Think Secret Posts New iBook Specs

ensign pulver

Here they are. Processor bump only. No AirPort Extreme or internal bluetooth.



$999.00

12.1" w/ CD-ROM

800MHz PowerPC G3

512K L2 cache @800MHz

128MB SDRAM memory

20GB Ultra ATA drive

ATI Mobility Radeon 7500

16MB dedicated video memory

CD-ROM

Built-in 56K v.92 modem



$1,299.00

12.1" w/ Combo Drive

900MHz PowerPC G3

512K L2 cache @900MHz

128MB SDRAM memory

30GB Ultra ATA drive

ATI Mobility Radeon 7500

32MB dedicated video memory

Combo Drive

Built-in 56K v.92 modem



$1,499.00

14.1" w/ Combo Drive

900MHz PowerPC G3

512K L2 cache @900MHz

256MB SDRAM memory

30GB Ultra ATA drive

ATI Mobility Radeon 7500

32MB dedicated video memory

Combo Drive

Built-in 56K v.92 modem

jared

I think once we see the 970 in desktops, we will see a good upgrade to laptops since the speed will not be in so much competition.

amorph

If true, this gives us some indication about when we can expect the 7457: Six months from now, at the very earliest.



The iBook probably won't get, say, the 12" PowerBook's motherboard until the '57 can be dropped into it. It sure as heck isn't getting a 7445 or a 970!

stunned

128mb of ram is still way tooooooooooo little.

stagflation steve

The iBook as it exists today is going to be around for a very long time to come, they can speed bump it on a whim and make other incremental improvements as required.



Rumor has it IBM is sampling the 750FX at 1.2ghz these days

costique

This is a painless upgrade. As far as I can tell, just slightly faster CPUs and changing a couple of capacitors on the motherboard. It takes zero investment to do it. So all this means is just an attempt to sell iBooks as well as possible.

I suspect this may be a sign of PowerBooks' updates also coming. If ThinkSecret is right about confusion among customers who don't know the difference between G3 and G4, Apple is aware of that too. To better differentiate Power- from iBooks they can either bump CPU speeds in PB (not easily done with current G4s), change G4 in PB to some sort of G5 (be it PPC970, 7457 or whatever) or improve the feature set.

Where does it get us? I don't know. I may even be completely wrong.

frostymmb

I would think that if the mhz myth is the problem, they would want to bump the 12" PowerBook to 1 ghz and the iBook to 900 mhz simultaneously. Sounds too soon for a 12" PB update though, unless Apple plans to bump the entire line and finally announce the aluminum 15" PB. If they want to increase customer confusion, bumping the iBook to 900 mhz and leaving the 12" PB at 867 mhz is a good way to achieve that.

torifile

Consumers may not know the difference between a g3 and g4, but you can bet most pro users would. It would actually make a better impression on prospective buyers to see that the low end ibook they're looking at is "faster" than a more expensive machine. Poor saps.

rok

one thing that gets me confused is the video. i have heard nothing but bad about the nvidia 420 go int he 12" powerbook. is it any "worse" (of course, being a subjective evaluation), than the radeon mobility 7500 in the ibook?

robster

Quote:

Originally posted by rok

one thing that gets me confused is the video. i have heard nothing but bad about the nvidia 420 go int he 12" powerbook. is it any "worse" (of course, being a subjective evaluation), than the radeon mobility 7500 in the ibook?

well i sold my ibook 800 for the 12" pb and I have had nothing but good things from the graphics performance in the 12". Games are quicker, DVD's less prone to errors...

aquatic

Um WHAT? The 420 Go SUCKS.



1. DVDs lag in full screen. Check it out robster I've seen this on every PB 12" I've seen. When the whole screen moves as the camera pans the framerate drops pathetically unless CPU Monitor has a floating window over it for some reason.



2. "Lines" in games, even on external monitors. I have a thread about this and though everyone else SAYS they can't see them, they are there. They just don't notice them, but once they will they'll hate it too, since I also saw this on the store model.



3. For the extra battery power etc, the 7500 gets at least as much performance as the 420. ATi is better especially in laptops.



However the PBG4 12" rocks and both these problems can be fixed with driver updates. I was hoping the driver updates would be out like last month though.

rickag

Wonder why Apple isn't using a 1GHz G3????



This IBM PowerPC Quick Reference Guide lists, and I quote,"Products from 600MHz to 1 GHz for computing, networking, storage, imaging, and consumer systems."



This brocgure was revised 7/11/02, so Apple has had 1GHz G3's with a 200MHz FSB available from IBM since @ least July of last year and most probably longer.



I think it is somewhat frustrating that Apple would not use the fastest G3 available just so as not to bump up against the low end tower and powerbook cpu's rated MHz. Granted a 1GHz G3 may be faster in some operations than a 1GHz G4(pipelines and all that crud), but really the iBook is a good machine and should be using the best.

wondering

Quote:

Originally posted by rickag

Wonder why Apple isn't using a 1GHz G3????



This IBM PowerPC Quick Reference Guide lists, and I quote,"Products from 600MHz to 1 GHz for computing, networking, storage, imaging, and consumer systems."



This brocgure was revised 7/11/02, so Apple has had 1GHz G3's with a 200MHz FSB available from IBM since @ least July of last year and most probably longer.



