Powerbook on Notes

The new powerbooks

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:42:52 +0000

As I mentioned previously, I would like to upgrade my TiBook that I’m using for almost 4 years now. And this seems the last chance to do it before the switch to Intel processors.

According to the roadmap, a Intel Powerbook is not expected until the second half of 2006.

So the question is: can I wait to upgrade my main work computer, that I use everyday, and that is starting to show it’s age? Also, is the upgrade worth it?

First the options:

stick with the current Powerbook, and buy a 17” iMac desktop and put it at the place I work the most time;
go with the new 15”;
upgrade to the new 17”.

Given:

I work mostly on three places: at home in Figueira da Foz, 1 to 2 days a week; at home in Lisbon, 4 nights a week; and at work, 4 days a week;
I’m not CPU intensive, I’m multi-task intensive though. I usually have Mail.app, Safari, Terminal.app, Psi, NetNewsWire, ecto, iTunes, Skype, iChat running;
I would like to start using XCode more. I haven’t used it due to lack of CPU power.

Option 1 is interesting: it’s the least expensive and I would get a great desktop computer. I would not know where to put it though. Take it to work might work, but it feels awkward somehow. The other real option would be to leave it at home in Lisbon, but more often than now, I don’t spend that much time working, more fun and writing. So I don’t think so.

Option 2 and 3 are more likely, but first let’s see what’s not that good about both of them:

they fall short of my expectations about a dual-core G4 chip. I know they where my expectations, but still;
they packed more pixels on the same space: is it too tiny to use on a regular basis now? I could not find any mention of DPIs on-line or in the PDFs provided by Apple.

Now what do these two new powerbooks will get me:

bigger and faster hard-drive (thinking about the 5400 rpm, I could not find the hit on the battery life that the 7200 rpm option would be);
upgraded 802.11 connectivity and reception: the TyBooks are notorious due the the poor reception they have;
integrated bluethooth: very important to me;
more screen pixels: still to be seen if this is a good thing;
double the CPU power, better and faster RAM technology, with possibility of upgrading to 2Gb when the prices are sane;
better graphics card, with a boat-load of VRAM;
digital audio (in and out): not that important for me;
DVD burner, dual layer;
USB2 and Firewire 800: the first one important, the second not that important. But the dual firewire, one 400 and the other 800 is nice to have;
improved battery life.

So thinking about the 15”, that’s a lot of upgrades for my $2000. All in all, I think that it’s a worthy upgrade to the new powerbooks.

Between the 15” and the 17”, these are the things that I would gain:

50% more hard-drive space;
36% more pixels;
0,6Kg extra.

The extra weight is not an issue for me. The 50% is also not an issue, I can always upgrade the 15” hard-drive later on.

So it boils down to pixels. And I really don’t know. I need to see the screen to answer one question: between the 15” and the 17”, which one has the bigger characters?

So what’s the plan? Yes, I will buy one of them. I would like to buy it in Portugal, but I don’t know if we will get them soon enough. The latest iBooks took almost 2 months since the initial announcement until you could find one in Portugal.

So until then, until I can go into FNAC and pull one from the shelf, I think I’ll use the trip to the London Perl Workshop, usually in mid-November, to see them at the London Apple Store, and make my decision there.

I'm off to bed now

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:04:56 +0000

I was waiting for Oct 12 to see if my current laptop would get a decent facelift. It’s not he is no longer sexy, it just that I’m no longer as patient as I once was, and waiting for some functions is getting to be a drag.

So when I saw that we only get TV shows in the US (as in not available anywhere else for now, nor any idea about when that might change), an iPod with a bigger screen and video decoding but resolutions that will not cut it for video out, and a desktop computer that is nice but still a desktop computer… well… it’s all pretty and nice, but that’s it.

Yes, the video store is a beginning of something, I’m sure. $2 a pop per episode is more or less the same that I pay when I get the DVD packs from Amazon. The advantage is that the episode is available the next day, and DVD series usually trail the season at least a year.

Since the first aluminum powerbooks, we haven’t had any decent upgrades to the high-end Apple laptop line, so right now, unless you really need one, there is no point in buying one: the ibooks are much better bang for buck. I still have my 15” powerbook because of screen real-estate, that’s it.

So, until Apple does something good with powerbooks, I just don’t care anymore. In case you are wondering, yes, I would buy a dual-core G4 powerbook right now, even knowing that the intel-based ones will be around probably christmas next year…

I’ll peek the January Apple Expo without much hope, but frankly, wake me up next year.

