I was just reading overviews of the new iBook and Powerbooks
I can't help but agree that this is likely a stopgap upgrade, here's why.
No press event was called. If Apple spies hadnt leaked to rumour sites, we wouldn't have known it was gonna happen.
No new form factor, this the 4 incarnation of the Powerbook , and about the same for the iBook, they have changed little in 2 years. No new proccessors, except for the Radeon 9000 and the slot superdrive, these are the same old stuff, just bumped up a little. No new hard drive sizes that I can tell, the PB still maxes out at 60, the base ram is about the same too. The bus is the same on both, not 133 and 167. Bluetooth is still external, and don't you think airport should included in all the Powerbook line, and maybe the highend iBook?
Also as nice as the iBook is, don't you agree the G3 is getting long in the tooth?
If only some of Apple's line supports Altivec then that's kind of a crappy deal for some. Compressing or decoding or crfunching on a G3 is dreamatically slower than a lower Mhz G4 .
So to sum up, I think the new books are great, but next year they will be much more than just a speedbump. Of course if you need a new laptop Mac these would do the job admirably, they are faster and cheaper than last revision.
I wonder what January will bring, new Powermacs and iMacs? Or who knows what.
Comments
Mark
I can't help but agree that this is likely a stopgap upgrade, here's why.
No press event was called. If Apple spies hadnt leaked to rumour sites, we wouldn't have known it was gonna happen.
No new form factor, this the 4 incarnation of the Powerbook , and about the same for the iBook, they have changed little in 2 years. No new proccessors, except for the Radeon 9000 and the slot superdrive, these are the same old stuff, just bumped up a little. No new hard drive sizes that I can tell, the PB still maxes out at 60, the base ram is about the same too. The bus is the same on both, not 133 and 167. Bluetooth is still external, and don't you think airport should included in all the Powerbook line, and maybe the highend iBook?
Also as nice as the iBook is, don't you agree the G3 is getting long in the tooth?
If only some of Apple's line supports Altivec then that's kind of a crappy deal for some. Compressing or decoding or crfunching on a G3 is dreamatically slower than a lower Mhz G4 .
So to sum up, I think the new books are great, but next year they will be much more than just a speedbump. Of course if you need a new laptop Mac these would do the job admirably, they are faster and cheaper than last revision.
I wonder what January will bring, new Powermacs and iMacs? Or who knows what.
Comments
Mark