G4 1Ghz Vs Pentium M 1.3Ghz?

Hi,
I wanna buy a new laptop as I'm giving my old laptop to my bro. Right now, I'm using an IBM Thinkpad R40 Centrino Pentium M 1.3GHz. Bought this last year only.
I'm very much interested in buying a Mac this time. But, I was wondering how the G4 compares with Pentium M....
Right now, from Apple's website, the fastest PowerBook I could find was a G4 1 GHz. How does this compare with my current laptop's processor ie Pentium M 1.3GHz?
Also, is Mac worth the extra money???? I have totally fallen for the Mac looks and the OS...otherwise Thinkpad is great in general!


break the windows!!! - penguin mania

 

If I were you I would wait on that Powerbook.(Although there is a 17 inch that is 1.33 ghz and 15 inch at 1.25 ghz) Apple is due to release a bumped version of the PB within the next month (I have this on word from a hardware guy at apple) which will increase performance some. Even then though, if you get an apple you'll be getting one because you like the look,feel,company ethics, etc. You will not be getting one for the performance. Your Thinkpad and an Apple PB of the same GHZ are probably very similiar in performance depending in what you use it for, and the nature of the other components. Macs are worth the extra money if you have a deep appreciation for a beautifully designed object, but from a strictly utiliterian perspective, they are a far less bang for your buck. If you are going to go with a PB though, you should check out the "Sale" page on Apple.com and get a refurbished 15inch 1.25 ghz. It's only $1,999 and carries the same warranty as a brand new one.... Ugh, sorry for the long-windedness...

 

One thing to keep in mind is that while Apple hardware (especially the PowerBook line) is beautifully designed, the Operating System OSX Jaguar is significantly more reliable, stable and arguably more advanced than Windows XP. The user experience on a Mac is no doubt foreign at first for Windows users, but proves that your daily tasks will soon change from Virus Scans and Disk Defragmentation to actually using your computer for unprecendented creativity and productivity, provided you don't need any Windows only software. That said, the G4 chip in all of the PowerBooks is amazingly fast, and the machine is never bogged down with all the unecessary bottlenecking "unknown" startup routines that occur in Windows. The battery life on all of the PowerBooks is never less than 4 hours, and they all come with integrated Bluetooth. These thoughts considered, I must disagree that an Apple notebook is not all about looks, but an entire elevated computing experience.

BTW, to answer your original question. The G4 processor on any current Apple PowerBook will eat any Pentium M for lunch! Plugged in or not. [ ]

UPDATE: Thanks to Marcus for bringing some of this debate to light, I have done extensive research to find that:

1. Some apps. will run faster on certain high end PC laptops incorporating Pentium M technology.

2. The current G4 PowerBook lineup has fallen short in many cases against the newest (1.6 - 1.7 GHz Pentium M) machines.

3. However, the expected new lineup of PowerBooks that should be announced on April 19th or 20th will likely carry a big threat to those higher clocked PC notebooks.

4. Once the G5 chip is finally available in the PowerBook line, (expected in Fall 2004), the 64-Bit Fireball will most likely command the lead. But that is ONLY IF, Apple can pull this off once again rumored to be using liquid cooling technology.

This is all very exciting thought isn't it!?

Barry J. Doyle

 

Barry:
ok... just to start off, i'm posting this from a 1.6ghz G5; i am a mac user. even so, i have to point out that your reply is mostly marketing hype.

have you used windows XP lately? the stability is on par with OS X--really. I use both daily and neither crashes.

the bit about unprecedented creativity and productivity. that's just hype. like i mentioned, i work on both and i have never felt a burst of unprecedented creativity or productivity on my mac. sure some extra time is spent scanning for viruses on the pc, but it's what... 10 seconds per use?

the battery life on most notebooks that use centrinos (pentium -m's) is actually better than four hours. sorry but it's true.

the bit about the processor eating any centrino for lunch. sigh. sure, the g4 is a great processor, but have you checked the benchmarks latley? the 1.7ghz centrino is just more powerful. hopefully apple will release something that will eat the centrino for lunch this month or even later this year, but until then...

don't get me wrong, i love macs, but it doesn't help the cause to over-hype them. macs are much better looking (IMO) than pc's and are probably better made in most cases. the resell value is almost always better. os x is better for security, but to overhype and exaggerate it's benefits to that extent is just wrong.