I think it is somewhat frustrating that Apple would not use the fastest G3 available just so as not to bump up against the low end tower and powerbook cpu's rated MHz. Granted a 1GHz G3 may be faster in some operations than a 1GHz G4(pipelines and all that crud), but really the iBook is a good machine and should be using the best.

You are probably correct to state that the G3 would be faster than the G4 and Apple simply won't let a lower-priced system outperform it's higher-priced bretheren. At anything.

stoo

The GeForce 4 Go 420 does not only suck for the reasons Aqautic gives. More common reasons include:

• It performs worse (rendering speed) than the Radeon 9000 that the 4 Go series replaces.


• It doesn't have pixel shaders (Radeon 9x00s and GeForce 4x00s do) and is essentially a GeForce 2 GTS with a more efficient memory architecture. The same complaint applies to the GeForce 4 MX.


• The 420 has half of the memory bandwidth of the 440, (3.2GB/s compared to 6.4GB/s) which has to support an only slightly lower fill rate (780MTexels/s for the 420, compared to 880MT/s for the 440).

However it will play current games fine.



There is a GeForce 4 Go 4200, which is laptop version of the GeForce 4 4200 Ti and therefore has pixels shaders, higher fillrate and a better memory bandwidth. It isn't in PowerBooks yet.



Edit: firing up the PowerBook now to look for the external monitor lines. Haven't seen them before: maybe Aquatic's area got a bad batch?



Edit 2: still can't see 'em: any particular examples?

pscates

Well, poo.







I wasn't necessarily expecting a 1GHz G4 or a new screen, but a 1GHz G3, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth and hard drive bump would've been all I needed to sell this SuperDrive iMac and "go mobile".



This is a bit of a letdown, because I was hoping to go into this summer with a spiffy little iBook sporting some of Apple's newest technologies/features.



I guess I'll wait until fall or so...

xool

So my GF will likely be buying one of these new iBooks once they're released... any ideas as to how well the 900 MHz 12" model will play SimCity 4 when its released? That game is a system hog last I heard, and we can't have her new toy playing the game slow as molasses.

matsu

Seeing the performance of my PB12 relative to the fastest iBook14 (of a colleague) I can safely say the the PB performs better in any task you can think of, including games and DVD's.

luca

Flat-tube CRT monitors have two horizontal lines on them - one about 1/3 from the top, and one about 1/3 from the bottom. You sure that's not what you're seeing?



Also... if those specs are real then they are EXTREMELY disappointing and I'd be pissed at Apple for slacking off so much. At the very least they should give the low end a 30 GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive, and a 32 MB graphics card. I have a friend who wants to get an iBook as soon as they're updated (he's coming to Macs from a PC for the fifth time... weirdo) and he doesn't want to repeat what happened last time - he bought a 700 MHz/Combo iBook about two weeks before the 800 MHz ones came out. Luckily he bought a refurb so he ended up paying only $1250 for it instead of the full $1500. If Apple just bumps the processor speed by 100 MHz and does nothing else, he'll be disappointed and he may not buy one.



I also think Apple really needs to start including 256 MB of RAM as standard equipment on all their computers now that their computers are OS X-only. Someone who's just starting out with a Mac will use their 128 MB machine, see how incredibly slow it is, and assume that Macs are just slow crap computers when in fact it's just because Apple was stingy with their RAM. I'm 100% sure that Apple will make more money from the increased user satisfaction than they'll lose by adding more RAM at the same price. Besides, the low end has been stuck at 128 MB for about two years now, it's time for an increase. 256 MB on all consumer machines, 512 MB on all pro machines.



EDIT: I see that putting a 30 GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM and a 32 MB graphics card on the low end iBook would probably make everyone buy that instead of the higher end one... but they need to do it anyway. Meanwhile, give the high end iBooks a 40 GB hard drive, Combo drive, and the same 32 MB graphics card... but maybe also include an AirPort card. Or make 'em bluetooth/Airport Extreme compatible. I don't know HOW Apple's going to get these standards in place if they're so afraid of allowing people to use them.

herbivore

I'm sure that this is once a case of marketing. Apple can't have the iBook racing past the 12 inch G4 PowerBook in MHz, Altivec aside. Once the 12 inch PowerBook gets a 1 GHz processor, I'm sure the iBook will finally get one. It's a shame that Apple does this. I guess a 10% difference in MHz is a big deal to them. The bigger problem for the PowerBook is the anemic cache. Hopefully both problems will be fixed soon.

macgregor

Quote:

Originally posted by rickag

[B]Wonder why Apple isn't using a 1GHz G3????

I've never understood this mentality either. The armchair marketing genius' in this forum always conclude that you can't have processor speeds conflicting between consumer and prosumer models and that makes little to no sense.



If a switcher really doesn't know the difference (and they probably won't notice the difference) then why not let them think they are getting one over on Apple by buying a cheap 1gig iBook? They can tell their friends that they got a great deal and that there is no reason to go for the PowerBook and Apple sells alot of iBooks. That's the way it should be.



Then everyone who does know the difference can relish the Altivec and watch DVD's on airplanes or play Warcraft all they want.



The average consumer just doesn't see the product line grids that we see. They look at products side-by-side and get the most that they can afford at the time. Why make the choice of an iBook harder for them?

luca

Warcraft III is altivec optimized? Damn... no wonder it runs like sh*t on my iBook... too bad, it's a really good game. I guess that's what my PC is for.