Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Downunder Demon · Jun 19, 2001, 04:49 AM

I have found that the iBook 500 is slower than the Pentium 3 laptop at work. Could this be possible. Please dont let a windows machine be faster than my Mac. I am using OS9.1 with 128 Ram.

Thoughts??

Ryu · Jun 19, 2001, 05:47 AM

Faster? Um... yeah... it can be. PIII is well optimized for certain tasks and if you are using Office or some other M$ softwares, it may seem to be faster than G3. For Photoshop and other things, well, Pismo was alot faster than any 500mhz PIII notebooks or even 700mhz but since iBook only comes with 66mhz BUS, I can't say.

Who cares though. I love my iBook.

H�rnchen · Jun 19, 2001, 06:10 AM

What do you think? Of course they are faster. That's one of the major problems of Apple; their suppliers are not able to develop faster ones. Photoshop is not everything you do with a computer.

OreoCookie · Jun 19, 2001, 11:23 AM

How fast is fast enough?
If you are running an office app, do you actually still care, whether you scroll in a fourth of a second or one eigth?
My PowerBook G3 (Kanga) which I want to replace soon, is fast enough for nearly everything when running OS 9.1. I run M$ Office, Xpress 4.0, PS 5.5, everything is fine.
So is your iBook fast enough for you? That's the question you gotta keep asking yourself.
Personally, I would sacrifice raw power for battery life, and 4 h is great.
On the other hand, a Mac isn't for everybody. E. g. if you are a Gamer, a Mac isn't your thing. But PC notebooks aren't made for that either.
I love my Mac, I wouldn't wanna miss it.

Frumpy · Jun 19, 2001, 06:40 PM

Gee, let me think. A 66MHz bus, and a 500 G3. Obviously Apple had to cut costs to make their prices the way that they are for this new line up, but come on. And if you're pissed off that your P3 goes faster than your G3, then return it!!! If you would rather have a little bit of speed over the functionality of a Mac, then you're not a true Mac fan.

Ryu · Jun 19, 2001, 07:39 PM

I just got my iBook DVD and I have to say, I love this machine. It came with an OSX for free and in fact, I am typing these words on my new iBook with OSX. Seriously, this machine is sufficiently snappy to do any type of daily work as long as you are not a graphic designer or something. As a student, I hesitated very long to decide whether I should get a Ti or an iBook and I ended up buying an iBook(well, as a former Wintel user, I looked at few Vaios also but their sucky config. just didn't attract my attention). iBook is truly the most beautiful and the best "bang for the buck" as I believe you Americans often say. However, it seems necessary that this machine really is not very impressive on OSX though. In fact, I never thought that an OS can be this slow. I know that along with recent updates, OSX performs better and better but we need a big leap in the speed issue.

After clearing that out, I would like to say that I am not defending the PIII neither. It wouldn't be able to perform very well on WinXp just like iBook on OSX. Well, what did you expect when you paid only 1/3 of Ti's price? This definitely isn't a highend machine but I guarantee that it is a solid performer compared to the money you pay.

todrain · Jun 19, 2001, 07:42 PM

I dunno.... working in Photoshop my 500mhz iBook seems faster than my 800mhz PIII....

Downunder Demon · Jun 19, 2001, 07:51 PM

Guys, have a sense of humour. I am pulling your chain... The iBook rocks. There is no better machine in the world.

Us iBook owners are the luckiest people in the world!!

Ryu · Jun 19, 2001, 09:10 PM

Originally posted by Downunder Demon:
<STRONG>Guys, have a sense of humour. I am pulling your chain... The iBook rocks. There is no better machine in the world.

Us iBook owners are the luckiest people in the world!!</STRONG>

Really? I seriously think that iBook is a bit underpowered even though it is indeed the best machine price-wise. The reason? OSX and 66mhz. Why didn't they just put 100mhz BUS? It would have been alot better for OSX. 100mhz produces more heat and more cost? Yeah... but still... it's a pity.

fastfreddy · Jun 19, 2001, 09:32 PM

what i would like to know is why people are SO SO sick about speed? everyone spends more time in a morning hitting the snooze button, wasting time, then a computer will slow you down in a whole month. see my point?

turtle777 · Jun 20, 2001, 02:52 PM

Originally posted by fastfreddy:
<STRONG>what i would like to know is why people are SO SO sick about speed? everyone spends more time in a morning hitting the snooze button, wasting time, then a computer will slow you down in a whole month. see my point?</STRONG>

BANG !

Full ACK !
You're so darn right !

-t

dbergstrom · Jun 20, 2001, 04:04 PM

Slower my @ss!

Here's the comparison:

iBook 500, 384 MB RAM, OS X, Excell 200 in Classic

HP PIII 650 MHz, 128 MB, Win NT, Excel 2000

Granted, there's a huge difference in memory, but consider:

1) Open 2 Excel spreadsheets from file server. Each is a 10 MB spreadsheet. Paste column of 18,000 values from spreadsheet 1 to spreadsheet 2. Requires recalculation of contents of 60,000 cells (mathmatical manipulations and if/then statements).

time from opening spreadsheets until all cells calculated:
iBook: 20-30 s
HP PIII: 3-4 minutes (wondering if Excel has crashed since Excel 2000 doesn't provide the same clear progress box when opening files as Excel 2001).

2) 150 MB spreadsheet on local machine. Copy column of 18,000 values into spreadsheet. Recalculation of 800,000 cells containing standardize function and if/then statements.

time from paste until all cells calculated:
iBook: 4-5 minutes
HP PIII: not completed without crashing Excel

Which is the faster system, I ask? I realize there is a memory difference, but I just paid $70 for 256MB of iBook memory. At DataMemorySystems (good supplier of cheap RAM), 256MB modules for HP are $240. Looks like the Mac is probably the cheaper system, too!

Go figure!

Pentium III notebooks are optimized for 2 applications:

1) Home heating
2) Doorstop

G4Man · Jun 20, 2001, 07:49 PM

Geez, Well I have a G4 PowerMac 500 tower, and an ibook usb 500 dvd with 384mb memory. My friend has a Dell P3 700 to do graphic work. If you view my website at www.amaesing.net you'll see that i'm very big on image quality at a high standpoint. With all this said, i've been using my ibook to do my whole site, and I have not had any slow downs whatsoever. As far as that Dell, it couldn't do any of the stuff i've done (Graphics wise). So speed is all about you and what you do with it. Macs rule

www.amaesing.net

radarbob · Jun 21, 2001, 01:25 PM

Pentium III notebooks are optimized for 2 applications:

1) Home heating
2) Doorstop

I'm gonna keep this one!! Thanks dbergstrom.

The original post did not mention the Mhz of his Pentium laptop. I've observed my friends 650 Mz PIII. It hit the disk drive a whole lot, visibly slowing down basic stuff like launching apps and opening & closing windows. It's a Compaq somethingOrOther (low end) don't remember if it has 32 or 63 MB of memory. Also crashed for no apparent reason twice in about 1/2 hour --> yep, Windoze Millenium.