New Powerbooks?

Yeah, I would like to know this as well. I'm close to buying the 12 or 15 inch, but don't want to drop down $2000 now and find out I could've had a G5 or dual-G4 for the same price.

there will probably be some type of a PB overhaul soon because it is long overdue. I expect it to have a better GPU more so than even a new cpu. There will be yet another total overhaul in 2006 when the intel PB will come out

If you need a laptop now and want one that's proven to work bug free, buy a PowerBook now.

If, if, a new PowerBook is launched at WWDC and it's not a G4 or Dual G4 PowerBook in the same basic configuration as current ones, you don't want to get a first revision anyway. When the G5 PowerBook eventually does come out, wait until the second revision at least before considering to buy one. Let them get all the bugs out first.

And if Apple is partnering with Intel for chips, it's most likely that Intel is going to be making PowerPC chips. They've supposedly paid the AIM Alliance for the licensing rights to the PPC architecture.

intel will not make a specific chip for a company that barley owns 5% of the market. They are seelign them the same exact chip as they would dell. Trust me intel does not have the time and moeny just to set a side a new project jsut o mkae apple happy sry it jsut does not go that way in the pc world. If Intel said that they were making ppc chip it would be alover the news cause unliek the apple world where eveything is a secret the pc world you know everthing what intel or amd is goign to make. There is no secrets.

Intel has been dying to get away from x86 for years now but they've never been successful. With all of the major console game systems moving to PPC based chips and Apple not being happy with IBM, Intel has a chance here to make some money by stepping in to take IBMs place as a supplier of PPC chips, first for Apple, and later on for other companies who want them.

If a major company wants to keep a secret it can keep a secret, don't be naïve and say there aren't any.

apple's using X86, the developer kits being shipped with P4 processors in them are x86. Transitives binary emulation technology is being used to facillitate the transition from PPC to x86. I don't really see Intel developing PPC chips.

Looks like the next generation Powerbooks will have Intel inside. The PM cpus are exactly what Apple needs. But since they are not using the Power PC chips anymore, will the Powerbooks be renamed to Intelbooks? PowerMac to IntelMac?

They were called PowerBooks before PowerPC. I think the PowerMac designation only came after the introduction of the iMac.

Hopefully there will be something before intel in 06. Apple's current powerbooks are woefully underspeced as it is.

Considering the Intel-Apple rumor has been bouncing around for a few years who knows, maybe Intel already has a PPC type chip in the works that hasn't been announced yet. At this point anything is possible...to quote Bill Murray in Ghostbusters; 'Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!"

IMHO, just an opposite, don't do it now because of Apple's platform change comming next year. It is not good investment now. If you need 17" notebook for gaming then PB is not your choice anyway.

Power-out-Intel-inside

The worst catastrophy would be to have those centrino stickers on your mac.

It is a good investment now because the change to Intel isn't going to happen over night, so all programmes coming out for several years will be PPC compatible...and by several years I mean at least for the next 5 to even 10 years as there is a HUGE base of installed PPC Macs.

And who the hell said anything about gaming?

First of all new Powerbooks are NOT overdue. The current Powerbooks were released the last day of January which means they are 4.5 months old. Considering the time between revisions has increased to approximately 8-9 months I'd say the current Powerbooks are in the middle of their revision.
When there are new Powerbooks released there will probably be a very minor processor upgrade with perhaps a video card upgrade. There will be nothing major until the first of the Intel Powerbooks which are not for at least another year if not longer. Some had predicted that Apple would release higher resolution displays for the 17" Powerbook at least but it didn't happen, Apple will probably wait until the next Powerbook revision since otherwise the upgrades won't be anything great.

i'd argue that they are coming due this month. they've typically been refreshed in january and june, and since the iBs didn't get their usual spring refresh it seems as if a significant refresh is in the works possibly for both models. it'd also be pretty suicidal for Apple to stop developing their machines and pushing for "significant" upgrades, particularly after the intel announcement. if they don't then it's more likely that if their PPC sales take it a hit, it'll be more damaging than if they had continued to push the platform. just because Apple is switching to x86 doesn't mean they won't keep developing OS X in tandem w/ the PPC platform. it's like saying that since MS released XP that security, browser, aaplication, and system updates wouldn't have been developed for Win 98/Me. you could likely buy a PPC Mac on the last day they're available and have all the support (OS patches and updates) you'd need for the life of the machine. windows 98, released in june of 98, officially had it's support dropped by MS in june of 2003. 5 years of offical support from the OS maker. if Apple does this for Mac users that means in 2007 when the powermacs r replaced u could put the 5 year marker starting point there, meaning support thru 2012. if u don't upgrade your system by then, you're likely a tinkerer who just likes to email and surf and u don't really care or even know about how to upgrade your OS. simply put, support at that point would be moot w/ such a user.

yea... itz been a LONG time since an ibook update... and apple did mention that the transition would be a gradual one... so i suppose it may have some revisions containing powerpc chips?

he he, I just noticed that mackies have added a bad reputation point to me because I spoke out my opinion here.

so im assuming that the consensus is that there will be a pb revision comin really really soon... can anyone estimate when this will be? Will it be in a week? A month? I am one of those people that need a notebook for college really soon but do not want to spend $2000 on something that will be updated shortly...