October 20th, 2005
New PowerBooks underwhelm
Only Apple could announce PowerBooks at the same clock speed, and PowerMacs and a lower clock speed and call it an upgrade.
There are some really cool things about the new PowerBooks announced yesterday: larger displays, support for the 30-inch Apple Cinema display, faster DDR2 memory and the 8x double-layer SuperDrive. My issue is that the new PowerBook’s clock speed is the same as it was before—1.67GHz. Sure the faster RAM and better video card, an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB of DDR SDRAM and dual-link DVI for those playing at home, should yield a little better performance, but a 1.67GHz processor?
The new dual-core PowerMac G5 is a stunner, however. And before you jump all over me, I know that two 2.5GHz cores are faster than a single 2.5GHz core. But whatever happened to the 3GHz PowerMacs? No matter how you slice it, the new PowerMacs are going to scream and I have to admit that these are the first PowerMacs that I have ever lusted after. I want one. Bad.
The PowerBooks, however are a yawn upgrade. Sure it would be great to have some additional screen real estate, but this is not an upgrade that I’ll be buying. I think that once Apple announced that they were switching to Intel chips Freescale Semiconductor, Motorola’s chip division, cut Apple off. Why would Freescale go out of their way to deliver faster chips to Apple when they know that their contract is soon coming to a screeching halt?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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