Falling behind
I am not a fan of PCs. My experience with my Mum's Vaio was a singularly unpleasant one, and it is with little hesitation that I would declare them to be universally inferior in terms of user experience to any Mac since the classic.
It used to be the case however that the high end PowerBook would wipe the floor with any PC notebook in terms of performance too - even Mac naysayers would admit that the Mac won out on performance if nothing else.
I believe the 500Mhz Pismo (I'm writing this on one) was possibly the finest computer of its day (sometime in 2000 I think), the pinnacle of design perfection, all the bugs in the PowerBook G3 series having being worked out long ago, it was (is) slim, fast, well connected and elegant.
And then the PowerBook G4 came out, and for all it's applause it is an inferior machine. It is prettier in a functional sort of way, but compared to a modern PC laptop it seems a little, well, weedy.
Take for instance this DEL:
<a href="http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/products/minicat_inspn_8200.htm"; target="_blank">web page</a>
Have a look through the specs and turn them up to maximum. It beats the TiBook in every single department (except OS obviously). Screen size 15.1 inches but in normal aspect ratio. Screen Res 1600 by 1200 - that's more than the 22 inch cinema display, and it wipes the floor with the new TiBook's screen.
1.8 Ghz Pentium 4. I'll buy into the Megahertz myth story so far, but you surely aren't going to tell me that an 800Mhz G4 can really beat that.
IR port - see my other rant.
Internal DVD/CDRW, but wait - it also has the option of a second removeable media drive, either optical, zip or floppy. Remember when Powerbooks had expansion bays? Those were the days eh?
Optional second hard disk up to a maximum of 80GB (the TiBook maxes out at 60).
And finally a GForce 2 Go graphics card, making the paltry Radeon 7500 in the TiBook pee its pants.
And with all that it is still a PC with all the horrible little badly designed user interface problems, and let's face it, it's ugly as sin.
But it would kick a TiBook's ass in a fight, probably give a G4 tower a run for its money too. Why are apple stripping featues from the G4 faster than other PC manufacturers are adding them?
Apparently, the latest innovation in Apple portable technology is... analogue sound input?
This is not right. Something must be done.
Socrates
It used to be the case however that the high end PowerBook would wipe the floor with any PC notebook in terms of performance too - even Mac naysayers would admit that the Mac won out on performance if nothing else.
I believe the 500Mhz Pismo (I'm writing this on one) was possibly the finest computer of its day (sometime in 2000 I think), the pinnacle of design perfection, all the bugs in the PowerBook G3 series having being worked out long ago, it was (is) slim, fast, well connected and elegant.
And then the PowerBook G4 came out, and for all it's applause it is an inferior machine. It is prettier in a functional sort of way, but compared to a modern PC laptop it seems a little, well, weedy.
Take for instance this DEL:
<a href="http://www.dell.com/us/en/bsd/products/minicat_inspn_8200.htm"; target="_blank">web page</a>
Have a look through the specs and turn them up to maximum. It beats the TiBook in every single department (except OS obviously). Screen size 15.1 inches but in normal aspect ratio. Screen Res 1600 by 1200 - that's more than the 22 inch cinema display, and it wipes the floor with the new TiBook's screen.
1.8 Ghz Pentium 4. I'll buy into the Megahertz myth story so far, but you surely aren't going to tell me that an 800Mhz G4 can really beat that.
IR port - see my other rant.
Internal DVD/CDRW, but wait - it also has the option of a second removeable media drive, either optical, zip or floppy. Remember when Powerbooks had expansion bays? Those were the days eh?
Optional second hard disk up to a maximum of 80GB (the TiBook maxes out at 60).
And finally a GForce 2 Go graphics card, making the paltry Radeon 7500 in the TiBook pee its pants.
And with all that it is still a PC with all the horrible little badly designed user interface problems, and let's face it, it's ugly as sin.
But it would kick a TiBook's ass in a fight, probably give a G4 tower a run for its money too. Why are apple stripping featues from the G4 faster than other PC manufacturers are adding them?
Apparently, the latest innovation in Apple portable technology is... analogue sound input?
This is not right. Something must be done.
Socrates
Comments
P.S. Im just kidding...that's the typical response though....
Also, there is the issue of having to substantially slow down or "clock" down the processor on most PC laptops when on battery, due to the power consumption. Macs don't have to do this. I don't know how the Pentium 4-M is, but on the Pentium III, the "clock-down" syndrome placed them well behind contemporary PowerBooks when used on the battery alone.
Which leads nicely into the third issue, which is the PowerBook G4's uniquely small size for a fully-featured laptop -- a size that would be impossible to achieve on a similar PC if, again, I'm not mistaken about the power and heat issues.
