i think it's time to convert the 12" PB to what i think it should've been in the first place. a 13" widescreen.
I still have serious doubts about a small widescreen. IMO, more people with 12" iBooks and 12-inch PowerBooks use them to write/take notes in Word than to do graphics in apps with tons of palettes. For writing, a tall screen is still better than a wide one.
However, if a widescreen can help reduce the size of Apple's smallest portable, then I am willing to compromise.
watch the 12" powerbook stop being a metal-cased iBook and become its own, thinner, more compact beast entirely.
Ooooh, Jonathan! A "thinner, more compact beast" sounds enticing. Will Apple finally drop the internal optical drive to make a true subnotebook? Will the 12-inch PB mutate into a Pro Tablet? You have to tell us more!
The 12" screen in the current iBook G4s and the old iBook G3 (500 and 600) are NOT the same.
Alright. The old and new screens might not be exactly the same. In fact, quality varies moderately depending on the source of the screen, which can change even for the same model generation (just like the brand oF HDD used varies randomly). Regardless, the screens of the 12" iBook and 12-inch PowerBook are still not of good enough quality. Apple needs to source higher-quality 12" screens, at the very least for the 12-inch PowerBook.
With the wide array of built-in ports of today's Mac portables, there's virtually no need for PC Card expansion. Seriously, ..., for what would you actually use a PC Card slot?
Flash media, my friend. In my 15" PB, I have a Memory Stick PC Card reader in my PC Card slot at ALL TIMES. For people who take a lot of digital pictures or want to transfer information to a flash media capable PDA, you can't beat having an "internal" memory card reader in your laptop.
Also, extra Firewire or USB is needed in a laptop. For example, Avid XPress Pro with Avid Mojo will not allow anything other than the Mojo to be on the Firewire bus -- including external hard drives. With a Firewire PC card, you can connect the Mojo and external hard drives and not have a problem.
Need I go on? PC Card slots are important, and lots of "geeks" and media professionals still use them.
Somebody else who wanted a PC Card slot mentioned that Apple should simply add it next to the AirPort slot. The AirPort Extreme card is no longer an internal PC Card, it's a different format now. On top of that, it is located in the bottom center of the PB, which obviously would no be practical for a PC Card slot.
Escher [/B]
Fair enough. I had suspected that a full logic-board redesign would be required to make a PC Card Type II slot a possibility. But would that be so bad? If you're going to re-do the notebook so that it's feature-differentiated from the iBook, this is a possible course of action. A Type II slot is 5 mm thick by spec. That's about 0.2". The current 12" PB is 1.18" thick. I certainly wouldn't mind making it 1.25" or 1.3" if they could put a PC Card slot in there. Move around components so that they can accommodate the slot, re-size the battery. It can be done, and it can still weigh less than 5 lbs. Plus the extra space can make it easier for designers to devise heat-dissipation solutions. I'd have a hard time noticing 1/8" thickness. I use a so-called "thin and light" Dell at work, which I suppose qualifies because it's less than 6 lbs., but it's over 1.5" thick! Plus Dell/Quanta cheated by sloping the case down from back to front to accommodate components. Apple's always been among the most creative in terms of industrial design. They can put a slot with some measure of compromise.
However, if the purpose of the Rev C is merely to bump the processor speed and hard drive, then I'm blowing smoke. But again, they'll have trouble differentiating it from the iBook, which is how they got in this situation in the first place. It's all about perceived value. An expansion slot provides that, whether it gets used or not.
I went back over what I wrote before, and comments that others have added, to assemble my own expanded wish list for 12" PB updates, in rough order of importance for my own tastes on this issue:
1) A G5 processor. Although this is the number one thing I'd like to see, it's also not something that I expect to see until maybe two revs, or even three, after the current model.
3) Two-button trackpad. I actually envision this as having three physical buttons, a large central button, and two smaller triangular buttons occupying the lower-left and lower-right corners of the current button area, either of which can be assigned "right" button functionality, depending on what's comfortable for the handedness of the user. The extra button could then be used for things like activating Exposé or holding down in order to use the trackpad as a virtual scroll wheel.
4) Thinner. I'd like to see the 12" get closer to the elegant 1-inch thickness of the 17" PB.
5) Digital audio I/O. This can be done without adding more jacks to the jack panel, because there are 1/8" analog jacks that can combine a Toslink digital connection into the same jack.
6) Slightly higher-res display. Nothing much higher, but maybe something (yes, non-standard) like 1080x810. This resolution would leave something closer to a 768-line area between the menu bar and a dock with 32x32 icons. The bezel around the current 12.1" display looks wider than the other PBs, so I think the screen size can safely go up a little higher that 12.1" and still fit in a cover of the same width and height.
