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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Source: http://www.apple.com/powerbook/

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PowerBook

You probably already heard about the new PowerBooks in our chatcast, but I thought I'd do a neater breakdown for the chatcast-adverse...

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Serdar Kilic

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"

October 24 2005 at 9:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

olivier Peyre

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

October 23 2005 at 4:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Peter Erwin

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.

October 20 2005 at 8:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Zach

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.

October 19 2005 at 6:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Lars P

I could be wrong, but doesn't the current line of powerbooks also have dual-link DVI support with the 128MB VRAM card?

October 19 2005 at 6:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

cameron aka desk003

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.

October 19 2005 at 6:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eric

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...

October 19 2005 at 4:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mrtotes

My December 2002 TiBook has Gigabit Ethernet - not that I'm ever ever going to use it!

October 19 2005 at 4:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

R.Padilla

Now the 12-inch is a better bargain... $1499 with a standard Superdrive...

October 19 2005 at 4:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

S.Fuller

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.

October 19 2005 at 2:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply