The New PowerBooks - Last Of The PowerPC Line?
by Charles W. Moore
I'll cop to being just a bit disappointed with the latest and probably last of the PowerPC PowerBooks Apple unveiled in New York yesterday. Not surprised, since the rumor mills over the past week had things pretty well nailed, dampening hopes for a CPU upgrade to Freescale's MPC 7448 G4 chip.
The 7448 chip is pin-compatible with the existing 7447, so no motherboard reengineering would have been necessary, and it would offer increased performance even with only a modest increase clock speed from the current 1.67 GHZ to perhaps 1.7 GHz. The current 7447x series chips Apple uses have a 512 kb L2 cache but no L3 cache, and a maximum bus speed of 167 MHz. The 7447 tops out at 1.67 GHz. The G4 7448 chip, based on Freescale’s e600 PowerPC core, which includes the Altivec 'velocity engine' that provides optimized OS X applications with enhanced performance with the system bus running up to 200 MHz, along with 1 MB of L2 cache.
But it appears that there are just not the engineering resources left in Apple's Power PC product development division to tackle such semi-major hardware upgrades. I would say that the prospects for PowerPC PowerBooks faster than 1.67 GHz are now slim to nil. there has been some speculation that improved battery life in the PowerBooks announced yesterday might indicate that Apple had quietly switched to 7448 chips at 1.67 GHz, but I think not, although I don't know what we have to thank for the enhanced battery performance.
Anyway, the enhancements on this likely final revision of the 15-inch and 17-inch aluminum HD (HIgh-Definition)PowerBooks are refinements of an already mature product.
CPU clock speed also remains the same on all models, with either 1.5 GHz (12") or 1.67 GHz MPC7447 series chips. Apple has eliminated the entry-level 15" PowerBook, which ran at 1.5 GHz and had a Combo drive, and will be selling the 1.67 GHz SuperDrive model for the old entry-level price of $1,999, which is a significant value enhancement even absent the other improvements. The illuminated keyboard with ambient light sensor is now standard on the 15" model.
The new 15-inch PowerBook comes with a 1440 x 900 resolution display, which is the same res. as the previous generation 17-inch model, although scaled-down in terms of screen area, similar to the relationship between the two 1024 x 768 displays in the 12" and 14" iBooks. The 17-inch PowerBook also gets a resolution enhancement, all the way up to 1680 x 1050 pixels -- as many pixels as the 20-inch Apple Cinema Display has. The 15-inch PowerBook offers a 26% larger workspace than the previous model. The 15" and 17" PowerBooks displays are also brighter, with Apple reporting up to a 46% increase in brightness on the new 17" model. The 12" and 15" have dual-link DVI to support the massive 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display.
All PowerBook hard drives are now 5400 RPM, with the 12" and 15" models equipped with 80GB drives and the 17" model gets a 120GB drive. SuperDrive optical drives that can burn double-layer DVD+R discs for up to 8.5GB of content are standard equipment on all new PowerBooks. Bluetooth 2.0 (up to 3x faster than the old standard) and AirPort Extreme are also now standard features.
The new 15" and 17" models now use PC2-4200 DDR RAM, while the 12" model will continue to use DDR333 SDRAM All PowerBook G4 systems ship standard with 512MB of fast DDR memory. The 15" and 17" models have also been bumped to 127MB of VRAM with Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processing units. Built-in optical digital audio input and output enable you to enjoy true noise-free sound — without ground loop interference caused by copper wiring. The 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks also provide up to an additional hour of battery life, improved 22 percent - up to 5.5 hours. A scrolling TrackPad and Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor technology are of course continued.
As for the 12-inch PowerBook, it remains at the specification announced last February, except for that the SuperDrive is now standard at the price of the former combo drive model, which represents a $ 200 price cut and again a significant value added improvement. The writing appears to be on the wall that we will see no further revisions. How long the 12-inch machine will remain in production is the question now. The unexpected enhancement of the iBook to near-PowerBook specs. last July may have been an indication that it is being groomed to to serve as a stopgap when and if the 12-inch PowerBook is discontinued, which also may mean that the smallest PowerBook is slated to be one of the first Intel-based 'Books that will be released next year.
