Filed under: PowerBook
New PowerBooks
You probably already heard about the new PowerBooks in our chatcast, but I thought I'd do a neater breakdown for the chatcast-adverse readers amongst you.The 12-inch stays the same, but got a nice little price cut: it's now only $1,499. Both the 15-inch and 17-inch PowerBooks got a one hour boost in battery life. The 15-inch ($1999) gets a new 1440-by-960 display (up to 26% more pixels than its predecessor), and the 17-inch ($2499) is 46% brighter and has 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution. Here's the really cool bit for the pro-designers amongst you who have been dying for a portable powerhouse than can plug-in nicely to a bigger display: "And thanks to its built-in dual-link DVI support and 128MB of graphics memory, you even have the option of connecting your PowerBook to Apples breathtaking flat-panel displays, including the massive 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Caleb Dewberry said 1:56PM on 10-19-2005
yup...now i really want one...i guess ill just have to wait til i got the money[sadness]
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Scott McNulty said 2:03PM on 10-19-2005
I love that picture, it is like something out of a Kubrick film.
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A B L said 2:33PM on 10-19-2005
I wonder if the new batteries will fit in the older PB's (so they too can get a juice boost). Or maybe the time boost comes from power savings, not better batteries.
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Johan Sundkvist said 2:41PM on 10-19-2005
Yes!! I'm off to buy a 15" PowerBook right away.
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USTommyMC said 2:48PM on 10-19-2005
I have one question and one question only. Will these be the last PPC Powerbooks? What do you think? (ok two questions)
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Jeff Kirk said 2:50PM on 10-19-2005
My question is.......
Are these updates really enough for you to run out and get a new one? I was hoping for more speed and capabilities. The battery upgrade is nice, but other than that, there's really no reason to dump what I already have.
I'd hold off until they've got the Intel chips in the Powerbook.
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Adam Pilarski said 2:52PM on 10-19-2005
Has anyone else noticed that the 15" and 17" powerbooks now come with gigabit ethernet? Or have they had that for a while, and i've just missed it?
12" is still stuck with 10/100 Base-T though.
Logic Pro Nodes galore! (Well, faster than firewire nodes anyway)
Adam
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jchc611 said 2:54PM on 10-19-2005
Well it wasn't everything that I expeted, but hey something is better than nothing right? Also, did anyone notice that the PB's are now sproting DDR2 memory? Humm..a bit more than meets the eye...well im off to try to get the student discount via my sister.
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S.Fuller said 2:59PM on 10-19-2005
Some observations for things said above:
The 15" and 17" have had Gigabit ethernet since release in aluminum form. The 12" has never had it.
The previous rev of the 17" supported the 30" cinema display with the correct graphics option.
The wattage for the 17" PB battery on apple's web site appears to be the same as it is for my 1st gen 17". My guess is that the additional power savings comes from improvements on the inside. If there is a higher life battery, I'd love to buy one. Although I still get 3 - 3.5 out of mine.
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R.Padilla said 4:21PM on 10-19-2005
Now the 12-inch is a better bargain... $1499 with a standard Superdrive...
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mrtotes said 2:28PM on 11-01-2005
My December 2002 TiBook has Gigabit Ethernet - not that I'm ever ever going to use it!
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Eric said 4:51PM on 10-19-2005
Okay a few points: there are now 120 gig harddrives, and 7200 rpm hdd for 100 gigs. digital audio in the 15 inchers now. But my question... was the processor updated at all? 1 meg cache mebbe? better bus? they removed all specs which would tell us about this...
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cameron aka desk003 said 7:02PM on 10-19-2005
Just so everyone knows, the 15" powerbook could connect to the 30" cinema display if you BTO with the 128mb vid card in the previous revision.
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Lars P said 6:23PM on 10-19-2005
I could be wrong, but doesn't the current line of powerbooks also have dual-link DVI support with the 128MB VRAM card?
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Zach said 6:42PM on 10-19-2005
This is a nice update and I would love it if my 15-incher had that high display resolution, but I think waiting for the intel procs is the way to go... those updates will be something to look forward to.
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Peter Erwin said 8:32AM on 10-20-2005
Brief comment about Gigabit ethernet: actually, the 15-inch PowerBooks have had Gigabit ethernet since the Titanium days (my 800 MHz TiBook has it, for instance). I'd imagine that the 17-inch PBs have had it from their first introduction.
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olivier Peyre said 4:12PM on 10-23-2005
i want to replace my 17 inches. am hesitating between a 100Go 7200rpm and the 120Go 5400. is the speed difference worth 20Go of space? i use my laptop mainly for lo-res images (web design) and multi-tasking (keynote+photoshop+dreamweaver+Flash+illustrator...).
any benchmark available?
thanks!
olivier
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Serdar Kilic said 9:26PM on 10-24-2005
I'd like to know if it's possible to update the display only? I'd love to be able to go for the higher display on the 17"
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