I know it runs Windows but it sure looks good at that price. Plus it has a longer battery, better warranty, faster and lighter. This is going to be tough descision, I?ll give Apple until September, if no 1ghz + Powerbooks I think I?m going to IBM for my portable needs. I?ll still stay with Apple for my everyday computing needs with my Powermac dual but the notebooks are going to have to mature just a little bit more. Especially in the battery arena and paint, I only get between 1.5 ? 2.0 hours using OSX on my Powerbook 550.
Ok, when it comes to comparisons with the PC world, I think it makes more sense to compare Apple's offerings with mainstream US PC makers. The fact that some company called Saturn makes laptops in Germany with USB 2.0 hardly makes it a standard in "Most 15' notebooks". Here Saturn only makes crappy cars.
As fas as DDR RAM it is not a question of what OSX will support, but the other hardware. The current G4 will natively not support DDR chipsets. That is is the way it is! Apple were able to circumvent that on the Xserve with a custom ASIC, but this is hardly practical for a portable.
As for my aversion to Bluetooth, it is sort of like the Crystal Palace of I/O. for years we have been saying how cool it is, and how it will change all of our lives, but the fact remains that business wise ericcson are morons, and have no clue what to do with it. Thus in the US is a complete waste of time, nothing supports it. Ooops, gosh, I almost forgot, I can get that fancy wireless headset for $300 on Ebay!! :-) LOL.
Again, camera wise, here there are many standards, compact flash is very pervasive, as well as SD, memorystick...It is moronic to try to support all of these ever changing standards when all these devices have USB built in. Most PC makers agree.
As for the benchmarks we care about real world performance- Almost everyone that has reviewed real world performance, has seen very little gain with the faster FSB, and DDR chipsets in new PC laptops. FACT! Do some research.
Anyone paying $3200.00 for a laptop deserves every available option, mainstream or not. For whatever reason Apple now supports Bluetooth. It ought to be standard in their $3200.00 product. Instead of adding it, they took away IrDA. Why? No $3200.00 laptop should be caught dead without a 64MB graphics card. While the 32MB Radeon is an improvement to what Apple was using, it is not top of the line. Never mind the processor. Never mind the mobo. Apple is not even offering the best of what it can offer. Top of the line price should only be asked for top of the line hardware. Anything less is unacceptable.
I do not disagree with the bulk of your observations. The video should indeed be 64mb and not 32. As for IRDA, it was not widely used in the US, and I suspect that Apple is planning to replace it with something else very soon. One of the things that has always gone along with being a Mac user, is the implicit understanding that it was more than hardware. PC users buy hardware, and the OS that comes on it happens to be Windows. Mac users buy a user experience, part of which is dictated by the hardware. Only part of it though. Most PC manufacturers, use somewhat generic motherboards/chipsets. Even in their laptops. Apple is just not big enough, or fluid enough to be able to re-design their motherboards every 6 months, nor is a 3rd party going to do it for them bearing in mind the potential upgrade market share. This has always been an issue for Apple. I do agree that they need to try a little harder to offer better value at the high end, however you must realize that apple is not HP, or IBM, and does not have their resources. We seem to all like the "little guy" thing when it comes to the image, and flaming the hell out of little PC morons, we also need to live with some of the less pleasant realities that go along with that. The unfortunate thing about being an oppressed minority is that on occasion, you are oppressed.
P.S. I suspect that you may have more fun being a Mac "voyeur" rather than just a Mac "voyer". :-)
1. Benchmarks are relative measures, dependant on the testing procedure. Fact is that DDR technically results in double effective bandwidth and 1/2 the latency.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's plain wrong. PC2100-2022 RAM has the exact same latency as PC133-222 RAM.
[quote]<strong>This is important for timecritical apps (Multichannel SACD and Highresolution HD Recording and MIDI-Apps).
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Dud, you can't be serious, can you?
HD recording is completely limited by, guess what, hard disk speed. RAM performance has near zero influence here at all.
