Higher Definition Powerbook?

[mashinhead]

i don't suppose that this higher resolution actually exists in the new build but just has to be "unlocked".



.......tooo badd.

 

[ftaok]

No one here is talking about OLED (organic LED) which can be run on existing LCD production lines at a fraction of the cost. They are out and viable this year in production run quantities. Apple will likely jump to this form for higher res and lower costs, plus self-illumination removes the mercury filled backlighting... all adding up to more battery run time. check OLED out on a google search or at supervideo.com/2005b.htm

This is my opinion only. OLED is not ready and won't be for a few years. The problem is that the organic components just don't last long enough. The current OLEDs last only 10,000 hours. Not nearly enough for a computer screen.

Unless they make a tremendous discovery and find a way to make the blue buggers live longer, they won't be able to market it.

 

[FFTT]

PCI-e coming to laptops

This article at Macworld indicates that PCI-e may be coming soon.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/03/11/expresscard/index.php

 

[chaos86]

Umm only if they are running Pentium 4 PCUs. Talk to him about AMD's mobile solutions.

Umm BS. I'm got a friend that is running a Latitude 2Ghz Pentium M with Quake III and it runs flawless.

Someones gotta call him on this. I've got a g3 strawberry iMac running at a whopping 300mhz without altivec that can run quake III flawlessly!

much as i love quake III, the greatest game of all time, I could run it myself on pen and paper, so benchmarking present day computers on it's playablity is BS right there.

 

[Bilvox]

15 is niiiice

Im pretty happy with my 15inch pb, especially all the options and the ease i can bring it to work and use my huge sony pc monitor or hook it up to my tv and play videos... visualizations from itune etc...
very nice...
but i wouldnt complain for something bigger and better.


-bv

http://www.bilvox.com/

 

[maya]

Options are always a good thing for everyone. I for one would love to buy an HD option for the 17" PowerBook display. Heck this is the year for HD so why not. At times I cannot stand the low resolution on the Apple notebooks, however that said its not that bad as people make it sound.

Now do you think this will come in the G4 or G5 flavour.

 

[ftaok]

Options are always a good thing for everyone. I for one would love to buy an HD option for the 17" PowerBook display. Heck this is the year for HD so why not. At times I cannot stand the low resolution on the Apple notebooks, however that said its not that bad as people make it sound.

Now do you think this will come in the G4 or G5 flavour.

maya,

I understand people's desire for a higher resolution screen option. It's good for the consumer. However, in this case, I don't think it's good for Apple. Apple can't afford to offer so many different options lest they get stuck with inventory. Right now, Apple is firing on all cylinders, so inventory isn't a problem. In fact, I believe they intentionally underestimate demand (or at least use conservative estimates) on their products so as not to have to carry a lot of inventory.

Anyways, if they were to offer 2 different screens for the 15" and 17", then that's just 2 more models that they'd have to keep track of. What they could do, though, would be to offer the "HD" screens with only the hi-end video card and top-of-the-line hard drive ONLY. That could help reduce excess inventory. Of course, so people would still complain that they couldn't get the HD screen with the lo-end video card ...

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Options are always a good thing for everyone. I for one would love to buy an HD option for the 17" PowerBook display. Heck this is the year for HD so why not. At times I cannot stand the low resolution on the Apple notebooks, however that said its not that bad as people make it sound.

Now do you think this will come in the G4 or G5 flavour.

I think that, assuming these HD PowerBooks are in the pipeline, they would come with:

1) Tiger pre-installed
2) iLife '05 pre-installed
3) The usual Apple software bundle
4) G5-based or G6-based CPUs

Maybe #4 is a little too optimistic...

 

[JRM PowerPod]

I think that, assuming these HD PowerBooks are in the pipeline, they would come with:

1) Tiger pre-installed
2) iLife '05 pre-installed
3) The usual Apple software bundle
4) G5-based or G6-based CPUs

Maybe #4 is a little too optimistic...

