of years(osx is way too slow), I must say that I love it, it's challeging sometimes to get a certain thing working on a ppc and the design unmatched. .2 seconds, probably the whole room will spontaniously lit.
When I watch a movie in bed with my girlfriend none of us wants to put the laptop on the lap, because of the amount of heat it produces, the amount of pain it produces is based on the amount of frames it decodes I guess.
I don't even want to think about what will happen if I put a g5 2ghz machine on my lap for more than
A decently configured G4 PowerBook is $2599. That's as much as a G5 desktop already. I fully expect G5 PowerBooks to start at $2999 and extend past $4000.
People just assume that G5 consumes this enormous amount of power because of all the fans in the G5 desktop. This isn't true. Even the 2G takes only about 40 watts or so. One P4 3G takes in the range of 80 watts of power. All of the extra G5 fans are to make the cooling quieter.
I'm glad to see someone finally point this out. The exact wattage number is 46.7 watts for the 2 GHz PowerPC 970 "G5" running at full speed (2GHz CPU and a 2:1 multipler for a 1 GHz FSB).
A 2.4 GHz P4 (400 MHz FSB) uses 62 watts, newer P4s use even more. Prescott is expected to use 100 - 105 watts. (And this is totally ignoring the even further power needs of the "extreme" edition with its added transistors for on-die L3 cache)
Apple has always seemed to overengineer the heatsinks and fans in their desktop model, for about as long as I can remember. Oddly, many of the PowerBooks use a much different "transfer the heat from the CPU, Chipset, and GPU right to the bottom of the case" cooling method.
Given that Microsoft's favorite method of innovating is to mimic whatever Apple does, it seems reasonable for Apple to hold its cards close to its vest.
MHz-for-MHz, the G5 is a cooler processor than the G4---reportedly about 20W at 1.2 GHz, compared to 20W for a 1 GHz 7455.
True, but running at full speed (2 GHz CPU and a 2:1 multipler for 1 GHz FSB), the PowerPC 970 "G5" consumes 46.6 watts.
(To compare, a 2.4 GHz Northwood Pentium 4 uses 62 watts, newer P4s use even more. Prescott is expected to use 100-105 watts). ((And this is totally ignoring the even further power needs of the "extreme" edition with its added transistors for on-die L3 cache))
I have an Intel Mobile P4 2.6ghz laptop (Dell i8500). Cooling doesn't seem to be a big problem. I thought PowerPC chips were supposed to be cooler and faster and more effecient and more nifty than Intel chips. Maybe they need to run them through the Steve Jobs Distortion Field again.
This may very well be the stepping stone we need to finally bridge the laptop/stove gap.
With the heat put out from this bad boy, you'll be able to cook a meal within the confines of your cubicle WHILE remaining productive. Talk your co-workers into buying one and everyday lunch can be a cookout.
I'll take two!
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
>>"...for girls, I'll take ugly and cool over cute and hot every
>>day)."
>De gustibus non est disputandum.
Translation: Of [matters of]taste, there is no arguing, "There's no accounting for taste"
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
The default setup of OSX doesn't have SSH enabled...so the average user isn't concerned by such patch. I guess that if you're Unix-savvy enough to need to SSH to your OSX box then maybe you're Unix-savvy enough to install the patch by yourself without waiting for Apple to distribute it via SoftwareUpdate.
Don't forget to think different.
I hope that apple will soon discover that a mouse can have more than a single button...
Those trackpads with only a button are a pain under *nix
I got the prices from the Apple Canada stored. Specifically, here for the iBook and here for the PowerBook.
Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite, would you like some toast?
cause it's gonna cost a butt-load....
Actually, it probably wont' cost more than the current top of the range AlBook. When apple release a new model, the don't adjust the prices, they just shift everything down one step on the price ladder. The top of the line modle gets moved to the middle price, the middle to the bottom, and so on. So this would be a good guide for the retail price.
They don't lie. Their statement is absolutely true ... for a given value of true.
... the big one!". Voila, you have "the most powerful personal computer in the world".
Go to an Apple store and say "Gimme that grater, yeahhh...
Or you can have one built to your specs - by your friends no doubt - which either won't match the G5's specs - but may very well be better in one or two area's FOR YOU - or can't run your run of the mill programs except in simulation mode - which sort of defeats the purpose.
There are a few more powerful systems, but they can't reasonably be called "personal computers".
