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PowerBooks & iBooks Get Speed Bumped
Currawong writes "Apple has, as rumors predicted, speed bumped its line of portables. The PowerBooks now come in 1.33 and 1.5Ghz G4 versions, including either NVidia 5200's or Radeon 9700 video hardware. The iBooks can now be had at 1 or 1.2Ghz with Radeon 9200 video included. All can be purchased at the Apple Store. This complements nicely the recent speed and feature increases on the eMac range."
Good news, I've been looking at getting a notebook for some time now and my little research indicated a superior battery life on Apple notebooks.
The prohibitive price is still a bottleneck for me though.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Why does Apple never drop the price of current hardware instead? I would love a 700mhz Powerbook for $600 or so (no thanks, refurbed units).
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Can someone refresh my memory? How fast is a 1.5ghz Apple processor when converted into Intel ghz?
I have a year old powerbook and the new ones for the same deal I got have halk gigahertz speed improvement, 20 gig bigger hard drive, over twice the speed of dvd burn, faster wireless, faster firewire bluetooth and more. And it's the same price. That's quite an increase for a year. It's so cool to see yet so depressing at the same time.
Evolution or ID?
Is there any news available about if or when there are going to be G5 based laptops released?
I'm looking to get an Apple notebook in about 6 months but I don't want to have a big jump like the G4 to G5 be released a few months later when I could've gone without it for a little longer and then got the G5.
Does anyone have any benchmark comparisons (3rd party comparisons, none of this "Apple-funded / Intel-funded" stuff) I'm a bit skeptical considering I bought a Dell laptop with 1.6Ghtz about 1.5 years ago.
This isn't considered to be a troll, I'm just wondering about the performance difference.
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Why does Apple never drop the price of current hardware instead? I would love a 700mhz Powerbook for $600 or so (no thanks, refurbed units).
The answer is simple really. Apple would like to maintain their products as objects of desire. Sexy bits of computer art that both inspire lust and allow us to accomplish our work easier and/or faster than ever before, making a difference. To lower the prices would reduce Apple computers to commodity items much like the rest of the Wintel world.
How many Dell, HP, Compaq, graybox etc.... hardware rollouts are greeted with the same kind of fervor that Apple computer hardware announcements inspire?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Why does Apple never drop the price of current hardware instead?
They do, at the same time discontinuing it. Go to an Apple Store this week and you'll surely find some new, unopened last-generation powerbooks and ibooks on sale price.
Part of the reason you cant directly compare is because of the processor achitecture. PowerPCs and x86 based processors have differing binaries/commands/structures/etcetera. Photoshop is one of the few products on both the Mac and Windows platform that is almost identical in code and function. You'll notice in comparison between the two platforms Photoshop is a common program used.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
Because a benchmark of a modern FPS game is a terrible way to benchmark the processor since most of the work is dependant on video cards.
Here's is something from a post I made somewhere above concerning speed compairisons:
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I have the previous version of the 12" PowerBook running at 1ghz and it's noticably faster than my p4 1.5ghz. I'd rate it as feeling about the same as a 2.0ghz p4.
So I'd say the 1.5 would be about a 2.8 or 3.0ghz pentium.
While we're on this topic I'd like to point out that Macs feel much faster than they actually are because of the superb multi tasking and UI response under heavy load.
When I am encoding a video on my Windows machine I can't do anything else on my computer, if I try to click something it takes about 30 seconds for the menu to popup.
On the other hand, my Mac can have 20 apps running and encoding a video at the same time and the UI still responds beautifully.
This is why using a Mac is a great experience, you so rarely get frustrated at it because it just works.
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FYI it has the same NVidia FX5200 the new ones have and it plays all the current games very well (Except the super high end FPS games like Ut2004...playable but not that enjoyable). Anyway, anyone who intends to do serious gaming on a laptop is a damn fool, even more so on a Mac laptop.
This is true of the first generation 12'' PookBooks, but is much less of a problem is the second generation models (and the newly released ones are the third generation).
