dump my Dell and buy a Mac? (PowerBook)

[Sh0w]

All I hear is good things. It would be tough getting used to OSX though. Check these out.

Dell Inspiron- User recommendation:
46% Recommend, 54% Don't recommend (from 276 users)


Mac Powerbook- User recommendation:
94% Recommend, 6% Don't recommend (from 191 users)


"If price is no object, the Apple PowerBook G4 can replace just about any Windows notebook or even a desktop PC."

[SkyDog]

The Powerbooks are solidly built hardware, but I personally can't justify spending a lot more money for a machine that's significantly slower and works with less software.

I'm surprised at those poll results you posted, and I'm curious about where they came from and what model they're referring to. Where I currently work, we use Dell laptops almost exclusively, and I've been very impressed with the performance and quality for the price.

[Sh0w]

cnet user reviews..... Dell Desktops are very nice, they just have poor laptops. Check out more reviews and Dell msg boards... They just are junk man. but you said
"but I personally can't justify spending a lot more money for a machine that's significantly slower and works with less software"
are ya serious man? I've been messin with one for the past couple days but by no means is it slower. You can burn a DVD, have Photoshop and Office open and still surf and do things at flawless speeds. Trust me, I've tested this on my own. I am no means a fan of OSX gui. It's hard for me to get used to it, but it does own any MS OS ever made.

[ua549]

I went through the laptop purchase decision about 6 months ago. I overnight tested a Compaq Evo N610c against an Apple PowerBook G4. With similar configurations for disk and memory the Compaq price was ~$1900 whereas the Apple price was ~$3600. The PowerBook did not perform as well on MS Office applications. Even worse, the Apple version of MS Office was inferior to the PC version. I cannot use another "look alike" office product because of compatibility reasons. SkyDog is right. Why pay a huge premium for substandard performance, limited software availability and limited collaboration capabilities?

[SkyDog]

You also need to keep in mind that the Dell Inspiron series is a consumer-grade laptop, intended to be a cheap mass-market model. Apple's rough equivalent would be the iBook series. For a consumer-grade laptop, the Inspirons compare very well to their competition like the Compaq Presario family and the iBooks.

If you want to compare a PowerBook to an x86-based laptop, you should be comparing it against machines with higher build quality like the HP/Compaq Evo or Dell's Latitude series. Or if you want to compare high-end Apples to high-end oranges (or you've got money to burn), maybe Dell's Precision Mobile Workstation, higher-end HP/Compaq Evo Mobile Workstations, or upper-end IBM ThinkPads.

As for my earlier performance comments, you can just look at specs for some of the info. As far as I know, the fastest PowerBook on the market has a 1 GHz G4 processor with a 100 MHz DDR FSB. There are laptops available with Pentium 4-M processors at least to 2.4 GHz. And the new Pentium M is faster than comparably clocked Pentium 4-M processors, and it's already up to 1.6 GHz. I'll be the first to admit it's not all about clock speed, but according to magazines and web sites like digitalvideoediting.com, the Pentium 4 is quite a bit faster than the G4 at most tasks -- including traditional Mac strengths like Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and AfterEffects:

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2...macvspciii.htm
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2...aeshowdown.htm
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2...w_macvspc2.htm

OS X is a solid OS, and Apple makes some very elegant and reliable hardware solutions. But the G4 processor is currently an Achilles' heel. It's much, much slower than current offerings from AMD and Intel. And because of the speed handicap of the PowerPC processor family, I feel that you can get a much better performing laptop for the money by going with an x86-based model.

If you want to look past sheer processor muscle, then yes, the PowerBook is a fine machine so long as there is software available that does what you need it to. Usability is a big, big factor, so if you're more comfortable using the PowerBook, maybe you should overlook the speed difference between platforms.

And just in case you have questions about my experience and/or bias: I'm a network administrator for a school system, and the education market is traditionally a Mac stronghold. I've got both x86 PCs and Macs on my desk.

[stoo]

No Mac has a DDR FSB: the fastest is 167MHz, single data rate, 64 bits wide. They do use PC2700 RAM, so there should be plenty of memory bandwidth available for everything else.

(edit : I want the IBM PowerPC 970, with a clock multiplier of 4x and a DDR FSB, ASAP...)

Having said that, I find my 867MHz PowerBook quite fast (probably because I mainly run Apple software ).

What CPU taxing software do you need to run? (edit: oops, forgot about the other post in Operating Systems).

[SkyDog]

Originally posted by stoo
No Mac has a DDR FSB...

Maybe I misinterpreted something, but looking at laptops on http://store.apple.com , here are some quoted specs from the top of the line PowerBook:

1GHz PowerPC G4
1MB L3 cache
512MB DDR333 SDRAM

[stoo]

The RAM has a DDR connection to the northbridge equivalent, the CPU has an SDR one.

Edit: the L3 cache has its own backside bus, which is around 500MHz (250MHz DDR) and 64 bits wide, which helps G4 performance quite a bit.

[SkyDog]

Got it. Thanks for the info.

[Bateluer]

Dude, my month old Inspiron 8200 would slap that Powerbook all over the place. The only thing it might have over me is battery life, which is not relevent in a desktop replacement notebook.

[stoo]

Inspiron 8x00: Starting at 6.9lbs
PowerBook G4 15": 5.4lbs

And how is battery life not relevant to a portable computer? Not everyone keeps them on one desk all the time.

[qmul]

if battery life is a major factor, then get a centrino based laptop. the centrino would still slap the powerbook to the moon and back with a decent 4hr plus battery life.

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by stoo
Inspiron 8x00: Starting at 6.9lbs
PowerBook G4 15": 5.4lbs

And how is battery life not relevant to a portable computer? Not everyone keeps them on one desk all the time.

Because the only place this notebook goes, other than my desk, is to LAN parties, where its still plugged into the wall socket. :P

Qmul brings up a valid point as well, a Centrino based notebook boasts over 4 hours of battery life, much lighter weights, and performance better than some P4Ms, and definitely better than Apple's notebooks.

[ua549]

I love my Compaq Evo N610c, a P4-2GHz that weighs in at less than 5 pounds w/3 hours of battery life.

They have a Centrino model, Evo N620c that is even better on weight and battery life.

[toastbim]

as much as i hate dell notebooks i hate powerbooks even more.
they are just over priced funky looking pieces of hardware with a limited software as compared to pc. guess someday there will be no apple. i am not betting on it just know its gonna happen some day.

I hav used OSX jaguar almost on daily basis and it crashes more than my windows 2k/xp machines, so all those people who believe mac doesnt crash i have someting to say, you know i got so used to pressing MAC+Q (used for force quit in macs) you guys cant even imagine . and esp when it comest to multitasking it performs poorly, esp coz of poor spu performance.
I would say go with pc laptop, either centrino or pentium 4-M which ever u think is more suitable for you and you will be a happy man. and you can dvd-rw, cutting edge video card and UXGA for much less money than mac.