1. You must not have looked at the Gateway web site, under "Notebooks." Third from the left, with a big red "NEW Dual Core Mobility" over it, is the model I mentioned, the NX560XL. It has a dual-core Yonah Core Duo chip JUST LIKE THE MAC.
2. First of all, this is a 15.4" computer with a single-core chip and you're trying to compare it to a 17" dual-core unit. Not a good comparision.
3. The Dell comes with a very expensive ISV support contract because it's NOT A CONSUMER PRODUCT like the Gateway and Apple.
It would be much more like comparing a VW Passat to the Audi A6 than a Kia to a Mercedes as the mechanicals are made by the same firm (Volkswagen AG.) The Audi has a better nameplate and is outfitted a little nicer, but both are mechanically and physically similar. You're just paying more for a little cachet and a little nicer package.
P.S. You can get movie editors, office suites, DVD authoring software, compilers, IDEs, and such for free. Look at what's included in a Linux distribution or at SourceForge for the Windows ports/versions of those programs.
1. OS X is UNIX-based, so we'll install a UNIX-based OS on the Gateway instead of XP Pro. One of my favorites is SuSE, and you can download it for the cost of one DVD-R/DL or five CD-Rs.
2. iWork '06 is not MS Office, which is also available for the Mac. That costs extra. The Gateway comes with MS Works, and that is more equivalent to iWork than MS Office is. Also, you can get Open Office, which is more than equal to Works/iWork for free.
3. Apple either expects people to go immediately buy another matching stick of DDR2-667 or they are not too bright. The Intel 945 chipset supports dual-channel RAM, so that's why you see very few single-module setups (i.e. the 2x256 and 2x512 configurations for the DDR2-667 in the Gateway.)
4. The hard drives are the same: 80GB, 5400rpm SATA.
5. The Gateway has an 8x DVD burner as opposed to the Apple's 4x one. How is that upgraded? Because it loads from a slot and not a tray?
6. You can get a faster Core Duo chip in the Gateway than you can in ANY MacBook.
7. The Mac has a little nicer screen and a GPU that is a teeny bit better. And it has Bluetooth. You can get a $50 Bluetooth module for the Gateway if you wanted one. And webcams are pretty inexpensive too.
So even with a camera and Bluetooh module, you'd still save about $450 over the MacBook. Face it, there's a stiff premium to run OS X and for the Apple name.
I just looked around for 15.4" dual-core notebooks. Gateway had one, so I ran the prices on it. I could have compared Dell's 17" new dual-core laptop to the 17" MacBook also. My point was just to illustrate the price difference.
Yeah, I have actually used one. It was one of the grayscale ones, a 230 if I remember. It slid into a dock underneath of another Mac. The funny thing was that only one could run at any one time- the laptop had to be in the dock for the desktop to run.
You can put Linux or BSD on a much cheaper Dell, Gateway, HP, or other laptop when they become available in the next few weeks. Then you'll have UNIX on a dual-core laptop and an extra ~$500 in your pocket.
Also, not to knock OS X as I do have a good respect for the OS, but it is as much a UNIX distribution as Windows 98 was a DOS version. It is based on it, but it is not "all there" if you want to do real UNIX work. I know- I have tried. There are very limited UNIX-type tools included, such as there is no gcc, make, and X11. And it is a lot geekier to run something like Gentoo where there is a lot of work to be done and you have to have at least some "geek skills" to get it up and running. OS X is a pop-in-the-disk-and-it-runs, which is good, but not very geeky.
ATI has made recent strides with their fglrx package. I got their latest one to install correctly today on my ancient 4x AGP 64MB Radeon Mobility M9000. This was the very first time that the driver actually worked. Before, it had just killed X and once I manage to get X back up, the DRI is off and the stock Radeon driver works like crap where it had been at least passable before. And the installer has improved a great deal, at least in the fact that it automatically can create a specific install.rpm or.deb for most distros and it will also compile & insmod the right kernel modules for your Xorg/XFree86 version and kernel.
I bet it would run as a guest OS unless there are DRM chip problems. You can run any OS that is of your same architecture in VMware, and you can use stuff like Bochs and QEMU to emulate other architectures. But for now, the host has to be either Windows (NT-based) or Linux (2.4.x or better).
Look on the Gateway website at the NX560XL. It has the dual-core chip and I ran the specs on one similar to the 15.4" MacBook Pro and it was a little over $1500.
It's pretty expensive, to tell you the truth. I ran the specs on a Gateway NX560XL that is set up very similarly to the 15.4" MacBook Pro and got a price of $1454.99. The only differences are that you can't get a single 512MB DDR2-667 module in the Gateway (2x256 is available as is 2x512, 2x1GB) and the GPU is a 128MB ATI X1400 vs. the 128MB X1600 in the Mac. Otherwise they are the same- same HDD, same optical drive, same CPU, same chipset.
