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Apple Updates PowerBooks
Tablespork writes "Apple this morning has updated the PowerBook G4. The new models feature 1.5 or 1.67 ghz processors, 8x superdrives, 512MB memory standard, Bluetooth 2.0, updated graphics cards, a sudden motion sensor, as well as a scrolling trackpad. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer for the PowerBook G5."
the 15" and 17" can now drive 30" cinema displays!
And optical audio out on the 17"
Plus, brighter backlight, better prices and 5400rpm drives across the board.
Now where is my powerbook G5 damnit!
Who still expected a G5 Powerbook any time this year. TOO MUCH HEAT, PEOPLE. I don't care how strong the Apple engineers' kung-fu is, there's just no way to cram the G5 into that small a form factor without melting the keyboard. Give it some time, and it'll happen. But not soon.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
You can scroll with the trackpad now in an ipod esque manner. Of course many PC laptops have had scrolling built into the trackpad, this new feature on the powerbooks might prove to be interesting.
Ohh and it is different from other features by the fact that first of all, it requires both fingers on the track pad, secondly you can either scroll up or down, left or right, or you can scroll in a circle.
I dunno, but on the portables I dont find ctrl+clicking to be that bad mainly because one of my hands is already in that general area ontop of the ctrl key, and the other hand on the trackpad.
Great, can't wait for the article about some guy trying to stuff a pc laptops guts into the 12" PB and claiming success even though you have to use an external optical drive and use two little wires to connect the battery that will no longer fit, but it works damnit!
This sounds like a cool feature, can anyone confirm from personal experience that it really works?
Come one! Get to it Apple people!
Sam
1.5ghz vs 1.2ghz
64mb geforce vs 32mb radeon
512ram vs 256ram
167bus vs 133 bus
5400rpm 60gb HD vs 30gb HD
DVI out vs mirror VGA
Having the powerplug on the same side as all the other ports vs the way the ibook has it which makes it slighlty uncomfortable to use on its side
motion sensing vs nothing
I dunno, these new 12" powerbooks look like a great deal to me, especially for $1400 with a student discount!
12" used to be $1599, now it's $1499.
That's not bad at all. You really don't want to buy the first generation of an Apple product. Remember the first Powerbook G3? Or the first Powerbook G4?
See, you want something like those current Powerbooks which are thoroughly tested.
The 17" machine is wide enought to fit a full-sized keyboard, but it still comes with the same cramped minature one as the 12" machine has. I'd be far more likely to buy one if Apple fixed this.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Now there's a nifty little way to do one's scrolling with the trackpad--use one finger, it's a pointing device; two, and it behaves like a scroll wheel. If it works as advertised, it'll be a far cry better than the "scroll zone" trackpad hacks out there today...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You're right! Why get a 30" stationary display when you can have a 30" Powerbook?
Flamebait or troll is certainly the right moderation. Possibly offtopic, as the powerbook doesn't even come with a mouse.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I have a 12" PowerBook, I love it. I was just on Groklaw and PJ admited she uses a PowerBook.
I would love a G5 laptop except for 2 things.
1: Battery life. All that heat has to come from an energy source, so unless you have jumper cables hooked to a huge Cat Battery, the G5 oven will not last long.
2: Heat. I have a Dual G5 PowerMac, and when CPU usage starts to go up, I hear all 6? 7? fans spooling up like some scene for the old movie "Strategic Air Command" getting a 50's SAC bomber ready for take off. This is not what I want in a lappy.
Besides, how fast does a lappy need to be. I love my PowerBook, and I'll bet everyone that has a PowerBook will say the same thing. It is a product that is just right, it really is.
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
You don't need a right mouse button. Of course, you can use a mouse that has a right mouse button and a mouse wheel, and they all will be supported by Mac OS X, but you don't really need them (at least the right mouse button).
Dude, of course you need a right mouse button. And a scroll wheel. How else are you going to change weapons and use the alt-fire in Unreal and other FPSs?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Oh my god, i am still looking for that G5-spot while using my two fingers...
Apple's online store has a "Special Deals" section where they sell refurbs. You can also try Smalldog - they're a pretty reputable reseller of older / refurb gear.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
I'm more glad they finally installed the right amount of RAM: 512MB on a single stick. First off, no Mac should ship with 256MB, especially not a "pro" machine. Second, last year's high-end models came with 2x256MB sticks, which means you lose half of it when you upgrade. Adding a 512MB stick (for 768 total) was severely value-deficient, and unfortunately 1GB SO-DIMMs are still at a nasty price premium.
I think this is a deliberate choice. Apple seems to have the idea of an ideal DPI - see this page, which says "After years of experience, Apple engineers have discovered the ideal resolution to display both sharp text and graphics -- a pixel density of about 100 pixels per inch (ppi)." If my trig is correct, a 1680x1050 screen with a diagonal width of 17" has a horizontal width of arccos(tan(900/1440)) * 17" ~= 13", and a DPI of 1440/13" ~= 110, so this PowerBook is already over their ideal.
In the long run, Apple is clearly wrong - if you have high-resolution images and can scale them any way you like, there's no reason not to display that detail. But for now, scaling probably isn't a good idea. In addition to having to change all the software for it, you'd probably be upscaling slightly, at odd ratios. It would make the images look worse. And having more resolution but not rescaling just means that the icons are smaller and harder to see. I think Apple made the right choice for the short term.
I'm using a 17" PowerBook right now, and for what it's worth, I'm fairly happy with the resolution.
Looking at the 17" model, it specifies the screen as having 1440x900. My Dell i8600 with WSXGA has a 15.4" screen (same display aspect ratio too) with 1680x1050. The 15" model has a 15.2" screen with 1280x854, if you want to compare as closely as possible. Is it just me or does Apple not seem to have the best deal here? Apple has been known as the machine to do graphics on but it doesn't lead the class as far as display resolution in a given area?
One thing that a lot of PC laptop users might understand is that smaller pixels is not always better. Apple sells to a lot of graphics and design professionals that are used to 100 dpi resolution, and that is the nice thing about Apple displays. They always maintain 100 dpi resolution across the board, no matter what size you buy. It's very important to note that a lot of applications (especially in Windows) don't scale fonts properly so viewing some things on a 14" screen that is 1600x1200 can be painful sometimes. I've marvelled at some of the Dell laptops that have very high resolution LCDs, but I don't think I'd want to work on one for an extended period of time. I think it would hurt my eyes after a while.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I had put in an order for a 15" powerbook, on friday, (I didn't believe in a G5book) and checking my order status today, apple upgraded everything in the order, and dropped the price. they even dropped about a week off the ship date. Pretty happy with them right now.
On a more positive note, at least Apple manages to describe the technology without resorting to buzzwords ("Active Protection System", "ThinkVantage Technology") or made-up statistics ("up to four times greater impact protection").
That said, the new Powerbooks do feature "PowerPC G4 processors with Velocity Engine".
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Apple still is crippling the 12 " PB by not including
- Gigabit Ethernet
- FireWire 800
- backlit keyboard
OK the backlit keyboard just looks cool but why can't they at least make these optional?
I have a 15" but would have liked to have gotten the 12" if it had better specs. The only real advantage the 12" PowerBook has over an iBook is the dual screen capabilities. Even that can be hacked into the iBook.
Should Apple reduce its price on any shipped product within 10 calendar days of shipment, you may contact Apple Sales Support at 1-800-676-2775 to request a refund or credit of the difference between the price you were charged and the current selling price. To receive the refund or credit you must contact Apple within 14 business days of shipment.
And just for the record I switched to an Apple two years ago from using pcs since the 286 all my life and I wonder why I waited so long. If your thinking about switching, do it. OS X really is that great. The only thing that I can honestly say PCs have going for them that is better is the game selection, but all the really good ones do come out for the mac (but it takes a few months usually). But that's why I have a ps2 and a Gamecube.
I'd probably prefer a dual-core G4 to a G5. In my experience, dual processor Macs just feel really snappier than single processor models, even when the clock speed is significantly lower.
If you want a faster Mac laptop, just kill Aqua and use the command line!
An earlier post proved the following link:
Best Resolution for Images and Words
The quality of the pixels you see impacts how you use your computer. After years of experience, Apple engineers have discovered the ideal resolution to display both sharp text and graphics -- a pixel density of about 100 pixels per inch (ppi). Other vendors may offer a larger monitor, but with less resolution, so you end up with fewer pixels, or a smaller monitor with a high resolution that causes eyestrain and headaches. Apple's balanced 100 pixels per inch format is optimized for images, yet allows you to easily work with text in email, Safari and sophisticated type treatments in layouts.
So that would be the reason why they don't make higher resolution displays.
--
It works.
Free Flat Screens | Free Mini Mac
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Since the dual core freescale supposedly outperforms a G5 at same clock speed, I really would have liked to see the freescale in the new specs.
Not to flame, but I'm interested in where you're getting your information from (benchmarks, reviews, etc). I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a Dual Core G4 outperform a single core/CPU G5 when it comes to apps that are fully MP-aware (threaded properly). But I would be surprised to see a Dual Core G4 outperform a single core G5 on apps that are not threaded. I'd love to see some real world comparisons.
Remember just because it has 2 cores doesn't mean that it's twice as fast. It only means that there's the potential to do more at once if the software can take advantage of it through threading. Here's a great article that explains the problems/challenges software developers are going to face with multi-core CPUs.
Now I'd love to have a dual core CPU in my laptop and I'd love to program for it, but I image Apple would face some of the same challenges trying to get the dual core Freescale CPU into a laptop as they would in getting a G5 into a laptop, namely heat. A dual core G4 is going to be hotter and more power hungry than what they've got now. I'd love to see either the dual core G4 or a G5 in a laptop.
It works.
Free Flat Screens | Free Mini Mac
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Seriously? There's a couple of reasons. First off, Dell (or PC vendor X) does upgrades/updates differently from Apple. When Intel ships a newer, faster chip, Dell just slipstreams it into their existing models/lineups. Also, Dell offers so many different models that a change to one isn't really a news event. Besides, every other PC vendor offers something equivalent - Dell's only innovation is in the supply chain (and making it hyper-efficient). They don't actually make anything, they just package it into a cheap beige box.
Slashdot does cover all the new Intel and AMD announcements, which means that to run a feature when Dell puts it into a system would just really be covering the same story twice (not that Slashdot doesn't routinely cover things twice).
The difference is that Apple actually engineers their own products and OS. Also, they upgrade less often, and then when they do they upgrade a whole family of products simultaneously. That helps make it newsworthy. Yes, the speed improvement is a whopping 167 MHz per config (or only 1x on the multiplier), but when they revved the PowerBooks today they also added features (like dual-DVI support and the funky new scrollpad), changed video cards, and upgraded other stuff like Bluetooth.
Plus, Apple is Apple. Dell is just another PC vendor. If Dell is doing an upgrade, chances are all the other PC vendors are putting the same feature in their equivalent model at the exact same time. Like I said above, the news is when Intel or AMD introduce the upgrade that everybody then puts into their product lines, not when Dell does theirs.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Of course, +1 Funny would be a good mod too. But that would only work if you had a sense of humor about the issue.
Possibly irrelevant story to follow:
I went to military journalist school about 15 years ago. One of the interesting aspects of the school is that it wasn't just an Army school (my branch of service), but, in fact, trained military journalists from all branches of service. This was my first interactions with significant numbers of Air Force, Navy and Marine personnel.
One of the things I found out is that the different branches have very different core cultures. One of the way this was exhibited was in the status they gave to their branch.
Army people will bitch incestantly about the Army. They may be slightly annoyed when others do it, but they won't give them too hard a time because they all had such a good time cutting it down themselves.
Air Force people really do look at their service like a job. If you were to cut down the Air Force to them they'd just shrug and not pay much attention.
Navy people seem to have all joined on a dare. They don't complain too much about the navy and they have a lot of pride in it, but they're not going to get into fisticuffs unless the offence is very bad.
Then there were the Marines. If you made fun of the Corp in front of a Marine, you'd get an extremely stern, "that's not funny" at best. Yes, even things that every other human being on the planet would find funny, the Marines would most certainly NOT find humourus if it even slightly disparaged the Corp. Of course, they had no problem at all making fun of every other service.
How is this relevant to the matter at hand? It's become my opinion over the last couple of days that The Mac Faithful (TMF from now on) are just like the Marines. They are proud and they have some good reasons to be proud, but they are completely incapable of finding fault with themselves or seeing humor in that fault.
Since I started this line of thinking, I'll have to compare a couple of other OSs too.
Windows users are definately the Army. They have the largest numbers and don't hesitate to crack on their own platform. Others don't hesitate either and for the most part no one gets too worked up about it.
Unix users are mostly the Air Force (Some of them show Marine tendencies though). They pretty much do their jobs and shrug it off if someone cracks on their OS.
Linux users are the Navy. They joined on a dare, but are pretty proud of their OS and wont hesitate to defend it.
Yeah I've stretched a bit with the other OSs, but I think I hit it dead on with TMF. The Few, the Proud, the Macs! pretty accurately describes their level of attachment. The thing is.... they should really lighten up.
TW
The G4 is fine, but that's not the problem, it's the anemic 167Mhz bus which is the bottleneck with the G4s.
This sig has been deprecated.
As far as the practicality of dual core vs. single core machines goes ... Without concurrency there's no boost; with concurrency usually there is some boost and it is possible, in fact, to have a dual core system be faster than single core at twice the speed. It's not common but it all depends on what you're doing.
Yes, I already read the concurrent programming article a while back, but I'm afraid I don't share your enthusiasm for it. I think the author blurs program performance and performance programming. The first is about raw speed, the second is about making your program run X percent faster than your competitors' do. As such the "free lunch" he describes never really existed for people who actually do performance programming. Concurrency is already used whenever possible since you never know when you might be runnning on an SMP machine. Abstract machines can be massively parallel regardless of the hardware underneath. For everybody who doesn't do performance programming, the problem usually comes down to decoupling the performance bottleneck from the rest of the application, then handing it off to a performance person. (They still have to make sure their code is reasonably fast and lean, but parallelism isn't a big issue)
Anyway, I'm getting OT. I think the bottom line is that for the types of tasks I do, the performance benefit of SMP in a laptop sounds a lot better than the benefit of a G5.