There are two 12'' 1GHz models in my household, and they never get uncomfortably hot -- neither is used for gaming, but I do a good deal of development and numerical computation on mine, which means the CPU can be pegged at 100% for lengthy periods. The fan does kick in fairly regularly though.
I surely wish BMW would sell me a 2002 3-series instead of the improved 2005. I don't want to buy a used one, I just want to buy a new old one. I mean, surely they keep all those old parts around.
Dude, warehousing old graphics cards, HDs, etc costs money and would actually increase Apple's Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). If they then dropped prices, they would have slimmer margins in both directions (lower revenues, higher COGS).
I got my dad to buy a Apple refurb iBook and save $300. It works great, has no physicial defect and as far as I can tell, is identical to a new one with three $100 bills stuck in the DVD/CDR combo drive.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The iBooks have had their memory limit raised to 1.25GB. Better still the soldered in chip is now 256MB instead of 128MB, this gives all the default configurations a free slot to upgrade with. This resolves what was for me, my biggest gripe about my G4 ibook.
That this is a video card for a low-end consumer laptop, not a 1337 game system, maybe?
Hold on a minute there. One moment people here claim that all Apple hardware should be compared to medium or top-range PC stuff, and that this makes them reasonably good value for money. And then, when people do exactly that, it is suddenly unfair because the Apple is really a low-end system?
You cannot both have your cake and eat it. Either the 12" model is quite overpriced as a "low-end consumer" machine at $1600-$1800, or it's got a really shitty graphics card for a medium/high range machine.
I use an IBM Thinkpad that's got a 14" screen with 1400x1050 resolution. That's more pixels than the 17" Powerbook on the same screen that Apple's only fitting 1280x854 (Powerbook) or 1024x768 (iBook) on.
I'd happily take a G4/500 with a Radeon 7500 if I could get decent resolution with it. I'm sure Sonnet will have a CPU upgrade for me when I need it, but it's a lot harder to upgrade the screen.
The crummy screens on Apple's current low-end lineup is why I'm upgrading my almost 10 year old Beige Powermac (upgraded to G4/466 and 768M RAM) instead of getting an eMac (17" screen, but it's a really ugly last-century shadow mask) or iMac (15", 1024x768) or a notebook. I don't need a red hot machine and I can't imagine giving up my 1280x1028 (up to 1600x1200, if I wanted) aperture grill display (a nice Trinitron clone by CTX, under $200) for the eMac or iBook...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The previous generation iBook 12" was slow (800MHz G4) and had a low RAM ceiling (640MB) with 256k L2 cache on-chip.
The iBook G4 12" announced today is no speed demon, but at 1GHz, it's fast enough for its target user (students/education professionals), and the 512k L2 cache certainly helps. With up to 1.25GB DDR RAM, the machine is basically identical to the previous generation 12" PowerBook.
Add an Airport Extreme card and upgrade the disk to a reasonable size (60GB), and you can get the machine for $1273. The 12" PowerBook, meanwhile, costs $1600 in more or less the same configuration.
Is there a really compelling reason to buy the 12" PowerBook if you're Joe Student? Doesn't seem like it. Graphics are nominally better, but the nVidia 5200 isn't so hot, is it? There's a 333MHz speed bump, which nobody will notice during normal use. Bluetooth is included, but you can add it to the iBook for $50 if you need it.
So I wonder if the current iBook rev. will take a bite out of PowerBook sales. There are few (if any) "must have" features on the PowerBook 12", and the current iBook speed and RAM capacity are finally on par with other modern machines.
My money would be on the iBook, I think.
I ordered a PowerBook 1.25ghz 15" SuperDrive on Friday. I awoke this morning to see that my order had been cancled, but re added. I was pretty confused until I saw this post on slashdot, and I checked some emails, and bam! They switched my order for me! Why do I think this wouldn't have happened with a company whose name begins with M and ends with -onopoly.
