[MacTheKnife]

Before you start flaming me, I want you to know that I was the founder of one the most prominent Macintosh publications, MacWEEK, which explains my handle. Not surprisingly, I've owned at least six PowerBooks, starting with the 100, Duo, 520C, 3400, iBook and now an AluBook 15.

I got mine on Friday and I've been trying to work with it ever since. I've been a Quark user since 1987 (2.11), of course, and that's the primary reason for getting this notebook. I wanted something far faster than my iBook because I was tired of seeing the spinning beach ball.

While I have no problems with the latch, and the 2 mm warp between lid and keyboard portion doesn't bother me too much, I have to say that getting sub-two-hour battery performance in a 2003 notebook is simply unacceptable (1:56 is typical).

Like one poster noted earlier, who wants to spend $2.5K on a notebook only to have to turn down brightness, etc, to prolong battery life?

That's not the worst of it. It appears that 10.2.7 is woefully incompatible with Quark 4.11 and 5.01. Both will crash consistently upon opening with an "unexpectedly quit" message. Neither tolerate going to iChat or some other OS X app without bombing altogether.

This in a virgin Mac with nothing else installed besides AI 10.0 and Font Reserve. I turned off QX Tools in 4.1 to see if that was the problem, but to no avail. Right now, both apps will open, but if you do anything, like go to the open menu, they tend to crash.

A complete restart will get you into the apps, but don't expect the joy to last long. Could Font Reserve be the problem? I'm using 3.1.1. And since this PowerBook won't boot into OS 9, I'm hosed if this persists.

Is anyone else having these problems? I love the speed of OS 9 booting after each crash, but I prefer not to have to be reminded so frequently of that performance gain.

Besides OS 9 boot speed, my overall impression, is also not one that would have you believe that a 1.25Ghz G4 is twice as fast as a 600Mhz G3. It feels faster but not as blazingly fast as my 1.3Ghz Sony Z1 felt when I upgraded from a 750Mhz Mobile Pentium.

I've always been an Apple supporter and feel that the company is at the forefront of computing but after anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new AluBook, I regrettably have to say I'm very disappointed.

While Apple says it won't take returns for "customized" PowerBooks (5400-rpm drive), this puppy is seriously flawed and will have to go back if a Quark fix can't be found.

Please let me know if Quark is functioning correctly on your AluBook.

P.S. Wi-Fi reception is also worse than the iBook. Site loading in my bedroom is very slow, whereas both my iBook and Sony perform reasonably well there.

[herbsman]

battery life does indeed suck. my friend got himself a new 15 alu stock in the superdrive model and he gets around 1:30 even after calibrating the sucker. thats just pathetic. but hey, the thing does look pretty nice

[brainchild2b]

It's possible that you got a lemon. My friend recently purchased the new 15 AI book and is elated with it's performance. He gets approximately 3 1/2 hours on his battery running websites, and internet tools.

I'm very curious because I"m planning on purchasing the new AI book this upcoming weekend.

I recommend removing font reserve for now. I used it for a while but started seeing wierd problems and strange random quits. Most of these seem to have went away when the software was uninstalled.

I know 10.3 isn't out yet but if your not adverse to playing with betas you might want to see how 10.3 performs with battery life and performance on that notebook. I'm guessing you will see some pretty major improvements.

Cheers!

[MacTheKnife]

You're right. I had Font Reserve problems on my iBook too while running 2.6. That was solved with the latest version.

Wish I had Panther now, so I could have font management and see how crisply it performs with this new PowerBook.

Herbsman: You're right, it's certainly is sexy looking. But we want good looking chicks who also perform.

[Cincojoe]

I would imagine that the luminated keyboard has something to do with the lower battery life.

[Waveman]

While I don't run Quark, I doubt if any of the problems you're having are hardware-related. Perhaps something in 10.2.7 is causing your crashes, so maybe 10.2.8 (9?) or Panther will help.

The latch/screen closure problem does bother me a bit. Although the latch on my Alu 15" catches every time, there's a slight extra gap on the right side that causes an annoying wobble when I press down on the closed case. This makes the computer feel cheap.

I agree about battery life. I've only had the PB a couple of days, but it looks like 2-2.5 hours is it. Although I usually use my PB plugged in, I do foresee problems when I'm travelling.

Finally, my computer is one of those with the "white spots on the screen" problem (there's a separate thread about this.) For me, this is the biggest problem.

[MacTheKnife]

My latch is fine, so far. And the screen and brightness rock. It's about 15% brighter than my Sony Z1, which is just six months old!

I got rid of Font Reserve and I'm chatting now, so that might just solve the problem.

