1. 12" Powerbook can do monitor spanning - use the built in screen and external screen both at the same time. The iBook can only do mirroring.
2. The 12" PB is put together much nicer. Sweet keyboard, etc. The iBooks feel a bit "cheap" in comparison.
I bought an iBook (12"), but I should have paid the $300 more for the 12" PB.
I bought an iBook 14", and I'm happy. The iBook is good. And it can do monitor spanning with a hack (it works, I know, because I use it to connect with my 17" display.) I'm happy with the purchase of my iBook (and it's performance.) And I haven't even upgraded the RAM from 256MB (yet.) I like the iBook. It's nice n' capable. And to whoever says the USB is stinky on the left, what do you mean?
Hmm... maybe I should change my username to 'iBookdefender'?
I'm thinking of trading my 1ghz ti for new 1,25. Honestly i don't care so much about CPU. It's nice to have bluetooth in, so i don't have to constantly search my bag for that usb adapter.
+ backlit keyboard
+ FW800
+ better airport reception (another big thing for me, as i can't work with my TI in my upstairs bedroom). Not to mention faster.
+ better vido
But there's that thing about TI...
Its like a cube, one of a kind, carbon frame, titanium, 1" etc... there will be no other one like that IMHO.
I think i'll wait few weeks so i can play with new one, and go from there...
Maybe they built the chassis for the 15.4?, but ended up having to plug it with a 15.2?
You know, I wonder the same thing. If you look closely at the photos of the new 15 on Apple's site, the bezel around the screen is a little thicker on the sides than it is on the top. On the 17-inch (and on the TiBook) it's consistent all the way around. A display that was just a smidge wider would make the bezel consistent on the new 15.
Yea, i'm guessing the Ti Body costs a lot more than the new Al ones. Also, being able to lift the keyboard and look at the endsides is a great way to show off. The TiBook may not be as practical as the new Aluminum versions but they look a lot more classy. I won't be upgrading for awhile.
We were talking about the 8MB cache on the 4200RPM drives shipping with the new 'books. Is what Amorph said not correct? Made sense to me.
Makes more sense to me now too. I'd mistakenly thought those comments I saw before were a spin-off of the talk about L3 cache. At any rate, I wasn't aware of any hard drive cache differences between the old PBs and the new ones. Has that changed? Or does it vary significantly between the various drive options now available?
But how hot does the Aluminum 15" run? And what about the noise level? I'll be checking my local retailer when they have some on display. The Titanium 15" was really good in both respects, I thought. I'd be very disappointed if the new models are hot or noisy.
I just came back from the Salem, NH Apple Store, and the little bit of indecision I was feeling about 12" vs. 15" is gone. They had one of the new 15" AlBooks on display, and it's certainly nice, but seeing it side-by-side with one of the old 12"-ers made me happy with my 6:15 AM decision to order the new 12" AlBook. Even the old 867 MHz model seemed snappy enough for me, and doing a little web surfing I was able to get along with the 1024x768 resolution just fine.
There's just something about the nice, compact, more rugged feel of the 12" AlBook that isn't quite there for me with either my old TiBook or the new 15" AlBook (although the new 15"-er comes closer.) My only problem now is that I'm having an even harder time waiting for my new toy to ship.
Well, at last the 15" Al book is out. This is a life changing event. No longer will I have to scan the boards looking for hints of the new PBs.
Just for the record, I will purchase one of these in a few weeks after I take care of some personal business. I think this is a solid upgrade. I am mostly quite pleased with nearly everything about it. AE extreme standard - at last, better Airport reception, backlit keyboard, FW800, ATI GPU, etc.
As to the slightly larger bezel I guess that this was done to stiffen the frame mechanically. Good news.
As to the lack of L3 cache, I don't think we'll miss it. Here is what I found looking at details of entries at xbench.
The new 15" Al PB has twice as much L2 cache running at twice the speed as that of the Ti PB. Also, the system bus is now faster than the L3 cache speed of the Ti PB. For a laptop it was probably a reasonable compromise to drop the L3 cache given these improvements.
There is one benchmark at Xbench for the new 15" Al PB (we need a better name for this). It is a single point at the high end of the distribution for the 1.0GHz Ti PB.
There is one test at BareFeats showing the 15" Al PB running about 25% faster than the 1.0GHz Ti book.
One curious point remains though.
The previous Ti PB had a 61 Watt-hour battery. The 15" Al PB has a 46 Watt-hour battery. Why the big drop? At the same time the weight has slightly increased. If the battery is smaller and there is no L3 cache where did the weight go? Maybe to the stiffer frame?
The 15" Al PB is rated for 4.5hrs life on a 46 W-hr battery while the Ti PB was rated for 5 hrs life on a 61 W-hr battery. That would imply that the new 15" Al PB will run cooler.
Today NewerTech announced 65 W-hr Li-ion batteries for PBs. I wonder if they will make one for the new 15" Al at that size? If they do that would be a huge boost in usable time. It also would raise the question why didn't Apple do that? My guess is that the battery on the new PB is smaller and that the weight gain went into stiffening the chassis.
Good post neutrino. Anybody have any similar thoughts or observations on the 17" model? Seems very little has been changed on it except the new processor, GPU, and USB 2. That's the one I'll probably get soon.
shetline, did the Salem store have the new 15s for sale or just a display model? That's where I'm going to get mine.
The operative word is had. The few they did have earlier today they'd already sold out of by time I'd arrived. That didn't much matter to me since 12" or 15" I wanted a custom configuration which wouldn't have been in stock anyway.