Really, it is almost like the two strains of computer are evolving away from each other -- the PC as the better "luggable" desktop; the PowerBook G4 as the true road warrior's machine.
Sony's 1600 by 1200 high end laptop is a nice machine; but unfortunately it weighs eight pounds, and it REALLY wants to be plugged into an outlet. Still, Apple should stay as far abreast of the clock speed issue as they can; Intel moved things rather fast rather suddenly with the Pentium 4-M after being stuck for a while on the Pentium III in much the same way in which Apple seems to have been with the G4.
Overall, advantage PowerBook for me . . . but it's unfortunate that Motorola hasn't already delivered a 0.13 micron 1GHz G4 in the laptop; which, in less chaos, I think they easily could have done. Apple, however, have fully delivered everything they could have been expected to given their components, and I have to say I'm a little surprised not to have seen more effort on the PC side to do something about the weight.
(it's also available for substantially less with a bog-standard 1024x768 15 inch display)
Oh -- and one other thing before I forget. The high-end Sonys ( the one mentioned above and two other variations thereof that go up to $3,500 for not all that many extra features; just a bundled copy of Office XP in the top version) also use the Radeon 7500 card with 32MB of DDR VRAM. I don't know why people keep thinking the GeForce2 Go is some kind of magic bullet; the Radeon 7500 seems to be very highly thought of for a laptop chipset in general.
[ 05-13-2002: Message edited by: photoeditor ]</p>
there are valid points for each argument which are merely rehashed in each of the threads. there's no need for the repetition. we understand and you could merely post your views in one confined thread with no holds bared. that way we can keep most of the negativity to one thread!!!
PCs are good at some things
Macs are better at others
can we just agree to disagree and not rehash the facts and arguments EVERY week???!?!?!!
thank you
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
<strong>If you want to talk size, then maby the PB should be called the "Porta" book, not the "Power" book. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Which raises a question. Would the majority of Mac users prefer a slightly heavy laptop and have more features, such as additional bays?
I mean many Powerbook owners already use it as a desktop replacement. Sure it's taken to and from work as normal laptop, but not lugging it around from place to place like they might with an iBook.
Let me say that again: There's NO comparison.
I'm sorry, but WinXP may bring stability and lots of other goodies, but when it comes right down to it, the Mac way just feels right. It's not about the speed (though my PB 667 is often just sitting there waiting for me to decide what it is I want to do). And for a portable, it's got all the things I need. Specifically, battery life, features and the ability to hold my whole life in its slim 1" figure. It is a professional grade computer with a professional grade OS.
It's not just about the sheer power of the machine, at least for me. I would be patently unhappy using a windows computer, no matter how fast or what size the graphics card. I'm completely content with my 16 meg graphics card. If I want to play games, I go to my gamecube.
People, it's about the experience of using the computer. It's not about how fast it is. And, yes, I'd choose a semi-powerful luxury car over a nascar POS any day of the week. Would you?
I guess I'm a mac user because I like not having to argue with my computer. My computer and I get along extremely well. That's important, at least to me.
Actually, Radeon 7500 mobility will outperform a GeForce2Go every day of the week, and twice on sunday. A GeForce4Go card does perform slightly better than a Radeon 7500 M, but the Radeon has one major thing going for it, and that is power management. The Radeon actually shuts down inactive parts of the chip, and uses less power to begin with.
Long story short, Radeon 7500 M makes it more possible to use a smaller battery and make the laptop lighter, while still maintaining a decent battery life (which on the TiBook, is about 2 hours longer than on the average PC laptop).
--PB
<strong>
Optional second hard disk up to a maximum of 80GB (the TiBook maxes out at 60).
And finally a GForce 2 Go graphics card, making the paltry Radeon 7500 in the TiBook pee its pants.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Umm, one, you can't have a pure 80 GB hard disk, you can have a 60 GB one and a 20 GB one in the expansion bay. So, I can have 80 GB only if I don't want to use the optical drive. Yeah, great... if I need more storage, I'll just buy a 160 GB firewire hard drive.
And, while this has already been pounded in by other posts, there are well documented tests (in PC laptops, just so you can think it's not biased) that the Radeon 7500 Mobility smacked the GeForce2Go upside the head, and then kicked it while it was down. Now, granted, in some cases the GeForce 4 Go is faster, but not every case. The Radeon 7500 is one of two (the Geforce 4 Go being the other) premier laptop graphics cards for consumers. So, lay off the crack pipe before you spout nonsense.
That 1.8GHz mobile P4 processor will be slower at some tasks then the 800MHz G4, and the Radeon 7500 is a much more powerful graphics card then then the GForce 2 Go.
Now I do wish that Apple would, in addition to their current line, come out with a slightly thicker model that could contain a superdrive (and maybe a couple more goodies for people who don't mind the added bulk and weight).
