Saying the laptop is not "full featured" is pretty much the same is saying that no laptop can be full featured without an 8" floppy or nine-pin serial port.
No, but with PCMCIA you could add them, couldn't you?
TiBook owners with PCMCIA can now add 802.11g cards.
iBook owners (no PCMCIA) can never add 802.11g.
That's a pretty simple example, and there are 100 more. As has been said elsewhere, PCMCIA is ideal for the cool stuff that hasn't been thought of yet.
How fast is the processor actually running on those portable 2 and 3 GHz intel systems? When running full speed, how much battery life are they seeing?
An Intel portable running in Speedstep mode (700mhz or whatever it is these days) still runs browser, office suites, Photoshop, etc. faster than any of today's Macs running at full speed.
Still, yes, Macintoshes are falling behind when it comes to raw speed. But cleverly designed software makes it a lot faster to work with a Mac.
Why are all the web browsers on OS X so slow then? Seriously, not trolling - but in my experience web browsing is faster on Windows. In cases where the same browser is available on both platforms, it is faster on Windows, without exception.
I am dead serious - you say that "cleverly designed software makes it a lot faster to work with a Mac" but I just haven't seen that. In my experience, IE, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera are faster on Windows, as are every office suite I've tried, as well as Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver/Fireworks etc.
The 12" PowerBook has a single slot that can accept a single 512MB SO-DIMM. The remaining 128MB RAM is soldered to the motherboard, just like on the iBook. So why did they do that?
Apple lacks access to the faster processors that would usually serve as a differentiating factor between $1,000 and $3,000 models. Since they can't make the top end any faster, Apple has looked to "differentiate" models in other ways (I call it crippling).
Your example of limiting the Powerbook 12's memory for no particular reason is one good example, another would be removing the video-out functionality from the iBook. It is a business decision that I don't agree with. I think Apple would sell more computers (without increasing their costs!) if they would not remove features from the low end. But someone at Apple disagrees.
Just a minor nitpick, Apple does not exactly advertise the fact that the 12" Powerbook does not have a PCMCIA slot. We've come to expect that PCMCIA will be included, based on experiences with Wintel machines and previous Powerbooks.
In my opinion, they should put it in. I have a 12", 3 pound HP machine that has PCMCIA... clearly it will fit.
Yes, I know some Mac smartass is going to reply, "I don't need PCMCIA, I have USB/FireWire/ethernet built in". To which I reply that PCMCIA is for FUTURE technology - for example, Powerbook Titanium owners are going to be able to add 802.11g via PCMCIA. iBook owners (no PCMCIA) are out of luck.
What are you complaining about, that you can't bring stuff from the future to the present?
I'm complaining because it is 2003 and Linux comes with 27 text editors, 5 MP3 players, 3 word processors, 2 spreadsheets, and 9 IRC clients, but no straightforward way to change the resolution.
Half the problems with Linux are scheduled to be fixed "any day now". I'll believe it when it's DONE and no sooner. Until then, it doesn't exist.
I guess you've never heard of XRandR. It allows on-the-fly resolution changing and screen rotation. The extension will be included in XFree86 4.3. Both KDE and GNOME are working on support for XRandR.
Sounds great! Let me know when it's done, works, and is included in the default install of RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Caldera, etc. and I'll happily concede that this feature is as good as Windows. Until then, it's just talk.
I shouldn't have to ever hear of XRandR. Or any weird-sounding component that I can't pronounce.
No shit! Did the developers ever think of calling their program, oh, I don't know... "Display control panel" or some other straightforward name? Of course not, they called it "XRandR" which is totally nonsensical! How will a new user know they should be looking for a program called "XRandR"? They won't.
Some more examples: "SMBmount", should be called "Network drive configuration". "CUPS" should be called "Printer setup tool". And on and on.
Now, in KDE 3.1, I have iconized previews of images, movies, text files, HTML files and PDF files in the file manager (+ larger previews in a tooltip "pop-up", if wanted). And translucent menus. And hi-quality anti-aliased fonts (with Dave Chester's XFT hack). And burning a folder to CD-writer with a right-click. And tons of applets for the panel (taskbar).
... and STILL no way to easily change the resolution and color depth, which is exactly the point.
Nonsense. Even a casual observer can see that the iBook does NOT perform "most tasks or faster... than an HP". Web browsers, for example, are far slower on the Macintosh platorm, as is Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and other programs.
None of this makes Macs bad computers, but it does lower their perceived value.
Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on what OS X does that a "typical PC unix desktop" does not? (Other than draw useless animations and transparent menus?)
i call b.s. there is no way an ibook 500 feels like a pII-166.
Sorry, but it does. Install Windows 2000 on a PII-166. See how it lags? That's about how OS X feels on the iBook 500.
End-of-life or not doesn't really matter. It's not like we're trying to run the latest and greatest OS on 3 year old hardware - the iBook 500 ran OS X slow ON THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED.
Comparing an iBook to a pentium desktop machine, like the parent poster did, is just silly. I will gladly stand the iBook up against anything in the PC notebook world, though.