And regarding MIDI, I think you're confusing some stuff here. Latency, as commonly used with MIDI and real-time synths or samplers, has exactly nothing to do with memory latency. (And don't even start thinking there might be RAM bandwidth issues with MIDI - even USB 1.1 has 384 times the bandwidth of a single MIDI cable.)
[quote]<strong>2. I don't know about the US, but the actual Toshiba laps and others e.g. in Germany offered by Saturn have the aformentioned features.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Note that many of the laptops found in Saturn or MediaMarkt also have that beautiful little feature called "shared graphics memory".
Besides, I don't think I ever saw any USB2-capable notebook being advertized by either one of them.
[quote]<strong>Besides you like or dislike bluetooth (for what ever reason) it seems likely that it will be standard in a lot of devices within the next 6 to 9 months, at least over here this is a fact.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I believe we were talking about the current PowerBooks, not anything that might be or not be in 6 to 9 months.
Barefeats.com had a feature on the 800MHz Powerbooks. They are faster in most things than the 800MHz iMacs AND the 800MHz PowerMac towers. Most laptops don't even have firewire because they have to make space for a lame serial port and/or parallel port (come on folks all new printers are USB or networked!) and only recently have Windows laptops had built-in ethernet. Also, one of the best features of a powerbook is monitor spanning. Having 2 screens is great. And how many laptops have DVI out? I contend that the Powerbook is STILL the number one laptop. Somebody pull out a laptop that beats it to prove me wrong. Personally, I'm gonna get the highest-end Powerbook G4 as soon as I need a new laptop, which might be before the end of the summer. Therefore, the only thing I'm truly wishing for is that they cram a SuperDrive into the thing somehow before the end of the summer. Although I heard you can get some hacked software to allow iDVD to work with an external firewire DVD burner... anybody else hear about that?
We aren't going to see an updated Powerbook for at least 5 months. Superdrive! Bluetooth! 1GHz! DDR!!! Come on! Do you think they have gotten all of this ready in the time between the last revision and MWNY? If not, then why wouldn't they have introduced any of it on the last revision?
It runs Windows. And it isn't silent. And it probably weighs like 8 pounds. And if I turn the brightness down slightly on my Powerbook (which I do sometimes anyway because the screen is almost too bright), I can get 3:30 to 4 hours of battery life, which I doubt is likely on the machine you quote. And my Powerbook runs OS X, not XP.
And a final comment. The higher the resolution of a monitor should NOT be a measure of its quality. What good is the resolution if you can't read text. I say this from personal experience. While I ran my iMac's 13.8 inch viewable screen at 1024x768, text gets difficult to read after a while, and I have good eyes. A screen at 1600x1200 with a 15 inch viewable area would admittedly have 2.4 times more pixels, but be in a space only 9% bigger. That is not good for the eyes under any condition. If you can't see what you're doing, it doesn't matter how much room you have for extra palettes or toolbars. Conversely, the Powerbook screen is extremely bright and blends a nice balance of size and resolution.
That said and done, there's a lot more to a computer than numbers on a spec sheet.
I call bullcrap on that battery usage. I am using a Ti 800 DVI right now, and I get 2 hrs and 45 mins with everything running full blast...if I dial the screen down to half and turn on processor cycling that jumps to 3 hrs 30 mins. I don't even think I can make my laptop only get 1.5 hrs...and the Alienware offering autodials the processor down when not plugged in.
I also love, "each unit is packed full of fans and exhaust units". Oh yes. That is a feature.
I'd like to know how much this bad boy weighs...but really, though it is a nice laptop for the 200+ fps Quake club, it doesn't seem very balanced or rounded. Hardly a slam dunk, anyway.
On a tangential side note etc, I think we will have at least a speed bump announced by September, with a new black anodized Ti casings as an option. Also, ibooks will get G4's in the Fall with the introduction of 10.2 later this year further optimised for altivec etc. Strategy wise they're not gonna put a slow G4 in an iBook. I think the current internals of the Powerbook will make it way down into the iBook as Rapid I/O and the like make their way into the Powerbook. When I first heard about the plans for faster smaller motherboards, replacing chip sets with just a single chip, I though immediately of laptops..some people think of the iPad etc. These new technologies were talked about all last year, so I expect them to show up later this year, at least by MWSF...hopefully. Any thoughts? <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/ubb/graemlins/smokin.gif"; target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/ubb/graemlins/smokin.gif</a>;
That PC laptop is 1000 times less likely to ever support another independent digital display.