Lets begin with a G5 PB, then a G6 (but i know what you mean)

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I think that the current resolution is really ok. Wouldn't a 1920x1200 res lead to much too small fonts ? Unreadable and unusable ?

Just a tought.

LaForge

 

[slooksterPSV]

Not necessarily. You can also change the font sizes if you need to, but in most applications, with a smaller font size, you could just zoom in, or it would automatically for your to show you what the font size would be. I don't think font sizes will be a problem.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I didn't know that I can change font sizes in apps. I am not talking about the font size of a document in word, but the application text on buttons and so on. How do you do that ?

Cheers

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I didn't know that I can change font sizes in apps. I am not talking about the font size of a document in word, but the application text on buttons and so on. How do you do that ?

Cheers

I don't think you can adjust these things. The controls for the resolution-independent user interface in Tiger (located in Quartz Composer in the developer preview at WWDC 2004) let you adjust the whole interface's scaling factor globally. I don't know if this feature will be accessible to normal users in the release.

 

[slooksterPSV]

When, at school, I open up Adobe Photoshop or that, it says to go into my UI settings and change the font to like 8pt or something. I'll have to look on my mac later to see if I can find where you do this at, I would think that it would be in the display settings, but then again, I don't know. Right now I'm on my PC, because I'm waiting for my carpet to try in my room. I'll check and post back. - I'll google it right now.

EDIT: Wait can't you change it in Accessibility Preferences? You should.... otherwise, I'll have to look a bit harder.

 

[eeyoredragon]

Ummm I call BS on a lot of this.



There was your first mistake.



Umm only if they are running Pentium 4 PCUs. Talk to him about AMD's mobile solutions.



Umm BS. I'm got a friend that is running a Latitude 2Ghz Pentium M with Quake III and it runs flawless.




Now that is just an outright lie.



Double BS.
Dell Latitudes
Gateway
Toshiba
Sony
Now maybe if you are doing all your shopping at BB it will be around that price mark but not if you get your laptop from an online source.



The kool aid is strong in this one.


Apart from the screen I think the current batch of powerbooks offer a lot for the money.

Ummm not really but sure. Fine. We'll go with that opinion.[/QUOTE]Thank you. Everyone seems so one sided on this issue. The Powerbook is not a great deal. It's just not. My powerbook was worth what I paid for it, but I'd never say it was a bargain.

Check out Sager's line of PC's if you want to see cutting edge laptops. You can pretty much blow away a powerbook with $2k spent on a Sager. (Look at pctorque's site.) My last laptop (a couple/few years ago) was $2k. Came with a 16'' screen @ 1600x1200 with incredible angle of view, 128mb radeon 9000
vid card, two pcmcia slots, 2.6GHz P4, cd burner, 4 usb2.0 ports, firewire400 port, 80GB 5400rpm hdd, and a tv card. etc (could play CDs without being booted and things like that).

If you want to compare PC to Apple, you don't go to Best Buy. In fact, you just don't go to Best Buy. *shrug*

As to the whole resolution bump, I'm not sure I care. If the graphics scale in Tiger, then I guess it could only help. If the resolution just goes up and everything thus gets smaller, count me out. 1024x768 on my 12'' is perfect imo. My 16'' 1600x1200 Sager was horrible on the eyes. Beautiful screen but everything was just too small. I generally backed it down to 1280x1024.

What I'd like to see is of course the g5 managed into a laptop, but supposedly that's just not feasible atm what with all the heat. An increased bus speed couldn't hurt either.

 

[kingtj]

Sager laptops vs. Powerbooks

Actually, one of my good friends kept arguing the same thing with me when he bought a high-end Sager and I bought an aluminum Powerbook 17".

After he had his new Sager for a couple months, he put it up for sale on eBay. I still have and enjoy my Powerbook.

The problem I see with Sager is they do everything they can to sell you a list of "specs" - but the end result isn't as nice as the spec-list would make you believe.

