Why PowerBook?

The new ones advertise a 1.67GHz processor. That seems a bit slow to me compared to the current generation of Pentium processors. I love Apple and would love to be an Apple owner - I think they are a great company - but why would I spend so much money on a basically obsolete notebook? Am I missing something?

 

Others will hopefully weigh in with a better technical explanation. That said, the intel and power pc chips are different. The power pc chips use a different type of instruction set, and the end result is that 1.67 GHz is not slow, but pretty comparable. I use a 1.33 Ghz, and it is just fine. There are far better reasons to raise the "why powerbook?" (or any Mac for that matter) question than processor speed. The whole software availability, windows vs. OSX, compatability with the rest of the world are excellent reasons to raise the why? question. For me, it was "why not?" I have a windows desktop, windows at work, and the powerbooks are just so *****in! So far the switch has been fine, though I've still got a learning curve with OSX, there are a few things I miss about windows (tileing of open windows, for instance) and the compatability issue is nagging me, though no real problems yet.

 

I grew up using Apples, and I've longed to go back for years. My mom bought a 12" iBook a little over a year ago and any time I have used that thing, it's run like a dream even though it has the lowest available specs. The whole software compatibility issue isn't really a big deal to me, as I can use my student discount to get an OSX version of Creative Suite (the piece of software I use most on my PC) and be content with that. Anything else I use regularly, Apple has a comparable version of. Any gaming I would want to do I would use my desktop PC for, so that's not much of an issue. However, I was thinking that if I got a notebook PC I'd get one I could game on, and I've gone round and round on this decision, but I always find myself coming back to the PowerBook. My only hesitation is that if I for some reason WANTED to game on the road, I wouldn't be able to with the PowerBook. Otherwise, I'd go buy one tonight.

I've just always wondered about the whole processor speed thing. When I've seen PC notebooks with 3+GHz processors, yet are of comparable price to a 15" Powerbook with a few upgrades, it makes me wonder. I'm also fearful that I'll buy this thing and next year they'll release G5s. I know that Apple is having trouble getting the G5 processor into the notebooks because of cooling problems, but it's still a concern I have. As a student I don't imagine I'll be able to afford a new notebook in less than three years, so I'd hate to buy it and have it end up being obsolete too soon. Of course, that's a danger with any computer purchase, but it's still something I'd like to avoid!

Basically, I'm sold on the PowerBook, minus the whole gaming thing and my confusion over the processor speed.

Thanks for your input! I was afraid my initial question came across as insulting or antagonistic. I had written a much longer explanation of what I was looking for and why I was asking, but the browser ate it because my password was wrong, so I didn't feel like typing it all over again.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sencha

 

I've no interest in trying to persuade anyone to buy a Mac rather than a PC or vice versa. I stumbled on this forum while looking for info on a PC laptop. I have an IBM thinkpad and a 15" Powerbook for work.

We have two children so the 'games' question always crops up when choosing which computer to install at home. We have an old win 98 PC in a corner of the kitchen - that way we can keep an eye on their browsing activities. In the end we decided to plumb for a PC laptop as a replacement:
(a) for the plethora of games available for PCs, and
(b) we wanted to save some room and didn't want another desktop.

However, having said that I recently bought a 15" powerbook for work and the eldest child has been pleading for one of her own ever since.

I have have long since stopped worrying whether a new machine will be obsolete - since they always are within a few months - in fact I bought my powerbook the week before Apple up-rated the specs on their notebooks! In a few months Panther will be old-hat and Tiger will be flavour of the day.

As to processor speed: if you are interested in real-world tests see http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html (I know they're not notebooks featured - but it does demonstrate the point). Besides the G4 processor speed, bus speed, amount of RAM, graphics card, even hard drive speeds all weigh in on the overhaul performance of a machine.

But think about it - it also depends on what you are using the machine for (can't say I've notice a speed difference when writing a Word document on a 3MHz machine as opposed to a 2Mhz machine? Especially when limited to two fingers!) If you are looking at throwing 500Mb images around in Photoshop, compiling a 500,000 line C++ file, playing the latest graphic intensive action-game then you might want to consider processor speed.


I've used PCs and Macs for the last dozen years and both have their pluses and minuses. The first Mac I used was the IIcx and a little before that I recall using an IBM (swapping floppy disks containing data, operating system and application), so I have never really worried which was the 'best' as I was familiar with both. If I needed to manipulate photographs and type then the original choice was a Mac - because Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker and Quark first appeared for the Mac - but it was only a matter of time before they ported to PC. In other words think about what you are predominantly intending to use the machine for and make your choice accordingly. That's why I will buy a PC for the kids - they wanted the games.

It may interest you to know that a work colleague of mine has a 17" powerbook running OSX Panther, XP Pro under emulation, Yellow Dog, a Linux flavour and X11 ( X11 for Mac is a X Window System implementation for running X11-based applications [UNIX] on Mac OS X) . He reported that the XP emulation wasn't great for running heavy-duty games (but that's not surprising as they often push a native Pentium to its limit).


As an aside:
Microsoft Office on the Mac has tiling built into the apps so you can tile word docs or excel spreadsheets. As for tiling windows in general Apple have included Expose (press F9 in Panther) which resizes the windows on the desktop so all are visible - clicking on one then brings that window to the front - its not the same as in XP - but represents another approach - F11 pushes all windows off the side of the desktop, and pressing F11 again brings them back. That way you can see the icons on the desktop. Hope that helps MotoTrojan... might not be exactly what you are after...