That PC laptop is exactly 1/3 as cool as a Ti.
Like the old saying goes, "compare Apples to Apples, not oranges" (or in this case a lemon)
That is the fastest P4 laptop I've seen, and it is obviously a fairly new product offering (last 60 days). It's expensive for a PeeCee, and yet it doesn't offer 68K33's "STANDARD" features:
USB 2.0? NOPE
(2) FIREWIREPORTS? (1) 4 pin FW port? (we can call them that now, Apple said so)
Bluetooth? ROFLMAO
SmartMedia or CF? Not even close, lil' buddy.
1/3 the price? Should I quit while you're behind?
Pixel Density? Who cares? Size matters. Let's just whip 'em out and measure, shall we?
PeeCee 15" diagonal Ti 15.2" diagonal (3:2)
Agent 302 has it right. The pixels will too small unless you enjoy squinting, and if you bump the screen out of native rez, you'll be squinting anyway.
Holy cow! Would you look at the size of that thing! I don't know, perhaps we're a little spoilt by the compactness of Apple's offerings, but jeez that's big.
I notice the site doesn't list dimensions or weight, though clearly by citing its value as a lan party machine, it's intended to be "luggable" rather than portable.
Anyway.
What's the point in having a SmartMedia/CompactFlash/Memory Stick slot when you can get a cheap adapter that'll go into the PCMCIA slot?
I'd like to see Bluetooth in the PowerBook, though. I seem to be one of the few people who uses IrDA to connect to my cell phone. The new 'Books don't have IrDA, and because the cell phone manufacturers seem to have some dislike for USB cables, Bluetooth seems the only route left.
I'd kill for a SuperDrive in my PowerBook, but I think it's still a little way off given the size of drive required to squeeze into the enclosure.
As for speed, of course I'd like to get the fastest machine available, but I wouldn't ever hold off my purchase waiting for another 100 or 200MHz.
It's clock speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Given Intel doesn't even make mobile P4s that fast, I have a certain feeling that this thing won't exactly be cool nor long-running.
[quote]<strong>
It has longer battery life than the PowerBook G4 which is rated at having approximately 1.5 hours under OS X by reviewers.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess you are referring to the PBG4 battery life as reported by barefeats (which several people on this board heavily disagree with, BTW) - so what independently reported real-life battery life for the AlienWare machine are you comparing it to?
Besides, you forgot to mention that the Alienware machine is at least twice as big as the PBG4. And bigger is better, right?
Everything, and I mean everything about Apple hardware now depends on the debut of an at least semi-modern PPC.
Not even the new Sahara's are truly modern, they're just smaller/more advanced process with a bigger cache strapped on.
Without a true DDR PPC part on a modern process, the TiBook will quickly find itself outclassed for speed and battery life.
Apple could always bump the L3 to 2MB and the CPU to 1GHz to stay in the laptop game versus their PC rivals, for another 6-7 months at least.
Personally, for the moment, I think that the TiBook (while a tad overpriced) actually compares favorably with MOBILE x86 performance. P4M's don't run as fast as P4's: pro laptops are the one area where Steve might still be able to run a convincing 'fake-off.' Relatively minor vendors stuffing desktop P4's into large generic laptop enclosures don't count, sorry. Most of those machines are heavy, poorly supported, and have a host of problems that you never learn about from a quick and dirty benchmarking. There are plenty of good x86 laptops, but they ALL come from major vendors using MOBILE chips.
With the heat sink/ducting/pads on the new Ti's, an SOI Ghz G4 would live just fine in there. Price is the difference -- the Ghz part costs nearlt 3X as much as the 800. Battery life and heat are also considerations, but they're secondary, the Ghz part would still do better than most Mobile x86, even with the higher voltage.
