Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

zero1207 · Jan 13, 2005, 05:24 PM

i have a 512mb ram and 2.4 gig processor on a sony vaio...looking at G4 ibooks and powerbooks. does anyone have anything that might sway me. i'm sold on the powerbooks but they're on the expensive side. i like the ibooks ( i guess i'd need upgraded ram from reading the forums) but would like to see more pictures than whats on the apple site. thanks for any help.

Captain Obvious · Jan 13, 2005, 06:53 PM

What do you use your computer for?
Asking to be swayed when you have provided no information of what your uses are is pointless. A powerbook may be better for you or an iBook may be more than sufficient. Since we don't know what your uses are it is impossible to tell.

And there are plenty of pictures of people's iBook setups. Do a search or better yet look at one in person at an Apple Store or CompUSA

zero1207 · Jan 14, 2005, 02:22 PM

i don't do much with my computer. i'll have itunes, a few internet sites, and a word processor, but with the computer i have, just opening itunes and one internet site at the same time just bogs it down and it will freeze up for a bit. the guy at apple says an ibook is enough but i'm skeptical because if i'm going to switch, i would like to get a computer that i won't ever worry about speed with. i don't have access to a compusa or apple store right now...home for christmas break in nowhere...and my computer was freezing up when i had this site, an apple site, and a search for ibook pics going at the same time yesterday

i'll try searching again today though. getting more frustrated by the day with my vaio. thanks for the input...i hope the info i gave could help more.

EmmEff · Jan 14, 2005, 02:57 PM

Just because it's an Apple, it doesn't mean you'll never have to worry about speed. New applications and games will come out that need faster processors. There's no way around that.

Buying an Apple is not a magical solution to all things.

And honestly, your current Intel system will run rings around any iBook G4 or Powerbook for most tasks. If it doesn't, there's something wrong with it.

MARINEOSX · Jan 14, 2005, 04:14 PM

I have a marine that has the same speed of vaio and I have a 933Mhz G4 with 1Gig of ram at the time we tested the 2 I only had 640MB of ram and I started up and opened safari before he loged in and when we played starcraft I was always waiting for him here is a pic of how many applications I have open and running right now as I type.

EmmEff · Jan 14, 2005, 05:03 PM

Maybe Vaios are slow then...

I still say that a Pentium 4 2.4GHz that's slower than a G4 933MHz (especially a notebook which has a slower hard drive) has something wrong with it.

Forte · Jan 14, 2005, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by EmmEff:
Maybe Vaios are slow then...

I still say that a Pentium 4 2.4GHz that's slower than a G4 933MHz (especially a notebook which has a slower hard drive) has something wrong with it.

It's not unusual, though, and it's hardly an isolated case - I hear about this a lot.

I've experienced it myself personally, too. I switched from a Samsung V25 with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 - and my iBook G4 933MHz runs rings around it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Pentium-based machine, it simply got way outrun by the iBook.

It looks to me like G4s are just much more effiecient than x86-based processors. ;P

f1000 · Jan 14, 2005, 07:42 PM

Originally posted by zero1207:
i don't do much with my computer. i'll have itunes, a few internet sites, and a word processor, but with the computer i have, just opening itunes and one internet site at the same time just bogs it down and it will freeze up for a bit. the guy at apple says an ibook is enough but i'm skeptical because if i'm going to switch, i would like to get a computer that i won't ever worry about speed with. i don't have access to a compusa or apple store right now...home for christmas break in nowhere...and my computer was freezing up when i had this site, an apple site, and a search for ibook pics going at the same time yesterday i'll try searching again today though. getting more frustrated by the day with my vaio. thanks for the input...i hope the info i gave could help more.

Then get an iBook. It doesn't sound like you need a PowerBook.

I agree with the other posters, though, that there's something wrong with your VAIO. Probably spyware messing with your OS.

Or Bill Gates is monitoring you.

d0GGii · Jan 14, 2005, 08:52 PM

reformat and reinstall windows XP.. that's usually the quickest solution.

EmmEff · Jan 15, 2005, 01:11 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Forte:

I've experienced it myself personally, too. I switched from a Samsung V25 with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 - and my iBook G4 933MHz runs rings around it. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Pentium-based machine, it simply got way outrun by the iBook.

Sorry, I just don't believe it but they are your systems and you know better than I.

I think the people who have the most trouble & complaints about Windows are those who know the least about it. As an example, nobody uses a Mac with minimal memory, so why should a PC work well with minimal memory? It's all relative.

My iBook 1GHz (OS X 10.3.7 w/768MB RAM) is dog slow at web surfing compared to my Toshiba 750MHz Pentium III running Windows XP w/256MB RAM. Obviously there's something wrong...

Forte · Jan 15, 2005, 03:52 AM

I think the people who have the most trouble & complaints about Windows are those who know the least about it.

Aye, quite true. I've seen that a lot whilst doing removals of entrenched malware and suchlike. But now I'm getting kind of off-topic. Excuse me. ^^;;

EmmEff · Jan 15, 2005, 01:28 PM

Yeah, quite an unfair comparison between a spyware infected XP system and a clean OS X system...

Yes, OS X has a great benefit in lack of viruses and spyware however to say that all Macs are faster than PCs is flat out incorrect.

ghporter · Jan 15, 2005, 05:35 PM

The only reason that Windows gets targeted more by the badguys is that it has the greatest market share, so the baddies can cause the most problems. If even 40% of the market used Macs, you'd see a huge amount of crap targeting OS X. Sad but true.

zero1207 · Jan 15, 2005, 10:49 PM

i'm not sure spyware infected is an accurate assumption of my vaio. i have ad-aware and norton and run them both daily. the only programs i've installed are itunes and microsoft office. never had any p2p networks or anything. i clean everything out of my computer every once in a while like cookies and internet temp files but its not getting any faster. i appreciate all the comments and suggestions though. i realize apples aren't the cure-all for speed problems but i expect more from the computer i have and it's not delivering. aside from the speed i got to finally look at a real apple computer (powerbook G4) and it seemed faster, and aside from that i think the OS is just nifty. i'm a sucker for shiny things. my demands from a computer might not warrant a powerbook but its going to be hard to fight off the temptation. perhaps impossible.

EmmEff · Jan 15, 2005, 10:56 PM

The OS is fantastic and is my sole reason for buying a Mac. I am a long time UNIX fan (been running Linux in a commercial and home environment for many years now), so OS X was the next logical progression for me.

You Vaio shouldn't be a slouch. PCs need tuning for optimal performance. I've never worked on a Sony computer before, so I don't know if they're tuned out of the box or not.

greenamp · Jan 15, 2005, 11:03 PM

The problem with the viao laptops that have the desktop p4's in them is that they get too hot, thus forcing the machines built in safety features to kick in and scale it down to around 800mhz.

Basically, anything will be better than a laptop with a non mobile P4.

EmmEff · Jan 15, 2005, 11:15 PM

I was thinking it was a Vaio desktop. I am definitely not a fan of the P4 CPU in notebooks. If it's not Centrino, I wouldn't give it a second look.

Forte · 03:41 AM

Yeah, quite an unfair comparison between a spyware infected XP system and a clean OS X system...

Heheh, yeah, but my XP system hasn't got any spyware on it, so your assumption is what's unfair.

(I remove entrenched malware for other people, just in case I didn't make that clear before. ;P)

My comparison is between two perfectly clean systems. The G4 iBook is still faster.

And, now I've learned about what greenamp said;

The problem with the viao laptops that have the desktop p4's in them is that they get too hot, thus forcing the machines built in safety features to kick in and scale it down to around 800mhz.

This explains exactly the what the issue is with my completely clean XP install on a 2.4GHz P4 Samsung V25 (another laptop with a non-mobile Pentium 4 in it - I never knew about the heat reduction stuff until today

) being *SO* much slower than my iBook. ;P

MARINEOSX · Jan 16, 2005, 05:10 AM

I think it depends on what you are doing on it as well. For somethings the G4 will beat a pentium and some times pentium will beat the G4 I have seen tests and charts in favor of both but the tests were different.

ghporter · Jan 16, 2005, 12:02 PM

I think the major difference is the philosophy behind OS X and Windows. OS X (and any *nix OS) believes that it should provide the foundation for applications; it provides the hooks for the memory, storage, display, etc., and lets the app do its thing. Windows, on the other hand "helps" its applications. Not only does it build the foundation, it subcontracts a load of other tasks for the app. In other words, there is too much "built in" the OS for it to be as efficient as it can be. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it takes an awful lot of clock cycles to do some things that OS X on a G4 can do in just a few. And these things tend to be important, basic things like talking to storage or memory (especially memory).

On the other hand, processors, memory and storage are now getting to be cheap enough and fast enough that the inherent value of tight coding and efficient algorithms is becoming obvious, as is the inherent effectiveness of various user interfaces. "Now come the days of UI competition," to misquote. It should be pretty interesting.

MARINEOSX · Jan 19, 2005, 11:35 PM

Well if you look at some of the sites that compare the new G5's against other MP systems the G5 usually gets done first. Even if it is the fact that windows is loaded with spy-ware and all other types of crap Viruses included, That is just one point for Apple because they made an operating system that is superior and can do day to day tasks without running the risk of those things. I also deal with dells, HP, and Gateway because we get the cheapest thing possible and I use applications on them all the time and being able to truly multi task and not have issues like windows is a dream come true. Not to mention that the hardware is made around the OS is nice as well. I have had windows machines for most of my life and I find Mac's to be 95% better the other 5% is games but I don't really care about that cause most of the games I like are on Mac or my console. Again it does depend on the tests you perform.

http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

Mr Heliums · Jan 20, 2005, 06:51 AM

In my experience, running a single application on my desktop 2Ghz PC with 512Mb RAM is faster than on my iBook/800. But when running several applications, the PC gets bogged down very easily.

The Mac is simply much better at multitasking - and as a Mac user who heard the multitasking taunt far too often in the nineties, you don't know how good it feels to say that.

funkboy · Jan 20, 2005, 10:43 AM

So many people are flabbergasted at the number of applications I always keep open on my iMac 800 G4. I only keep about 10 open at the same time, whereas I always see their Windows XP boxes with two programs max running at the same time.

They sometimes complain about my computer going slow, and then say, "well, if you didn't keep so many programs open!" Well, I can, get over it!

If Flash only played faster, I'd be perfect. Everyone always crowds around my 17" iMac screen to watch videos/movies/animation (even DVDs) on the computer instead of anyone else's. Why? Because Mac OS X makes it ridiculously simple to zoom in on stuff.

Get an iBook.

far200 · Jan 22, 2005, 03:35 PM

The biggest difference will be the OS.... mac osx works realy well and you won't have all the viruses that are out on the net...

As for the computer specs...don't even bother with the cpu speed. The powerpc (it's in all new ibooks and powerbooks.) is made to multi task..open up more than one task and it'll run just fine with next to no lag......
I had itunes up and running while I was ripping a dvd to my hard drive and at the same time I was surfing the net...... all went well for me. This is a great machine and you will wish you changed sooner.