Sorry, but the iBook "feels" slow. Even $699 Wintel notebook blowout specials "feel" fast. Simple as that.
People keep on forgetting that Intel chips do a whole lot less with each clock cycle than PowerPC chips. The reason that PowerPC processors have remained at lower clock speeds than Intel chips is because they can get the same amount of work done, if not more, in less clock cycles than it takes for an Intel chip.
I've been burned by this before, and although I think a lawsuit is not the "answer", I can really understand the lawyer's position.
In my case, a buyer with "0" feedback bid on and won my auction. After the auction, I emailed them no less than 4 times over the next two weeks with payment instructions and requesting an address to ship too. I never heard a peep from the buyer. (You guessed it - an AOLer.
As a result, I had to relist the (not inexpensive) item and lost the listing fees. (Yes, I know you can apply for a refund. eBay makes it difficult). After about 2 months had gone by, I posted a negative feedback, indicating that the buyer never paid and did not respond to repeated emails. Within days, the buyer hammered me with a negative feedback, stating "I refused to answer questions and never provided payment info". Huh?
Of course, eBay won't remove the comment, even though it is patently untrue. This sucks, it affects potential buyers to see that kind of comment, and I didn't even get paid for the "transaction"!
I think the gripe is not that negative feedback can be left, it's that eBay WILL NOT remove feedback that is clearly wrong or slanderous, even when presented with factual evidence that the comment is false. As a result of this, I have simply started stating in my auctions that AOL users are not welcome to bid, and I cancel their bids if they do. Whenever I have non paying bidders that don't answer email, 90% of the time it's an AOLer.
SMS is one way. You can receive two kinds of messsages. An actual SMS message results in you getting redirected to the web browser to check it, which doesn't seem to work for me ever. The other kind seems to work just fine. See my previous comments on their SMS support [slashdot.org].
I just wanted to say that I believe the poor SMS functionality is a Sprint-only issue... the Cingular/T-Mobile Treos don't have this problem.
If there are any Cingular Treo users out there, I hope they'll respond in this thread with their comments on data service.
At the moment there is no GPRS data for Handspring Treos on Cingular. Only circuit-switched data (CSD) is available. A software update from Handspring is coming "any day now". T-Mobile customers already have the update and it works fine.
A few folks have got it working by swapping some files around and installing the GPRS software meant for another region. Apparently, it can be made to work, but obviously at your own risk and unsupported. FWIW, the Treo's GPRS software also works fine with AT&T GPRS, if you have AT&T GSM/GPRS available in your region, that may be a viable option.
My recommendation is that unless you have VERY cheap GPRS in your area, that you just stick with circuit-switched data for now. The Treo supports this natively... you just need a dialup ISP to dial into (with some providers they act as the ISP at no charge). It's fast enough for email and browsing PDA specific sites and is usually free (only the cost of airtime).
I'm extremely happy with my Handspring Treo. Having the chiclet keyboard is really nice for messaging. My service is with Cingular. When it works good, it sounds like a landline. When it's poor, it's nonexistant. Suggest you try one in your area before buying.
The real "gotcha" with the Treo is battery life. You'll need to charge nightly. If you can live with that, it may be the device for you. I have the 180, which are really cheap now. In my opinion, the color ones aren't worth it.
I think theatres shoud put signs up.."No cell phones please" and then have ushers throw you out mid movies if you make OR take a call in the theatre.
That would require the theatre actually HAVING ushers, which seems to be disappearing in the USA. For some reason, they 'can't afford' to pay ushers, even though everyone in the theatre paid $9.
I've used it, I love it. I'm just not paying a recurring monthly fee for it. I want to own the things I buy, and I want it to work without needing to phone-home to a vendor that may not be around in a year.
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No, but with PCMCIA you could add them, couldn't you?
iBook owners (no PCMCIA) can never add 802.11g.
That's a pretty simple example, and there are 100 more. As has been said elsewhere, PCMCIA is ideal for the cool stuff that hasn't been thought of yet.
An Intel portable running in Speedstep mode (700mhz or whatever it is these days) still runs browser, office suites, Photoshop, etc. faster than any of today's Macs running at full speed.
Why are all the web browsers on OS X so slow then? Seriously, not trolling - but in my experience web browsing is faster on Windows. In cases where the same browser is available on both platforms, it is faster on Windows, without exception.
I am dead serious - you say that "cleverly designed software makes it a lot faster to work with a Mac" but I just haven't seen that. In my experience, IE, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera are faster on Windows, as are every office suite I've tried, as well as Photoshop/Illustrator/Dreamweaver/Fireworks etc.
Apple lacks access to the faster processors that would usually serve as a differentiating factor between $1,000 and $3,000 models. Since they can't make the top end any faster, Apple has looked to "differentiate" models in other ways (I call it crippling).
Your example of limiting the Powerbook 12's memory for no particular reason is one good example, another would be removing the video-out functionality from the iBook. It is a business decision that I don't agree with. I think Apple would sell more computers (without increasing their costs!) if they would not remove features from the low end. But someone at Apple disagrees.
