[anamexis]

The Register reports: Apple said to ship PowerBook G5 in Q2 2005

What do you think?

[rambo47]

For those who don't want to click the link:

Apple said to ship PowerBook G5 in Q2 2005
By Tony Smith
Published Friday 14th January 2005 10:59 GMT

Expect Apple to ship PowerBook and iBook notebook Macs based on a G5-class PowerPC chip in Q2.

So claim sources close to Taiwan's contract manufacturers, DigiTimes reports.

Tucked away in a discussion about Apple's manufacturing partners are references to an iBook G5 and a PowerBook G5, which will ship in Q2 2005. They will be built by Asustek and Quanta, respectively.
The news will be welcomed by Mac notebook enthusiasts, who have anticipated a G5-based PowerBook since the emergence some 12 months ago of the 90nm PowerPC 970FX from IBM. In the end, the 90nm die-shrink, despite IBM's initial claims proved less notebook-friendly than anyone had anticipated. This stopped Apple from rolling out a PowerBook based on the chip, but it refreshed the XServe G5 and updated Power Mac desktops with the new part.

Apple's then director of Power Mac product marketing, Tom Boger, told customers at the G5 desktop launch not to expect a PowerBook G5 "any time soon [and] certainly not before the end of the year".
Has IBM solved the 970FX's heat dissipation problems, possibly with new chip-making techniques, or has Apple figured out how to keep the chip sufficiently cool to operate efficiently in a notebook? A third possibility exists: DigiTimes has written 'G5' when it should have typed 'G4'.

Certainly, Apple wants to move the PowerBook line to the G5 and will do so as soon as possible. But Freescale's upcoming 90nm G4-class MPC7448 chip has been seen as a more likely candidate than the G5 for the next PowerBook and/or iBook revisions. �

I believe we'll have one, more likely two, revisions of the PowerBook with the Freescale processor before we see the G5 go mobile. I've said many times, the focus for Apple right now, as far as the PowerBook and iBook line ups, should be battery life and better screens. Sure, everyone loves faster and faster processors, but the bottlenecks in performance seem to be hard drive speed and graphics cards. They should make 5400 RPM drives standard and offer the BTO crowd the option of a 7200 RPM drive. iBooks should have 64 MB VRAM with a BTO option for 128 MB. PowerBooks, the "professional line", should start at 128 MB VRAM and BTO at 256 MB with something like the FireGL card. Oh, and the basic RAM configuration - standard should be 512 MB minimum. OS X is a RAM-hog, Apple knows it, and they should simply work with it. Macs need at least 512 MB RAM for the snappiness we expect. Why ship a machine with lack-luster performance? It's like sabotaging yourself for no reason.

My other focus would be to get better screens on the entire mobile line up. Brighter, higher res. Even as a BTO option. At least give everyone a chance if they so choose.

[wuzup101]

Definitely agree with the above poster. They have to work on ram and screans ASAP. Higher rez screans would be very very nice, as would shipping all mac portables regardless of their line with 512mb of ram. I also agree that powerbooks should use atleast 5400rpm drives and should come with 128mb vram standard... extra battery life would be icing on the cake! I hope all these features are addressed in the next major revision to the powerbooks.