Portable Mac Computing
Apple’s approach to the mobile market is pure and elegant: Make it as small and lightweight as possible, make it as clean and simple as possible, and make it really stylish. This is true of the iPod and it is also true of their portable computers. The iBook and PowerBook series are remarkably thin and light, hence the reason for their higher premiums. This is clearly illustrated by the following comparos...
Apple 17” PowerBook G4
ATI Radeon 9700
1 GB memory
100 GB disk drive 7200 rpm
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1”
Weight: 6.9 lbs
OS X
$3,119
Dell Inspiron XPS M170
17” TrueLife LCD
NVIDIA 6800
1 GB memory
100 GB disk drive 7200 rpm
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.67”
Weight: 8.6 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$2,949
Dell Inspiron 9300
17” TrueLife LCD
NVIDIA 6800
1 GB memory
100 GB disk drive 7200 rpm
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.6”
Weight: 7.9 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$2,249
The XPS M170 is Dell’s Top-of-the-Line notebook and is priced pretty closely to the PowerBook. The Inspiron 9300 is much cheaper and I really don’t understand why – why would you choose the M170 over the 9300???
At any rate, the Inspiron notebooks are boat anchors compared to the PowerBook (1.67” and 8.6 lbs compared to 1” and 6.9 lbs).
At the “low end”...
Apple 14” iBook G4
ATI Radeon 9550
512 MB memory
60 GB hard disk
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.35”
Weight: 5.9 lbs
OS X
$1,649
Dell Inspiron 630m
14” TrueLife LCD
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
1 GB memory
100 GB hard disk
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.5”
Weight: 5.5 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$1,599
The iBook is slightly more compact than the 630m. (The cheaper Inspiron 6000 weighs 6.7 lbs.) I have to say, though, that the value proposition for the iBook is not as impressive as for the iMac or Mac mini. Even though the iBook costs $50 more than the 630m, it has less memory and a smaller hard drive. But one knock against the 630m is that its Graphics Media Accelerator is much slower than the Radeon 9550 (it also takes away up to 128 MB from your system memory!).
For smaller, lighter, affordable models from Apple and Dell, we have:
Apple 12” iBook G4
ATI Radeon 9550
512 MB memory
100 GB hard disk
CD-RW/DVD drive
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.35”
Weight: 4.9 lbs
OS X
$1,509
Dell Inspiron 710m
12" TrueLife LCD
Intel Extreme Graphics
512 MB memory
100 GB hard disk
DVD burner
NO Bluetooth available
Height: 1.5”
Weight: 4.2 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$1,649
The iBook costs $140 less than the 710m, but it doesn't have a DVD burner and it weighs slightly more. On the other hand, the 710m doesn't have Bluetooth and it comes with the much inferior Intel graphics. On the basis of price, then, I give the nod to Apple.
(See the "comments" section for a discussion on ultra-portables...)
Apple 17” PowerBook G4
ATI Radeon 9700
1 GB memory
100 GB disk drive 7200 rpm
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1”
Weight: 6.9 lbs
OS X
$3,119
Dell Inspiron XPS M170
17” TrueLife LCD
NVIDIA 6800
1 GB memory
100 GB disk drive 7200 rpm
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.67”
Weight: 8.6 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$2,949
Dell Inspiron 9300
17” TrueLife LCD
NVIDIA 6800
1 GB memory
100 GB disk drive 7200 rpm
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.6”
Weight: 7.9 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$2,249
The XPS M170 is Dell’s Top-of-the-Line notebook and is priced pretty closely to the PowerBook. The Inspiron 9300 is much cheaper and I really don’t understand why – why would you choose the M170 over the 9300???
At any rate, the Inspiron notebooks are boat anchors compared to the PowerBook (1.67” and 8.6 lbs compared to 1” and 6.9 lbs).
At the “low end”...