I dunno but for the extra ~$550, I could get a much faster laptop than the MacBook *or* I could get the Gateway and have the money in my pocket. Many speculated as to the actual Apple premium, but they couldn't directly compare the PPC Apples to the x86 notebooks. Now we can and the premium is at least $550. I would have guessed it would be $200 to $300, but now we know for sure.
Yeah, I am looking for the same thing. My old P4-M Gateway is getting long in the teeth and is needing to be replaced. I have heard rumors about a dual-core Turion 64, code-named Taylor, but it's release is expected to be in "2006." That's all I have seen except that it might run on a new 600-some-odd pin socket. Nobody's even sure as to if it's going to be a 65nm or 95nm chip. I guess AMD is taking a page out of Apple's book- no info about a future product until it comes out.
Hear, hear. I generally make it a rule to not compile anything that has a source much bigger than a few MB as it takes forever. I hunt down RPMs if at all possible if it's something big. (My rig is a Pentium 4 2.2GHz, 845MP chipset, 2x512 DDR266 running SuSE 10.0) Compiling a recent 2.6 series kernel and modules takes about 75 minutes, what does it take on your Gentoo box?
I tend to buy Intel processors because I have to use a laptop. A few years ago, almost no laptops (and I mean *laptop*, not a 10-pound portable desktop)had AMD chips in them. With the relatively recent introduction of the Turion 64s, there have been a few more, but they are still few and far between.
Let's hope that AMD gets real popular here when Vista comes out. If a bunch of people's AMD computers lack the TPM DRM chips and HDCP and can't play media, like hell they're going to buy a new computer just to play a song or a DVD. They just won't buy the song or DVD...and the DRM crap will abate for a while.
Now I'm not for pirating, but a lot of the DRM crap gets in the way of legitimate use, such as making a backup copy of discs so you don't have to buy another when they get scratched, ripping CDs to play from your hard drive, or even reinstalling applications that require activation or key codes.
It's called the Conroe. 65nm dual core, 64 bits, ~14-stage pipeline, based on the Core Duo laptop chip architecture- NO MORE NETBURST!, 2x2MB L2 cache, don't know the FSB yet. Probably going to debut at about 2.3 to 2.5GHz.
I agree that the Start menu in Windows is set up terribly initially. But configuring it is pretty easy. First, you switch to the Classic style if you're in XP and then you make folders in the Start Menu folder that are categorized, like the ones in Gnome and KDE are. Then plant shortcuts to applications that fit each category in the category folders. The downside is that unlike Gnome or KDE, you manually have to put newly installed apps' shortcuts in the right folder, it's not done automatically.
My university did just that and made it a group policy, so all machines on the IATS network have all of the apps sorted according to usage: office, graphics, mathematics, statistics, drafting, etc. It sure made it a lot easier. And since the machines are all centrally-controlled, new apps are put into the right folder once on the server(s) and then all of the machines are updated.
Doing ANYTHING is painful over dial-up. I know- I had to use dial-up for years and years because there wasn't any broadband service in my neck of the woods. It wasn't until I moved that I got to use a good connection for the first time. APT works great if you have a good Internet connection, something like a 512K DSL should be enough if you're patient. But I'd get a distribution with huge amounts of packages on the install disks shipped to you (such as SuSE, which is what I used) if you're on dial-up.
What kind of Gateway nut roaster do you have? Although my 2002-vintage 15.7" 600YG2 does run hot when it runs at full roar (about 65 C at 2.2GHz), it's more of a nut squisher than a nut roaster as it weighs 8.6 pounds.
But it does get a little over 3 hours battery life. Your battery must be going out or you have a crappy Celery with no CPU freq scaling.
Yonah is a 32-bit chip and Intel's last 32-bit consumer-computer chip. There will be a 64-bit mobile CPU late this year called Merom. It will be dual core as Yonah is but will have a 14-stage pipeline vs. a 12-stage one in Yonah. The L2 cache will be 2x2MB vs. 2x1MB and there will be more FPUs added to the cores to help out in math-heavy apps. It will be a 479-pin chip like Yonah as well as Dothan was, but the pinout will be different and it will probably use the 975 series chipset, not the 945 that ships with the Yonahs.
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I'll tell you a few things:
1. You must not have looked at the Gateway web site, under "Notebooks." Third from the left, with a big red "NEW Dual Core Mobility" over it, is the model I mentioned, the NX560XL. It has a dual-core Yonah Core Duo chip JUST LIKE THE MAC.
