Apple upgrades iBook line

[Draco]

Probably not to many Mac fans here, but I think they make a great laptop. They've bumped the speed to 700Mhz and finally replaced that aging ATI Mobility graphics chip (8mb) with the Radeon (16mb). Bigger hard-drive's all around too.

Hopefully the next iBook will have a G4...

News Blurb

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Draco
Probably not to many Mac fans here, but I think they make a great laptop. They've bumped the speed to 700Mhz and finally replaced that aging ATI Mobility graphics chip (8mb) with the Radeon (16mb). Bigger hard-drive's all around too.

Hopefully the next iBook will have a G4...

News Blurb

Well, as an iBook 600 owner myself, I'm not overly impressed.

The Radeon is nice although the 16 MB worries me. Ideally, Quartz Extreme for 2D acceleration is supposed to have 32 MB. That said, I suspect 16 MB will be enough, since the max resolution is only 1024x768.

They finally have S-video out (along with VGA and composite).

They finally allow bigger hard drives on the various models. Up to 40 GB on a 12" model. Nice.

However, the real disappointment is the G3 700. Although the MHz is 18% faster, and it has twice the L2 cache for an additional boost, it's still slow even by Mac standards. OS X is built around the G4, as is much OS X software these days. IMO, the G3 should be put out of its misery, instead of being allowed to die a slow and agonizing death.

Right now there is an artificial separation between the G4 TiBook and the G3 iBook, that being the CPU. There are many of us who would love to have a G4 667 iBook with 32 MB Radeon, and not have to pay for the Titanium shell, the slot load drive (which I hate anyway), 15" widescreen LCD monitor, etc.

That would severely kill TiBook sales, but would also open up a huge new iBook market.

 

[Darien]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: Draco
Probably not to many Mac fans here, but I think they make a great laptop. They've bumped the speed to 700Mhz and finally replaced that aging ATI Mobility graphics chip (8mb) with the Radeon (16mb). Bigger hard-drive's all around too.

Hopefully the next iBook will have a G4...

News Blurb

Well, as an iBook 600 owner myself, I'm not overly impressed.

The Radeon is nice although the 16 MB worries me. Ideally, Quartz Extreme for 2D acceleration is supposed to have 32 MB. That said, I suspect 16 MB will be enough, since the max resolution is only 1024x768.

They finally have S-video out (along with VGA and composite).

They finally allow bigger hard drives on the various models. Up to 40 GB on a 12" model. Nice.

However, the real disappointment is the G3 700. Although the MHz is 18% faster, and it has twice the L2 cache for an additional boost, it's still slow even by Mac standards. OS X is built around the G4, as is much OS X software these days. IMO, the G3 should be put out of its misery, instead of being allowed to die a slow and agonizing death.

Right now there is an artificial separation between the G4 TiBook and the G3 iBook, that being the CPU. There are many of us who would love to have a G4 667 iBook with 32 MB Radeon, and not have to pay for the Titanium shell, the slot load drive (which I hate anyway), 15" widescreen LCD monitor, etc.

That would severely kill TiBook sales, but would also open up a huge new iBook market.

agreed. i'm waiting on a g4 ibook, as that would be a great asset.

ugh, still on g3...and on 100mhz bus...

boo!

apple needs to bug motorola some more for cpus!

 

[gsaldivar]

"...many of us who would love to have a G4 667 iBook with 32 MB Radeon, and not have to pay for the Titanium shell, the slot load drive (which I hate anyway), 15" widescreen LCD monitor, etc..."

It sounds remarkably like a monopoly! Premium prices, limited options, little bargaining power...

Wait! I thought Microsoft supposed to be the monopoly...

 

[Draco]

Well, as an iBook 600 owner myself, I'm not overly impressed.

The Radeon is nice although the 16 MB worries me. Ideally, Quartz Extreme for 2D acceleration is supposed to have 32 MB. That said, I suspect 16 MB will be enough, since the max resolution is only 1024x768.

They finally have S-video out (along with VGA and composite).

They finally allow bigger hard drives on the various models. Up to 40 GB on a 12" model. Nice.

However, the real disappointment is the G3 700. Although the MHz is 18% faster, and it has twice the L2 cache for an additional boost, it's still slow even by Mac standards. OS X is built around the G4, as is much OS X software these days. IMO, the G3 should be put out of its misery, instead of being allowed to die a slow and agonizing death.

Right now there is an artificial separation between the G4 TiBook and the G3 iBook, that being the CPU. There are many of us who would love to have a G4 667 iBook with 32 MB Radeon, and not have to pay for the Titanium shell, the slot load drive (which I hate anyway), 15" widescreen LCD monitor, etc.

That would severely kill TiBook sales, but would also open up a huge new iBook market.

I whole-heartidly agree. It would be great to see a G4 cpu in the iBook along with the same amount of video memory, but like you said it would dent TiBook sales significantly. I wonder how far off we are from seeing a G5 in the TiBook, thus making the G4 the only option for the iBook

I forgot to mention; Quartz Extreme will *require* 32mb of VRAM as a minimum (at least from what I've read). So the 16mb in these new iBooks probably won't cut it. Unless the requirements change.