7) Lighted keyboard option.
8) Gigabit Ethernet.
9) Option for faster hard drive.
10) FireWire 800... although I would consider this a mixed bag, not a complete plus, if there's only room for one FW jack, making an adapter needed for much more common FW 400 devices.
11) Built-in S-video/composite video, or included adapter. (Perhaps not a big deal since I think you can get such an adapter for DVI for only $20 US.
12) Better video card... not a big thing for me, but I know others want that.
13) PCI card slot... again, something I can easily do without, but I know it's big on some people's wish lists.
this is possible as other manufacturers are at .75", already...(Toshiba)
Apple make it happen...
The Toshiba does this by having no optical drive. Perhaps Apple will someday make such a subcompact notebook, but I that would probably constitute the start of a separate product line, not a member of the PowerBook family, which I believe will remain "full featured" laptops.
...not a member of the PowerBook family, which I believe will remain "full featured" laptops.
Which I believe they should be. I've never understood the fixation with removing the entire optical drive to save 1lb of weight.
With the iApps, CD music ripping and DVD burning have never been more a part of the whole Mac experience. Escher not withstanding ( ), the number of users who need or even want a 3lb microportable is low.
And wouldn't a 13" widescreen make the PB bigger rather thn smaller?
Anyway, IMO a PC card slot, better ram/HD specs and the lighted keyboard would be enough to differentiate the PB from its iBook sibling.
A 3-lb. subnote is a niche product, and it's something a lot of us have wanted for years. Let's be realistic, though. It's not the evolution of the PB 12". It's a separate product altogether. It's also a niche product, because it's only a one-spindle design. Sony has a two-spindle (HD and CD/DVD), widescreen (10.5"), 3+ lb. subnote, but it's also 1.4" thick to accommodate everything. I can't imagine that its sales numbers come close to its other products, at least in the US.
The 12", two-spindle notebook is a well-established, fairly high-volume market, and there's no reason to think Apple will come out with something smaller. If Apple's research shows that they'll sell 100,000 of a 3-lb, one-spindle subnote in a year, they'll build one. Somehow, I highly doubt the general demand is there. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to eat crow. And then I'll buy the subnote.
One thing Apple desperately needs to do with all of their laptops is increase the screen resolution! Come on Apple, you're selling to mostly a creative consumer group. We need real estate for our palettes. You guys got it right with the cinema displays. I would kill for a 15" with 1600 resolution. How about a 12" with at least 1280.
One thing Apple desperately needs to do with all of their laptops is increase the screen resolution! Come on Apple, you're selling to mostly a creative consumer group. We need real estate for our palettes. You guys got it right with the cinema displays. I would kill for a 15" with 1600 resolution. How about a 12" with at least 1280.
I don't understand the talk about how it's too hard for apple to deferientiate between the 12" PB and the 12" iBook. The 12" PB and 12" iBook look almost EXACTLY the same, and are almost the SAME machine (Yes, I know the 12" PB has slightly better specs, brushed alum, whatever, that's just Apple trying to defferientiate as best as they can. )
The 12" PB is just a glossed over iBook, priced so that it makes sense for some people to buy it.
If Apple is truly working on a new form factor 12" PB, that would be great, and I can see the 12" PB looking like the rest of the PB's, but small and thinner. It won't be a Sub Notebook, but if the new 12" PB seemed to be an extention of the PB line, rather than a bastarization of the iBook line, that, along with slightly better specs, would be enough to spark more sales, and make the 12"PB a much better product.
In the not too distant future, we'll get G5 12" Powerbooks and that will be great. But before we get there I think that we will get G4 12" PBs that look and feel like PBs, not iBooks.
You have it backwards, the iBook 12 is just a repackaged PB12. Yes, 12" iBooks came out first, but those had a competely different motherboard, the current iBooks are virtually v.1 PB12's, repackaged in plastic.
AS for what will happen.
WE can all safely assume general spec bumpage and the addition of a backlit keyboard (which hardly requires any space.)
The more exciting tidbit would be the possibility of a form factor change.
There's enough room around that screen bezel to cut another half inch out of the profile diagnally. Perhaps even a mild footprint revision built around a 12.1-12.5" 1152x768 3:2 widescreen. More of shape change, even if the screen is bumped slightly, it would only be a hair wider, and a bit shorter. DPI wouldn't change too much, and you get some play to the side to the side of documents -- useful without being crazy.
