[Cipher13]

Originally posted by zigzag:
<<So many of you are missing the point here! It is a laptop! It is meant to be PORTABLE. Expansion bay devices fit INSIDE the laptop, so as not to increase bulk. Saying you'd rather carry around an external device is stupid! Hell you may as well get a desktop if you're gonna carry around the laptop, an external burner, zip, batteries, and so on. Get real it is stupid not to have them. Apple screwed up. The whole point is portability, and Pismo is far better in this respect than Ti is.
Cipher13>>


Sorry - you've got it backwards. You're confusing portability with functionality. By your reasoning, a G4 tower is more "portable" than a PB because it has more internal features. The fact is that leaving non-essential features off the PB chassis ENHANCES its portability by making it lighter and more compact. Most people don't need all those expansion devices on the road. IMO, Apple should've left the DVD drive out and made it even more portable, but I'm not going to whine about it. You can't have everything.

So who's stupid and missing the point?

Scenario 1:
I'm going to work. Taking my PISMO. I load it with a battery and its DVD drive, and leave its other accessories in the car, or at home.
I only need one battery since I can plug it in at work.

Scenario 2:
Plane trip to California. 10600 kilometers on a plane. I take two batteries to last me the distance. No place to plug in on a plane.

Scenario 3:
My network is down - I need to transfer 40 gigs of files from one computer to another a couple blocks away.
I fill the internal HD. Damn... I put in my expansion bay HD, and that fits the rest!
Phew...
One battery will last the copying from one to the other.
So I take one battery, and the EB hard drive.
Wow, that worked out well...

That was with my Pismo, remember?
Do that with your Ti, carrying no external devices

One more thing: Try plugging in a FireWire HD and a FireWire DV Camcorder on a Ti. No hubs remember...
And I don't like daisy chaining, if that'll even work.
So for arguments sake lets say a FW Webcam and that camcorder then.

Oh, and I never called anyone stupid. So forgive me for calling you an asshole, will you?
Cause you are one.

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 01-12-2001).]

[hmr]

I like the new PowerBook - I'd love to have one.

But as someone said earlier in this forum: This is the only Apple update that leaves you wondering whether you should go for the old or the new machine.

I need to be able to use a second battery - 3 hours aren't enough (I can't get five unless I sit back and stare at my screen and play mp3).

Heimir.

[Jsnuff1]

id still like to think this is the subnotebook and not the powerbook....lets see what happens macworld tokyo.....

[zigzag]

Post from Cipher: "Saying you'd rather carry around an external device is stupid!"

Next post from Cipher: "Oh, and I never called anyone stupid. So forgive me for calling you an asshole, will you? Cause you are one."


So much for intelligent debate and intellectual honesty.

By the way, your response didn't refute my point, which is that "portability" and "functionality" are two different things, and are usually inversely proportional. Bulk is bulk whether it's integrated into the machine or not. Apple made the design choice to reduce the bulk of the primary machine, wisely IMO, and leave it up to the individual to choose which extras to carry. The extras that you keep referring to may be essential to you, but they aren't essential to everyone.

Also, according to MacNN, the Ti battery is hot-swappable. You don't even have to put the Ti to sleep. I'd rather carry an extra battery in my bag, when and if I need it, than enlarge the machine by a few inches just so an extra battery can be incorporated into the machine. It's extra bulk either way, but now I have a choice as to whether I want to carry that extra bulk or not.

I don't expect you to agree with Apple's design choices - I don't agree with all of them either. But it isn't inherently "stupid" to think that reducing the bulk of the primary machine is more important than incorporating extras that many people don't use.

[schwei]

Hold it folks! Time out! Remember the number-one unspoken rule at Apple: "if less is more, make sure less works". And number two: "Design for tomorrow, and tomorrow will be more fun."

Now, I don't have time to read this whole thread, but I did a word search for "sleep" and came up empty. So I think nobody mentioned the following:

Note that Steve didn't demo the TiPBG4, perhaps time was short or he wasn't secure about doing it. But I would demo (as long as it works) the **number one insanely great feature** of the TiPBG4

Fanfare please . . .

LIVE BATTERY SWAPPING! According to my personal experience, on a Lombard (or Pismo), you can swap batteries during sleep. So you don't need two bays for batts if you can put up with a brief interruption. But the TiPBG4 supposedly does *not* have to sleep during a batt swap. Think about it for a minute. You have as many "bays" now as you have (admittedly pricey) charged batts, because you swap 'em on the fly. Think of it as two bays occupying the same space if you want. How many of you guys have more than two batteries, and hot swap right now? If that's the case, powered-bus storage is not an issue.

Now to the "extra internal bay for a storage device" issue. Here's where rule number two kicks in. Think: As CD & DVD-burners drop in price, the market will gravitate toward that format (DVD) as their mass storage device of choice: compact, and no bulky cartridge. Steve Jobs quoted $10 a pop for the biscuits. Anybody know the capacity of the things? Can't find it at apple.com yet.

Take it FWIW. Make sense? ttfn

[PCTek]

Okay. Can we get this cleared up? This *IS* the PowerBook. This isn't the "CubeBook", or that missing quadrant in the product matrix.

If it *is*, why is it called the "PowerBook"? I mean, the PowerBook has been the professional portable ever since it was released.

This isn't the "subnotebook" missing in the product matrix. This isn't a "subnotebook" by any means. A subnotebook is a laptop that sacrifices functionality for sex. Apple obviously added both together.

This isn't the missing quadrant product.

[tooki]

Originally posted by schwei:
LIVE BATTERY SWAPPING! According to my personal experience, on a Lombard (or Pismo), you can swap batteries during sleep. So you don't need two bays for batts if you can put up with a brief interruption. But the TiPBG4 supposedly does *not* have to sleep during a batt swap. Think about it for a minute. You have as many "bays" now as you have (admittedly pricey) charged batts, because you swap 'em on the fly. Think of it as two bays occupying the same space if you want. How many of you guys have more than two batteries, and hot swap right now? If that's the case, powered-bus storage is not an issue.

Live swapping is great, except for one thing: YOU CAN'T CHARGE TWO BATTERIES AT ONCE. You'll have to wait for one to charge, manually pull it out, insert another dead battery, etc. On my Pismo, I put in my 2 batteries, and I know that within a few hours, with no further intervention on my part, I will have two full charges. Too bad Apple didn't also create an external charger (VST will probably make a killing on battery chargers for this machine).
QUOTE]
Now to the "extra internal bay for a storage device" issue. Here's where rule number two kicks in. Think: As CD & DVD-burners drop in price, the market will gravitate toward that format (DVD) as their mass storage device of choice: compact, and no bulky cartridge. Steve Jobs quoted $10 a pop for the biscuits. Anybody know the capacity of the things? Can't find it at apple.com yet. [/QUOTE]

4.7GB. That's the capacity of each layer of a DVD, and these discs are single-sided, so that's what you get.

tooki

Maybe I'm being dense, but I don't get the problem. If you want to use peripherals with the Pismo, then you must plug it into the expansion bay...so you can only carry one peripheral at a time inside the laptop. The others need to be carried seperatly. With the powerbook G4, you need to carry them seperatly, unless its the DVD player. I don't see how this is a huge loss in functionality.

A few other important points;

1. Many new firewire devices are bus powered. This means no power cords. You can plug a firewire device in and be ready to go.

2. Many new firewire devices are SMALL. They are no more difficult to carry around than the old expansion bay peripherals,

3. Firewire peripherals come in more durable cases than the expansion bay peripherals. Better to withstand the jostling at the bottom of your bag in a crowded airport.

4. These firewire peripherals are cheaper than the expansion bay devices. I looked at the prices of an expansion bay zip drive and nearly freaked! My boss has a Pismo and she decided on a VST external firewire zip drive instead of the expansion bay zip drive based on cost alone.

5. Expansion bay peripherals will only work in the powerbook. However, external firewire peripherals will work on any firewire computer. This means less peripherals to buy, and it means that when you ditch the powerbook, you can keep your peripherals for your desktop or new laptop.

6. Removing the expansion bay allowed Apple to use a slot loading DVD drive. This increases the durability of the powerbook. The dvd tray on the pismo was too delicate. I never liked how all the drive's internals were exposed everytime you changed the CD. What if you're outside on the beach? Too risky to open that thing up and fumble with pressing a CD into it.

Overall, I think the Powerbook Ti is more durable, smaller, and lighter, all because Apple removed the expansion bay. Well worth it IMHO.