2. First of all, this is a 15.4" computer with a single-core chip and you're trying to compare it to a 17" dual-core unit. Not a good comparision.
3. The Dell comes with a very expensive ISV support contract because it's NOT A CONSUMER PRODUCT like the Gateway and Apple.
The Gateway comes with a firewire port too.
It would be much more like comparing a VW Passat to the Audi A6 than a Kia to a Mercedes as the mechanicals are made by the same firm (Volkswagen AG.) The Audi has a better nameplate and is outfitted a little nicer, but both are mechanically and physically similar. You're just paying more for a little cachet and a little nicer package.
P.S. You can get movie editors, office suites, DVD authoring software, compilers, IDEs, and such for free. Look at what's included in a Linux distribution or at SourceForge for the Windows ports/versions of those programs.
I looked here: http://gateway.com/products/GConfig/proddetails.as p?system_id=nx560xl&seg=hm.
Okay, I'll play that game too.
1. OS X is UNIX-based, so we'll install a UNIX-based OS on the Gateway instead of XP Pro. One of my favorites is SuSE, and you can download it for the cost of one DVD-R/DL or five CD-Rs.
2. iWork '06 is not MS Office, which is also available for the Mac. That costs extra. The Gateway comes with MS Works, and that is more equivalent to iWork than MS Office is. Also, you can get Open Office, which is more than equal to Works/iWork for free.
3. Apple either expects people to go immediately buy another matching stick of DDR2-667 or they are not too bright. The Intel 945 chipset supports dual-channel RAM, so that's why you see very few single-module setups (i.e. the 2x256 and 2x512 configurations for the DDR2-667 in the Gateway.)
4. The hard drives are the same: 80GB, 5400rpm SATA.
5. The Gateway has an 8x DVD burner as opposed to the Apple's 4x one. How is that upgraded? Because it loads from a slot and not a tray?
6. You can get a faster Core Duo chip in the Gateway than you can in ANY MacBook.
7. The Mac has a little nicer screen and a GPU that is a teeny bit better. And it has Bluetooth. You can get a $50 Bluetooth module for the Gateway if you wanted one. And webcams are pretty inexpensive too.
So even with a camera and Bluetooh module, you'd still save about $450 over the MacBook. Face it, there's a stiff premium to run OS X and for the Apple name.
I just looked around for 15.4" dual-core notebooks. Gateway had one, so I ran the prices on it. I could have compared Dell's 17" new dual-core laptop to the 17" MacBook also. My point was just to illustrate the price difference.
That's 100% true. I wonder how many people will pay $500+ to run MacOS though?
Xen does not work with Windows yet. See the Xen FAQ.
Yeah, I have actually used one. It was one of the grayscale ones, a 230 if I remember. It slid into a dock underneath of another Mac. The funny thing was that only one could run at any one time- the laptop had to be in the dock for the desktop to run.
You can put Linux or BSD on a much cheaper Dell, Gateway, HP, or other laptop when they become available in the next few weeks. Then you'll have UNIX on a dual-core laptop and an extra ~$500 in your pocket.
Also, not to knock OS X as I do have a good respect for the OS, but it is as much a UNIX distribution as Windows 98 was a DOS version. It is based on it, but it is not "all there" if you want to do real UNIX work. I know- I have tried. There are very limited UNIX-type tools included, such as there is no gcc, make, and X11. And it is a lot geekier to run something like Gentoo where there is a lot of work to be done and you have to have at least some "geek skills" to get it up and running. OS X is a pop-in-the-disk-and-it-runs, which is good, but not very geeky.
ATI has made recent strides with their fglrx package. I got their latest one to install correctly today on my ancient 4x AGP 64MB Radeon Mobility M9000. This was the very first time that the driver actually worked. Before, it had just killed X and once I manage to get X back up, the DRI is off and the stock Radeon driver works like crap where it had been at least passable before. And the installer has improved a great deal, at least in the fact that it automatically can create a specific install .rpm or .deb for most distros and it will also compile & insmod the right kernel modules for your Xorg/XFree86 version and kernel.
I bet it would run as a guest OS unless there are DRM chip problems. You can run any OS that is of your same architecture in VMware, and you can use stuff like Bochs and QEMU to emulate other architectures. But for now, the host has to be either Windows (NT-based) or Linux (2.4.x or better).
Look on the Gateway website at the NX560XL. It has the dual-core chip and I ran the specs on one similar to the 15.4" MacBook Pro and it was a little over $1500.