But I digress from the main point which is that I would hate to own this computer, it's ugly and heavy and has a terrible operating system (although XP has narrowed the gap, even if it's still not in the same league as X). I never said I wanted one, what I want is one made by Apple with decent styling and a decent OS. I would never dream of buying a PC, and I am not rehashing the PC versus Macs argument, I thought I made that abundantly clear with my first paragraph.
I just don't see why Apple tech is falling behind. Macs are now massively cheaper than they once were, but I thouhgt the whole idea of the consumer line was so that students (like me) could afford low end macs, while pros would still be buying the best, most powerful machines that their dollars would get them. The fact is that the TiBook is now no different from a specced out iBook except in terms of a few extra mm of screen mileage and a chunkier price tag. When I bought my Pismo (second hand a few months after the G4 came out) it was still a machine to be reckoned with despite being over a year old. The G4 now arrives and it seems a little out of date before it's even off the shelf.
I can't afford these machines brand new, but I certainly won' be buying a second hand PowerBook G4 any time soon.
I use my PowerBook as my main computer. I love the new iMac, but in a "maybe I'll get one for my girlfriend" kind of way, not as something I would want to use. I have no intention of ever buying a non-portable mac for my own use, so I expect the PowerBook to keep up with the times. When Quake 4 (or whatever) comes out and won't run on my Pismo I'm going to start aching for something a little more beefy, but at the moment nothing that Apple is offering is remotely comparable in terms of life expectancy to the machine I've got now, which is still kicking arse more than two years after it came out.
Okay, going to stop writing stuff now
Socrates
Pismo with:
1024x768 and 8MB VRAM
Inspiron 5000e with:
1600x1200 and 16MB VRAM
There is a balance or resolution and size you realy can't go over. I can not illustrate or do page layout on the Dell. The screen has two problems. Too little RAM for the resolution and too high a resolution on a 15inch screen.
The 8200 and 8100 do have some really nice features like onboard DVD/CDR and ZIP 250 in the modular bay. I wish I had one with the SXGA+ screen but not the UXGA.
I also was really glad that Apple raised there screen resolution but did not go too far.
Having said that, I partly agree with you in that Apple does not have a very broad product line. They have the TiBook for pros and the iBook for consumers.
They could, for sake of argument, make an uber-TiBook weighing ten pounds with dual bays, dual processors, one PCI slot, and such.
They could, at the low end, make a three pound ultra-lite. They could do a lot but they don't.
This doesn't mean the iBook or TiBook are behind anyone's else's designs. It just means that, like it or not, Apple doesn't try to be present in every market that is available.
Mobile x86 ain't exactly desktop x86, even at the same Mhz they're ussually slower. Bus, cache, power saving, and other little mobile friendly mods have a way of sucking a lot of power out of all those megahurts. You CAN get x86 with long battery life, but it usually costs as much as Ti and weighs a bit more.
PPC's are generally better in this regard, and the Ti does come with 1MB of L3 and 256KB of L2. It has a slower system bus than some of the newest DDR notebooks, but I'd bet that it hangs in there quite nicely for pure speed. On altivec tasks, for photoshop, or video-editing you could probably find more than a few things that the Ti does better than a mobile1.6-1.8 P4.
Still they need a true laptop PPC part (.13u) or in a few months time they WILL be seriously behind.
Honestly, if people find Apple unbearably uncompetitive, then don't buy Apple. To anyone who cannot accept getting more stuff for the money from a PC maker than from Apple, or require more power than a Mac can provide - or anything that a Mac cannot provide - I always say the same thing: get a PC. Who knows; perhaps you'll even find it more to your liking.
What's stoopid is to get all hung up on one thing and miss the larger picture. I'm sure you all know what I mean: those people who dig in their heels, refuse to think, pronounce that the sky is falling, etc., etc. And no, I'm not making excuses for Apple - this is but to recognize that most of us chose Macs for things at which they continue to excel. Imagine that!
Again and again the dimwitted work themselves up with some bizarre martyr mania; as though self-flagellation were the same thing as critical thinking. I'm the only one not in denial so that's why they're not listening! Oh how I adore Apple so and hate to see it this way! <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> Good grief; how much more bullshit do you carry with you the rest of the day?
In other words,
[quote]Shut the **** up and go buy a PC.<hr></blockquote>
It's the typical response because it's the right response. Fallen too far behind for what? 95% of what people do with laptops? I mean, if you're too blind to appreciate how the PowerBook G4 stomps all over many a PC laptop, then maybe you don't deserve one.
[ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: Fischer ]</p>
An 800 Mhz G4 is faster than a 1 GHz P3 or P4.