# Whooopieeee - a glorified iBook



## pbmac (Jan 22, 2003)

Whoooppppiiiii!!! The PowerBook 12" is a glorified iBook!!!! Whooooooppppiiiii!!!!!! So what will the next iBook be? a slow model of the powerbook with no other differences (hmm... I guess without a PCMCIA slot)... 

For me,... the iBook is by far a better deal - same casing (almost) as the PowerBook 12" with just a bit less power - on the raod that makes almost no difference though...

what do you think?

- pbmac


----------



## dlloyd (Jan 22, 2003)

More battery life on the iBook! Yes!
I don't think I would trade my 14" iBook for a Powerbook, even if I could. It has _real_  battery life of about about 4.5 hours. Show me another latop of ANY kind which can match that!


----------



## kenny (Jan 22, 2003)

What do I think?

I think the G3 is dead.
I think it's high time for another great small PowerBook (I had a 2400 @ one time - very cool).
I think that the iBook will disappear within 2 years.
I think that's not a bad thing.
I think that the spot in the product matrix that the iBook holds will be filled with the 12" alBook.
I think that's a good thing.
I think that the 14" ibook is an albatross.
I think I might upset some people with that statment.. 
I think that I want one (and a 17" too  )
I think built-in Bluetooth is cool (I have a T68i)
I think one should buy whatever fits their needs best.
I think I'm done.




BTW, the spec sheet claims up to 5 hours on a charge. Even if it's 4, having a G4 along instead of a G3 makes up for it. Or at least I think so.

So, yeah, it's a glorified iBook. But, so what? It's a big improvement. And the price will come down over time. I don't remember this kind of griping when the new iMacs were introduced.


----------



## contoursvt (Jan 22, 2003)

Fujitsu Lifebook (P1100 model I think) has about 5 hours on the standard battery or 10 hours on a high capacity one. Its not a mac but batterylife is great.

http://www.fujitsu.ca/products/notebooks/lifebook_p_series/p1110.html


----------



## fryke (Jan 23, 2003)

If you compare the 12" iBook next to the 12" PowerBook, the iBook's a fat old lady.


----------



## Cat (Jan 23, 2003)

> If you compare the 12" iBook next to the 12" PowerBook, the iBook's a fat old lady.



 *grin* 

There is definitely an advantage to the 12" over the iBook: the G4. Even if you're not a heavy photoshop user, OS X itself should run better on a G4 because it can make use of AltiVec for all the nice graphicalities of the GUI.

Moreover you don't need to hack it to use an extra monitor...


----------



## fryke (Jan 23, 2003)

i've noticed, though, that the graphics card of the iBook 800 is quite capable of quartz extreme, so interface speed is quite okay. the LAST argument about the extra monitor is true, though. my external TFT tells me to rather buy a 12" PowerBook than an iBook, as I don't like firmware hacks so much.


----------



## kendall (Jan 24, 2003)

The 12" PB has a very nice feel.  Its fit and finish is pretty nice as well.  It doesn't look near as elegant as the 15" though.  Especially when open.  The keyboard and inside plastic?? leave more to be desired.

It's hard to justify spending $500 more when comparing a 12" PB to a 12" iBook.  There is in no way $500 more there.  Sure its smaller when you look at zoomed-in hi-res pics online but at a glance side by side in person, its not really noticeable.  Kind of like the 22" and 23" Cinema Displays side by side.  

The updates are great but why couldn't they have used a different screen?  12.1" at 1024x768 is a hard sale next to 15.2" at 1280x854. 

Its a no brainer though spending another $500 for the 15".  Its a near perfect mix of size and portability.  Hopefully it will be updated soon and keep the same price margin.

As for being a glorified iBook, its hard to say.  Its smaller but shares almost an identical design with the iBook.  The insides are backwards though because its warm on the opposite side.  Its definitely _more_ than a iBook but I don't know about $500 more.


----------



## fryke (Jan 24, 2003)

Ah, the price... 

I, again, must say how good it is to have such a choice, so many options... Look at that again:

iBook 700 - 999$
iBook 800 - 1299$
iBook 14" 1 - 1499$
iBook 14" 2 - 1749$
PB12 Combo - 1799$
PB12 SuperDrive - 1999$
PB15 Combo - 2299$
PB15 SuperDrive - 2799$
PB17 - 3299$

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, this was what he fought against to bring Apple back to more profitable waters.

