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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2004-05-28, 11:43

Trust me, there's more to a PowerBook that meets the eye. In nearly every area, the PowerBook is faster and more refined. Now, one thing the PowerBooks DON'T have on the iBooks anymore is L2 cache (all now have 512 kb of full speed L2). Basically the only difference between the PowerBooks and the iBooks as far as processing power is concerned is the higher clock speed and 167 MHz vs. 133 MHz system bus, but the latter won't make much difference.

Graphics power is significantly more in the 15" and 17" PowerBooks. Even the 12" is a bit better, with 64 MB vs. 32 MB. But the 15" and 17" have the Radeon 9700 Mobility, the best mobile graphics chip available today, versus the Radeon 9200 Mobility, which is low end.

Storage options are more flexible in the PowerBooks, with 80 GB 5400 RPM hard drives available.

PowerBooks have more standard features that cost extra on the iBook, narrowing the real price gap. Airport Extreme and Bluetooth on all models, and a Superdrive on the top two models, are almost all optional on the high end iBooks.

iBooks are thicker and heavier than the PowerBooks. The 12" iBook is just slightly bigger than the 12" PowerBook, but the 14" iBook is between the 15" and 17" PowerBooks in weight.

A number of very small features that matter to a few people are present on the PowerBook: illuminated keyboard, better speaker quality, better screen quality, DVI-out, monitor spanning, hot swappable batteries, Firewire 800, PC card slot, and audio input. None of these are available on the iBook.

What Apple has succeeded at is making a low-end laptop that is nearly as cool as the high-end one, with enough similarities to make it an excellent value, but not enough to blur the lines between iBook and PowerBook.
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