There are a few configurations which might be good enough for you and blindingly fast, but again, you won't match the out of the box specs of the G5 - and you'll pay just as much or more (if you don't go over the hill and buy the flatscreen, 3button mouse, iPod, surround speaker set, 8Gigs of ram etc..)
Personally I don't care if it's the most powerful or just an extremely powerful PC, it's a mac, and it's features are just right.
And its advertising is imo less "outrageous" than most IT-related ads.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
I own a 15" and a 17" and there is a HUGE heat difference. I've got to think a G5 will melt glass unless the good people at Apple can work miracles.
I use the 17" PB to make mirowave popcorn at the end of the day. Run more than 3 apps and browse a while on Slashdot and mmmmmmm. Buttery goodness. That's multitasking.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
Apple keeps publishing benchmarks that compare the G5 to a Pentium 4. I can appreciate that Apple is trying to woo the pc crowd but these figures don't really interest me.
I am already an owner of a G4, and I don't want to purchase a G5 until I know that it's worth the money. How much faster is it? 25%? 50%? I usually don't upgrade until I can double performance for the same amount of money as what I paid for my current computer.
Does anyone know where any G4 vs. G5 specs are posted?
My girlfriend has a top of the line toshiba, with *gasp oooooh* XP. It's faster than her previous tangerine iBook, but not that much. It's definitely slower than the 15" (old model) Powerbook I have sampled last week and well. (disclaimer, no I didn't run a benchmark, just surfed, opened mail, played DVD, sampled Office, so pretty comparable real life stuff)
It has the incredible battery life of TWO WHOLE hours - provided you don't use the DVD.
It eats CD's due to stupid burning software.
Oh, and it's ugly, unpractical and heavy.
An example of great engineering: you have to press the powerbutton to get it out of sleep. Press it too short, nothing happens, press too long, you turn off the computer.
Well, it's paid by her work, so that makes it a pretty cheap system for us, but when she's home she uses my - 3 year old - mac to surf the web.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
"their success has more to do with maintaining the "we're cool and different" facade. Just check out the zillion posts from Apple advocates."
Or you could check out their product line, hold a few machines in your hands, look at them up close and then go do the same with eg Dell PC's and Rio mp3 players.
Yep, they're cool and different and their engineering is a huge part of that. That's why they have such a huge market share. That's not a joke btw. They have a decent and profitable piece of the PC pie.
The other explanation is that all your *nix friends with their mac portables are gullible idiots. You choose.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Intel chips are a no go, apple is not going to transition to the ugliest oldest ISA on the block so they have to move again. The G5 is essentially most of the power4 minus some enterprise features, cache and it has altivec. Changing ISA's is not easy so unless really forced I could not see any manufacturer doing this. Transmeta, or Arm huh why not just use a G3 same difference low power, eh performance. Amd is to hot also apple likes to package their products well, with amd no thin beautiful case, also I do not think laptop chip variants are faster than the g4's. Learn about chip archs before opening your mouth.
Too nice? You've never seen it at any parties. That G5 is a JACKASS when it gets drunk. Hell, last time I ran into him, he stole my date and puked on my shoes. In that order.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
Last year I purchased a top of the line 14.1" ibook with 700Mhz G3 and 640MB ram, combo drive and Airport card. If I am using say iTunes, iMovie and Photoshop, the lower left hand corner will get a little warm and the fan kicks into overdrive, but that is after 3 or 4 hours of running all those apps. I bought this to replace a Viao Z505 ultra thin. I loved the 1"thick and 3.5 pounds, but even with a pentium 233, the damn thing would almost burn me if I left it on for too long and windows would crash due to overheating. I say someone saying how they had 1.3Ghz PIII laptop a while ago, that's nice, but can I tell a difference in say PowerPoint between my 700Mhz G3 and a 1 Ghz Althon? Not really and my mac has crashed twice in the last year. Once I was trying to see what it would take (photoshop, itunes, imovie, Golive, and FCP and then launch a classic app...that did it). I can close my laptop and reopen it without it crashing like on my old laptop. I reset my ibook only after downloading updates every two weeks or so. At one point it had an uptime of over 28 days. That's 28 days of open, close, open, close and the system began doing strange things. I guess 1 reset a month isn't that bad for a laptop. Now I design webpages for living deployed on *iux based servers. Being able to develop in a *iux enviroment and still have tools like Photoshop and Dreamweaver/flash is a tremendous advantage to me and a feature that I will pay a little more for. Another issue is TCO. One the clients I met with today does video production and he is still using a G3 500 and uses FCP and PS on a daily basis. He's had the machine almost 5 years and can still purchase new software. Will it run as fast as a G4, no, but as he said, if it takes 4 hours to render a video, I go fishing and come back. One other photographer switched to using Dell's, but quickly found that he was upgrading about every 18 months compared to 24 - 36 with Macs and even though the hardware costs are cheaper, but he said that he was losing a lot more time with system crashes and is considering going back to Mac's and getting a dual G5. This laptop will proable last me another two years with proably a new battery needed in that time, but maybe at that time I will consider a powerbook and a g5 will be in it.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Now girls, calm down. You two stop bitching and behave.
/.
argl argl argl worf worf worf
don't you just love the lofty discours and discussions here on
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Welcome to my world. I started drooling over the AMD AthlonXP 1700+, and by the time it arrived in the box, the XP1900+ was out. Luckily there's only about a 3% difference between them for what I needed it for.
..."Er...OK. Please name another 64-bit laptop CPU, running a decent laptop OS...."
Well depends on your definition of decent but what about this? It's certainly 64-bit, it is also big and heavy, it is ugly but it is a laptop and it has been around for quiet a while...
Power SPARC SOLARIS Notebooks and Mobile Servers
Acorn in the UK developed its own RISC processor
<merkin parody>
Where is this UK of which you speak? Is it one of them Canadian provinces?
</merkin parody>
Tweet, tweet.
When I wanted to buy a VIC20 in 1981, I had heard that something even better was in the pipeline, so I thought I should wait. The salesman correctly pointed out that if that's my stance I would never buy a computer because something better is always right around the corner. Check out the MacRumors.com buying guide. They have pretty accurate advice on the Apple product upgrade cylces.
By the smiley I take it you realize that Solaris really isn't a decent laptop OS...
Furthermore, even low-speed G5s will kick UltraSPARC butt... ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The man never speaks of technology in a future sense.
He always discusses product technologies after they have been and/or near completion in R&D.
If the G5 Powerbook is coming from his lips you can bet they are working now on other products.
His approach has been the same since the HP days, the NeXT Days and so on and so forth.
John is not one for hype. So this is good to see.
Erm. I'm confused. Sorry, but is this the correct way to interpret the exploit? My reading of it is that what this means is that via overloading various buffers etc. the attacker can end up with root login, not that a remote-root-enabled sshd can in some circumstances allow access without knowing the password.
that if you're Unix-savvy enough to need to SSH to your OSX box then maybe you're Unix-savvy enough to install the patch by yourself
/var/empty or somewhere else? etc. etc."
The problem however is, what if you DIY an update in a way that eventually conflicts with something Apple wants to do later? (I'm thinking of the problems early XFree86-on-MacOSX adopters had merging their X11 with Apple's official release).
Further example... the current version of OpenSSH on MacOS X is ~3.4p1, which IIRC is the first to implement privsep, in addition to dealing with some bug that I can't remember now (and is irrelevant for current purposes). There was a delay before Apple released their 3.4p1 update as well. For those people who were thinking of DIY updating, they'd have to worry about "how is Apple going to implement the privsep ssh user account eventually? Is the home going to be
It's a heck of a hassle (and quite frankly, it shouldn't take them this long to release a fix, or even a statement "we don't need a fix". Practically EVERYONE out there has already got a OpenSSH3.7.1 release out already).
For all the glory and coolness of NeXT, but I doubt any Mom and Dad could really use it that easily...
I think that point goes to Mac OS X.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
They charge more per machine than say, RedHat, so I expect similar levels of support. Security updates are a serious issue, and if I'm paying for my software I expect issues such as this to be taken seriously.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
With Apple, they upgrade their product line and promptly discontinue production of the old products which means that there is no lower tier which would reap the decreased cost benefit of the upgrades. Because of this, it's not in Apple's best interest to announce upgraded product lines ahead of time because it would have a chilling effect on the sales of the products they've already produced. This phenomenon can also be noted in the game console industry where price cuts may be rumored for a while but no confirmation announcement will be handed down until the price cuts take place. For example, if Nintendo announced today that as of October 1st the Gamecube would be $99 instead of $150, that would be tantamount to Nintendo saying "You shouldn't buy a Gamecube until next month."
Actually I'll bet you it will cost $3000... big deal, same as all their other laptops. Things have gone wayyy down in cost over the years anyways. My dad got the first G3 Powerbook (233 mhz I think)... guess how much it cost? Upwards of $5000.... around $5300 I think if I remember correct.
