Re: comparing x86 and powerpc laptops
Hi,
Sven Luther wrote:
Well, but they are usually more expensive, at least here in france.
I would've thought that Europe has fairly competitive prices (compared
to us)..
My laptop has a 14" screen, DVD, 1.6 Ghz P4M, 256 MB DDR (up to 1 GB)
and it cost the equivalent of 1500 euros (including local taxes).
Well, the processor would be equivalent to a G3 800 Mhz i guess or
thereabout. The P4 1.4/1.5 was equivalent to a P3 1Ghz or thereabout if
i am not wrong. And there is no CD burner, so like said, it depends what it
gets you. As for the price, how much is the local taxes for you ? And
what exchange rate are you using to calculate the euro price ? The
price i quoted are with around 20% VAT.
My price includes tax (which we call GST of 10%). I like PowerPC (I have
an 800Mhz 7451 on an ATX board), but I find it hard to accept that a P4
1.6 is similar in speed to an 800Mhz G4, I think it would be rather faster.
The exchange rate is approximate - one Australian dollar is usually
about 0.5 Euro dollars.
That was last year, for the same price you get even more at the moment.
If you look at e.g Asus L3 etc (which is around 1500 euros here) you
will not see much value in an Apple (e.g Asus L3 has 15" LCD, P4 2Ghz+,
Radeon 7500, DVD+CDRW, 256 MB DDR RAM (not PC100) etc). All these
laptops have built in modems too.
What about ethernet ? What about harddisk ? What about battery life ? A
P4 2GHz would be a big power sucker and dissipate a lot of heat, and i
also seriously doubt that it is running at 2GHz when in battery mode.
Also, did i read this right, it is a P4, not a P4M ? Using a desktop
P4 processor on a laptop system is cheaper but not a choice solution. At
2GHz it should dissipate more than 50W, don't it ? Compare that to the ~
3W of the 750Fx. And how loud would the fan be on such a laptop.
If you want to be specific - yes of course it has Ethernet, there is
probably no x86 laptop without it now. Hard disk is 40GB for the Asus.
Battery life is typically about 2-3 hours on an x86 laptop these days,
depending on usage of course. The CPU of course does not always run at
full speed, it just runs as fast as is needed depending on load, and
power saving options. The CPU is a P4M, not plain P4. Some very cheap
laptops (that I would never touch) do use a desktop P4 in them, but not
good laptops like Thinkpads, Asus etc. The fan on my Thinkpad is not
very loud in my opinion, and adjusts itself depending on system temperature.
Here is an example of an Asus laptop from a shop in Australia, price is
in AUD:
Asus L3 (P42000.256M.40G) Pentium 4 2.0-M processor, 256M RAM, 40G,
15.1" TFT XGA, 8X DVD + CD-RW, 56K Modem, 10/100 Lan, 2 Firewire,
Windows XP Pro, Free Mouse, Silver casing, Free Bag, 2 year
international warranty *$3050.00* (they also have floppy drive, PCMCIA etc).
That said, the ibook price are also from last year, there will be a
speed bump and/or maybe a price drop nextly, if rumors are correct.
Yes.. I just read that iBook has no PCMCIA ports, and no expansion
options - is this correct?? That is very limiting for a laptop overall.
The Apple machines are much more pricier than anything that is x86 in my
opinion, laptops especially. At least that is the situation here.
Wrong, if you look at it really, this is not the case, you pay what you
get for, and the ibook are rather cheap for the price point. The only
negative point is that they have smaller screens, but that only means
that apple can spend more money on other stuff.
If you read reviews and look at the hardware you are getting, Apple
machines are always going to be less value for money than an x86
machine. The same tends to apply for laptops. I have taken a better look
at iBooks, and they are really rather poorly speeced for the price in my
opinion. The iBook costs approximately $2700-3000 AUD here (around
1350-1500 Euro), but for that money, I can get a very powerful x86
laptop from a good company like IBM or Asus or some other.
Regards,
Ross..
--
*TO E-MAIL ME: Reverse the order of the domain name in my e-mail address.*
Ross Vumbaca, a 'poor' Uni student at USyd.edu.au
http://members.optushome.com.au/rossv1
Flagship: Amiga 3000 (030/25), GVP Spectrum, C= A2065,
12Mb Fast/2Mb Chip, HD FDD, 9.1G-UW-SCSI (connected to A3000 SCSI),
Kickstart 3.1 (40.68), OS 3.9, Linux m68k 2.2 (Debian 2.2r0).
A pc.
--
Reply to: