OS X Intel Boot speeds impressive

I wana be sick really. Which makes it worse... the multi-boot menu which showed up on the DeLL says 'XP Home Edition'... and, as a Windows Power User (well... 7 years of Windows and 2 years of XP you do become one) I wouldn't be caught dead owning a computer running XP Home. The Powerbook must be messed up, it took too long for the GrayApple to show up after the Bwaaaa sound. I think I can say it for all the Mac world when I say that our ego has been dented.

That test is pretty bogus, and it is definitely a new vs. older install; you can see that from the modified desktop on the PowerBook. Also, isn't the Dell closer to an "instant on" where as Apples have a sequence that they go through - first it's the dong, then power up the HDD, then the screen, and then the Apple logo. Isn't there a memory count in there, too? I think, if you give a critical eye, and do a steady count on both machines from the time the spinning disc shows up until the hard drive(s) appears on the desktops, you'll find that the PowerBook isn't as drastically slow as the dell as it first appears - I counted to 23 for the Dell and 30 for the Powerbook. (All the is very unscientific, I know...) Actually, for a 3.02ghz machine, you would think, nay hope, that it would smoke a 1.67ghz laptop (if that) that probably has other disadvantages going for it. I'm all for the Mactel's, but I'd thought that this would be a bigger trouncing. I'd love to see a G5 iMac substituted for the PowerBook.

Just because the progress bar runs even when you are not booting does not mean that it doesn't measure anything. On mine, it runs much faster during bootup than when you run it manually. Most likely, they have it update incrementally so that it doesn't just make large jumps during booting. After each stage of booting, they update the bar, but they want it to keep moving smoothly during each stage.

LOL, but what kind of joke is that? My iBook 12" boots faster than both pb and dell desktop for sure... i've timed and i boot 15 seconds before the dell...

That was the most unscientific piece of nonsense I have ever seen.

I got tiger to boot in 18 seconds on my 1.8ghz imac G5

Here's a cool trick on sort of the same subject. Run /usr/libexec/WaitingForLoginWindow from Terminal and the "Starting Mac OS X..." progress bar splash (which actually measures nothing) will pop up. Use ps to list processes, and then kill 'pid #' (no 's) to close it.

I'll agree with you, vasu. I have an original tiBook 500 and I would almost argue that it comes up faster than his. It definitely comes up faster to the grey apple / circle loading screen.

something is seriously wrong with that guy's powerbook, it took 23 seconds from power-on to the grey apple boot screen coming up. on my 3 and a half year old powerbook, the grey apple boot screen comes up within 5 seconds. clearly his install is borked. not making excuses, just pointing out that his powerbook boot time is atypical.

I think it's creepy to see that grey apple appear on that Dell's monitor.