Sweet new TiBook! Radeon 9000, DVD-R Burner, 1 GHz G4

[Eug]

Apple PowerBook Page

Yahoo Article

 

[GTaudiophile]

DROOL!

 

[RanDum72]

Now that is the ULTIMATE notebook!:Q

 

[Eug]

The iBooks have had a small upgrade too, but it's nothing spectacular, except there is a significant price drop.

Anyways, I think I'm gonna buy this:

-- 1 GHz PowerPC G4 with 1MB DDR level 3 cache
-- SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) optical drive
-- ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64MB DDR SDRAM
-- 512MB SDRAM, expandable to 1GB
-- 60GB Ultra ATA hard drive
-- 15.2" screen 1280x854
-- Gigabit Ethernet

No BlueTooth, but I couldn't care less.

 

[rbV5]

I'd love to get that baby if there is an easy way to get analog (s-video) input.......anyone know how/if?

 

[ElFenix]

dasm, thats a sweet ride

 

[Eug]

Oh and it's 5.4 lbs too, including the battery, and with optical drive built-in. Suwweeeet!

The 15.2" screen is gorgeous. (I've seen the older 800 MHz model.) However, to be quite honest, I would have preferred a smaller laptop (maybe 13.5-14") at say 4.5-5 lbs.

 

[Eug]

Holy crap! The price includes the Airport card too.

So that means I can sell my old iBook with the Airport card built in for a few extra bux.

 

[Toolman]

Thats a sweet laptop, really really sweet, but what games can you play on it? Seriously!? Are they making games that can be played on Macs now? My computer usage does not revolve around game playing but I sure as heck want the ability & option to play if should want to.

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by: Toolman
Thats a sweet laptop, really really sweet, but what games can you play on it? Seriously!? Are they making games that can be played on Macs now? My computer usage does not revolve around game playing but I sure as heck want the ability & option to play if should want to.

take your pick

 

[Toolman]

Son of a buck!! I had no idea there were so many games! That is one tempting laptop!

 

[Toolman]

What is an airport card?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Toolman
What is an airport card?

Pretty sure that's Mac speak for a wireless Internet card.

 

[Hikari]

I just ordered one.

Here is a cut and paste from the Apple Specs page. It mentions s-
video anyway...


Video and graphics support
Built-in 2D/3D graphics acceleration through an integrated ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics processor with AGP 4X support and 32MB or 64MB of DDR SDRAM video memory
- Support for dual display and video mirroring: Millions of colors on the built-in display and on an external display at up to 2048 by 1536 pixels (10)
- Support for a single external display: Millions of colors on an external display at up to 2048 by 1536 pixels (10)
DVI output port
VGA output with included Apple DVI to VGA Adapter
S-video output port
Composite output support with included S-video to composite adapter

Powerbook Specs Page

Originally posted by: rbV5
I'd love to get that baby if there is an easy way to get analog (s-video) input.......anyone know how/if?

 

[Eug]

Airport card = Apple branded custom Lucent 802.11b wireless card, as GTaudiophile says.

Anyways, I've just ordered one of these. My credit card is crying out in pain. Anyone wanna buy an iBook 600. I'll put 768 MB RAM in the thing.

The sales guy told me it had a 60 GB 5400 rpm drive. The website says it's a 4200 rpm drive. I dunno which is true but in the past all the 60 GB drives were 5400 rpm. Too bad you can't spec it with a Travelstar GNX drive though - much faster.

As for games, despite the 1 GHz G4 and the Radeon 9000 DDR 64 MB, I think this thing is gonna be pretty lame in comparison to a PC. Macs historically are much slower at gaming than PCs. ie. It's gonna be OK with current games at medium resolutions, but I'd have to guess that Doom 3 is gonna be suck on this machine.

OTOH, the OS is OpenGL accelerated for 2D so the 9000 may help a bit. (Certainly a 7500 is WAY faster than my Rage 128 for the OS stuff in 2D.) And for DVD playback etc, the 9000 uses about 10% less power than the 7500 according to Tom's.

 

[GTaudiophile]

What? Two peeps each just bought a Apple TiPowerbook? Dang!

Please tell us how Doom III alpha performs on it

 

[rbV5]

S-video output port

Yea, I see the s-video output, what i need is analog "input". I'd like to get one of these for my dad to edit his dv.....which this will definately do with the firewire, but he also needs s-video input for his sat dish so he can capture/burn movies. I'm not Mac savy at all, but I think the dv video handling and superdrive would be perfect for my PC "idot" of a father. He travels extensively so a notebook would be perfect. He has seen the iMac in action and was impressed with the interface and ease of use (he refuses to use a wintel machine) but needs an analog input solution for it to work and I'm not sure how to get it on a Mac. Open to suggestions

 

[CraigRT]

1 GHz G4

That's a shame..