-Alex
(for a significant time)
Your guess is as good as anyone's. It might be at the next expo. Remember, the 12" and 17" PowerBooks were kept pretty tightly under wraps until they were announced; it seems that that division of Apple is more secure leak-wise.
Imagine you were Apple. Would you even hint that a G5 PowerBook might be approaching the pipeline? They must have lost a hell of a lot of G4 PowerMac sales with the drawn-out impending release of the G5.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Apple lets its large customers know. They even seeded G5's with some (NASA for example).
They always cut prices, both the 15" and 17" also reductions in base price.
Intel sells processors, Apple sells computers. Your beef really is with Motorola and IBM now.
Quote: "I was on a Mac forum talking about how I didn't think..."
OK. You are basing your opinion of all Apple users based on one discussion board? Shall I base my opinion of all computer users on the thoughtful posts of Slashdot? Give me an effin' break.
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
I hope that apple will soon discover that a mouse can have more than a single button...
And I hope slashdotters will soon discover they can buy a 5-button scrollwheel mouse for, like, $12. Mac OS X is aware of 2+ button mice.
I don't know the exact reason Apple ships a one button mouse, but I think most people that complain about it have easily wasted more money in time than the cash it would take to buy a mouse.
Seriously, any USB mouse should work.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I'm not convinced the same would be true of a G5 powerbook. For me, a 1GHz chip (PPC, x86, whatever) is more than enough, has been for the last two years, and probably will be for the next two as well. Battery life, however, is very important. I've just ordered a 15" G4 PowerBook, but if Apple had offered an identical machine, at the same price, with a G3 and a longer battery life, I don't would have been tempted. I would probably have still bought the G4, since a lot of Mac apps are AltiVec optimised. If they had had a G5, running faster but with a shorter battery life then, even at the same price, it would have been no contest. I would still have bought the G4.
For some laptop users, CPU power is a vital consideration, but for a lot of people it really isn't that important.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well if they told you new Powerbooks were coming out next Tuesday then who would buy the Powerbooks on the shelves THIS Tuesday? Everyone would just wait until next Tuesday for the new Powerbooks at the same price and Apple would be screwed. See, that's how an Apple apologist talks.. It's rubbing off on me. Actually Apple is screwing the consumer by pretending there is no new model and then dumping it on the public. Those that just bought a new Powerbook are screwed. Anyway, time to order that new 15" Powerbook.
sorry, 3k is a buttload to me. wasn't aiming to upset anyone, and i agree it's far superior architecture, but 500-600 for a used pIII is more in my range......
3-5k is more like a car to me...or an entire quarter of mortgage free living.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
AC comments get piped to
Yep. OTOH, if you are travelling to CA and it's going to take you 5 days, but waiting a day you can buy an airplane instead and make it in one, why not wait?
I agree you shouldn't base it on price alone, it's benefit/cost. There is a cost to waiting, but there is also a possible benefit. Having a roadmap lets you at least know (approximately) what that tradeoff is. And of course, the lack of that information is good for the OEMs because you are more likely to buy what's available now... who would buy a car today if you knew that in less than a year you could get the same car with twice the gas milage for only 10% more money? It would at least influence the price you were willing to pay for the current vehicle, no?
-- I speak only for myself
I bought my 2002 Golf thinking that the "IV" platform would be around at least a bit longer. Now that I've seen the 2004 Golf "V" I think to myself, "Self, the new TDI engine is much more powerful than the one we got. The new body is much more stylish. This one has standard power windows and we have to turn the fscking crank! Argh! Should have bought a used beater and held on for a couple more years!"
MORTAR COMBAT!
An old IBM Thinkpad 486/25 (560C I think) from the mid 1930's or so. It has no fans and runs very cool. I have Minix, Linux (early kernel) and DOS on it for my spare time reading about OS design and implementation.
I also have an old Fujitsu Pentium 133MMX that doesn't use a fan or get hot.
My Dell Inspiron 8100 I have set to always run at 1/2 speed (600MHz) and it still gets hot (although not nearly as bad).
My iBook is cool and gets warm after an hour or so but not too bad.
I may just buy a Ti 867 and wait for the G5 laptops as I said. I hate having to carry a notepad/folio in my laptop case (Inspiron) to use it on my lap.
They should change the name to Burntop.
>>>Oh, I paid 1500 for my X1000.
Why is it so difficult for people like yourself to understand that yes, you paid $1500.00 for your X1000, and no, it does not equal the pricier PowerBook.
It's ok to admit that either you just don't like PowerBooks, or that you needed a PC for some reason, or that you don't have much money, but don't try to blow smoke up people's asses who own both own and use both of them.