So,
I'd look for a .18u, SOI, 1 Ghz bump (the same CPU tech) maybe with 2MB L3 cache. On the same MoBo tech and with the same video. And then, if some new CPU become available (true DDR FSB, .13u, SOI) a more thoroughly revised update with a faster bus, more VRAM/updated GPU, and this new faster-cooler chip, natch.
How long?
I have no idea.
But Apple is gonna have a painful '03 if phase 1 of the Ti upgrade cycle doesn't happen by around x-mas time.
Comments
<a href="http://commerce.www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce/ExecMacro/generic.d2w/report?"; target="_blank">web page</a>
Ok, when it comes to comparisons with the PC world, I think it makes more sense to compare Apple's offerings with mainstream US PC makers. The fact that some company called Saturn makes laptops in Germany with USB 2.0 hardly makes it a standard in "Most 15' notebooks". Here Saturn only makes crappy cars.
As fas as DDR RAM it is not a question of what OSX will support, but the other hardware. The current G4 will natively not support DDR chipsets. That is is the way it is! Apple were able to circumvent that on the Xserve with a custom ASIC, but this is hardly practical for a portable.
As for my aversion to Bluetooth, it is sort of like the Crystal Palace of I/O. for years we have been saying how cool it is, and how it will change all of our lives, but the fact remains that business wise ericcson are morons, and have no clue what to do with it. Thus in the US is a complete waste of time, nothing supports it. Ooops, gosh, I almost forgot, I can get that fancy wireless headset for $300 on Ebay!! :-) LOL.
Again, camera wise, here there are many standards, compact flash is very pervasive, as well as SD, memorystick...It is moronic to try to support all of these ever changing standards when all these devices have USB built in. Most PC makers agree.
As for the benchmarks we care about real world performance- Almost everyone that has reviewed real world performance, has seen very little gain with the faster FSB, and DDR chipsets in new PC laptops. FACT! Do some research.
[ 05-29-2002: Message edited by: warpd ]</p>
P.S. I suspect that you may have more fun being a Mac "voyeur" rather than just a Mac "voyer". :-)
[ 05-29-2002: Message edited by: warpd ]</p>
<strong>I suspect that you may have more fun being a Mac "voyeur" rather than just a Mac "voyer". :-)
[ 05-29-2002: Message edited by: warpd ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ooops! There goes that public school education rearing its ugly head again.
<strong>The following facts Apple has to face:
- DDR-RAM IS standard in the most 15" notebooks
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Don't think so. At least around here, DDR is only commonly found on P4 laptops. The P3-M and mobile Athlon ones still use plain old PC133.
[quote]<strong>
- the same with build in bluetooth
- the same with build in USB 2.0
- the same with build in SmartMedia-Card and Memory-stick
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Care to give some real-world examples of books that have all of these built-in and are available for purchase right now?
[quote]<strong>
- the same with build in TWO firewireports
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Concerning firewire - note that most (all?) VAIOs still only have those tiny, non-powered iLink plugs rather than full firewire ones.
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>
1. Benchmarks are relative measures, dependant on the testing procedure. Fact is that DDR technically results in double effective bandwidth and 1/2 the latency.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's plain wrong. PC2100-2022 RAM has the exact same latency as PC133-222 RAM.
[quote]<strong>This is important for timecritical apps (Multichannel SACD and Highresolution HD Recording and MIDI-Apps).
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Dud, you can't be serious, can you?
HD recording is completely limited by, guess what, hard disk speed. RAM performance has near zero influence here at all.
And regarding MIDI, I think you're confusing some stuff here. Latency, as commonly used with MIDI and real-time synths or samplers, has exactly nothing to do with memory latency. (And don't even start thinking there might be RAM bandwidth issues with MIDI - even USB 1.1 has 384 times the bandwidth of a single MIDI cable.)
[quote]<strong>2. I don't know about the US, but the actual Toshiba laps and others e.g. in Germany offered by Saturn have the aformentioned features.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Note that many of the laptops found in Saturn or MediaMarkt also have that beautiful little feature called "shared graphics memory".
Besides, I don't think I ever saw any USB2-capable notebook being advertized by either one of them.
