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Bi0miC · Sep 17, 2004, 05:46 AM

Hey all,

Deciding between an ibook and a powerbook ... very very difficult ! ....

at the moment, believe it or not - what i am mostly concerned about is the supposed heat dissapation (sp?) of the 12" Powerbook ... does it really get unusably hot? ...

thanks all

phantomac · Sep 17, 2004, 05:51 AM

No, it does not get that hot.

im_noahselby · Sep 17, 2004, 06:23 AM

The left palmrest can get quite warm, but certainly not hot. The bottom of the PowerBook also seems to get quite warm. I'm sure it will be fine.

Noah

MacBoston · Sep 17, 2004, 07:13 AM

Well being a new powerbook owner my first impression is that, yes it is warm. I think everyone has there own threshold of what warm is, but to put it in perspective I've had it on my lap for over two yours wearing shorts and its fine, warm but fine. Of course this is just basic surfing I'm sure CPU intensive tasks will crank up the heat even more. As with any product nothing is perfect, I'd rather have warm than some other design flaw.

SeSawaya · Sep 17, 2004, 08:30 AM

I'm using mine to heat my house this winter!

I was surprised how hot it dose get. Its not unuseable of course but it will warm you up unless you have it on something. I remember my ibook would warm up too, just not this much. I only heard my fan fun once (playing unreal) on my ibook, this fan runs when I'm surfing.

But I love her, so no matter

Homer1946 · Sep 17, 2004, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
I'm using mine to heat my house this winter!

I was surprised how hot it dose get. Its not unuseable of course but it will warm you up unless you have it on something. I remember my ibook would warm up too, just not this much. I only heard my fan fun once (playing unreal) on my ibook, this fan runs when I'm surfing.

But I love her, so no matter

The originally 12 inchers got REALLY hot, the new ones are much better. The heat problems are easily solved by periodically disconnecting the power adapter and running on batteries to let them cool down.

I do not think my Rev C 12 incher is hot.

MrForgetable · Sep 17, 2004, 11:07 PM

No.

MrForgetable · Sep 17, 2004, 11:09 PM

Only time it gets super duper hot is when I am ripping CDs to iTunes, where the fan comes on and both the left and the right side palm rests get hot. (15 incher)

Bi0miC · Sep 17, 2004, 11:39 PM

ah k, thanks guys

... not something to stop me from buying it then

macaddict0001 · Sep 18, 2004, 12:21 AM

Originally posted by Homer1946:
The originally 12 inchers got REALLY hot, the new ones are much better. The heat problems are easily solved by periodically disconnecting the power adapter and running on batteries to let them cool down.

I do not think my Rev C 12 incher is hot.

that only works if you have spin down hard disk when possible under battery power or cpu power reduced. Otherwise it make's the same amount of heat.

andreas_g4 · Sep 18, 2004, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by Homer1946:
I do not think my Rev C 12 incher is hot.

fisherKing · Sep 18, 2004, 11:21 AM

my friend's revA gets hotter, but...
my revC can get pretty uncomfortable (which also makes me nervous to close it when i leave a coffeebar, for instance).

it's a great pb, my favorite so far. but heat still is an issue...

lucas3735 · Sep 18, 2004, 05:52 PM

They don't get hotter than any other laptops- people complained about the rev A 12" the most, and it wasn't even very bad. People just like to complain.

Dr.Michael · Sep 18, 2004, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by Bi0miC:
Hey all,

Deciding between an ibook and a powerbook ... very very difficult ! ....

at the moment, believe it or not - what i am mostly concerned about is the supposed heat dissapation (sp?) of the 12" Powerbook ... does it really get unusably hot? ...

thanks all

Rev B here. Left palmrest gets warm, rarely very warm.
No reason not to buy this great machine and not an issue at all.

8minute · Sep 19, 2004, 08:28 PM

My left palm rest gets quite warm after awhile ... it's not unbearable, but you to notice it a bit.

If you do a search on the forum, there's a thread discussing the pro and cons of having aluminium casing. I recall someone mentioning that alu is better at transferring heat from the inside to the outside, so it may be slightly warmer than a plastic case, but in the end it would keep the insides cooler??

All in all, it wouldn't stop me purchasing a PB

teknopimp · Sep 19, 2004, 11:17 PM

my ibook gets hotter that's for sure. my tibook got really hot, esp when driving my 22. i'd say my powerbook gets warm compared to the others.

shabbasuraj · Sep 19, 2004, 11:44 PM

My 12" RevC gets just as hot as compared to my girlfriends 12" RevA. SUre this is subjective, I understand. But simply don't think that the RevC is worlds cooler than a RevA or RevB for that matter.

The left Palm Rest can get pretty warm on both machines, but the area above the esc key and F1-F3 keys on my RevC can actually get uncomfortably hot when plugged in and doing CPU intensive work. Good thing that there really is no reason to be touching that area on the PB anyways.

Still... no reason as to not buy your own... These shortcomings are easily overlooked when considering the other benefits if a 12" PB.

Lancer409 · Sep 20, 2004, 06:07 PM

Originally posted by Bi0miC:
Hey all,

Deciding between an ibook and a powerbook ... very very difficult ! ....

at the moment, believe it or not - what i am mostly concerned about is the supposed heat dissapation (sp?) of the 12" Powerbook ... does it really get unusably hot? ...

thanks all

no

MRTrauffer · Sep 22, 2004, 12:00 PM

My Rev C 15" gets pretty hot when the CPU is working hard. Because the case is aluminum, it's supposed to get warm in order to radiate the heat out of the case. I would recommend getting a coolpad with your powerbook.

This is definietly one of the best computers I've ever had/used.

My first Mac was a Rev A iBook G4. I switched to a PB because of my work with video. Between the two machines, I don't miss my iBook at all. The PowerBook is a much more solid laptop. The differences are very noticable. Although the battery life on the iBook is much better.

I would recommend a PowerBook over an iBook.

Definitely glad I made the switch!!

Babar · Sep 22, 2004, 03:18 PM

Let met tell you that I am impressed with my PB 15, especialy "heat-wise" since I had a PB 667 DVI and it ran MUCH hotter and much LOUDER than this new 15' 1.5ghz. amazing.

I wouldnt worry about the heat issue, ibook and pbook are both great macs!

HTH

Phat Bastard · Sep 25, 2004, 12:03 AM

No, it doesn't get "unusably" hot.

It would be nice if all the bitching about the Powerbook heat would stop. Right now.

moodymonster · Sep 27, 2004, 12:23 PM

Originally posted by Homer1946:
The originally 12 inchers got REALLY hot, the new ones are much better. The heat problems are easily solved by periodically disconnecting the power adapter and running on batteries to let them cool down.

I do not think my Rev C 12 incher is hot.

that is probably the best way to really mess up your battery.

iREZ · Sep 27, 2004, 01:54 PM

If the heat is really bothersome you don't need to unplug anything, just set your machine to run on reduced settings instead of highest performance. I don't see a need to do this unless you'll be gaming or doing other really processor intensive things, in which case you should be at a desk and should atleast have an external mouse to use, at least IMO.

Sarc · Sep 27, 2004, 02:42 PM

depends on the revision, my 1GHz rev. B can go up to a max of 61.3C ... on the other hand, my brother's rev. C only gets hot when using #D intensive apps. (aka. Games).

MilkmanDan · Sep 28, 2004, 07:38 AM

The only time my rev c 12in gets hot is when I play games, like last night when I was playing Spider-man 2, it was REALLY HOT. But otherwise, its not bad.

macaddict0001 · Sep 28, 2004, 11:41 AM

I already posted this

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
that only works if you have spin down hard disk when possible under battery power or cpu power reduced. Otherwise it make's the same amount of heat.

Originally posted by iREZ:
If the heat is really bothersome you don't need to unplug anything, just set your machine to run on reduced settings instead of highest performance. I don't see a need to do this unless you'll be gaming or doing other really processor intensive things, in which case you should be at a desk and should atleast have an external mouse to use, at least IMO.