We need ONE 15" model that you can have BTO. ONE 12" and ONE 17". iBooks? Make it a 13" and forget about 12 and 14". Make it BTO.

That would make...

iB13 - from 999$ to 1600$
PB12 - from 1700 to 2300$
PB15 - from 2000 to 2800$
PB17 - from 2700 to 3200$

Then, I guess, I'd choose a PowerBook 12" with 1 GHz, SuperDrive and a nVidia go440 card.


----------



## Cat (Jan 24, 2003)

> It's hard to justify spending $500 more when comparing a 12" PB to a 12" iBook.


I'll give it a shot nonetheless. 

12" Al PB vs. 12" iBook
867 G4 vs 800 G3
Bluetooth onboard vs none
Airport Extreme vs Airport
133MHz Bus vs 100Mhz Bus
DDR vs SDRAM
ATA 100 vs ATA Ultra 66
GForce 4 420 32MB vs Radeon 7500 32MB
Slot-loading vs. tray
256MB RAM vs 128MB RAM
40GB vs 30 GB drive
Better Speakers (3 vs 2)
Smaller, Lighter
Stunning looks

To justify the higher price, look at what its shipped with: 256 vs 128 RAM and 40 GB vs. 30 GB. I intended to upgrade to 640 RAM and 40 GB anyhow, so that'll cost less with the PB. An iBook with 256 & 40 costs $ 150,- more, so the difference is not $ 500,- but $ 350,-. That can more easily be justified by all the HW extra's (like on-board BlueTooth, external monitor support without hacking) and design improvements (slot loading, 3 speakers, looks).

My own main reason to choose the 12" PB over the iBook is the increase in speed, following from the G4 & 133 MHz bus. Under OS X both should make for a noticeable increase. The DDR and ATA 100 give only a very marginal improvement in the current setup IIRC.

Smaller and lighter is very important to me too since I'm constantly lugging my laptop around, Every improvent in this sense, however small, does pay off.

Moreover (to whom it may concern) the 12" PB has a Combo drive with CD-R 24x  CD-RW 10x. The iBook contrariwise a Combo drive with CD-R 16x,  CD-RW 8x. They both read DVDs and CDs at the same speed (8x and 24x)

This also could account for a higher price. I think the price/performance is roughly equal for the two, which would justify spending more if you need / can afford more. More is more, isn't it? 

BTW. the PB has an audio-in jack port, the iBook supports only USB audio in IIRC.


----------



## kendall (Jan 26, 2003)

i've went and looked at the 12" PB 3 times now.  as much as i really want to like it, its no where as nice as the 15" TiBook.  i dunno.  i think i'll wait and see what the next iBook has because each time i check out the 12" PB, i like it less and less.


----------



## Meltdown (Jan 27, 2003)

The lack of L3 cache totally blows it for me. I do music apps and you wouldn't believe what a difference the L3 cache makes with those apps.
So i've gone for the 15"


----------



## phatsharpie (Jan 29, 2003)

> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *i've noticed, though, that the graphics card of the iBook 800 is quite capable of quartz extreme, so interface speed is quite okay. the LAST argument about the extra monitor is true, though. my external TFT tells me to rather buy a 12" PowerBook than an iBook, as I don't like firmware hacks so much. *



Just pointing out that Quartz Extreme doesn't accelerate the drawing of the content of windows. QE is accelerated composition of windows. So to actually draw the content of the windows into memory, the CPU is still being used (OS X does not use the GPU to do this). So if you have a G4, that process is optimized thanks to AltiVec. However, the iBook with Radeon-M can indeed compose those windows with QE (although you might run out of video memory pretty quick, depends on what you're displaying).

I've posted a link to the explanation of QE before, but I'll post it again. People tend to get confused about what QE does.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/02q3/macosx-10.2/macosx-10.2-8.html#qe


----------



## Cat (Jan 31, 2003)

That link explained a lot, thanks phatsharpie!

Does anyone happen to know how the above relates to the AltiVec processing unit? If it has a meaningful positive impact on the hardware acceleration in QE, that would be an argument for preferring the G4 PB over the G3 iB since you'll be running OS X full-time and the window server actually being an OpenGl app...


----------



## bigbadbill (Jan 31, 2003)

I think we now have more options when buying, I don't understand how that could be perceived as a bad thing.


----------

