Thinkpads Forum

First off, I need to say that the Apple would NOT be for me. I am a LOYAL ThinkPad follower.

But - my sister who is an artsy person, wants a laptop and is thinking of getting an Apple PowerBook G4 - 15"

I can get her a great deal on a TP, so I'm not sure what she should do. Can anyone lend any advice about pros and cons of such a comparison?

drew

p.s. she would be doing some graphic work / maybe make a movie, and burn a DVD to watch on the TV....

Comparisons are pretty much worthless (at least from my point of view). If the software a person uses runs on a MAC and they want a MAC, then that is what they should do. I would never try to convince a MAC person to use a ThinkPad.
... JD Hurst

Coming from a media heavy background, the Thinkpad with the Pentium M in most things will easily outperform the powerbook. It's also a much more durable chassis (The Ti powerbooks were a joke, the aluminum ones are at best ok now).

The faster processor and higher memory bandwidth will be great in a lot of media apps. A lot of people like to drool over the Powerbook G4s but in my experience they just aren't that fast. Which is unfortunate, but also why Apple won't be using them much longer it looks like.

Sorry, I know I'm in a ThinkPad forum but one shouldn't really generalize the differences among notebooks with comments like "...will easily outperform the powerbook..."

Our business switched over to a 20' iMac because the PC workstation couldn't handle video editing without crashing. Our MAC doesn't crash. I'll take a 'slower' computer any day over an unstable one.

Back to notebooks, I use both a T42ps and T43ps at work and a 15" Powerbook for home/work. I believe they are the best of two very different operating systems (Windows and OS X). Both will serve anyone very nicely. I say that the type of software you use will determine which one to get. If you like or want to use FCP, then by all means get the powerbook. If you run mainly Windows programs, you can't go wrong with a ThinkPad.

Cheers,

cj3209 wrote:Our business switched over to a 20' iMac because the PC workstation couldn't handle video editing without crashing. Our MAC doesn't crash. I'll take a 'slower' computer any day over an unstable one.

If you think my statement was foolish (which it was not) then this is moreso. If you have problems with computers crashing you need to fire your IT department or choose better hardware.

Unless you want FCP, or certain other apps that favor the G4, the Pentium M will tromp it the vast majority of the time.

I too would take a slower, more stable computer over a faster one that crashes a lot, but crashing has hardly ever been a feature alone to Windows or PC hardware and not to Mac OS or their hardware. You have a lot more poor decisions in terms of software and hardware if you don't buy a Mac, but if you choose wisely you will have a system at least as stable as any other Mac or Unix-based workstation or whatever you like.

These days stability is stellar across the board. Before Win2k and OSX came out, any time I was doing intensive work I could expect random (and sometimes almost scheduled) crashes and reboots, since then my uptime is in the months without the need for reboots.

'E'
I see absolutely no value in another PC vs. Mac 'discussion.' Obviously, your TP works for you and our Mac works for us; and my T43p works for me, personally.

Let's end it at that.

Peace.

I don't have a TP, and I'm not defending PC vs Mac, I use and am well versed in both and I find the G4 powerbooks to be an embarrassment to Apple. I am hoping that when they move to Intel chips they will have an excellent performing laptop to offer that matches the price and desireability of the powerbooks.

Why do you say that the MACs are an embarrassment to Apple? Again, I use both on a daily basis and I really can't find too many flaws in either design.

Use one, compare to comparably equipped (price, not Mhz, although mhz for mhz the Pentium M is more potent) system, and run some programs. The difference is there.

Anyway, it's Mac, not MAC.

jdhurst wrote:Comparisons are pretty much worthless (at least from my point of view). If the software a person uses runs on a MAC and they want a MAC, then that is what they should do. I would never try to convince a MAC person to use a ThinkPad.
... JD Hurst

i have to agree with this line of thinking. if she uses mac progs to edit videos and what not, then she obviously should be using a mac. if these progs also come on pc's, then a thinkpad would be the best.



performance wise, pc's have always had more megahurtz and megabytes than macs, but as we are learning, its not about sheer numbers that make the computer great. powerbooks are good at what they do, thinkpads are good at what they do.

eigh wrote:

jdhurst wrote:Comparisons are pretty much worthless (at least from my point of view). If the software a person uses runs on a MAC and they want a MAC, then that is what they should do. I would never try to convince a MAC person to use a ThinkPad.
... JD Hurst

i have to agree with this line of thinking. if she uses mac progs to edit videos and what not, then she obviously should be using a mac. if these progs also come on pc's, then a thinkpad would be the best.



performance wise, pc's have always had more megahurtz and megabytes than macs, but as we are learning, its not about sheer numbers that make the computer great. powerbooks are good at what they do, thinkpads are good at what they do.

That's what makes the Pentium M so nice, Mhz for Mhz its at least as powerful as a G4, but it clocks higher.

I own both, and what you are saying here is pure myth and market perception. Yes, the Ti PowerBooks had paint and hinge problems, but the new aluminum models have proven (over the last 3 years) to be extremely reliable. I'm on my second 12" (first one went to my brother-in-law in Korea and still working great) aluminum and have never had a single problem with either. The 1.5GHz G4 is slower than my 1.8GHz T42p for some things (encoding video), but faster for others (PhotoShop filters), so I'd call performance of the two rather comparable.

The main difference is in the software and the design. OSX blows Windows away for reliability. In the three years I've been using OSX I have never yet had to reinstall it except when switching to a newer version (I never do upgrade installs). I've had applications crash exremely rarely, but when they do, the rest of the system always remains stable. In general, my PowerBook is only rebooted when some software update from Apple requires it to, otherwise I just use the very reliable and fast sleep feature. Oh yeah, absolutely no viruses, adware or spyware.

My ThinkPad is a very different animal. The hardware is just as nice as Apple's, and ergonomically superior (SXGA+ 14" screen, TrackPoint), and more versatile with its removeable optical drive and extremely long battery life (I life it to use the 9-cell and ultrabay slim batteries for 9+ hours unplugged). Where it falls against the PowerBook is in the OS. Windows is just a mess today. I've had to reinstall from my service partition twice in the 4 months I've used it, an experience that it shares with most Windows machines I've owned in the last decade, though it has gotten worse in the last year or two.

The problem is all of the malware that a Windows system inevitably picks up. I use the latest Norton antivirus and fanatically run liveupdate to keep the latest definitions. I run 2 spyware scanners and an adware scanner, and use them all frequently (at least once per week, usually 3 or 4 times). Every week AdAware removes at least 15 or 20 tracking cookies and other assorted nonsense, but its the stuff that none of these programs finds that is the problem. After a few months, Windows just gets flakey. Just last week, it decided that it wouldn't resume from hibernation anymore, even after I disabled and deleted the hibernation file and created a new one from scratch.

The Mac platform doesn't require any rituals to keep working, and it does just that, it keeps working. Windows today is much like keeping the top down and the keys in the ignition of your convertable Mercedes, then parking in downtown Los Angeles and walking away. Believe me, if you use Windows on the internet, SOMETHING will get on there to muck it up no matter how much protection you have.

emorphien wrote:Coming from a media heavy background, the Thinkpad with the Pentium M in most things will easily outperform the powerbook. It's also a much more durable chassis (The Ti powerbooks were a joke, the aluminum ones are at best ok now).

The faster processor and higher memory bandwidth will be great in a lot of media apps. A lot of people like to drool over the Powerbook G4s but in my experience they just aren't that fast. Which is unfortunate, but also why Apple won't be using them much longer it looks like.

asiafish wrote:I own both, and what you are saying here is pure myth and market perception.

Absolutely not. Please do not put words in my mouth.

It is from personal experience dealing with computers of all makes. The Ti powerbooks were a mess in terms of reliability and while the Albooks have improved, they're not fantastic. Above average, perhaps but no more.


As far as with the operating systems, I see nary a crash on either anymore. Prior to Win2k and OSX any time I did any heavy work I'd be rebooting quite frequently on both.

OSX is a cleaner and safer environment in a number of ways, but it really doesn't take a lot of work to have a Windows system match it in stability. If you don't know how to accomplish that, fine.

If I had it my way I'd have several Mac systems around me in addition to the Windows systems. I just can't stand bandwagon bs being spewed about either system. What I'm reporting is my own experience, nothing more, nothing less.

The dual core pentium M in the New Macs kind of put this argument to rest. Reliability, Virus & Spyware free unix based OS with the power of a dual core Pentium M. Hmm next best thing to Linux on a Thinkpad

Most survey's of PC reliability rate Apple at or above IBM in reliability (both typically rank very high if not best).

IMHO there's no quality problem with Powerbooks. No more than there are with Thinkpads. Apple fans are rather specific about their computer (just like people here are, just read the forum). 90% is just in the user's head in both cases.

One thing I must say is Apple can resolve repair cases faster in some cases. While IBM's process for a replacement (after you go through the whole repair thing) takes quite a while. I know someone who arranged to just go to the Apple store and pick up their new replacement. Much better IMHO. I waited weeks.

OSX is without question more stable than XP. Simply based on the design. To say they are the same shows little understanding of how an OS functions, and what causes crashes. Not to mention, I've yet to see XP run reasonably after 50+ days uptime (seems after about a week they get rather slow0. Only UNIX based OS's seem to do that without problems.