I'll leave the side-by-side speed comparisons to Bare Feats, but my subjective observation is that the new Powerbook is much faster than my old one. While OS X 10.2 still felt a bit sluggish on the 867 MHz G4 in my TiBook, everything just pops with the new 1.25 GHz processor in the new 15" Powerbook. There was some concern that the lack of a L3 cache, that the Tibook had, would affect performance, but the inclusion of a large 512 K L2 cache seems to do the trick. Also, the excellent Radeon Mobility 9600 yields a performance gain, especially when paired with the Quartz Extreme graphics acceleration in OS X 10.2. The only processor-intensive tasks that I do regularly are mp3 ripping and the occasional recreational Photoshop work. I'm your typical business-oriented computer user. So I don't have huge processor needs. Pretty much any computer these days is plenty fast enough for me, and this Powerbook is no exception. Since the release of OS X, though, with its voracious thirst for processor cycles, none of my Powerbooks had the necessary oomph. This one finally feels like I went back in a time warp to my 400 MHz G4 and Mac OS 9, as far as responsiveness goes. Responsiveness is about the only thing I missed from OS 9, though.
The new Powerbook has all the ports on the sides: modem, USB 2.0, audio in, headphone, Cardbus, DVI (with a VGA adapter included), S-video, Gigabit ethernet, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and security. I prefer the ports on the side, because I always had to fumble to get anything into the ports in the back behind their little floppy door in the TiBook. I do worry about these ports accumulating dust bunnies, though.
One pleasant surprise in the new Powerbook is its above-average speakers. Apple has tried many times to deliver a quality listening experience in its portable computers. Remember the 3400 and its "subwoofer" built into the lid? Well, the large perforated surface area next to the keyboard hides some nice speakers, that are almost good enough to play music out of. Well, I won't go that far, but they'd do in a pinch.
So what else is new in here? 802.11g "Airport Extreme" is nice, but since my main network use is over a 1.5 Mbit DSL line, it doesn't really come into play. Built-in bluetooth is great, but until I get a bluetooth-ready phone, PDA, keyboard, and mouse, I don't have anything to report. Hopefully Apple's new Bluetooth religion will do for personal area networks what Apple did for USB and Wi-Fi: push peripheral vendors to adopt the standard more quickly. Speaking of which, I'm happy to see Apple finally embrace USB 2.0, though I wonder if I'll ever use it.
In conclusion, the new 1.25 GHz Powerbook G4 15" is a great piece of machinery. It's beautiful, durable, fast enough for everyday computing, has a crisp monitor, an outstanding and unique keyboard, a nice OS and a suite of great applications (iTunes, iCal, iPhoto, iDVD, iChat, iMovie, etc). I'm glad to see the cornerstone of the Powerbook line brought up to date with 802.11g, Bluetooth, DVI, USB 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, and Firewire 800. I'm pleased with the 1.25 GHz G4 chip and I love the Radeon 9600. Though the lid does not close snugly against the case, this is the sturdiest-feeling laptop I've even used. The only thing I'll miss from my tiBook will be a 3rd party add-on, the Tote and Tilt handle. Note to laptop manufacturers: build handles into your laptops. If you are considering a new laptop, even if you're a Windows user, you really ought to take a quick look at the new 15" powerbook before you make up your mind.
The Powerbook I bought retails for $2599 (1.25Ghz G4, 80 Gig HD, Superdrive DVD-R) You can buy a comparably equipped Dell Inspiron 8500 for about the same price (after rebate), or a bit more if you want a Centrino. The Inspiron has a 15.4" monitor that's available in higher resolutions, and it's available with processors that benchmark quite a bit faster than the G4. But come on, look at the thing. I've owned several Dell laptops, and they're plasticky and pedestrian, though relatively solid. Next to the Powerbook, most laptops are a sad sight. The Vaios can hold their own, but also at a premium price. And many people find that the iApps add real value to the Mac offering. All in all, the Powerbook is a great machine, comparably priced to other name brand PC hardware.