Comments
Originally posted by Cubed
best reasons:
1. 12" Powerbook can do monitor spanning - use the built in screen and external screen both at the same time. The iBook can only do mirroring.
2. The 12" PB is put together much nicer. Sweet keyboard, etc. The iBooks feel a bit "cheap" in comparison.
I bought an iBook (12"), but I should have paid the $300 more for the 12" PB.
I bought an iBook 14", and I'm happy. The iBook is good. And it can do monitor spanning with a hack (it works, I know, because I use it to connect with my 17" display.) I'm happy with the purchase of my iBook (and it's performance.) And I haven't even upgraded the RAM from 256MB (yet.)
Hmm... maybe I should change my username to 'iBookdefender'?
I'm thinking of trading my 1ghz ti for new 1,25. Honestly i don't care so much about CPU. It's nice to have bluetooth in, so i don't have to constantly search my bag for that usb adapter.
+ backlit keyboard
+ FW800
+ better airport reception (another big thing for me, as i can't work with my TI in my upstairs bedroom). Not to mention faster.
+ better vido
But there's that thing about TI...
Its like a cube, one of a kind, carbon frame, titanium, 1" etc... there will be no other one like that IMHO.
I think i'll wait few weeks so i can play with new one, and go from there...
Originally posted by SonOfSylvanus
Maybe they built the chassis for the 15.4?, but ended up having to plug it with a 15.2?
You know, I wonder the same thing. If you look closely at the photos of the new 15 on Apple's site, the bezel around the screen is a little thicker on the sides than it is on the top. On the 17-inch (and on the TiBook) it's consistent all the way around. A display that was just a smidge wider would make the bezel consistent on the new 15.
Originally posted by murbot
Yep, I run 10.2.6 on a 700MHz G3 iMac, and it's been absolutely fine.
Geez everyone, why should Apple even bother with a g5????
Or a g4 for that matter?
Let's just stick with our g3s!!!!!!!
Originally posted by machem
We were talking about the 8MB cache on the 4200RPM drives shipping with the new 'books. Is what Amorph said not correct? Made sense to me.
Makes more sense to me now too.
There's just something about the nice, compact, more rugged feel of the 12" AlBook that isn't quite there for me with either my old TiBook or the new 15" AlBook (although the new 15"-er comes closer.) My only problem now is that I'm having an even harder time waiting for my new toy to ship.
Originally posted by shetline
I just came back from the Salem, NH Apple Store, and the little bit of indecision I was feeling about 12" vs. 15" is gone.
shetline, did the Salem store have the new 15s for sale or just a display model? That's where I'm going to get mine.
Bigger Pic
What cord is that on the left?
Originally posted by ast3r3x
Bigger Pic
What cord is that on the left?
looks like the exension cord for the power adapter.
Originally posted by thedustin
You beat me, Patchouli
...and neurokid beat me as well!
Originally posted by neurokid
Geez everyone, why should Apple even bother with a g5????
Or a g4 for that matter?
Let's just stick with our g3s!!!!!!!
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Jesus.
I'm saying that OSX is not terrible on a G3, it is perfectly acceptable. A G4 or G5 is certainly faster, I'm not disputing that.
Just for the record, I will purchase one of these in a few weeks after I take care of some personal business. I think this is a solid upgrade. I am mostly quite pleased with nearly everything about it. AE extreme standard - at last, better Airport reception, backlit keyboard, FW800, ATI GPU, etc.
As to the slightly larger bezel I guess that this was done to stiffen the frame mechanically. Good news.
As to the lack of L3 cache, I don't think we'll miss it. Here is what I found looking at details of entries at xbench.
TI PB 1GHz
L2 cache 256kbytes @667MHz
L3 cache 1MB @134MHz
bus 134MHz
15" Al PB 1.25GHz
L2 cache 512kbytes @1.25GHz
bus 167MHz
The new 15" Al PB has twice as much L2 cache running at twice the speed as that of the Ti PB. Also, the system bus is now faster than the L3 cache speed of the Ti PB. For a laptop it was probably a reasonable compromise to drop the L3 cache given these improvements.
There is one benchmark at Xbench for the new 15" Al PB (we need a better name for this). It is a single point at the high end of the distribution for the 1.0GHz Ti PB.
There is one test at BareFeats showing the 15" Al PB running about 25% faster than the 1.0GHz Ti book.
One curious point remains though.
The previous Ti PB had a 61 Watt-hour battery. The 15" Al PB has a 46 Watt-hour battery. Why the big drop? At the same time the weight has slightly increased. If the battery is smaller and there is no L3 cache where did the weight go? Maybe to the stiffer frame?
The 15" Al PB is rated for 4.5hrs life on a 46 W-hr battery while the Ti PB was rated for 5 hrs life on a 61 W-hr battery. That would imply that the new 15" Al PB will run cooler.
Today NewerTech announced 65 W-hr Li-ion batteries for PBs. I wonder if they will make one for the new 15" Al at that size? If they do that would be a huge boost in usable time. It also would raise the question why didn't Apple do that? My guess is that the battery on the new PB is smaller and that the weight gain went into stiffening the chassis.
demand must be pretty high for these things.
Originally posted by BrunoBruin
shetline, did the Salem store have the new 15s for sale or just a display model? That's where I'm going to get mine.
The operative word is had. The few they did have earlier today they'd already sold out of by time I'd arrived. That didn't much matter to me since 12" or 15" I wanted a custom configuration which wouldn't have been in stock anyway.