G5, G4, weird 440 based CPU-thingamabob, iDunno...
PS, as for weight, that drive isn't going anywhere, get used to it. Even so, they can get the weight under 4lbs. I'd be happy with that.
I think Apple's argument in this situation would be that you should buy a Powerbook and another display and do screen spanning. I personally like being able to actually *read* my menus, etc. without squinting.
Comments
Originally posted by confirmed
i think it's time to convert the 12" PB to what i think it should've been in the first place. a 13" widescreen.
I still have serious doubts about a small widescreen. IMO, more people with 12" iBooks and 12-inch PowerBooks use them to write/take notes in Word than to do graphics in apps with tons of palettes. For writing, a tall screen is still better than a wide one.
However, if a widescreen can help reduce the size of Apple's smallest portable, then I am willing to compromise.
Escher
Originally posted by Jonathan
ding ding ding!
watch the 12" powerbook stop being a metal-cased iBook and become its own, thinner, more compact beast entirely.
Ooooh, Jonathan! A "thinner, more compact beast" sounds enticing. Will Apple finally drop the internal optical drive to make a true subnotebook? Will the 12-inch PB mutate into a Pro Tablet? You have to tell us more!
Escher
the refresh time is considerably shorter in the newer ones and they are slightly brighter too.
The only thing that is the same really is the size and the resolution.
Originally posted by G-News
The 12" screen in the current iBook G4s and the old iBook G3 (500 and 600) are NOT the same.
Alright. The old and new screens might not be exactly the same. In fact, quality varies moderately depending on the source of the screen, which can change even for the same model generation (just like the brand oF HDD used varies randomly). Regardless, the screens of the 12" iBook and 12-inch PowerBook are still not of good enough quality. Apple needs to source higher-quality 12" screens, at the very least for the 12-inch PowerBook.
Escher
Originally posted by Escher
With the wide array of built-in ports of today's Mac portables, there's virtually no need for PC Card expansion. Seriously, ..., for what would you actually use a PC Card slot?
Flash media, my friend. In my 15" PB, I have a Memory Stick PC Card reader in my PC Card slot at ALL TIMES. For people who take a lot of digital pictures or want to transfer information to a flash media capable PDA, you can't beat having an "internal" memory card reader in your laptop.
Also, extra Firewire or USB is needed in a laptop. For example, Avid XPress Pro with Avid Mojo will not allow anything other than the Mojo to be on the Firewire bus -- including external hard drives. With a Firewire PC card, you can connect the Mojo and external hard drives and not have a problem.
Need I go on? PC Card slots are important, and lots of "geeks" and media professionals still use them.
Originally posted by Escher
Somebody else who wanted a PC Card slot mentioned that Apple should simply add it next to the AirPort slot. The AirPort Extreme card is no longer an internal PC Card, it's a different format now. On top of that, it is located in the bottom center of the PB, which obviously would no be practical for a PC Card slot.
Escher [/B]
Fair enough. I had suspected that a full logic-board redesign would be required to make a PC Card Type II slot a possibility. But would that be so bad? If you're going to re-do the notebook so that it's feature-differentiated from the iBook, this is a possible course of action. A Type II slot is 5 mm thick by spec. That's about 0.2". The current 12" PB is 1.18" thick. I certainly wouldn't mind making it 1.25" or 1.3" if they could put a PC Card slot in there. Move around components so that they can accommodate the slot, re-size the battery. It can be done, and it can still weigh less than 5 lbs. Plus the extra space can make it easier for designers to devise heat-dissipation solutions. I'd have a hard time noticing 1/8" thickness. I use a so-called "thin and light" Dell at work, which I suppose qualifies because it's less than 6 lbs., but it's over 1.5" thick! Plus Dell/Quanta cheated by sloping the case down from back to front to accommodate components. Apple's always been among the most creative in terms of industrial design. They can put a slot with some measure of compromise.
However, if the purpose of the Rev C is merely to bump the processor speed and hard drive, then I'm blowing smoke. But again, they'll have trouble differentiating it from the iBook, which is how they got in this situation in the first place. It's all about perceived value. An expansion slot provides that, whether it gets used or not.
1) A G5 processor. Although this is the number one thing I'd like to see, it's also not something that I expect to see until maybe two revs, or even three, after the current model.
2) Higher quality, better brightness/contrast/viewing-angle LCD display.
3) Two-button trackpad. I actually envision this as having three physical buttons, a large central button, and two smaller triangular buttons occupying the lower-left and lower-right corners of the current button area, either of which can be assigned "right" button functionality, depending on what's comfortable for the handedness of the user. The extra button could then be used for things like activating Exposé or holding down in order to use the trackpad as a virtual scroll wheel.