- "Powerbook review, Page 1"
- "Powerbook review, Page 2"
"It's tough being a journalist, especially if you're covering technology and living in Silicon Valley, because it seems as if everyone around you is getting fabulously rich while you're stuck in a job that will never, ever make you wealthy. What's worse is that all these people who are getting rich don't seem to be any brighter than you are and in fact many of them don't seem very bright at all. So of course you get jealous. And then you start thinking maybe you could find a way to cash in on this gold rush. But how do you make gobs of money when your only marketable skill involves writing blog posts?" Absolutely brilliant down to the last letter. Coincidentally, I hold no shares, interests, or anything, in any company whatsoever. I'm a freelance translator by day. Not that anyone cares, but hey, full disclosure and all.
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"A hybrid solution that takes the best parts of iOS's one-by-one acceptance and Android's expressed and obvious intents seems like a proper model here. In fact, Apple has many of the pieces in place elsewhere." This is a big issue. Nor Android's model (just list a bunch of confusing permissions), nor Apple's model (individual modal dialogs for each permission) is particularly workable - I doubt regular users check them on Android before installing an application, and in the case of iOS, Apple didn't think it was necessary to secure the address book, so every application has access to it without alerting users. Justin Williams proposes a hybrid solution.
"Although current discussion of the Linux desktop tends to focus on the disharmony around Unity and the GNOME shell, the true revolution on the desktop is taking place out of sight of users. The Wayland display server is expected to reach version 1.0 later this year, and is seen by many as the long term replacement for the X Window System, with real potential to improve and transform the performance of the desktop for Linux users."
Mozilla has announced plans to integrate its Firefox web browser with Metro for Windows 8 - including Gecko. "Windows 8 contains two application environments, 'Classic' and 'Metro'. Classic is very similar to the Windows 7 environment at this time, it requires a simple evolution of the current Firefox Windows product. Metro is an entirely new environment and requires a new Firefox front end and system integration points. The feature goal here is a new Gecko based browser built for and integrated with the Metro environment. Firefox on Metro, like all other Metro apps will be full screen, focused on touch interactions, and connected to the rest of the Metro environment through Windows 8 contracts." I haven't checked - does Microsoft allow different rendering engines?
"One of the things that the GNOME design crew have been focusing on recently is creating a new approach to application design for GNOME 3. We want GNOME applications to be thoroughly modern, and we want them to be attractive and a delight to use. That means that we have to do application design differently to how we've done it in the past.""This is the first real release of Wayland and Weston. Wayland is the protocol and IPC mechanism while Weston is the reference compositor implementation. The 0.85 branch in both repositories is going to be protocol and interface stable. We have a series of protocol changes on the table before 1.0 but this branch marks a stable point before we jump into that." Change is coming to the Linux world. And yes, I get the irony of using this particular icon, but it's the closest I could find.
Well, this is good news. "Germany will not sign an international anti-piracy treaty, despite having already agreed to it in principal, government sources in Berlin said Friday, February 10." with Germany on the side of reason - for now - we're a huge step closer to stopping ACTA.
"Microsoft today issued a brief statement promising to make 'essential patents' available to competitors at fair and reasonable licensing rates, and promised not to sue companies making products that infringe these patents. The actual patents themselves weren't disclosed, but Microsoft joins both Google and Apple in making recent statements on so-called fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing terms. Such licensing terms designate certain patents as essential to complying with industry standards, making them available for licensing at (supposedly) lower-than-usual rates." This industry is dysfunctional."Like any space opera, the story of information technology is a very simple one. It is played out in a myriad of different ways by a revolving cast of characters, but it always has its loveable heroes, its predictably nefarious villains, innocent civilians to be saved, and bumbling bureaucrats that aren't inherently evil, but begin every story aiding the forces of darkness out of a misplaced belief they are preserving law and order in their corner of the galaxy." He might use Star Wars as an analogy (I strongly dislike Star Wars - Trekkie here), but it sums up very well how I feel about computing today.
"Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that allows graphics processing units and central processing units on a single chip to collaborate - boosting processor performance by an average of more than 20 percent."
