new powerbooks & ibooks
 

if anyone has not noticed yet, apple released new powerbooks & ibooks today!

12.1" iBook G4 @ 1.0GHz, 256MB RAM, Combo Drive. $1099
14.1" iBook G4 @ 1.0GHz, 256MB RAM, Combo Drive. $1299
14.1" iBook G4 @ 1.2GHz, 256MB RAM, Combo Drive. $1499

12.1" PowerBook G4 @ 1.33GHz, 256MB RAM, Combo drive. $1599
12.1" PowerBook G4 @ 1.33GHz, 256MB RAM, SuperDrive. $1799
15.2" PowerBook G4 @ 1.33GHz, 256MB RAM, Combo Drive. $1999
15.2" PowerBook G4 @ 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, SuperDrive. $2499
17" PowerBook G4 @ 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, SuperDrive. $2799

(specs courtesy of macrumors)

Those are great specs and prices!

I wonder if they're maxing out on G4 speeds for the PowerBooks? There hasn't been much of an increase for some time now.

Guess this settles for now the question of G5 PowerBooks.

Damnit. And I just got a 15" AlPB a month ago.

Never look back, Yellow, never look back.

I think what they want to do is blow out as many G4s as possible before they start announcing the G5s. Yellow, if you got a G4 now, you would probably kick yourself when the G5s come out. You have a great laptop--relish it.

yeah, i bought a RevB 17" a few weeks after they first came out, so i don't feel so bad since it's been awhile, but it would be nice to have the faster processor, better video card (& up to 128MB) and faster RAM ...

i just have to convince the wife that she wants my 17" (instead of the 12" she wants) then I can upgrade :)

i do love my PB tho!

Yellow, you have a much better laptop than my old cranky iBook 500. I envy you. ;-) But fortunately I also have a much faster G4DP

Don't be so sure ;)

Another cycle for my WallStreet, I guess. I should have the darn thing bronzed when I finally retire it. This thing has had legs like nothing since the Mac Plus.

But when the G5 (or dual G5, please please) PowerBooks make their debut, I'm getting one.

Hate to be a negative-nick, but I doubt it. However, never underestimate the pull that the media has with Apple. They want PowerBooks they can use on location and they need lots of power. If IBM can solve the heat problem well enough, your dream may come true. And that would be good for all of us.

Personally, what is stopping them from making a dual G4 laptop? Hmmm

Same problem.. heat. Plus space.

Really? I thought the G4s ran cooler.

Wouldn't it be great to develop a liquid-cooling device that circulates via heat? I always thought the CPUs should be moved to behind the LCDs for better heat-sync convection. But that would increase the width of the lid.

Another idea would be a dock that would contain another CPU. When you go portable, you are single, when you dock, you are dual. I love problem solving, I think it is fun to throw out bizarre ideas to see what can actually fly.

Definitely cooler then a G5, yep. But G4 Powerbooks get pretty darned hot. Assuming there was space for it, throw another CPU in there. WOW. Hot diggity. If any formfactor supported it, it would probably be the 17". That should have room for 2 CPUs and the extra fannage required to keep it from melting.
But then you must ask yourself, if you need that much computing power, shouldn't you be relying on a desktop machine? But is that just a product of old school thinking? Couldn't a laptop with that much raw computing power supplant the slower dual-CPU desktops? Making power portable. A true POWERbook. [shrug] It'd be retardly expensive.

The Dual G5 PowerBook thing:
 

• The Energy Saver PrefsPane would presumably disable one of the processors under battery power

• Yes, they need to handle the heat. Well, if we start with the assumption that only one CPU is going to be in use when it's actually being used as a mobile computer, it opens up possibilities. Like vents and heat-dissipators that aren't limited to the base form factor. A challenge, sure, but it should be easier to get a pair of G5s to run in a laptop than to get a pair of P-6 or Athlons to do so.

• Apple needs to understand that while there are users who select PowerBooks in order to do mobile computing, there are also many users who select PowerBooks in order to have their one and only computer be where they are at regardless of where they are at. I'm typing this on an Extended ADB with a mouse off to the side; I'm staring at a Sony E500 20"; the browser I'm running is installed to the external FireWire drive. Sound like "portable computing"? But my Mac is a WallStreet, it's TFT providing second-monitor services. It takes me awhile to pack all this stuff up (and you wouldn't believe what all I've got crammed into my poor Targus case), but once I set up I'm on a real computer, not a mobile compromise. If Apple makes a dual G5 PowerBook available that has no CDROM drive or battery (cuz the space is taken up by fancy fans), that sounds good to me. Get the price under 5 grand and I am so there with my order!