[quote]<strong>Besides you like or dislike bluetooth (for what ever reason) it seems likely that it will be standard in a lot of devices within the next 6 to 9 months, at least over here this is a fact.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I believe we were talking about the current PowerBooks, not anything that might be or not be in 6 to 9 months.
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>Somebody pull out a laptop that beats it to prove me wrong.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Okay.
<a href="http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51-m.asp"; target="_blank">Introducng the Alienware Area-51-M.</a>
It's clock speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
It's bus speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
It has twice the video memory.
It has a screen that has over 50% higher pixel density.
It has two drive bays.
It has longer battery life than the PowerBook G4 which is rated at having approximately 1.5 hours under OS X by reviewers.
It is $359 cheaper than the top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
[ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
<strong>
I reckon there's a chance it will. Despite being a BIG revision it was made with no fanfare at all.
I think we might see:
- 1Ghz+ CPU
- DDR
- Integrated Bluetooth
- Superdrive
Either at MWNY or very soon after. Especially as Bluetooth/Superdrive were rumoured for this update. It's on promotion too.Either way, I'm saving!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh please!!!!
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
We aren't going to see an updated Powerbook for at least 5 months. Superdrive! Bluetooth! 1GHz! DDR!!! Come on! Do you think they have gotten all of this ready in the time between the last revision and MWNY? If not, then why wouldn't they have introduced any of it on the last revision?
<strong>
Okay.
<a href="http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51-m.asp"; target="_blank">Introducng the Alienware Area-51-M.</a>
It's clock speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
It's bus speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
It has twice the video memory.
It has a screen that has over 50% higher pixel density.
It has two drive bays.
It has longer battery life than the PowerBook G4 which is rated at having approximately 1.5 hours under OS X by reviewers.
It is $359 cheaper than the top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
[ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
It runs Windows. And it isn't silent. And it probably weighs like 8 pounds. And if I turn the brightness down slightly on my Powerbook (which I do sometimes anyway because the screen is almost too bright), I can get 3:30 to 4 hours of battery life, which I doubt is likely on the machine you quote. And my Powerbook runs OS X, not XP.
And a final comment. The higher the resolution of a monitor should NOT be a measure of its quality. What good is the resolution if you can't read text. I say this from personal experience. While I ran my iMac's 13.8 inch viewable screen at 1024x768, text gets difficult to read after a while, and I have good eyes. A screen at 1600x1200 with a 15 inch viewable area would admittedly have 2.4 times more pixels, but be in a space only 9% bigger. That is not good for the eyes under any condition. If you can't see what you're doing, it doesn't matter how much room you have for extra palettes or toolbars. Conversely, the Powerbook screen is extremely bright and blends a nice balance of size and resolution.
That said and done, there's a lot more to a computer than numbers on a spec sheet.
I also love, "each unit is packed full of fans and exhaust units". Oh yes. That is a feature.
I'd like to know how much this bad boy weighs...but really, though it is a nice laptop for the 200+ fps Quake club, it doesn't seem very balanced or rounded. Hardly a slam dunk, anyway.
<strong>
Okay.
<a href="http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51-m.asp"; target="_blank">Introducng the Alienware Area-51-M.</a>
It's clock speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
It's bus speed is
three times the curren
t top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
It has twice the video memory.
It has a screen that has over 50% higher pixel density.
It has two drive bays.
It has longer battery life than the PowerBook G4 which is rated at having approximately 1.5 hours under OS X by reviewers.
It is $359 cheaper than the top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
[ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Let's see, you left out a few other specs:
That PC laptop is 3 times as thick as a Ti!
That PC laptop will make 3 times as much noise.
That PC laptop is 1000 times less likely to ever support another independent digital display.
That PC laptop is exactly 1/3 as cool as a Ti.
Like the old saying goes, "compare Apples to Apples, not oranges" (or in this case a lemon)
That is the fastest P4 laptop I've seen, and it is obviously a fairly new product offering (last 60 days). It's expensive for a PeeCee, and yet it doesn't offer 68K33's "STANDARD" features:
USB 2.0? NOPE
(2) FIREWIREPORTS? (1) 4 pin FW port? (we can call them that now, Apple said so)
Bluetooth? ROFLMAO
SmartMedia or CF? Not even close, lil' buddy.