His Sager was very noisy (several cooling fans blowing hot air out the bottom of the laptop, right where you'd normally want to sit it in your lap), and the speakers were tinny and one of them made buzzing/rattling noises whenever the volume wasn't turned down really low.

Battery life was terrible, and the thing was a big, heavy brick. Sure, it had a better display than my Powerbook, supposedly a much faster CPU, and more "expandability" (even supported hardware RAID with 2 laptop hard drives installed in it, if you wanted). But in the end, it wasn't really very good at being a "laptop computer" at all.

I'm not saying the Powerbooks are "bargains", by any stretch of the imagination. But be wary of PC/Windows users who like to wave around lists of specs for the dollar as arguments against an Apple notebook purchase. Different people have different needs, but *usually*, laptop computers are purchased as "secondary" machines, with things like reliability, portability, and reasonable battery life being of prime importance. "High-performance" tends to work against all of these things, and is better reserved for your primary desktop machine that stays on the desk at home or at work. IMHO, Apple delivers a quality laptop that addresses all of the "real needs" of *most* laptop users. In doing so, they often don't look real competitive based on hardware specs alone. (CPU speed or maximum video resolution don't tell you how comfortable the machine will be to carry around and type on, or how quiet it will be in regular operation, or the type of support you'll receive if it breaks, etc. etc.)

Ummm not really but sure. Fine. We'll go with that opinion.

Thank you. Everyone seems so one sided on this issue. The Powerbook is not a great deal. It's just not. My powerbook was worth what I paid for it, but I'd never say it was a bargain.

Check out Sager's line of PC's if you want to see cutting edge laptops. You can pretty much blow away a powerbook with $2k spent on a Sager. (Look at pctorque's site.) My last laptop (a couple/few years ago) was $2k. Came with a 16'' screen @ 1600x1200 with incredible angle of view, 128mb radeon 9000
vid card, two pcmcia slots, 2.6GHz P4, cd burner, 4 usb2.0 ports, firewire400 port, 80GB 5400rpm hdd, and a tv card. etc (could play CDs without being booted and things like that).

If you want to compare PC to Apple, you don't go to Best Buy. In fact, you just don't go to Best Buy. *shrug*
[/QUOTE]

 

[eeyoredragon]

^ Like you said, it definitely depends on what you expect out of your laptop. When I bought a Sager it was to double as a desktop and a laptop, and it did that well enough. It definitely was a brick and I didn't cart it around everywhere I went. But, when I went out of town or back home from college, it was nice to basically have a desktop with a screen attached to it that I could cart with me. I wasn't taking a "secondary" computer with me during the trip. I was taking a nicer computer than most peoples' desktops.

Also, there's more than one model of Sager and I suspect he (like I) got the top of the line. The lower models sacrifice little in performance but they're smaller/lighter. In retrospect, were I to buy Sager again, I'd get the model just below the top of the line. Things like a built in dock for an MP3 player are just useless gadgets in a notebook.

But, like I said, it's got better hardware for the most part. It was as snappy (back then even) than my Powerbook is now. That does say something.

I'm not saying I don't prefer my Powerbook (hey, I sold the Sager to GET the Powerbook and I don't regret it), but again, to call the Powerbook a bargain just isn't correct imo. I would instead refer to the Powerbook with the phrase "You get what you pay for", and by that would be referring to everything included: hardware (size and sound) + software. If you want a nice performing, very portable machine, it's the thing to get.

I'll agree on the tinny speakers by the way. The speakers in my Sager sucked. That was the hardware compromise I'd make when I carted it away from home: my logitech speakers and audigy2 sound card.

 

[macux]

My 2 cents

All this talk of pc specs vs Apple specs reminds me of what really drew me in on my first iBook purchase. It wasn't just what what the iBook had, it was what it didn't have. No audio line in? Great, I don't need it! I've always respected the Apple designers ability to resist throwing on every new un-needed (and heavy) bell and whistle and produce a designed computer.

