Anand reviews the Apple 15" PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz

[Eug]

Anand reviews the Apple 15" PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz.

Pretty good review, and some nice videos.

BTW, there is likely a new PowerBook coming in a few weeks, likely with the G4 1.67 GHz. If so, it's probably the G4 7447B with 512 KB L2 cache.

Less likely is the G4 7448 with 1 MB L2, and of course the G5. I may wait for these, as I want to update my PowerBook 15" Titanium 1 GHz to something faster and smaller, which would be the next gen PowerBook 12".

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Reading the entire thing right now!

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Just read the entire thing. Very interesting read.

 

[ViRGE]

Haha! We've got Anand reviewing PowerBooks. We'll have this site renamed to MacTech in no time now.

Seriously though, it's a good article.

 

[helpme]

Off to read.

 

[Sunner]

Well, I still maintain my stance that notebooks are for wimps

But if I were to be forced to use one, I'd prefer a Powerbook.

 

[Dennis Travis]

Very good article. Well Done Anand. I know it's hard to review a Mac anything and be totally honest without stepping on some toes, but you did a great job as usuall.

If I were to buy a new Laptop it would be a Mac. I would not even have to think about it.

One interesting note, I still have my origional Powerbook 170 with B&W screen. It's been through hell and back and still works perfectally after all those years.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Well, I still maintain my stance that notebooks are for wimps

What kind of computer should you take on business trips or vacation? A full size box just isn't going to work...

But if I were to be forced to use one, I'd prefer a Powerbook.

I have a P4 laptop, I wish I had a powerbook instead.

 

[Cerb]

Nice. Now where is the Mac forum section?

 

[0roo0roo]

interesting

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i normally wouldnt think of a mac, certainly not with the price, but everytime i read i just get more drawn to the idea, i love the design of them, and seems build quality is top notch. im glad to find out that the lappys are made in an ASUS factory and put thru ASUS quality control, that makes me feel all the more better about my ASUS mobo.

transporting my rig, + TFT + speakers + all the other bits n bobs = getting a bit long in the tooth now, yeah there isnt much point in having a laptop for uni, as 99% of peoples laptops never leave their room, but for ease of setting up i want a laptop more and more

i would love to have an ibook but £££!!! too much for me, id have to settle for a drab Acer, or if i wanted abit of style go sony, and get crappy hardware!

ive just seen the mac mini and i like it! i think it would be a good alt to a laptop, its just as big if not smaller, and all i need to is carry it with me when i go to an from uni

the only thing that gets me about the mac mini is it only has 2 usb ports. if u wanna use a mouse n key board then theres the 2 usbs gone!, what about my palm? my twinmos memory stick? my netMD? my card reader? my web cam?

just seems impossible

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: Sunner
Well, I still maintain my stance that notebooks are for wimps

What kind of computer should you take on business trips or vacation? A full size box just isn't going to work...

I wouldn't bring a notebook on my vacation, it's vacation damnit!
And on business trips I let someone else bring the computer, that way they're wimps while I retain my unwimpyness

 

[neoreturns]

Good review, I still want to see the Powerbook G5 though

 

[hopejr]

Megatomic: I sold my P4 Laptop to get my iBook G4, and never regretted it. It's the best machine I've ever used, and I can see myself moving away from PC's fully by the end of this year.

otispunkmeyer: just get an apple keyboard with the usb hub in it. Plug your mouse in that and you have 1 free on the keyboard (usb 1.1 tho) and 1 free on the back. BTW, with notebooks and uni, at my uni, all the com sci students bring theirs to the common room every day. The number of mac users is growing too (last I checked there was about 5 of us, 3 of which got one last year. There's about the same number with PC notebooks)

That article was really good! I learnt a bit more about how I can be even more productive on an already really productive OS. I now know that I actually have a proper delete key without having to use the right-arrow heaps to get to the end and the backspace. I also didn't know about dropping a folder into the save dialog to change to that folder. I did know about doing it in terminal though.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i normally wouldnt think of a mac, certainly not with the price, but everytime i read i just get more drawn to the idea, i love the design of them, and seems build quality is top notch. im glad to find out that the lappys are made in an ASUS factory and put thru ASUS quality control, that makes me feel all the more better about my ASUS mobo.

transporting my rig, + TFT + speakers + all the other bits n bobs = getting a bit long in the tooth now, yeah there isnt much point in having a laptop for uni, as 99% of peoples laptops never leave their room, but for ease of setting up i want a laptop more and more

i would love to have an ibook but £££!!! too much for me, id have to settle for a drab Acer, or if i wanted abit of style go sony, and get crappy hardware!

ive just seen the mac mini and i like it! i think it would be a good alt to a laptop, its just as big if not smaller, and all i need to is carry it with me when i go to an from uni

the only thing that gets me about the mac mini is it only has 2 usb ports. if u wanna use a mouse n key board then theres the 2 usbs gone!, what about my palm? my twinmos memory stick? my netMD? my card reader? my web cam?

just seems impossible

Your webcam and MD is most likely not gonna work. Webcam probably won't have a driver and I don't know of any MD transfer applications for the Mac yet. You'll have to use iMic and analog realtime capture. Your memory stick and palm should be ok though.

 

[Dug]

the only thing that gets me about the mac mini is it only has 2 usb ports. if u wanna use a mouse n key board then theres the 2 usbs gone!, what about my palm? my twinmos memory stick? my netMD? my card reader? my web cam?

just seems impossible

I/O gear. Smallest USB hub

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Eug
Anand reviews the Apple 15" PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz.

The article states that 512 MB is the sweet spot for OS X for entry-level users. I agree with that but I still recommend 768 MB to 1 GB to those who can afford it (or more for the hard core computing types).

While it's nice to have the increased memory just for multitasking, it's helpful even for the basic iLife apps. eg. At least older versions of iMovie seem to do better with 1 GB RAM than lesser amounts. I hear the same is true for GarageBand although I haven't really used GarageBand much so I wouldn't know. iPhoto apparently gets an improvement with 1 GB RAM, but again I haven't played with it enough to know. (Up to and including iPhoto '04, I felt that iPhoto was too limited as an image management app. However, I've played with iPhoto '05 a little bit now, and it seems like a major improvement.)

Now, DV editing and music production aren't part of the average entry-level usage, but nonetheless Apple is shipping iLife '05 for the consumer software suite with the Mac minis and PowerBooks/iBooks. Furthermore, iPhoto is vastly improved, and I'm guessing that a lot more people will want to use it.

 

[SLCentral]

Like Eug said, I can't agree with Anand saying 512MB is the sweet spot. With 512MB, the computer can get bogged down with just iTunes, Safari, iChat/Adium, and Mail open. I'd say 768MB is the best sweet spot, but as always, the more RAM the better. It's not too expensive, and its the best upgrade you can do.

Otherwise, this is another great review/article from Anand.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

I also think its cool that PowerBooks are made in ASUS factories. My AMD XP is using an ASUS motherboard, supposably the top of the line one for the AMD XP.

 

[myjaja]

first of all a mac stands for ''moo apple computer'' ok.

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: myjaja
first of all a mac stands for ''moo apple computer'' ok.

 

[hopejr]

I think 512MB is fine. I could do plenty with 256MB (although it did get bogged down after 8 apps were running). With 512MB, I'm set. Not more problems.

 

[James3shin]

mactops are great, i love my g4 ibook. And RAM is a must for OSX, the more the better, 512MB at the least as stated above.

 

[myjaja]

I heard that macs have hidden cameras.

 

[hopejr]

Originally posted by: myjaja
I heard that macs have hidden cameras.

pollocks