Apple Powerbook G4 - Review - Page 7

Ein deutsch sprechender Kanadier? Huhu!

Hi, I am new to this forum, and I just wanted to reply to this common tale of windows vs mac thing. I just don't really understand why people always start arguing about this topic. It is like talking about politics, no one has really tried the other side. It just seems to me that it is obvious that the people who defend windows have never really used, or learned how to use another operating system (ie: freebsd, linux, os x). I do IT for many corporations in down town san francisco, and am constantly maintaining windows-run servers and such. I grew up in the pc revoltion and therefore learned about computers using windows. I was a windows lover, but unfortunatley i thought i knew it all when i had really not tried anything else. My ignorance was bliss at that time, up until I started college to become a computer scientist and discovered unix-flavored os's. I am currently a mac user, running debian linux and mac os x. I am not going to argue why in my opinion these are far better operating systems than windows, because it is useless. I am not here to convert anyone or praise the open source movment. I just wish that before people started bragging about why pc's are better and defending the wintel-world, they would at least give a chance to try new things. As to why I use macs: I believe apple uses superior hardware and superior software than it's windows counter-parts. proving this with benchmarks is rather hard, because they are two completeley different architectures, and it is hard to compare software that it is written for one platform and then ported to the other. ie: you cannot compare the click speed of microsoft word on the mac against that of microsoft word on windows. It will obviously be that the windows version seems faster because it was written for windows. The mac version of office was ported from c++ and wrapped into cocoa to work on the mac. It works splendid, but it is obviously different. the same with let's say itunes. it is obvious that itunes will run better on the mac because of the same reasons explained above. I've always liked to say that the best way to test processor performance is by testing video codecs, or compiling software. on both of these tests, powerpc risc processors prove to be far more efficient than their intel-cisc counterparts. this is because the risc architecture was designed to improve where cisc failed. Not that cisc processors are bad, they are very good processors, but they are almost a thing of the past. risc processors were designed so that they had a reduced instrution sec that allowed the processor to perform more processes per cycle, or to be exact, one process per-cycle. On cisc processors (intel, amd...) their complex instruction set makes it easier for low level programmers to write compilers (these are basic programs that take high level code and process them to turn them into machine code) but it makes the processor rather bulky in size and high on power consumption. Not only that, but it also takes more than one cycle to complete a process. Not that this is necessarily bad, because intel has managed to accelerate the speed at which these processors cycle (ie: their ghz speeds) so both types of processors are always pretty much at the same performance. I only like risc more, because of the fact that they are smaller in size, consume a lot less power, and therefore generate far less heat than cisc processors. That is why apple is able to make such compact and rather noise-less computers (ie:mac mini, g4 cube, powerbooks).

Sorry for the long thread, but my point basically is that it doesn't really matter whether you use wintel computers, linux, bsd, or os x, as long as you are happy with what you have. Us, the mac users, switched because we were sick of the way windows operates. Microfost, being the #1 software company in the world, has the capital to create the best performing operating system in the world. I got mad at them because they never deliver. they are slow at their upgrades and not very efficient at it. I believe that windows is an operating system that is not nearly as stable as a unix flavor, nor nearly as secure. If you ever wonder, just get a mac for a couple of weeks as your personal computer and try multitasking on it. not that you can't on windows, but believe me, it is not the same. The way apple implements their core audio and core video api's are far more sofisticated than anything windows will try to do. Look at the special effects the operating syste(os x) is able to do. they are amazing. I care a lot about video, audio, and unix (their command line tools) so for me, os x is perfect. If you are a gamer, I grant that most games are written for pc's therefore you don't really have any other option. But let me tell you, that I've played several of the top games on a g5 and it has nothing to envy to any windows computer running any games.

There is really nothing on a pc that you can't do on a mac. It's just that the way you do things on a mac feels better. It's just a classier way of using a computer. nothing more, and nothing less

That statement would be true if you wrote it about 6 years ago. You need to read up on OS X.

I have a 17" Powerbook and am getting a baby T250 Sony Viao. Why? Because Apple has no offerings for 12" screen and under with PCMCIA slots in a notebook. I need the slot because I want to use a Verizon PC5220 card for unlimited broadband access without routers or base stations anywhere; in my car or at the park. I can use it with my 17" but something smaller would be ideal.

I loved Windows 2000 before switching to Macs. Windows 98 was a pain and Windows ME was an abomination. I have Windows XP at my job and it works well. I don't see any problems with present day Windows world besides viruses, and I am hoping there will not be a huge problem there. Incidently my last 3 Powerbooks have had no virus protection for the last 3 years.

My dual OS philosophy is driven by my passion for laptops, new technology (like XBRITE screens) and the anticipation of learning new things about that which intrigues me, be it Windows or Mac. In short I am having fun with my Mac and look forward to working with my 10.6" widescreen Sony Vaio. That said, my thinking is that in order to be more knowledgeable and well rounded it is prudent to get familiar wit has many operating systems as possible, and having fun with them helps. I would know virtually nothing about computers today if I did not love learning more and more about my toys.

What about a bluetooth solution?

