Apple laptops starting to fall behind?
I was walking through a computer store the other day, to pick up some ink cartridges, and as I passed by the laptops I could not help but notice that their specs seemed to be a lot better then I remembered. So when I got home I decided to do a little research on the current laptops and see how well Apple's line compares to the PC offerings.
I used Dell and Toshiba to represent the PC companies.
Dell: their laptops might seem cheaper at first, but by the time you spec them out to match a similar powerbook they come to within a few hundred dollars of each other (and you just can't get the mobile Radeon 9600 for them). Overall, Apple has a much better line of laptops.
Toshiba: They give you a bit more for your money then Dell, especially their Satellite series (they have a 17" wide screen for only $2199). They also have ultra-light notebooks that are only 2.4 pounds. Toshiba is giving Apple some tough competition.
The one advantage that most PC companies have is their ability to put 2.8GHz P4 (533MHz bus) or 3.06 GHz mobile P4 into their laptops, allowing them to make far more powerful laptops then Apple can at this point in time.
For a while now Apple has been the leader in laptops: price/performance ratio on par with (or superior to) the competition, and features that the PC side could only dream about. But nowadays features like firewire, DVD RW, built in wireless networking (802.11g), and 10/100 Ethernet are becoming commonplace on PC notebooks, and the price/performance ratio is tilting in their favor.
There is no doubt that the laptop competition has heated up, and Apple needs to get the G5 into the powerbook line as quickly as possible. Late 2004 is starting to seem a long way off.
I used Dell and Toshiba to represent the PC companies.
Dell: their laptops might seem cheaper at first, but by the time you spec them out to match a similar powerbook they come to within a few hundred dollars of each other (and you just can't get the mobile Radeon 9600 for them). Overall, Apple has a much better line of laptops.
Toshiba: They give you a bit more for your money then Dell, especially their Satellite series (they have a 17" wide screen for only $2199). They also have ultra-light notebooks that are only 2.4 pounds. Toshiba is giving Apple some tough competition.
The one advantage that most PC companies have is their ability to put 2.8GHz P4 (533MHz bus) or 3.06 GHz mobile P4 into their laptops, allowing them to make far more powerful laptops then Apple can at this point in time.
For a while now Apple has been the leader in laptops: price/performance ratio on par with (or superior to) the competition, and features that the PC side could only dream about. But nowadays features like firewire, DVD RW, built in wireless networking (802.11g), and 10/100 Ethernet are becoming commonplace on PC notebooks, and the price/performance ratio is tilting in their favor.
There is no doubt that the laptop competition has heated up, and Apple needs to get the G5 into the powerbook line as quickly as possible. Late 2004 is starting to seem a long way off.
Comments
And this is just a rehash of every single PC vs. Mac debate ever made. Who cares.
I buy apple stuff because of the OS not the hardware.
the hardware is just an added perk.
Originally posted by Res
Toshiba: They give you a bit more for your money then Dell, especially their Satellite series (they have a 17" wide screen for only $2199). They also have ultra-light notebooks that are only 2.4 pounds. Toshiba is giving Apple some tough competition.
Their 17" may be cheaper, but it sucks. Did you happen to notice that it weighs a ton and a half. Is thicker than Bill Gate's head, and runs through a battery in no time flat? A friend of mine bought one and could not carry it around because of its sheer size and weight. It hurt his shoulder to have it in his laptop bag. He sold it and got a 17" PB after some coaxing from me, he has never been happier with a computer, and he can carry it around.
when there's a PC laptop i lust after i'll worry.
Originally posted by LoCash
Aren't some of those supposedly 3GHz laptops actually have a processor throttled down to 50% that speed? Thought that used to be the case....
It might have been in the past, but now they seem to be the real thing. And While people make fun of their weight, truthfully you can get a full 2.8GHz P4 on a 533MHz buss that is lighter then my old Wall Street G3.
Of course, I'm not about to trade my TiPowerbook for one of the PC laptops, but it does make one think. Back when I got my G3 powerbook it was almost as powerful as the top tower. Nowadays the best Apple powerbook is not even half as fast as the top tower.
Originally posted by Res
Back when I got my G3 powerbook it was almost as powerful as the top tower. Nowadays the best Apple powerbook is not even half as fast as the top tower.
And this would be a bad thing if the towers were slouches. Back before the G5s were released (a mere 4 months ago), the powerbooks were nearly as powerful. The current powerbooks are almost as good as the towers were at that time. That's not too bad, considering.
i really wanted to save money, but none of them could offer me the value for money (not to mention sheer usability) of the 12" powerbook.
so now im a happy mac user.
Originally posted by heavymetal
i shopped around for a long time before i bought my revB 12" powerbook. in australian money, dell and a few of the other yum cha brands of windows laptops offer pretty competitive deals when you first look at them. but when you factor in hd size, ram and other stuff, like OS etc, they only came in a few hundred under my 12". admittedly they tended to have bigger displays, but very few of them had hard drives ove 40 gb, let alone 80 gb.
i really wanted to save money, but none of them could offer me the value for money (not to mention sheer usability) of the 12" powerbook.
so now im a happy mac user.
Remember that it's not about the size of the display. It's about the resolution. This is a something many people fall for when looking at laptops (and the reason I STILL dislike the 14" iBook). What's even more important is that the resolution isn't too high because if you don't use an LCD at its native resolution, the image will be crap. It's a balance between cramming pixels in there and making sure it looks right. Apple's got it right, IMHO.
But here is why:
16.1 inch screen
3 Hd's!!!! two in raid 0 and one as a system drive!!
a full 2gb of RAm, just like our powerbooks
a 3.2 Ghz p4, can you say loud? thats one reason the thing is so big!
Then you got the rest of your stuff like USB 2.0 Firewire, Etc.
They say dont think of it as a Heavy laptop, but a portable desktop.
So im not arguing that its better, just thought i would mention it. If you guys saw a pic, it would be easy to put a G5 in one of these things.
Originally posted by myahmac
They say dont think of it as a Heavy laptop, but a portable desktop.
So im not arguing that its better, just thought i would mention it. If you guys saw a pic, it would be easy to put a G5 in one of these things.
Which brings up an interesting question. Would you accept a thicker (say 1.5") and heavier (say 8 lb.) Powerbook if it had a G5 chip in there?
After many many years of being the only Mac bastion of all those that I know, people around me are starting to consider Macs. They like OSX, LOVE that there are no Viruses, stable as a granite slab, no or little Spyware, no popups, and they finally see that there IS software for a Mac.. they just balk at processor speeds.
Honestly... why the heck doesnt Apple implement an AMD tactic.. call the processors AMD XP 2600, 2800, etc.... people (everyone I know) think that they are 2,8GHz processors, etc. Hardly they are.
Even when they see they aren't really 2,8GHz, they still will go for them. They just want to be PSYCOLOGICALLY reassured of big numbers. Its stupid, but thats general human nature.
Call a G4 800MHz iBook a "NEW iBook with new PowerPC 2000 processor, starting at only 1099!!" "iBook with PowerPC 2200 for only 1299!!"
It REALLY is that easy folks.... Then when a sales rep goes to demo a unit, people will SEE that they ARE NOT slow, and WONT care that a "PowerPC 2000" is actually an 800MHz G4.
AGGGGHHHHHHH... Come ON Apple... use your damn heads!!!! Not EVERYONE is a techy!!!
Originally posted by ZO
Honestly... why the heck doesnt Apple implement an AMD tactic.. call the processors AMD XP 2600, 2800, etc.... people (everyone I know) think that they are 2,8GHz processors, etc. Hardly they are.
That may be true of the people you know, but that tactic has gotten AMD mixed reviews - and mixed results - generally.
If you show them what your Mac can do with whatever CPU it's running on, they should be reassured.