Since this is not my primary notebook, battery life is not a deal-breaker for me, but for others it will be a hardship.

Weak Wi-Fi does bother me, however, although I could get a new gateway, like the NetGear WGR614 I have in the office, which is awesome as far as I can tell.

[MacTheKnife]

Well, I was hoping that removing Font Reserve would solve the problem but Quark continues to quit unexpectedly trying to open files.

I'm afraid this PowerBook needs to go back.

[ae86_16v]

Originally posted by herbsman:
battery life does indeed suck. my friend got himself a new 15 alu stock in the superdrive model and he gets around 1:30 even after calibrating the sucker. thats just pathetic. but hey, the thing does look pretty nice

I get 2.5 to 3.0

[bcaslis]

I don't have Quark, but none of my programs seem to have a problem on the 15". Photoshop, Office X, iApps, Adobe, and several apps and games seem to run fine.

The battery life does suck, but I don't have any wireless problems. I'm got an Airport Extreme at work and home and both work fine with the same range and speed as a rev A 17", slightly better than a iBook, and much better than a Tibook.

[Eug]

I'm a little perturbed by the 46 Watt-hour battery (as compared to my TiBook's 61 Watt-hour battery).

[MacTheKnife]

Well, Quark froze the AluBook and the unit got so hot the fan came on. At that point, the bottom felt searing enough to fry an egg.

It's weird no one else has these problems. I'm stumped.

[Bruck]

I hope the excess heat is not created by your 5400rpm drive.

[brainchild2b]

Maybe they will release an update to up the battery life. I know this isn't the right solution but for now I'd just recommend carrying an extra battery.

[Nephron]

Hi gang,

I have owned one Thinkpad and three Powerbooks over the last three years, and I have always bought at least one extra battery for each.

To me, battery life is pretty lame in general. I don't get into arguments about 2 hours versus 3. Neither is good enough for a long flight. Talk to me when batteries can go for twelve hours, then I'll be excited. In the meantime, I'll just keep ordering my extra battery.

Cheers!

[fhammond]

Originally posted by Nephron:
Hi gang,

I have owned one Thinkpad and three Powerbooks over the last three years, and I have always bought at least one extra battery for each.

Cheers!

Pentium M-powered ThinkPads have amazing battery life. I get over five hours from the standard battery on my T40 and over 11 hours when I replace the DVD drive with a second battery. It's very nice.

[cobra27]

Originally posted by fhammond:
Pentium M-powered ThinkPads have amazing battery life. I get over five hours from the standard battery on my T40 and over 11 hours when I replace the DVD drive with a second battery. It's very nice.

I think IBM is the only manufacturer that gets it right with the the Pentium M chip.

However, don't forget that before the Pentium M, the T30 series (the one with Pentium 4 Mobile) from IBM had 2~3 hours battery life as well.

It was Intel who got the breakthrough though. So in this case, we have to wait for IBM for breakthrough in chip design, or for fuel cell to emerge.

Agree that battery life of powerbooks sucks though. And no way to swap optical drive with an additional battery means that we either have to carry an additional battery, or the charger.

[docholiday]

Originally posted by MacTheKnife:
Well, Quark froze the AluBook and the unit got so hot the fan came on. At that point, the bottom felt searing enough to fry an egg.

It's weird no one else has these problems. I'm stumped.

While I do agree that this PB isn't perfect, I believe it has a lot going for it.

First off, I do get quite a bit more than 2 hours (usually around 30% left at that time) battery life with regular work.
Secondly, since the new PBs were designed to work with OS X, it's a bit unfair to blame the PB for problems of incompatibility with an OS9 Quark (Quark 5 was OS 9 rite?). I am sure if you had Quark 6, you would have a totally different opinion. Then again, I haven't used Classic since the early days of OS 10.1.

Oh, and yes... the PB tends to get very warm (never hot here though).

My recommendation would be: Keep it for another while, get Quark 6, and see how things go. If you still don't like it, return it. A new iBook rev might be for you.

my 2 cents,
Doc Holiday

[MacTheKnife]

I want to keep it, but I had two more bad crashes that lead me to conclude that it's a sick motherboard -- the only plausible explanation (I have identical software running on my iBook with no problems whatsoever).

The only reason it got so hot was because it was frozen and the CPU was running probably at full tilt in an endless loop.

After reading on the software forum what fun people are having with Quark 6.0, especially its nasty registration scheme, I'm sticking with 4.1 and 5.0. No need to make Mr. Ebrahimi even richer and more annoying.

I also don't believe that running in emulation should produce more problems on new hardware, my iBook does just fine in emulation. I would hate to think what would happen if I piled on Epson's virtual PostScript drivers and other OS 9-only software.

I guess I'm gonna have to try to be happy with my iBook for that last book edit.

Tomorrow, I'll let you all know what happens when Apple customer service gets presented with a defective, yet customized, PowerBook.

[nobitacu]

Some would of thought that with the techologies we have right now, someone would be able to make a battery that would last for a very long time with some kind of new technology. But I guess that technology is being overlooked and not many new improvements has been made to the way batteries are made and used.

Oh well... someday I hope.... someday...

Ming

[cobra27]

Originally posted by nobitacu:
Some would of thought that with the techologies we have right now, someone would be able to make a battery that would last for a very long time with some kind of new technology. But I guess that technology is being overlooked and not many new improvements has been made to the way batteries are made and used.

Oh well... someday I hope.... someday...

Ming

I am not an expert on battery by any means, but actually battery technology has improved quite a bit. I could still remember those heavy battery bricks that got discharged in no time.

BUT the problem is that battery technology progresses SLOWER than other computing technology.

I am sure if Apple were to build a powerbook with 10" double-scan LCD, 64MB RAM, 1GB HD, and some 2D video card with 8MB of RAM -- it will run the whole day with the existing battery. The current notebook components are all mod-down desktop ones, that's why they are such power hungry creatures.

Intel has taken the lead, hopefully the others will follow.

[CrackedButter]

Well its enough to have me cancel my order until i get a decent feedback on battery life. My current iBook is 6 hours and like i said in the other thread, why am i paying more for a pro laptop and get less battery life?

Getting a second battery isn't an easy option either.

[Agent69]

Sorry to hear about your Powerbook. Considering the experiences of others who have received them, it would seem that you will need to send it back or exchange it.

Second, and off topic, I just have to tell you thanks for starting MacWeek. (The three magazines I miss most today are MacWeek, MacUser, and Byte.)

[fhammond]

Originally posted by MacTheKnife:
After reading on the software forum what fun people are having with Quark 6.0, especially its nasty registration scheme, I'm sticking with 4.1 and 5.0. No need to make Mr. Ebrahimi even richer and more annoying.

Have you considered switching to InDesign?

It's funny you mention your history with MacWeek and XPress: I was production editor of Macworld in Australia in 1990 and lived and breathed XPress 2.11 (or was it 2.12?) ten hours each day. Actually, more like 16 hours each day when I started and didn't know a thing about XPress (or putting together a magazine!). I loved that program. I don't think I liked XPress as much after 3.x came out: I liked the rigid parent/child relationship of nested frames in 2.x.

At Macworld, we loved getting MacWEEK each week (not a simple thing down in Australia). Such a great read! It's sad that the Mac industry is no longer large enough to support such a publication.

I'm at Adobe now, in the US. Although I'm not part of the InDesign team, I have used the product enough to know I like it as much - more, in fact - as my old XPress 2.11. I wish I had more of an opportunity to use it. I'd be curious to hear whether you've tried it out.

Regards,
fh

[cambro]

So, let me get this straight....

Quark makes a crappy application, so your hardware sucks??? Man, I need you on my side when my programs crash and burn.

I agree that battery life is a problem. It get at least 3 hrs on my Ghz Ti with the screen turned down a bit (went 4 hrs last night coding). Less than two would suck and I can't believe Apple took a step backwards here. But, do you get such bad battery life withOUT Quark running?? I found that Adobe Illustrator 10 would just swallow CPU cycles when it was doing nothing. This affects battery life big time. Run top to see if Quark sucks CPU.

Anyway, I use InDesign. It works well, is tolerably fast and certainly never causes any of the catastrophes you are having with Quark.

Your Beef seems to be 99% Quark/font application related and has nothing to do with the PB itself, battery-life excepting.

Also, I really don't understand your speed comparisons to a 600Mhz G3. There is NO DOUBT that in CPU intensive tasks, your PB will smoke a 600 Mhz iBook by as much as 4-6x, let alone the "double" you mention. This has been documented all over the place. Whether you "feel" the difference or not is another thing, and it is related to how CPU intensive the task you are feeling up is.

[Riemann Zeta]

Quark has never been compatible with OS X--not even in classic mode. Quark 6 is the only version that remotely works (but most people say that Quark 6 sucks). Try Adobe ID.

[fuddman]

"Quark has never been compatible with OS X--not even in classic mode. Quark 6 is the only version that remotely works (but most people say that Quark 6 sucks). Try Adobe ID."


Uh oh... you said InDesign... here comes some software flaming... I personally prefer ID.. but then agian I'm just a student with no production experiences.

[brainchild2b]

Let's stay on topic. Mack are you running airport or anything else inside this machine? I'm guessing were all just going to have to lug around 2 extra pounds of batteries for now

[Fellow2000]

Originally posted by Riemann Zeta:
Quark has never been compatible with OS X--not even in classic mode. Quark 6 is the only version that remotely works (but most people say that Quark 6 sucks). Try Adobe ID.

He said he had identical software installed on the iBook. So it obviously works for some people. Maybe he just got lucky with his iBook.

[pknoll]

It's a truism that most people who have good experiences with their purchases don't post to say so, so you do tend to hear only the negative bits in discussions like these. =)

That being the case, I'll post my own experiences with my 15" regarding the battery life -

Right now I've been using it for 1:30 and my battery indicates it has 58% life left. It seemed to go a bit quicker the first few times it discharged; I think I've drained/recharged it maybe 5 times since I got it. Perhaps that helps accurate calibration?

My machine: 1GHz 15", 768MB RAM, 4500RPM Drive, Backlit KB option, Airport Extreme.

Power Settings on Battery: Reduced processor, Bluetooth Off, Backlit KB On, HD Spindown when possible.

Overall I'm pleased with the battery life, but I switched from an Inspiron 5000 running FreeBSD, so almost anything would have been better. =) Looks like I'll get close to 3 hours, though, which I think is very good.

Try a couple more drain/recharge cycles maybe, see if that helps?

[h00ligan]

well man, I understand your frustration.. but coming from working for 2 VERY LARGE magazines, I have to say this..

use quark, expect crashes. Period. Go try In Design and then see if yout program crashes, it won't. And quark has horrible code.. especially version 6. when they previewed it, it crashed during the preview.. what else can be said.

[MacTheKnife]

Yes, I'm definitely willing to try InDesign now. Especially now I've got the scoop on the CS suite:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1064808489.html

I've never really been able to test battery life in real-time, because I've not been able to get beyond crashes. Those of you who berate me for judging the PowerBook solely because of Quark, remember it works fine on my iBook. Why should I have problems with a PowerBook, unless it's software-related?

Today, I heard it would take 49 minutes to get to an Apple rep about returning the product. I gave up because I knew they were gonna tell me customized PBs cannot be returned. So I tried AppleCare instead. They walked me through an OS 9 reinstall.

That worked until just now, when I dragged my Quark docs back from the desktop to the documents folder. So, no problems on the desktop so far, but crashes when the doc is in the documents folder...go figure.

Haven't had a chance to run Illustrator much, so that's not a battery drain. And yes, my Airport is on all the time, because it's straining to receive a signal in my house (gateway is upstairs).

Those of you who loved MacWEEK, thanks, it was a great ride!

[todrain]

Originally posted by CrackedButter:
Well its enough to have me cancel my order until i get a decent feedback on battery life. My current iBook is 6 hours and like i said in the other thread, why am i paying more for a pro laptop and get less battery life?

Getting a second battery isn't an easy option either.

There are a lot of factors that can really affect battery life. I only turn up the brightness on my TIbook about half-way (Part of it is to save battery power, but it's also because the screen is very bright!) I also try and use reduced processing mode when possible. it's also good to turn on the option for HD spindown when it's not used, and have the screen dim quickly when not in use. You can get quite a bit more life out of charge if you try and reduce the consumption where possible.

[iDaver]

I launched Quark 4.0 on my new 17" (10.2.7 & 9.2) and can't get it to crash. I'm not opening any complex documents though, and it's an earlier version than the one with which you're having problems.

I too have heard Quark doesn't run well under classic; the reason most graphics people still run OS 9, so I haven't used it much lately.

Good luck with your troubles.

[CrackedButter]

Originally posted by todrain:
There are a lot of factors that can really affect battery life. I only turn up the brightness on my TIbook about half-way (Part of it is to save battery power, but it's also because the screen is very bright!) I also try and use reduced processing mode when possible. it's also good to turn on the option for HD spindown when it's not used, and have the screen dim quickly when not in use. You can get quite a bit more life out of charge if you try and reduce the consumption where possible.

Yeah thats how i get 6 hours out of my iBook. Normally its about 3 but for some reason i don't think this will be the case with a PB. I don't know why but i'm assuming this.

[MacTheKnife]

My CTO came in today and said you should always reformat a new computer no matter what. Things can happen during shipping, etc.

Sure enough! The Quark crashes are gone! This also explains why Quark files on the desktop did not crash (when I told him that, he knew right away).

Of course, I also arranged to have the new Adobe CS suite shipped to my office, so I can begin the switcheroo!

So, remember, always reformat and reinstall the system software on your new PowerBook.