4) Thinner. I'd like to see the 12" get closer to the elegant 1-inch thickness of the 17" PB.
5) Digital audio I/O. This can be done without adding more jacks to the jack panel, because there are 1/8" analog jacks that can combine a Toslink digital connection into the same jack.
6) Slightly higher-res display. Nothing much higher, but maybe something (yes, non-standard) like 1080x810. This resolution would leave something closer to a 768-line area between the menu bar and a dock with 32x32 icons. The bezel around the current 12.1" display looks wider than the other PBs, so I think the screen size can safely go up a little higher that 12.1" and still fit in a cover of the same width and height.
7) Lighted keyboard option.
8) Gigabit Ethernet.
9) Option for faster hard drive.
10) FireWire 800... although I would consider this a mixed bag, not a complete plus, if there's only room for one FW jack, making an adapter needed for much more common FW 400 devices.
11) Built-in S-video/composite video, or included adapter. (Perhaps not a big deal since I think you can get such an adapter for DVI for only $20 US.
12) Better video card... not a big thing for me, but I know others want that.
13) PCI card slot... again, something I can easily do without, but I know it's big on some people's wish lists.
I think the goal for the next small PB should be to get under 1" thin...
this is possible as other manufacturers are at .75", already...(Toshiba)
Apple make it happen...
Originally posted by shabbasuraj
this is possible as other manufacturers are at .75", already...(Toshiba)
Apple make it happen...
The Toshiba does this by having no optical drive. Perhaps Apple will someday make such a subcompact notebook, but I that would probably constitute the start of a separate product line, not a member of the PowerBook family, which I believe will remain "full featured" laptops.
Originally posted by shetline
...not a member of the PowerBook family, which I believe will remain "full featured" laptops.
Which I believe they should be. I've never understood the fixation with removing the entire optical drive to save 1lb of weight.
With the iApps, CD music ripping and DVD burning have never been more a part of the whole Mac experience. Escher not withstanding (
And wouldn't a 13" widescreen make the PB bigger rather thn smaller?
Anyway, IMO a PC card slot, better ram/HD specs and the lighted keyboard would be enough to differentiate the PB from its iBook sibling.
the 12" would set the standard if it went under 1"...
and had a low power G5ivver in as a CPU...
The 12", two-spindle notebook is a well-established, fairly high-volume market, and there's no reason to think Apple will come out with something smaller. If Apple's research shows that they'll sell 100,000 of a 3-lb, one-spindle subnote in a year, they'll build one. Somehow, I highly doubt the general demand is there. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to eat crow. And then I'll buy the subnote.
Originally posted by contempt
One thing Apple desperately needs to do with all of their laptops is increase the screen resolution! Come on Apple, you're selling to mostly a creative consumer group. We need real estate for our palettes. You guys got it right with the cinema displays. I would kill for a 15" with 1600 resolution. How about a 12" with at least 1280.
can i get another AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The 12" PB is just a glossed over iBook, priced so that it makes sense for some people to buy it.
If Apple is truly working on a new form factor 12" PB, that would be great, and I can see the 12" PB looking like the rest of the PB's, but small and thinner. It won't be a Sub Notebook, but if the new 12" PB seemed to be an extention of the PB line, rather than a bastarization of the iBook line, that, along with slightly better specs, would be enough to spark more sales, and make the 12"PB a much better product.
In the not too distant future, we'll get G5 12" Powerbooks and that will be great. But before we get there I think that we will get G4 12" PBs that look and feel like PBs, not iBooks.
AS for what will happen.
WE can all safely assume general spec bumpage and the addition of a backlit keyboard (which hardly requires any space.)
The more exciting tidbit would be the possibility of a form factor change.
There's enough room around that screen bezel to cut another half inch out of the profile diagnally. Perhaps even a mild footprint revision built around a 12.1-12.5" 1152x768 3:2 widescreen. More of shape change, even if the screen is bumped slightly, it would only be a hair wider, and a bit shorter. DPI wouldn't change too much, and you get some play to the side to the side of documents -- useful without being crazy.
G5, G4, weird 440 based CPU-thingamabob, iDunno...
PS, as for weight, that drive isn't going anywhere, get used to it. Even so, they can get the weight under 4lbs. I'd be happy with that.
Originally posted by contempt
We need real estate for our palettes.
I think Apple's argument in this situation would be that you should buy a Powerbook and another display and do screen spanning. I personally like being able to actually *read* my menus, etc. without squinting.