As for the question of will you be able to access your old PC word docs but don't have the money for the mac version of Office you might like to consider looking at Open Office which allows you to create documents, speadsheets etc. It opens word docs or spreadsheets from PC or mac and can save out in Word, Excel formats. Best of all its FREE and available for Mac OSX as an X11 application (see Neo office as well), PC and Linux!
www.openoffice.org

 

Great info tomcat. Thanks for the reply. I hope it will also help others out there who might be considering making the switch (back) to Apples. Thanks.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by 330zhp

 

I am not a zealot one way or another, I owned orginal Macs and have a Mac Mini and two Windows laptops (Sony S series- way slick and Dell 9300 for Lan parties). The processor is no big deal, unless you buy your laptops for gaming BUT I have this one big thing against Apple Laptops- they give you NO screen resolution and size chpoices. Macs are typically more expensive, are somewhat cooler (New Sonys and Toshibas are right up there- even the new del 9300 is very slick) but ALL Windows Manufacturers give you screen sizes and choices- not so the Macs. If I want a 17" laptop I have at least three choices of resolutions in the Windows world, WSXGA, WSGA+,WUXGA and thats the way it should be. I get one choice for Apple's 17" . Many need higher resolution OR to choose a lower res screen (hence a lower price!)

I love Apples design and forward thinking and I own an Ipod but they really need to open up a little.

As a matter of fact the entire Apple world has turned to that- it is wierd to think of them as political (in real life Apple= lib democrat, MS= Conservative repub) but in their computing styles they are Different- MS Windows= choice and configurability while Apple is strict and minimal choices- odd isnt it?

 

For those who cannot justify the expense, think of the computer you will need next. Things don't become obsolete in the mac world as quickly as with PCs. I have owned 4 PC notebooks and dozens of desktops. They all were useless to me within 2 years because of hardware failures and how quickly the software left them behind. Even straight out of the box, there are always issues with how the hardware configuration matches the OS. You'd expect PC notebooks to be better designed than their desktop counterparts, but the need to have a cutting edge model with the latest processor/graphics card drives down quality.
With XP a lot of PC software (especially games), the newer the version, the slower the operation. Apple actually seems to be improving performance on older machines with each OSX update.
I have a 3 year old iMac G4 800Mhz that still is easily capable of running all the new games I have found plus every professional application I can think of. The only thing it has a problem with is really intensive video graphics apps, which obviously you would want a powerhouse for.
I just ordered an iBook, only because I will be moving from Japan to the US to Vietnam this year. If my iMac specs are anything to go by, it will last me another 3 years at least and should have absolutely no problem with everything except HD video. Do you need the Firewire 800 and better graphics card on the PowerBook? Sad to say, but these are the only reasons to choose it over the iBook until a new PowerBook series comes out.
As for the conservative & liberal qualities of MS vs. Apple; choice is a highly manipulated concept by political conservatives, and so it is with MS. I never chose to spend year of my life troubleshooting my PC or rebooting. Contrastingly, on all OSX machines, you can quite immediately change the language you are typing in. Doesn't sound like much, but even here in Japan, the way you type in Japanese on a PC seems like a tacked-on feature. Apple is liberal through and through. A) because the computers work often enough to make meaningful choices about your work and gaming B) because of how snooty and elitist the mac community is

 

Ahhh the old "Windows crashes all the time" routine- that was true at one point, but Windows XP is a pretty stable platfomr at this point and the choices for software and games and utilities are pretty much off the scale for Windows VS. Mac. Again I AM A MAC OWNER but I can get more done with windows typcially

 

The powerbooks are great machines but they have always been more expensive than the PC counterpart. Until recently, I'd dare you to find as sleek a notebook as a titanium PB.

As far as processor speed, if you are doing intensive Photoshop manipulation/ rendering you will probably notice that today's PC laptop is faster. Otherwise the difference isn't that noticeable in other applications.

On the gaming side different story, game performance can be almost half of what you would get if you were on a PC laptop for alot of games. Thus, Sencha, my ASUS W3V preorder. Look around on Anandtech and you can find some addtional details. Basically, OS X has never been known as a gaming platform though some people do use it for such and enjoy it.

If I didn't want the additional gaming power I'd have an updated powerbook. For work, my ibook does me just fine and it's only a G3600 with 256megs of RAM running Panther. However, I only occasionally need to manipulate images in Photoshop/ Illustrator.

 

The processor of a Mac computer uses a shorter pipeline than the intel ones. I once saw a video on this...I think that as information passes through, it is processed faster because the pipeline is "shorter" and doesn't have to travel as far or something. Like the intel one ism ore powerful but slower because the pipeline is longer.

 

I reiterate my main point- Apples dont give you enough resolution choices on the 15 and 17" models- the font smoothing in OS X actually makes some text look pretty "blurry" I like smaller, crisper text- no such thing on Apple.

And the fact they dont offer a port replicator really is cheesy. Some people dont need this but for those us who have printer, DVI, Mouse, Keyboard, external back up drive, speakers and memory card reader hooked up, we need this option FROM APPLE not some third party.

PC's now are almost as cool, faster, cheaper, offer more choices and are pretty much the way to go. And they of course work great with your IPOD too!

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by 330zhp

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by queshy

 

i have an ibook 12 inch and I think that in terms of value, it obviously offers the best value when comparing it to any Windows counterpart. However, I am a real fan of the 12 inch powerbook but the price different is very hard to justify for someone like me who uses it primarily to surf the web and do word processing. I do notice that the powerbook is faster and the new updated powerbooks have a faster hard drive which will help with performance as well. The things i like about the powerbooks is the size and faster speed if you need it. the 15 inch is a dream machine for me but i don't know if i would buy it even if i could afford it b/c there are much cheaper pc options here in Canada. I love using OS X but if i was to spend money on another mac i would probably get an imac instead.