 

[Hikari]

I own a much faster (in raw megahertz) Athlon PC as well, that has a Geforce4 Ti 4600. For 90% of tasks I really can't tell a lot of speed differences between in and the G4 Towers I've used. Granted, you will get more fps out of the PC, but I didn't spend all this money on a TiBook just to play games.

Now I just have to wait the 5-7 days! argh!

Originally posted by: Yield

1 GHz G4

That's a shame..

 

[Hikari]

Something like this? review of device

Cheapest I've seen it is about $230 or so.

Originally posted by: rbV5

S-video output port

Yea, I see the s-video output, what i need is analog "input". I'd like to get one of these for my dad to edit his dv.....which this will definately do with the firewire, but he also needs s-video input for his sat dish so he can capture/burn movies. I'm not Mac savy at all, but I think the dv video handling and superdrive would be perfect for my PC "idot" of a father. He travels extensively so a notebook would be perfect. He has seen the iMac in action and was impressed with the interface and ease of use (he refuses to use a wintel machine) but needs an analog input solution for it to work and I'm not sure how to get it on a Mac. Open to suggestions

 

[smp]

Two of you bastards just bought these?!? :Q
Can you get me a job where you work? Please!
I wanna buy an ibook, that is a considerable price drop, and 7500 graphics should help out with that jaguar openGL stuff or whatever it is ..
someone tell me I'm right ..

 

[Excelsior]

Also, if anyone is gonna buy one...if you choose the ultimate, go ahead and upgrade to 1GB of RAM, for only 40 dollars more. Damn..thats sweet.

 

[Hikari]

I don't know how much faster the 7500 is for Quartz Extreme... It is definitely a much better video card all around, though. Originally I think QE wanted 32mb for optimal performance, so this new rev will definitely be better. OS X is supposedly highly optimized to use the Altivec (sorta like the SSE stuff on PCs), so it's faster on a G4 machine since G3's don't have altivec.

That all said, I also have a 350mhz G3 at home, too. If you can swing the 800mhz iBook, it'll be plenty fast for most stuff. I'm just crazy and need a TiBook.

Originally posted by: smp
Two of you bastards just bought these?!? :Q
Can you get me a job where you work? Please!
I wanna buy an ibook, that is a considerable price drop, and 7500 graphics should help out with that jaguar openGL stuff or whatever it is ..
someone tell me I'm right ..

 

[Hikari]

I only ordered the 'combo drive' unit myself (first 1ghz config on the site). I don't see the point of a DVD burner on my laptop. hehe. The only stuff I ever back up are documents anyway, and I can copy them to my iPod or just back them up to my .Mac account...and I don't do video editing. Also, it is 5-7 days for the combo-drive 1ghz machien, but I think 3-4 weeks wait for the Superdrive-equipped unit. But, the $40 extra for 1gb is a great deal, I did that.

Originally posted by: Excelsior
Also, if anyone is gonna buy one...if you choose the ultimate, go ahead and upgrade to 1GB of RAM, for only 40 dollars more. Damn..thats sweet.

 

[Eug]

I don't see the point of a DVD burner on my laptop. hehe.

My last vacation netted me 1 GB of pix. Which eventually became a 4 GB disc - slideshow DVD-R. Most of the set up was done before I even got home to my DVD burner. I don't NEED a DVD-R burner, but it's definitely a bonus.

I wanna buy an ibook, that is a considerable price drop, and 7500 graphics should help out with that jaguar openGL stuff or whatever it is ..

The iBook 700 with Radeon 7500 is considerably faster for even just OS stuff than the iBook 600 with Rage Mobility 128. The Radeon supports Quartz Extreme, but the Rage Mobility 128 does not. By the way, none of the iBooks support monitor spanning to expand your desktop. However, there is a hack that makes it work with certain resolutions on the iBook Radeon. The G4 800 TiBook feels slightly faster though.

If you go for an iBook, I'd stick with the 800 if you can.

EDIT: The older iBook 700 did NOT have a Radeon 7500. It was just called "Radeon" (16 MB, and that's I tested) and supposedly was slower than the current 7500. So the new iBook might still give an additional boost.

Also, if anyone is gonna buy one...if you choose the ultimate, go ahead and upgrade to 1GB of RAM, for only 40 dollars more. Damn..thats sweet.

Not in Canada.

Now I just have to wait the 5-7 days!

3-4 weeks for me.