Apple 14” iBook G4
ATI Radeon 9550
512 MB memory
60 GB hard disk
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.35”
Weight: 5.9 lbs
OS X
$1,649
Dell Inspiron 630m
14” TrueLife LCD
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
1 GB memory
100 GB hard disk
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.5”
Weight: 5.5 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$1,599
The iBook is slightly more compact than the 630m. (The cheaper Inspiron 6000 weighs 6.7 lbs.) I have to say, though, that the value proposition for the iBook is not as impressive as for the iMac or Mac mini. Even though the iBook costs $50 more than the 630m, it has less memory and a smaller hard drive. But one knock against the 630m is that its Graphics Media Accelerator is much slower than the Radeon 9550 (it also takes away up to 128 MB from your system memory!).
For smaller, lighter, affordable models from Apple and Dell, we have:
Apple 12” iBook G4
ATI Radeon 9550
512 MB memory
100 GB hard disk
CD-RW/DVD drive
Bluetooth-enabled
Height: 1.35”
Weight: 4.9 lbs
OS X
$1,509
Dell Inspiron 710m
12" TrueLife LCD
Intel Extreme Graphics
512 MB memory
100 GB hard disk
DVD burner
NO Bluetooth available
Height: 1.5”
Weight: 4.2 lbs
Windows XP Professional Edition
$1,649
The iBook costs $140 less than the 710m, but it doesn't have a DVD burner and it weighs slightly more. On the other hand, the 710m doesn't have Bluetooth and it comes with the much inferior Intel graphics. On the basis of price, then, I give the nod to Apple.
(See the "comments" section for a discussion on ultra-portables...)
posted by Darkest Knight | 1:53 PM
3 Comments:
The following are all 12” notebooks (in Canadian dollars):
The 12" PowerBook G4 starts at $1,799.
Ultra-portables (sub-4-pounds):
The Dell Latitude D410 starts at $1,789.
The Dell Latitude X1 starts at $1,919.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X Series starts at $2,199.
The Toshiba Portege M300 starts at $2,399.
The Toshiba Portege R200 starts at $2,599.
Sony Canada have no sub-4-pound notebooks anymore! What happened to Sony Canada?? (Sony U.S. have the TX Series. It starts at US$1,899 which translates to $2,235.)
The HP nc4200 starts at $2,299.
(Gateway and MDG don’t have any 12” or sub-4-pound notebooks.)
The least-expensive ultra-portable option is from Dell at $1,789 and this is about the same price as the 12" PowerBook from Apple which admittedly weighs in at 4.6 lbs. But I'd still choose the PowerBook for aesthetic reasons and for OS X.
Okay, I found Sony’s ultra-portable (it has an 11” screen):
Sony TX Series VGNTX651PB
Guess how I found it. I used Google! There doesn’t seem to be any way to navigate to this page from Sony.ca, not even using Sony’s own Search facility!!
For whatever reason, Sony Canada have chosen not to sell their ultra-portable TX Series online. You have to know enough to go to their brick-and-mortar Sony Store to ask for it. This kind of “stealth” marketing is quite puzzling. Why are Sony Canada doing this???
I have a theory. At $2,799, the TX Series is not price-competitive with similar sub-3-pound ultra-portables from Dell and Lenovo. Apparently, Sony can't lower their price to compete, so sales are expected to stagnate (the TX Series was announced in September, 2005). Rather than wasting their sales effort, they've chosen to let customers come to their brick-and-mortar stores to ask for the TX. That is, **if** these customers know about the TX Series in the first place. What kind of retarded shit is this??? Either sell the damn thing properly, or pull the product from the market altogether. Are you listening, Sony?
Ultra-portables typically trade off weight for functionality, for example, a built-in optical drive. The only ultra-portable that has an optical drive (a CD-RW/DVD) is the Toshiba Portege M300 at $2,399. That's $600 more than the 12" PowerBook G4, which has a DVD burner! Not only that, but the M300 has a very slow processor (733 MHz - 1.1 GHz Pentium M). This is a slam-dunk for the PowerBook if you're looking for a truly practical lightweight portable (what's one pound between friends?).
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