Sharing the pain

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:44:23 +0000

The new PowerBook saga continues. What will I do next? Well, I really don’t know. For now, I’m sharing the pain with others.

Questions to be answered:

how long after Mactel shows up will Apple support PowerPC hardware?

Will see.

Powerbooks

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 15:56:30 +0000

My TiBook is nearing it’s third year of life. He’s been very good to me, but it’s 800Mhz G4 is starting to show its age.

Sometime back, I talked about my next Powerbook, what choices and what would make me switch. So far, none of the new ones have a feature that makes me lust. They are neither dual core G4 nor G5.

I have my mind made up about three issues though: if both models, a dual core G4 and a G5, are available at the same time, I’ll most likely go with the dual core. I’m not CPU intensive, but I am multitask intensive. Also, the earlier G5 will be even hotter than my TiBook, I imagine. First generation G5 Powerbook is probably something I don’t want to try.

The other thing I’ve decided is the size. I’m going with the biggest screen they’ve got. If that means the 17”, so be it, but I’ll choose the model by the screen resolution. After using dual-head for almost 3 years, I’ve noticed that screen real-estate is the biggest influence on my productivity. My earlier problems about changing backpacks are not an issue anymore, I found a good one for a 17” Powerbook.

The third thing I’ve decided: I’m not going to sell my current TiBook. I’m keeping it, in case I need to travel light, and the 17” isn’t practical. Let’s call it a backup Powerbook. The only thing I truly miss in my current TiBook is internal bluetooth.

Meanwhile, until we get a decent Powerbook upgrade, and seeing that I’m not going to sell it, I decided to upgrade it. I have 1Gb of RAM, the maximum it takes, and I have a 80Gb disk drive waiting for me at my local crack^H^H^H^H^Happle dealer. The current 40Gb drive is just not enough anymore (I’m a victim of iCrack and pictures of my kid).

I’m not going to install Panther on the 80Gb drive. I’m waiting for Tiger to make the move. Recently I made a booboo and totally trashed my Panther install and I had to do a total reinstall of Panther and all my stuff. I keep good backups, but even with that, it took me 3 days to get back to my feet. Ok, maybe I didn’t keep very good backups, I didn’t have a boot-able mirror drive in my backup plan. I have one now, though.

Another upgrade I already did was buying an external firewire DVD recorder. My internal combo drive was starting to fail on me, and I had problems with it during the reinstall. With this external drive, I can avoid buying internal SuperDrives and save some Euros.

So, upgrades are almost done, and now I sit here waiting to see what Apple will bring us regarding Powerbook updates in the near future. I’m hoping for a dual core G4 17” HD display, but that’s just me.

Next powerbook upgrade

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:23:36 +0000

So my trusted old (30 months today) powerbook is still kicking. I never had a laptop that lasted this long. I’m a 15” TiBook 800Mhz owner, with 1Gb RAM and 40Gb disk.

I’ve been thinking my requirements for my next laptop, what are the things I value the most. This will allow me to choose my next one in the next 6 months or so. I’m expecting some annoucements from Apple in January, or the WWDC, in June at the latest.

The list is in order of importance, most important things to me at the top: * screen real-estate: pixels, pixels, pixels… * battery life; * processor type.

Let me start with the things that are not on the list. Airport Extreme and built-in bluetooth are a must-have. There is no way I’m ever getting another laptop without them. My current TiBook has Airport (the “normal” kind), and it rocks (although TiBooks suck in terms of signal strength). And I’m tired of plugin the bluetooth dongle. Also, the backlight keyboard is at most a nice-to-have. I can keep on using my USB-powered thingie for light.

The current minimum disk drive is 40Gb and I’m happy with that. If it’s bigger, great. If not, that’s enough for me, for now. I always carry a external 40Gb Firelite, and I have a 200Gb Maxtor OneTouch at home for weekly backups.

I did not list the superdrive also. In two and a half years, I think I burned 10 CDs at most, and some of them where not for me. I don’t use DVD or CD for backups, and my line of work does not require a constant use of a burner. A superdrive would be cool to make some home projects with the kids photos, or something like that, but it’s not clear to me if the price difference is really worth it.

Now let’s see the list and each point in turn.

The first point is a tricky issue for me: I think that the 17” PowerBook is very very big, but I haven’t ruled out the possibility of buying one. I still have to check if it fits my current backpack. It’s a great backpack and changing it simple to carry the 17” is not an option. I prefer to keep the backpack and buy a 15”. But I can safely say that 15” 1280x854 is the minimum resolution for me.

Battery life is more important than raw CPU power. Apart from games and the occasional compile, I’ve been working with a two-generations old 800Mhz G4 and I can keep on doing it. I would prefer to have a 1.5Ghz G4 with a ⁶⁄₇ hour battery life than a ²⁄₃ hour G5. I think that if the difference is 1 or 2 hours between the two, I would probably go with the fastest one, but more than that, I don’t think so.

My most used applications are: Terminal.app, Mail.app, Safari, iTunes and NetNewsWire. I also use Quicksilver, iCal and AdiumX a lot. Everything else is used much much less. With regard to games, I play a bit of Massive Assault, and I would like to play Doom3. I also have Apache, MySQL and Jabberd running in the background. I usually have 5 to 9 applications going, so multi-tasking is a must. If you ignore Doom3, I could buy a fast G4 and be happy. Even better, a dual-core G4 would be great. The only reason to buy a G5 is Doom3 right now, and unless they appear in the first half of 2005, I’m not going to wait: if Apple presents a dual-core G4, I’m sold. You can always buy a cheap PC or a iMac to run Doom3.

The CPU question is tricky only if you think that you’ll keep your laptop for the next 2 to 3 years. In that case, buying the fastest CPU you can afford makes a lot of sense, and waiting for the G5 might be a good idea. Yet, I don’t expect my application profile to change in the next years. My laptop is my main machine. I work in a lot of different places and the laptop must be able to do it all. So a dual-core G4 is the most likely step.

Of course, it all depends on Apple. If they launch dual-core G4 and a G5 at the same time, I really don’t know :)…

So, I think I can summarize like this: I’ll probably buy a 15 or 17” dual-core G4, or a G5 if they appear in the first half of 2005.

Changing Powerbooks

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Mon, 14 Jun 2004 14:57:16 +0000

My Powerbook is now 2 years old. It stills runs perfectly, and the battery still provides 2+ hours of charge (with heavy use; almost 3:00 if editing text only and if I’m really careful with battery usage).

So I don’t have reason to change to a new one just now. Anyway, I asked around (Nuno and Pedro) what features would make them switch to a new one right now. Based on their opinion, and my own personal interests, I decided to write the reasons that will make me buy a new powerbook. It will save me time and prevent impulse buying-kind-of-stuff.

So, right now, the feature I lack the most in my current PB is internal Bluetooth. Simple as that. I always plug the damn dongle every time I sit down somewhere, either because AddressBook is still the best way to send SMS messages, or because I need GPRS connectivity. So the new one must have Bluetooth, but that alone is not enough to switch.

The other thing I miss the most is more disk space. I have a 40Gb disk, 99% filled all the time. I’ll have to check possible upgrades to the disk drive.

But the things that will make me change are: a G5 PB or a DualCore G4 PB. That’s it. I would prefer the Dual G4 for the cool factor, but a single G5 is probably better.

Also good thinks to have in the future PB’s: integrated iSight (it’s possible, check out the Vaio solution), PCI Extreme (don’t confuse with PCI-X) for the graphics adapter, and Superdrive (Photo DVD’s for the family).

Phones

melo@simplicidade.org (Pedro Melo) — Mon, 14 Jun 2004 14:41:44 +0000

Rui is my preferred source for all that is mobile or PDA related in the last couple of months. He is pretty exhaustive, and I share a lot of his view on what I want as my PDA and mobile. I’m not as forgiving about Windows CE as he his, not because I hate Microsoft (I really don’t, I like a lot of software they do, not the operating systems but the apps), but because I really don’t like the Windows interface.

I read his recentThe Perfect (Smart)Phone? article, and it validates my current view of my personal mobile purchase: today the company that I work for is giving me a T630; that one will go to my wife (MMS stuff), and I’ll stick with my 2-year-old T68i until I can get my hands on a Z1010 or similar. I was worried about the 510 contact limit until I counted my own contacts (250-something).

The current price makes it impossible for me to buy one right now. I’ll have to wait at least a year. I might buy a K700 in the meantime. Will see. I’ll probably have to upgrade my 2 year old PowerBook next year also, and that takes priority.

Either way, the mobile will have to work with my PowerBook, my NZ-90, and must support iSync. That’s the only really really important requirement right now.