 

[eeyoredragon]

All this talk of pc specs vs Apple specs reminds me of what really drew me in on my first iBook purchase. It wasn't just what what the iBook had, it was what it didn't have. No audio line in? Great, I don't need it! I've always respected the Apple designers ability to resist throwing on every new un-needed (and heavy) bell and whistle and produce a designed computer.

Well, to each their own, but I'd say that's a poor reason for being drawn to Apple. I like Apple because of OS X, the overall ease of use of the machine, and that they seem very well designed (little things like the charger turning green when the laptop is charged). If I just wanted a machine with less on it, I could easily find a PC with that configuration (and probably spend less).

It's all about buying what you need for sure, but I don't see what would make you think you can't have a similar machine in the PC world. Averatec has a nice low end machine with few bells and whistles. Cheap, small, and light.

 

[EGT]

All this talk of pc specs vs Apple specs reminds me of what really drew me in on my first iBook purchase. It wasn't just what what the iBook had, it was what it didn't have. No audio line in? Great, I don't need it! I've always respected the Apple designers ability to resist throwing on every new un-needed (and heavy) bell and whistle and produce a designed computer.

And the fact that a powerbook has all the bells an whistles (apart from the floppy drive) that a PC laptop has, but still manages to be sleek slim and beautiful looking is just astounding.
That was the thing that attracted me to the Powerbook in the first place. Its looks. I didn't have a clue about OS X, it was a very pleasant surprise.

 

[macux]

Design, not lack of features

Well, to each their own, but I'd say that's a poor reason for being drawn to Apple. I like Apple because of OS X, the overall ease of use of the machine, and that they seem very well designed (little things like the charger turning green when the laptop is charged). If I just wanted a machine with less on it, I could easily find a PC with that configuration (and probably spend less).

Fair enough, the OS was a draw as well. But, it's not the lack of features I like, but rather the thoughtful choice of what to include and what to leave off.

 

[wobo63]

High resolution

Give it to me and I´ll dump my DELL 15,4" with 1900x1200 immediately! The displays are there (DELL, Sony, HP, ....). So why does Apple not offer them?

 

[ftaok]

Give it to me and I´ll dump my DELL 15,4" with 1900x1200 immediately! The displays are there (DELL, Sony, HP, ....). So why does Apple not offer them?

Dude,

I just did a quickie calc. A 15.4", 1900x1200 screen would have a pixel pitch of 146 ppi. My 12" iBook has a ppi of about 100. I have to zoom Excel files to about 125% to be comfortable. With the Dell/Sony/HP screen, I'd probably have to zoom everything to 175% or so. Not convenient.

Apple tends to keep the screen ppi to something under 110. Anything higher is too small for most users. If you're 17 with perfect eyes, then 146 is probably OK. Most people have older eyes.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Dude,

I just did a quickie calc. A 15.4", 1900x1200 screen would have a pixel pitch of 146 ppi. My 12" iBook has a ppi of about 100. I have to zoom Excel files to about 125% to be comfortable. With the Dell/Sony/HP screen, I'd probably have to zoom everything to 175% or so. Not convenient.

Apple tends to keep the screen ppi to something under 110. Anything higher is too small for most users. If you're 17 with perfect eyes, then 146 is probably OK. Most people have older eyes.

Apple also says on their Cinema Display Technology page that 100 ppi is the ideal pixel density for graphic design work - a core market for Apple Macs.

 

[wobo63]

100ppi

Apple also says on their Cinema Display Technology page that 100 ppi is the ideal pixel density for graphic design work - a core market for Apple Macs.

Of course Apple says so. What else than advertise for a product currently available are they supposed to do. Tell everybody that their display is weak.

That Apple technicians found out the perfect resolution is nice. But this is not Microsoft. I would like to decide for myself.

So I keep on hoping that I am not the only one with this wish.