Though indeed Apple is missing a very light slimmed down travel notebook in the lineup. The last attempt was the Powerbook Duo. Hard to say if they will attempt similar again, especially to compete in Japan.

Drakino, do they have BT solutions with Broadband? I know Verizon has just come out with some new phones with Broadband. I am sort of new to the internet access anywhere field and was not aware that a cell phone with BT could get my laptop on the net.

My GSM standard Bluetooth phone lets me connect at the maximum rate my provider provides, 56k via GPRS. Cingular is aparently running GPRS at 150-300k and phones are able to handle that as well.

I'm not sure how it works exactly on Sprint or Verizon, but it should be similar.

For me to connect on my Powerbook, I do some configuration in Internet Connect and hit connect. The bluetooth indicator switches over to in use, and the phone pops up a GPRS indicator.

Just wanted to say that this thread sucks. It supposed to be a Mac Powerbook review and most of you killed it.
I'm about to take my next Mac --> powerbook and i wanted to know more about the product from this "review" but..

If you want to argue post in another section ppl.

Thank you very much in advance.

Well said Lykos.

Ive owned both the power book and various PC's. Let me just say for starters that the Mac O/S is hands down the better O/S between any windows O/S and the OSX macs. Although more software is available for the PC I would also like to mention there are more Chevy Cavaliers on the road but it doesnt really make it a better car then say a Porsche 911.
Ive never had a Mac operating system every lock up, fail, crash etc. Its a true 64 bit O/S vs the 32 bit Windows. There is just no contest with the O/S.
Now on the other hand the power book doesnt come with a 128 meg Vid card unless you get the 17 inch model. I think thats just crap. I also dont like the way Apple keeps all the new products a secret. I paid almost 4 grand for my Titanium powerbook and 45 days later the price dropped 1k bucks and they introduced a faster comp for less. Now I know computers constantly upgrade but I asked the apple salesman if this would be current for a while and he said oh yes its a new product.
While I liked the comp I just didnt get what i needed for the money. It couldnt even play Halo without getting too hot to hold and frame rates were crap. All from a nearly 4k dollar notebook. Also cant upgrade the vid card or mod it etc.
The PC definatly gives you the most for your money as far as performance.
The apple was just dead sexy too look at and the O/S just beautiful and easy to use with no glitches.
There are so many other reasons to love a Apple computer but gaming isnt one of them. If your a gamer you have little use for a Mac. Both comps have thier strong suits. If I could combine the ups of the mac with the ups of the PC I would be in total heaven.
Anything audio Visual and I would want the mac over the PC. For Gaming its gotta be a PC all the way.

when you go to the apple store website you can get a 15" powerbook with a 128mb video card. i ordered one. you have to choose the 15" with the superdrive. you just have to select it from a drop down box. i didnt see it at first but my sister found it for me. its 100$ extra for the 128mb card. anyways, you can get radeon 9700 with 128mb of ram.

I had this problem on my 17 inch powerbook...in the configuration turn lens flares down to the lowest setting.

thats good info. they should show it on thier site they could sell more of them

They do

Umm...

They do state that on their website.

http://www.apple.com/powerbook/index15.html

That's the page for the 15" Powerbook. Read where it talks about the video card.

Yes, well said...
is this a 12inch powerbook we are talking about from post one? as I am interested in a 12inch powerbook or a Sony s260.....thanks

Would you like fries with that?

Of course you got a nice box. Thats what you spent the extra $1000 on right?

heheh sorry. I don't want to make the argument worse.

I have to say though, being Irish I am painfully aware of "rip off" culture.

Back in the days (late 80's) when I got into computers, PC compatibles were only starting out and Macs were in the game too.

After several years I really appreciated the selfless way IBM opened their architecture. It was probably the first big break that the PC got over the Mac. In the Blue corner you had the PC with crappy MS DOS in the free market where competition could drive the price of hardware down. In the red corner you had the Mac with the great user friendly OS but in the totally controlled market.

I remember a friend's Mac Floppy drive broke and it cost him IR£300 to get it fixed. That same time a replacement PC drive (likely by the same manufacturer cost about IR£90) hehehehe That crack me up. He wasn't so bullish about his mac after that!

The second big break of course was Windows. Love it or hate it, it was a necessary evil. It brought PCs into the user friendly point and click world and out of the DOS box, and geeky console windows!

Today.... there are Intel / AMD PCs and Notebooks in the free world and Macs in the still overpriced elitist world.

Mac? No Thankyou. Let them rot in hell. The only reason they are still clinging on to existence is the fact that they did adopt a windows compatible interface to allow windows software to run on their boxes. Clever but still doesn't justify them being around.

IPod & ITunes? That is not just their latest success. That is their only future!

Do yourself a favour and remember that the processor speeds double every 18 months. Its not worth paying well over the odds for 10 year durability when the machine would be obsolete after just 3!

Do you know anything about computers at all, wobbie?

First off: IBM did no such thing. The only reason PCs are so prevalent today is because Compaq reverse engineered the IBM BIOS and made their own clone PC. If that hadn't happened, PCs would be just as much a closed architecture as Macs.

Also, back in the day, Macs used custom made hardware, which is why your friend's floppy drive cost so much.

Windows was a complete rip off of Mac OS and the only reason it has survived is because Apple gave MS a very broad software licence with lots of exploitable loopholes. Otherwise, Windows would have been killed in it's infancy.

Macs are quite competitively priced if you compare models and features, and if you don't think there are elitist PC users (yourself for example) you're sorely mistaken.

Windows software cannot, and has never been able to run on a Macintosh. Macs are still around because they are rock solid, well built machines, that were doing what Windows 95 did in 1984. And now, today with OS X they're even better. OS X brings a fully compatible Unix system to the desktop—something no company has ever been able to do before. Even in it's current incarnation OS X has several more features than Windows, and when Tiger comes out it will be everything that Longhorn was supposed to be and more.

If it's not worth paying a premium for a machine that's going to be obsolete in 3 years, then why are there people here paying 3, 4, 5 thousand dollars for laptops? The most expensive Mac laptop tops off at 2700 dollars. And Mac hardware does not become obsolete as fast as PC hardware does...there are people out there still using 10 year old Macs for high end production work; can you say the same about a 10 year old PC?

Do some research before you open your mouth.

And of course IBM was really upset about this, but leglly they couldn't do a thing. Compaq started the open PC market that exists today, and once they started it, many others followed. The only reason it was so easy to clone an IBM box was because they felt great pressure from Apple (with the Apple II), and rushed a product to markey. One that wasn't an IBM box, but some contraption cobbled togther from parts from other companies. Intel for the CPU, and such.

And of course, let us not forget IBM's attempts to close the PC market again, with the introduction of the PS/2 and Microchannel. Thankfully the PC vendors outside IBM were big enough at that point to start introducing open standards like PCI for expansion.

And if Microsoft hadn't decided to break their contract with IBM, we would have been using OS/2 on PCs. Sadly, Microsoft broke ties with IBM, users got stuck witht he crappy Windows 3.1 and 95/98/ME. Finally the OS/2 roots showed again in the consumer space when Microsoft marketed XP to the consumer. NT is basicially a continuation of the work started in OS/2, with some VMS developers helping to bring things up to speed. Basicially, all Microsoft did when they broke their contract was to slow down the consumer market, not accelerate it or help it in any way. But they though they knew what they were doing, and got away with their mistake due to illegal contracts with PC makers.

Oh, and processor speeds do not double every 18 months. Moores law states our manufacturing capabilities will allow transistor counts on chips to double every 18 months. It takes a lot more work to double the clock speed, and do so in a way that means double peformance. We have the P4 3.8 now, 18 months back we had the P4 3.2. Definitly not a doubling by any means.

And yeah, the windows compatible interface is funny. The Mac has a program called Virtual PC that allows me to run Windows in a box, the same as Virtual PC or VMWare on the PC. In my daily work on a Mac at a majo fortune 500 company, I don't depend on Virtual PC for anything. The great thing about a modern office these days is that everything is done over a network. As long as I can browse a web page, use Citrix, e-mail, access LDAP, and access file shares of multiple types, I can get my work done. And due to the features and stability od OS X, I can get work done better then I can on a Windows box. In fact, my usage of a Mac when everyone else around uses a PC has gotten several people to look at the platform. Already 4 of my team members now have an Apple portable, and others are considering it. The Unix platform appeals to some, to others the simplicity of getting things done appeals to them. The biggest scam Microsoft ever pulled on PC users is convincing them that to get anything powerful done, it has to be complex. OS X offers powerful ways of getting things done without being tedious for no good reason.

But hey, feel free to keep beliving the wrong things about the Mac platform. Let me know how you like Longhorn with Service Pack 1 around 2007, since by then you will have a sample of the features I use on a daily basis now.

Oh.

Why would two products that make much less profit then their desktop/portables be their only future? All indications are that Apple hardware sales across the board are on the rise. I would dare say the Mac Mini is their future, as it provides a cheep way for those happy with their iPod experience to look at the entire platform. From there, those people might get an iBook or Powerbook, or even a more powerful desktop like the iMac. We will have to wait another few months to see how the Mini sales affect the bottom line at Apple. But all signs thus far are pointing to another nice jump in profits. Apple still remains one of the only computer hardware companies with no debts, and billions in the bank in cash (around 6 billion at last count). With that kind of cash, Apple could just outright buy some interesting things. And thats not even factoring in the buying power their stock price commands in the market these days. But hey, it is all about the iTunes music Apple sees little profit on, and the iPod sales aparently. (For the record, I believe that cash reserve was around 4 billion when the iPod first shipped. The iPod has helped it grow, but so has the hardware sales in other areas)

this guy has got to be the biggest idiot, he just said processors double every 18months, so if your computer is 19months old it is obselete, what a moron. i bet he's jealous bc he can't afford a powerbook....poor baby.

That seems to make sense but then, as Kakaze pointed out

Top off or start off?Customize the 17" PB

I am still waiting for someone to answer my question though. Were they talking about a 12inch PB from post #1? I am deciding between either a 12inch PB and a 12inch ibook. Sorry if I missed it.