• If they can't do it this year, let's assume the whatchamacallit, the micron process, the fine-ness with which the CPUs are made, will drop, as it usually does, making for a smaller, cooler processor that draws less electricity. Considering, as I mentioned above, that a full-fledged WinTel dual-CPU laptop would be a much more difficult accomplishment, and how thoroughly a dual-G5 PowerBook would therefore thrash any other laptop, them's a lot of bragging rights.

Good stuff Yellow and AHunter,

Yellow. More professionals are going mobile for many of the reasons AHunter stated. My thought is that many media people are starting to process and edit their features on the road. Hollywood is using video now to view the last scene they shot to get immediate feedback. Soon they will have editors editing rough dailies to watch many of the scenes together to see if it "works". They will do this in portable editing trailers and the dailies will be sent via Airport to the director's laptop when completed. If the director is satisfied, they tear down for the next day's shooting. My brother does video in Morocco and he had to wait until he was home (usually one week later) before he could work with his video takes. Now he has an AL-book and can do his editing and viewing that evening (as well as many other tasks).
How about professional musicians on the road? I would hate to be stuck on a bus without a good laptop. There are more and more reasons why people are going laptop. For companies that a set location, a tower or xServe cluster will do just fine.

I actually took advantage of an opportunity at work (they were looking for a cheaper Mac laptop for one of our techies) and upgraded to the new 12" machine -- for a net cost of about $400, it was hard to decline :).

The main reason I wanted the new laptop (the "older" machine was a first-generation 12") was the 64mb of VRAM and the DVI out -- I run a second screen at work, and with 32mb in the first gen PB, it was pretty slow at scrolling and resizing. The new one is *much* faster in this regard. The rest of the system seems a bit quicker (its XBench score was about 25% higher than the 1st Gen machine), but not "night and day" quicker.

And yes, I already have it and am using it -- they had them in stock at the Apple store on Monday. Amazing...

-rob.

Dumping the heat is a big issue with pushing portables to better performance, but the even bigger issue is batteries. Portables are bumping hard against the current limits as it is without an obvious roadtested technology in sight to take over. Mobile phone manufacturers have the same problem.

So I think for the immediate future high performance portables = high power consumption portables. Still, if it's portable that something even if you have to plug it in to use it. :)

Fans and the like are at their limits now too. Any future improvement to cooling is going to require more power (liquid cooling, peltier effect, etc.) which puts even more pressure on the batteries - so it's all in the batteries. Lick that and only peoples' wallets are the limit.

Excellent point.

If I had a portable editing bay on location, I would have an external source of power (ie a large battery pack). The problem is not just with cell phones, it is with videocams as well. There are great strides being made in battery technology and it is exciting to watch. Some are even trying to harness the hydrogen approach.

Yes, but lugging a desktop tower and display? For those who give remote demonstrations, carting a desktop machine and storing it in the overhead compartment of the plane is not where it's at. At least more airlines are providing portable power sources.

I agree with your thoughtful points, but power is not a deal breaker with me as long as I have a cigarette lighter plug available to me. It is far easier to deal with finding power sources than it is to cart a G5 tower about.

Since I've already got my G4 (833 MHz) 12" PB, maxed out at 640MB Ram, I'm not going to buy another.

But, is there any way to break the 640MB RAM barrier? I frequently run many open apps, and occasionally bog down the OS.

THX!

GS

MacTracker says a 12" Powerbook 867 will take a 1GB RAM chip, even though Apple does not recommend it.

Yeah, I saw that too (thanks for the correction -- it's 867MHz), but I can't seem to find a reseller that will sell me a larger memory chip than the standard 512MB, which is what I've already got in the PB.

GS

http://www.ramjet.com/pbg4.asp
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgr...=Show+Upgrades

Here's two..

Mac Solutions
http://store.macsolutions.com/pgi-Cu...,1,=,pbg4512as
1 Gig chip for your PowerBook $359