In my opinion, they should put it in. I have a 12", 3 pound HP machine that has PCMCIA... clearly it will fit.
Yes, I know some Mac smartass is going to reply, "I don't need PCMCIA, I have USB/FireWire/ethernet built in". To which I reply that PCMCIA is for FUTURE technology - for example, Powerbook Titanium owners are going to be able to add 802.11g via PCMCIA. iBook owners (no PCMCIA) are out of luck.
No, I believe it exists. I see the evidence. What I'm saying is that it doesn't "count" until it's ready.
I'm complaining because it is 2003 and Linux comes with 27 text editors, 5 MP3 players, 3 word processors, 2 spreadsheets, and 9 IRC clients, but no straightforward way to change the resolution.
Half the problems with Linux are scheduled to be fixed "any day now". I'll believe it when it's DONE and no sooner. Until then, it doesn't exist.
Sounds great! Let me know when it's done, works, and is included in the default install of RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Caldera, etc. and I'll happily concede that this feature is as good as Windows. Until then, it's just talk.
No shit! Did the developers ever think of calling their program, oh, I don't know... "Display control panel" or some other straightforward name? Of course not, they called it "XRandR" which is totally nonsensical! How will a new user know they should be looking for a program called "XRandR"? They won't.
Some more examples: "SMBmount", should be called "Network drive configuration". "CUPS" should be called "Printer setup tool". And on and on.
... and STILL no way to easily change the resolution and color depth, which is exactly the point.
Ease up! At least you have 38 text editors to choose from.
None of this makes Macs bad computers, but it does lower their perceived value.
Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on what OS X does that a "typical PC unix desktop" does not? (Other than draw useless animations and transparent menus?)
Sorry, but it does. Install Windows 2000 on a PII-166. See how it lags? That's about how OS X feels on the iBook 500.
End-of-life or not doesn't really matter. It's not like we're trying to run the latest and greatest OS on 3 year old hardware - the iBook 500 ran OS X slow ON THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED.
Sorry, but the iBook "feels" slow. Even $699 Wintel notebook blowout specials "feel" fast. Simple as that.
Anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but Mandrake runs noticeably faster on my 700mhz PIII than on the 600mhz G3 I used to have.
Why is OS X so slow then?
In my case, a buyer with "0" feedback bid on and won my auction. After the auction, I emailed them no less than 4 times over the next two weeks with payment instructions and requesting an address to ship too. I never heard a peep from the buyer. (You guessed it - an AOLer.
As a result, I had to relist the (not inexpensive) item and lost the listing fees. (Yes, I know you can apply for a refund. eBay makes it difficult). After about 2 months had gone by, I posted a negative feedback, indicating that the buyer never paid and did not respond to repeated emails. Within days, the buyer hammered me with a negative feedback, stating "I refused to answer questions and never provided payment info". Huh?
Of course, eBay won't remove the comment, even though it is patently untrue. This sucks, it affects potential buyers to see that kind of comment, and I didn't even get paid for the "transaction"!
I think the gripe is not that negative feedback can be left, it's that eBay WILL NOT remove feedback that is clearly wrong or slanderous, even when presented with factual evidence that the comment is false. As a result of this, I have simply started stating in my auctions that AOL users are not welcome to bid, and I cancel their bids if they do. Whenever I have non paying bidders that don't answer email, 90% of the time it's an AOLer.
I just wanted to say that I believe the poor SMS functionality is a Sprint-only issue... the Cingular/T-Mobile Treos don't have this problem.
If there are any Cingular Treo users out there, I hope they'll respond in this thread with their comments on data service.
At the moment there is no GPRS data for Handspring Treos on Cingular. Only circuit-switched data (CSD) is available. A software update from Handspring is coming "any day now". T-Mobile customers already have the update and it works fine.
A few folks have got it working by swapping some files around and installing the GPRS software meant for another region. Apparently, it can be made to work, but obviously at your own risk and unsupported. FWIW, the Treo's GPRS software also works fine with AT&T GPRS, if you have AT&T GSM/GPRS available in your region, that may be a viable option.
My recommendation is that unless you have VERY cheap GPRS in your area, that you just stick with circuit-switched data for now. The Treo supports this natively... you just need a dialup ISP to dial into (with some providers they act as the ISP at no charge). It's fast enough for email and browsing PDA specific sites and is usually free (only the cost of airtime).
The real "gotcha" with the Treo is battery life. You'll need to charge nightly. If you can live with that, it may be the device for you. I have the 180, which are really cheap now. In my opinion, the color ones aren't worth it.
That would require the theatre actually HAVING ushers, which seems to be disappearing in the USA. For some reason, they 'can't afford' to pay ushers, even though everyone in the theatre paid $9.
I've used it, I love it. I'm just not paying a recurring monthly fee for it. I want to own the things I buy, and I want it to work without needing to phone-home to a vendor that may not be around in a year.
If TiVo goes away, there will be a number of alternatives available in mere hours.
Right... if people already have a working substitute source for programming data, where are there? Sorry but if I can't do it today, it doesn't exist.
Why don't these people who supposedly have alternative solutions release them?