So how will this refreshment of the 15-inch and 17-inch PowerBooks affect users' upgrade strategies? Not a whole lot, I imagine. Those who were holding off by a until they saw what Apple's last kick at PowerPC old school would be with the PowerBooks have likely now seen it, and folks who purchase these machines will get a nice little value-added bonus with the new features, but PowerBooks have been selling very briskly anyway, with Apple laptop sales (PowerBook and iBook combined) of 634,000 units in the last financial quarter, outselling Apple desktops by 32,000 machines.
The enhancement of these machines should result in a nice sales spike before Christmas, tailing off in the new year as the phase-out toward MacIntel accelerates. However, there may be a significant number of buyers who will want to grab the last and greatest PowerPC PowerBooks -- a plan that has considerable merit in my estimation.
I hope there will not be, but the likelihood is strong that there will be some rough patches to negotiate for the pioneers of the MacIntel era, while the G4 PowerBooks, having been in production for roughly 2 1/2 and 3 years respectively for the 15 inch and 17-inch models come next spring, are mature and highly developed products that should be thoroughly debugged. Also, if one has a large library of PowerPC Mac software, and does not want to lay out several hundred or more dollars upgrading to MacIntel native applications cold turkey, then an end-of-the-line PowerPC Mac makes a whole lot of sense from a practical and economic standpoint.
Personally, I'm still on the fence. I'm leaning toward a G4 iBook as my tide- me-over machine, but one of the high-definition screen PowerBooks wouldn't be hard to look at for the next three years or so.
For more information, visit:
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/
Specifications - October 2005 G4 PowerBooks
The 1.5 GHz, 12-inch PowerBook G4, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:
• 512MB of PC2700 333 MHz DDR SDRAM, expandable up to 1.25GB;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• an 80GB Ultra ATA/100 (5400 rpm) hard drive with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• AirPort Extreme 54 Mbps 802.11g WiFi fast wireless networking and internal Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• DVI, VGA, S-video and composite video support;
• two USB 2.0 ports and FireWire® 400;
• audio line in and headphone out; and
• a scrolling TrackPad.
The 1.67 GHz, 15-inch PowerBook G4, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• 512MB of PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM running at 333 MHz, expandable up to 2GB;
• 80GB Ultra ATA/100 (5400 rpm) hard drive with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• Built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• DVI (Dual Link for 30-inch Cinema HD Display support), VGA, S-video and composite video support;
• Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000BASE-T);
• two USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 and 800;
• analog and optical digital audio input and output;
• illuminated keyboard with ambient light sensor; and
• a scrolling TrackPad.
The 1.67 GHz, 17-inch PowerBook G4, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• 512MB of PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM running at 333 MHz, expandable up to 2GB;
• 120GB Ultra ATA/100 (5400 rpm) hard drive with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• Built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• DVI (Dual Link for 30-inch Cinema HD Display support), VGA, S-video and composite video support;
• Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000BASE-T);
• two USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 and 800;
• analog and optical digital audio input and output;
• illuminated keyboard with ambient light sensor; and
• a scrolling TrackPad.
Additional build-to-order options for the 12-inch PowerBook include the ability to upgrade to 100GB (5400 rpm) hard drive, up to 1.25GB DDR SDRAM, a slot-load Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) optical drive, and the AppleCare Protection Plan. Additional build-to-order options for the new 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks include the ability to upgrade up to 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, a slot-load Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) optical drive, and the AppleCare Protection Plan. The new 15-inch PowerBook also offers a 100GB or 120GB (5400 rpm) hard drive as a build-to-order option.
- Battery life depends on configuration and use.
- *Actual speed will vary based on range from the base station, environmental conditions and other factors.