Re: lazy saturday notebook comparo (long)
On 18 Aug 2001 22:18:01 -0700, Andrew Sharp wrote:
> I can't resist wading into this silly discussion. If you care about
> MacOS or Windows, my opinions are worthless, just hit delete now.
>
> The thing is, x86 laptop prices capabilities are far in excess of
> apple's meager offerings. I just went to dell.com and configured an
> inspiron 4000 with:
>
> * 1GHz P3
> * 512MB memory
> * 59Whour battery
> * 30GB hard drive
> * 1400x1050 14.1" screen (sorry tibook)
> * aty128 w/8MB memory (agp4x I think)
> * combo dvd/cdrw drive
> * modem and ethernet 10/100 built in
> * free lexmark32 printer, or palm m100, or umax 3400 USB scanner
> $2926.00USD, $2876.00 after $50 mail in rebate.
> Yikes.
>
> I went to store.apple.com and configured a tibook with the memory
> and disk, and this is what I got:
>
> * pretty much the same as above except a much slower processor,
Though dont compare the clock frequencies directly, ppc is different so
a P5 500MHz is not the same as a G4 500MHz.
> * dell is 66% bigger display (exact same video cntr, btw)
> * only one pcmcia/cardbus slot. bummer.
If you need wavelan, it fits in its own slot, and costs a lot less than
the lucent card. So you still have the PCMCIA slot free for other stuff.
Of course this is a real limitation if one happens to need two other
PCMCIA cards, but most people I know are using the pcmcia for
networking. The tibook and ibook have built in ethernet ports also,
which work on linux if I remember correctly.
> * built in firewire; not working yet under linux
Works under linux as far as I know, one needs a 2.4 kernel though. At
least the firewire mass storage stuff should work, with some kernels and
patching though.. The stuff is in the works anyway.
> I think people don't consider enough the coolness factor of the
> iBook2. It is plenty fast enough, except for compiling +large+
> chunks of software. If you are building a kernel once or twice a
> week, no big deal at all. Take a deep breath, get some coffee,
> write that long notebook comparo email, whatever, it's not bad. As
> for regular apps, its more than adequate, in fact, I'd say it's even
> snappy. Plenty fast enough for the normal work apps or playing
> mp3s, surfing, etc. And the coolness factor can't be beat: you've
> got a very small, cool looking notebook with XGA resolution (not
> huge, but enough to keep you sane) that does everything, and doesn't
> look like every freakin' notebook on the planet. This counts for
> 200-300 MHz at least, trust me. If you do happen to come across
> someone else with one, chances are VERY slim they'll be running
> Linux, and, if you did it right, ~:^), your desktop will look WAY
> more beautiful than the MockOS one.
Yeah, my thoughts as well. Speed is really not that big of an issue,
unless you are a developer, who compiles a LOT of stuff daily, or if you
do some other CPU intensive work. I can say that the Pismo, which pretty
much matches the ibook2, is perfectly fine for all my graphics work for
example. It is a *laptop* anyway, I do have a big-screen desktop machine
with a lot of ram for digital photo and other huge graphics, but this
works perfectly fine for most things.
Actually, I just moved and didnt setup the other machines yet, so I am
doing all my work with this laptop. I can do everything I need with
this, so I could survive with just this one machine. It is not that the
CPU grunt is the bottleneck on how fast I can create icons and other
artwork.. :-) Luckily icons are small, so even a 1024x768 screen is
fine.
> is amazing. Dell sells a laptop with a 16x12 screen if you can
> believe it. I was fairly underwhelmed by the tibook I looked at it
Yea, those screens are incredible. Just like the VAIO screens are, the
pixel density is around the same, VAIO screen is just about 1/4th of the
Pismo screen with the same 1024x768.. Talk about small xterm sizes.. :)
On the other hand, with unix/X11 we have the virtual desktops, which
makes it a LOT more fun to run multiple applications even on a small
resolution.
Tuomas
--
:: :: Tuomas Kuosmanen :: Art Director, Ximian :: ::
:: :: tigert@ximian.com :: www.ximian.com :: ::
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