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Barry J. Doyle

 

Marcus,

It sounds as though you are a PC guy using a Mac. Concerning Centrino vs. G4. C'mon. I spend my days working in an Integrated Marketing Services Company running Adobe apps., such as Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, InDesign CS and Macromedia apps. such as Flash MX Pro, Fireworks MX and Dreamweaver MX. On a PC, these apps. bog down, lock up and otherwise have costed our company $1000's of wasted dollars in lost time and effort investing in the wrong equipment (i.e. Windows powered) PC's for the specifics of our job.

Sure if you are on a HyperThreaded P4 desktop with Dual Channel RAM, you can run these apps., without much of a problem (even locked in the relatively unpredictable XP environment). But this is a NOTEBOOK site. We had a question regarding the APPLE PowerBook, and I provided information that has been substantiated by every Creative Field and Industry worldwide.

Ohh and talk about "marketing hype". You have obviously been swayed by the 2 billion dollars Intel has spent on the Centrino Marketing Initiative. Sorry, but as far as "Benchmarks" and other marketing nonsense, you just can't compare "Apples" to oranges!

Barry J. Doyle

 

A pc guy using a Mac huh? What is that supposed to mean?

I am a Multimedia Developer for a defense contractor in Newport News, VA. I use principally Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator and occasionally Dreamweaver and Director. My main computer is, like I mentioned, a 1.6 ghz G5, but I also work on a 1.13ghz Dell Inspiron notebook.

When you misleadingly state that these apps will not run on XP, you're not doing anyone a favor. They do, in fact, run great on my PC laptop and they are at least as stable there as on the Apple desktop.

The evidence you provided is not substantiated by anything. You didn't reference anything. Saying "more media professionals use Mac's" really is 1. probably not true, and 2. doesn't state anything factual about their performance. You simply stated he would experience "unprecendented [sic] creativity and productivity" which really is an absurd exaggeration.

I like Apple and plan on continuing using their products, but again, it doesn't help to over-hype something just to have someone be disappointed when they purchase.

btw. the benchmarks i was referring to were actually content creation benchmarks which use several of the programs you've listed to grade the processor's speed. I'll post the link on Monday when I get back to my desktop w/ my bookmarks on it.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Barry J. Doyle

 

Hello all,

In the interest of guiding this forum towards a positive tone, I have decided to remove my last response, that was certainly not condusive to the cause. The constant debate between PC and Mac is now 20 years old, and will always be a tough one. I certainly hope that we can all learn about what each platform offers for our individual needs. I look forward to visiting the benchmark links that Marcus plans to post this week. In the meanwhile, for those readers interested in learning more about Mac OS X, please visit the official site: http://www.apple.com/macosx/ and for further info. concerning the performance of the Apple PowerBook G4, please visit: http://www.apple.com/powerbook/

Peace to "all" users [ ]

 

My two cents...

I am a longtime Mac user (since 1984) and have used PCs since the early 1990s. I use Macs for work (journalist) and PCs for fun (though I've done some work on them as well...financial analysis and web design for my wife's company).

There is no question the Mac operating environment beats Windows in terms of stability and there is _way_ less hassle with viruses. I think I've only had to do a reinstall on a Mac once in 20 years. On the PC? Twice in the past year. PC hardware is generally less reliable and there is way more crap to deal with on the software side. The whole Windows architecture is needlessly complex.

BUT, there's also no doubt that many of the programs I use most often (Office suite) function better on the PC or seem to offer better integrated features than they do on the Mac (my Powerbook is three yrs old and uses OS 9.1, so this may not be a relevant observation).

Finally, on those comments about Adobe, Macromedia, etc. not running well on a basic PC (1.6 Ghz P4, 512 MB RAM)...hogwash. I've been using Photoshop and Macromedia Studio MX 2004 on my PC for several months and they work _flawlessly_.

Peter

 

http://barefeats.com/al15b.html

pretty much pc gaming laps blows the powerbooks away... although i would like to see the new g4 1.5 with 128mb 9700 radeon stats. still, it for sure can't compete. g4's have been out for a LONG time and really we should have seen a g5 laptop a while ago that would at least have a chance against p4's, but seems motorola can't get past the heat problem.

if comparing centrino's... barefeats uses a 1.8M without a proper gpu. i'd safely say we can guess that a centrino would be faster than (or at worst with some wishfull thinking equal to) a powerbook g4 with corresponding mhz.

as for centrino battery life... it all depends on the computer... some centrino's have HORRIBLE battery life and some have great battery life.

... but anyways... i just got a 12" powerbook G4 1.33mhz and i couldn't be happier.

[ ]

 

Yes, rigged up pc gaming notebooks outperform powerbooks, but they also vent heat poorly, have terrible battery life and can cost even more than powerbooks (although at far greater performance.) The truth is that if you're not going to be doing any hardcore gaming or rendering there's no point on wasting money on high end technology.

OS-X and jag are more secure, not more stable-- there's a difference- and that's only because there's far more incentive to destabilize xp and only true until you wise up and get a proper firewall and anti virus program, which nobody should be without in the first place. There are plenty of good free ones out there. Again it comes down to which you are more familiar with or if you're using software that requires either one. If you're going to be running demanding games then you'll have to spend tons of money on fast ram, a fast processor, a fast gpu, and a fast hdd. If you're into the mac aesthetics thing, you'll have to spend relatively more money on a powerbook.

 

i use two laptops currently
one IBM a31p and a sony t3.
they cost $3500 and $2300 respectively.
I had the 17" titanium, $3000.
I am a network engineer/researcher.
I use the laptop from for everything from programming to 3D modelling.

As far as software is concerned, including OSes, we can compare the OS/software industry currently to the days when our only choice in cars were those domestically made cars. Some oh my die hard loyalists friends still say the Ford is the best, but they have never experienced the ownership of a Lexus. Currently there is now lexus of OS. X, Linux and Xp have their significant problems.

The softwares, including OSes, are still very buggy and inefficient and there is no new major competitors who will challenge Microsoft or UNIX.

Apple's BSD UNIX based OX X is OK. Better then XP. But neither are great.

Most all Windows laptops will overheat with graphics/disk intensive applications. Apple is better then most.

Either a top end laptop using XP or Apple PB is fine. I recommend Panasonic or Fujitsu for XP. Panasonic is pricy. But it is built even better then a PB.

Avoid, no matter how cheap the following.
Gateway
DELL
HP/Compaq
cheap and badly designed laptops.


I made my final choice simply by the software available for the OS.
Windows had the software I wanted to use . Also my Thinkpad has a 1600x1200 screen, and this was 2 years ago.
Ibm thinpad however has been in the shop 10 times during those 2 years.
My last 2 Sony VAIOs never had problems in 5 years.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1801&p=16

That's the link to the content creation specs. The powerbook is not included but it gives you a pretty good idea of the power of the Centrino chip.

I just had to say in reply to the last post that I'm not sure how bad or good Dell's notebooks are in relation to IBM and others, but the one I've had has been working great for 3 years. The only problems have been with the optical drive. When that happened dell sent a new one within two days of me calling it in.

My co-worker has had a 1ghz PB since October '04 and has returned it to Apple 3 times (once to replace the screen, most recently because it kept crashing for no reason--they put all his ram in a plastic bag and sent it back--and ... to tell you the truth I don't know the third reason.) A guy I know in Buena Vista, Virginia had the same notebook and returned it 4 times for everything from the screen to the optical drive to logic board failures--after the fourth time Apple offered to upgrade him to a 1.5ghz new PB since he'd had so many problems. He just got that a couple days ago.

I know this is a notebook forum, but in Apple's favor, I will say that since October 2004 when I started working on my 1.6ghz G5, I've never had a single problem. Hardware or sofware... I love it. I also work with a guy who has had the 17" powerbook since about October and has had no problems with it either.

Take all this with a grain of salt though--I'm just a "PC guy using a Mac."

 

Heh... wish I was a PC guy using a Mac [ ]

Seriously, I can't go into the local Apple store with-out feeling pangs of regret that I gave Dell $1,800 instead of Apple.

So, @ the original poster, unless you have some PC only software you need to use, get the Apple. If it turns out you don't like it, trade it with your brother for that rock-solid IBM he will have.

Pork

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Barry J. Doyle