- When you're approved for an Apple/MBNA loan, they make a point of not mentioning what APR you actually GET- think 24%
- They don't send the paperwork on this loan for close to two months, so if you want to get on the ball and start making payments during the initial 6 mo. period- too bad!
All that being said, I actually order a 1GHz 15" PB when they were first released, then cancelled the order based on rumors of a redesign, and ended up ordering the 17" I'm on now. Just had to pay off the sleazy MBNA loan with a credit card (sigh).Ahrm.
So why is it you need PCMCIA? Is the current Cardbus slot not sufficient? It's like PCMCIA, only much faster and with a wider bus.
Oh, and it's backwards compatible.
Let me guess -- didn't read the specs? I understand.
Mercifully (in a way), a semi-recent update changed the fan kick-in temperature to a lower threshold, meaning less built-up heat but a lower battery life. Expect the batteries on the new PowerBooks to not quite last as long as they're listed as, though they'd probably last long enough as is. For a college student like me, just having them last through class so that I can go back to my dorm and plug in for the evening's homework is fine.
Should you ever want to change the fan-temperature back (meaning more battery life and less fan noise), you can install Silent Night using Pacifist (Silent Night's installer doesn't always work right).
I for one couldn't stand the fan being on all the time, but then, I use my PowerBook on a desk most of the time, and I found the heat kind of plesant during the winter. YMMV.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
... but I don't see G5s there until fall.
SJ at the release of the G5 stated clearly that they "IBM and Apple are today announcing that within 12 months we'll be at 3GHz". You can hear/see this yourself in the WWDC 2003 video at timecode 1:52:00
Unless things continue to go horribly wrong at IBM, that means the G5 will hit that mark in June.
Note that Steve stated they would be at that speed, not announcing that speed. I would expect, based on that statement, that such systems should be shipping by July at the latest.
At this point, I suspect that Apple will forgo any interim speed bump or upgrades for the PowerMac and is simply stockpiling the 3GHz processors in anticipation of a major buying spree once the new systems are released.
I recall speculation after the WWDC last year that Steve's statement might mean there would be no major updates until a year later. That speculation seemed to be dismissed quickly by most.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Sure, or you could get an Athlon XP 3200 512K 2.2GHz 400 MHz FSB w/dvd-rw, 80gb 7200rpm drive, 512m, gigabit ethernet, bluetooth, 802.11g, a radeon 9200 and a 20" CRT for $100 less.
Link?
I don't suppose the screens on the 12" model have been updated? I remember hearing that the screen model used on the 12" Powerbook and the 12"/14" iBooks was a much lower quality screen than the 15"/17" powerbooks.
...and that's all there is to it.
(WARNING: this post has nothing to do with wanting a G5 Powerbook or complaining how a year and a half ago I bought a Powerbook and now Apple has upgraded them *again* and I am so mad. Thus, most people will want to skip this post.)
What do you think about the standard Airport Extreme (80211.g) and Bluetooth in the Powerbooks?
I think this is the most overlooked "new" item. Just as USB and Firewire were first standards on the Mac, is Apple again ushering in a new era of wireless connectivity by making these items standard?
When Intel released the Centreno and those wireless ads that went with them, I never heard it having much response. Is there a high demand for these wireless standards?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
There is no tech support for underwear. Every call from a customer cost you money. The cheaper the computer the stupider the questions.
Gaming is now bigger than movies.
Is that why I'm buying a Powerbook in a few moths to use at college (for communications, as in radio/tv/film. As in video.)?
...and that's all there is to it.
I should really clarify here. I'm not knocking Celeron machines and older Pentium/clones like yours for uses like that...I found a discarded Compaq Celeron-500-based machine in a "toaster" formfactor in my basement...and it is an awesome server!
Right now I'm looking into getting an old, old laptop with AC adapter for use as a server because they're quiet and i can hide it in the bottom drawer of my dresser and have a mailserver without leaving on that wind-tunnel of a PC (my Athlon box) all night, etc.
I think everything can be put to use, as you clearly appreciate too.