1/3 the price? Should I quit while you're behind?
Pixel Density? Who cares? Size matters. Let's just whip 'em out and measure, shall we?
PeeCee 15" diagonal Ti 15.2" diagonal (3:2)
Agent 302 has it right. The pixels will too small unless you enjoy squinting, and if you bump the screen out of native rez, you'll be squinting anyway.
OK, I'm done.
<strong><a href="http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51-m.asp"; target="_blank">Introducng the Alienware Area-51-M.</a></strong><hr></blockquote>
Holy cow! Would you look at the size of that thing! I don't know, perhaps we're a little spoilt by the compactness of Apple's offerings, but jeez that's big.
I notice the site doesn't list dimensions or weight, though clearly by citing its value as a lan party machine, it's intended to be "luggable" rather than portable.
Anyway.
What's the point in having a SmartMedia/CompactFlash/Memory Stick slot when you can get a cheap adapter that'll go into the PCMCIA slot?
I'd like to see Bluetooth in the PowerBook, though. I seem to be one of the few people who uses IrDA to connect to my cell phone. The new 'Books don't have IrDA, and because the cell phone manufacturers seem to have some dislike for USB cables, Bluetooth seems the only route left.
I'd kill for a SuperDrive in my PowerBook, but I think it's still a little way off given the size of drive required to squeeze into the enclosure.
As for speed, of course I'd like to get the fastest machine available, but I wouldn't ever hold off my purchase waiting for another 100 or 200MHz.
<strong>
Okay.
<a href="http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51-m.asp"; target="_blank">Introducng the Alienware Area-51-M.</a>
It's clock speed is three times the current top-of-the-line PowerBook G4.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Given Intel doesn't even make mobile P4s that fast, I have a certain feeling that this thing won't exactly be cool nor long-running.
[quote]<strong>
It has longer battery life than the PowerBook G4 which is rated at having approximately 1.5 hours under OS X by reviewers.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I guess you are referring to the PBG4 battery life as reported by barefeats (which several people on this board heavily disagree with, BTW) - so what independently reported real-life battery life for the AlienWare machine are you comparing it to?
Besides, you forgot to mention that the Alienware machine is at least twice as big as the PBG4. And bigger is better, right?
Bye,
RazzFazz
[ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: RazzFazz ]</p>
Not even the new Sahara's are truly modern, they're just smaller/more advanced process with a bigger cache strapped on.
Without a true DDR PPC part on a modern process, the TiBook will quickly find itself outclassed for speed and battery life.
Apple could always bump the L3 to 2MB and the CPU to 1GHz to stay in the laptop game versus their PC rivals, for another 6-7 months at least.
Personally, for the moment, I think that the TiBook (while a tad overpriced) actually compares favorably with MOBILE x86 performance. P4M's don't run as fast as P4's: pro laptops are the one area where Steve might still be able to run a convincing 'fake-off.' Relatively minor vendors stuffing desktop P4's into large generic laptop enclosures don't count, sorry. Most of those machines are heavy, poorly supported, and have a host of problems that you never learn about from a quick and dirty benchmarking. There are plenty of good x86 laptops, but they ALL come from major vendors using MOBILE chips.
With the heat sink/ducting/pads on the new Ti's, an SOI Ghz G4 would live just fine in there. Price is the difference -- the Ghz part costs nearlt 3X as much as the 800. Battery life and heat are also considerations, but they're secondary, the Ghz part would still do better than most Mobile x86, even with the higher voltage.
So,
I'd look for a .18u, SOI, 1 Ghz bump (the same CPU tech) maybe with 2MB L3 cache. On the same MoBo tech and with the same video. And then, if some new CPU become available (true DDR FSB, .13u, SOI) a more thoroughly revised update with a faster bus, more VRAM/updated GPU, and this new faster-cooler chip, natch.
How long?
I have no idea.
But Apple is gonna have a painful '03 if phase 1 of the Ti upgrade cycle doesn't happen by around x-mas time.