It's pretty expensive, to tell you the truth. I ran the specs on a Gateway NX560XL that is set up very similarly to the 15.4" MacBook Pro and got a price of $1454.99. The only differences are that you can't get a single 512MB DDR2-667 module in the Gateway (2x256 is available as is 2x512, 2x1GB) and the GPU is a 128MB ATI X1400 vs. the 128MB X1600 in the Mac. Otherwise they are the same- same HDD, same optical drive, same CPU, same chipset.
I dunno but for the extra ~$550, I could get a much faster laptop than the MacBook *or* I could get the Gateway and have the money in my pocket. Many speculated as to the actual Apple premium, but they couldn't directly compare the PPC Apples to the x86 notebooks. Now we can and the premium is at least $550. I would have guessed it would be $200 to $300, but now we know for sure.
Yeah, I am looking for the same thing. My old P4-M Gateway is getting long in the teeth and is needing to be replaced. I have heard rumors about a dual-core Turion 64, code-named Taylor, but it's release is expected to be in "2006." That's all I have seen except that it might run on a new 600-some-odd pin socket. Nobody's even sure as to if it's going to be a 65nm or 95nm chip. I guess AMD is taking a page out of Apple's book- no info about a future product until it comes out.
Hear, hear. I generally make it a rule to not compile anything that has a source much bigger than a few MB as it takes forever. I hunt down RPMs if at all possible if it's something big. (My rig is a Pentium 4 2.2GHz, 845MP chipset, 2x512 DDR266 running SuSE 10.0) Compiling a recent 2.6 series kernel and modules takes about 75 minutes, what does it take on your Gentoo box?
I tend to buy Intel processors because I have to use a laptop. A few years ago, almost no laptops (and I mean *laptop*, not a 10-pound portable desktop)had AMD chips in them. With the relatively recent introduction of the Turion 64s, there have been a few more, but they are still few and far between.
Let's hope that AMD gets real popular here when Vista comes out. If a bunch of people's AMD computers lack the TPM DRM chips and HDCP and can't play media, like hell they're going to buy a new computer just to play a song or a DVD. They just won't buy the song or DVD...and the DRM crap will abate for a while.
Now I'm not for pirating, but a lot of the DRM crap gets in the way of legitimate use, such as making a backup copy of discs so you don't have to buy another when they get scratched, ripping CDs to play from your hard drive, or even reinstalling applications that require activation or key codes.
It's called the Conroe. 65nm dual core, 64 bits, ~14-stage pipeline, based on the Core Duo laptop chip architecture- NO MORE NETBURST!, 2x2MB L2 cache, don't know the FSB yet. Probably going to debut at about 2.3 to 2.5GHz.
For some strange reason, I'd not expect AMDZone to have a completely unbiased view on the AMD chip.
That's frikkin hilarious! And also why I never buy or sell on Ebay!
I agree that the Start menu in Windows is set up terribly initially. But configuring it is pretty easy. First, you switch to the Classic style if you're in XP and then you make folders in the Start Menu folder that are categorized, like the ones in Gnome and KDE are. Then plant shortcuts to applications that fit each category in the category folders. The downside is that unlike Gnome or KDE, you manually have to put newly installed apps' shortcuts in the right folder, it's not done automatically.
My university did just that and made it a group policy, so all machines on the IATS network have all of the apps sorted according to usage: office, graphics, mathematics, statistics, drafting, etc. It sure made it a lot easier. And since the machines are all centrally-controlled, new apps are put into the right folder once on the server(s) and then all of the machines are updated.
Doing ANYTHING is painful over dial-up. I know- I had to use dial-up for years and years because there wasn't any broadband service in my neck of the woods. It wasn't until I moved that I got to use a good connection for the first time. APT works great if you have a good Internet connection, something like a 512K DSL should be enough if you're patient. But I'd get a distribution with huge amounts of packages on the install disks shipped to you (such as SuSE, which is what I used) if you're on dial-up.
What kind of Gateway nut roaster do you have? Although my 2002-vintage 15.7" 600YG2 does run hot when it runs at full roar (about 65 C at 2.2GHz), it's more of a nut squisher than a nut roaster as it weighs 8.6 pounds.
But it does get a little over 3 hours battery life. Your battery must be going out or you have a crappy Celery with no CPU freq scaling.
Yonah is a 32-bit chip and Intel's last 32-bit consumer-computer chip. There will be a 64-bit mobile CPU late this year called Merom. It will be dual core as Yonah is but will have a 14-stage pipeline vs. a 12-stage one in Yonah. The L2 cache will be 2x2MB vs. 2x1MB and there will be more FPUs added to the cores to help out in math-heavy apps. It will be a 479-pin chip like Yonah as well as Dothan was, but the pinout will be different and it will probably use the 975 series chipset, not the 945 that ships with the Yonahs.