You paid less, and got less with the X1000.
-It's heavier.
-It's thicker.
-It's ugly.
-The hinge, like even the now discontinued PB Titanium had, sucks (and this is one of those quality things which is completely overlooked when people talk about how little they paid for their Windows PC)
-No Firewire 800.
-No 802.11g
-No BackLit Keyboard.
-No close or open the lid instant-on sleep function
-No DVI out.
-It is NOT aluminum, like all of it's cheap PC Laptop ilk, it has some PIECES of aluminum, but it's just mostly plastic, (go look at an Al PB to see what a true aluminum case looks and feels like)
-Cheap latching mechanism. Again, go look at how Apple's latches work, they are incredibly smart and well-engineered, but who cares about details, right?)
-$1500 doesn't include the upgrade to XP Pro, XP Home is not in any way comparable to OS X, right there add $75.
-No 1000T
And this is just the obvious stuff, there are dozens of other details, both big and small, that differentiate the two notebooks.
I am no Mac Fanboy, just a dual-platform user who can tell the difference between a Filet Mignon and a Chuck Steak.
Oooops! Nope. Google is your friend here. Check out the original PPC 970 announcement by IBM at the microprocessor forum. Date: Oct' 14, 2002. On the other hand, check out Apple's PR announcement of the G5. Wow! Date: June 23, 2003.
Of course, IBM tried not to blow the lid, addressing Altivec vaguely, as: "[...] specialized circuitry known as a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) unit."
If IBM did this with the original G5 proc., expect that they will surely do it with a 970 revision! They are not complete idiots, Jobs or no Jobs, they trumpet their achievements, whilst trying hard not to kick Apple in the balls, whom they are trying very hard to help.
Come on folks! Until a discreet PR move by IBM, no mobile G5 in sight.
dani++
Keep in mind, anything over 17" would be a TOUCH topheavy. Toshiba has a 17" widescreen laptop cheap ($1700 if you don't spring for WinXP Media Center), and WinBook has a 17" NON-widescreen laptop. For all I know, maybe they're saying 17", when it's really 17.1".
The P4 was mostly designed by marketing bots that wanted 3.2GHz clock speeds and didn't care that most CPUs .5GHz slower could kick it's ass. The Pentium M, on the other hand, was Intel's attempt to make a modern P3 (read: 400MHz FSB, and some other actual innovations of the P4) that was powerful and efficient - and could be one of the CPUs that could kick P4 ass.
I use my iBook in a similar fashion. but I do mostly development (emacs, browser, Common Lisp). It seems to me that problems with OS X start after I use anything from MS Office.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
No matter how screwed up the hardware is, if it can be remapped in some OS's, it has to be possible to remap it in OpenBSD somehow, and it should also be possible to hack in something to get some function keys to show up as alternate mouse buttons.
Since OS-X already supports X, BSD utilities, and POSIX, it's pretty clear that Apple must view people running other unices on their hardware as a teeny minority. They are doing a good job of wooing linux users over to OS-X by writing X-windows implementations and so forth, so why would they want to encourage people to run OpenBSD on their laptops, which can't run iTunes et al. Plus, when *nix people have to run OS-X on their Mac laptops, this will make it more likely that they'll just port their stuff to work with OS-X, which will than benefit "regular" OS-X users, and thus help out Apple by providing more software that can run on their native OS. Someone who buys a Powerbook and installs *nix on it is someone who could easily switch to a Thinkpad next year; someone who buys a Powerbook and runs OS-X will likely get "hooked" and want to buy another Powerbook.
Marketing schemes aside, it's even more likely that the non-MacOS users of Mac hardware are such a small minority that Apple doesn't even spend much time thinking about them. As a software developer, I've often had users with special needs ask for all kinds of features, not realizing that they are .003% of the market or whatever, and supporting their esoteric requests is more goodwill than actual good business practice. Goodwill is important for sure, but at the end of the day there's only so much you can work on and you have to use some sort of triage.
I misread something. The 750GX is SMP-capable, but does not include an AltiVec-compatible SIMD unit. That's planned for a future version.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Try the mac. The clock speeds are misleading.
I'm not going to tell you that a G4/1Ghz is faster than a 2.4Ghz P4......but...
You might find you actually get more work done with less stress on the *cough* slower mac... and that's really the point, isn't it?
Hi.
;)
I'll have to remove you from my friends list because I can't reply to your journal and you never reply to mine. But do notify me if you change your policy.
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss