[silentray]

Hello,

I am thinking to buy a Mac laptop recently. I am a little bit worrying about how hot a powerbook or iBook is. Someone told me that PowerBook is much hotter than iBook.

I prefer a PowerBook 15" if it is not very hot, otherwise, I will go for iBook 14" probablly.

Can you give me some suggestions?

Thanks

[iPoder]

I am using PowerBook 15" 1.25 GHz G4 now, and had an iBook 500 Ghz G3 previously.

My experience tells me that both machines can get pretty hot if you run certain CPU- or IO-intensive program. But the heat is usually felt on the bottom of the notebook, and you only feel the warmth on the top. I would suggest that you get a notebook riser if you concern about the heat.

So my suggestion is not to let the heat dictates your choice, but decide it on your needs of the features (such as video spanning, nicer graphic cards, etc).

PS. In the meantime, my PB fan ticks in, and I checked what is using CPU time. I found out it is Safari (50% and up). There is definitely a bug in Safari.

[grayware]

Mine had been running frighteningly hot, especially up near the fan in the upper left corner but I've since switched Energy Saver settings to automatic, and run AppleCare's TechTool Deluxe and it's running great. Downright normal. I usually have PhttoShop, Quark, Safari, Mail running.

[dodo_nutter]

I've got a 15" 1.5GHz PB and most of the time it runs nice and cool. using safari, mail, temp moitor, activity monitor and virex at the moment and its cool to the touch. Something very processor heavy like rendering or game playing (or seti@home) cause the processor temperature to soar but then again if im playing games i have my PB on my desk and the heat isn't an issue.

What sort of things are you going to use your laptop for??

[tkmd]

I was worried too about the excessive heat that my 1.5 AL book would make - but I can assure you that it is not that hot. I know that "hot " is a vague term that is open to differences of opinion, but consider this: I can comfortable keep my PB on my lap while doing mundane things like email and surfing the web. Remember I am keeping the settings of the CPU at "auto". Once I set it to "highest performance" the temperature of the cpu can creep to 125-130 just by doing the above. On auto it rarely climbs above 130. Covert a movie to MP4 well, thats a different story - 140-142F. But Get the PB you ll be glad. I am so happy with the purchase. Biggest difference between my PB and my gf's dell laptop (outside of looks!) is that her fan is always cycling. my PB is silent. Bonus.

[iREZ]

Trust me when I say, you'll hardly ever have the 'book on your lap when doing intensive stuff so heat shouldn't be much of a reason for your purchase. I remember wanting to get an iBook instead of my 12" PB because of heat, and I'm sooo glad I got the "hotter" 'book. Get the PB if you could swing it, if not the iBook is no slouch either.

[Simon]

tkmd, I'm glad to hear that the 1.5GHz 15" PowerBook remains below 130F and quiet almost all the time. At what temperature does the fan first come on?

[Randman]

The fan will come on at different times, according to Energy Savings settings and task.
If you just make sure some air can circulate around the book, be it Power or i, it'll keep things cool. For lap work, items such as the iLap can help.
I used to have an iBook G4, 1Ghz, and it would run about 120 farenheit on average.
I now have a PB17, 1.5Ghz, and while doing the same type of tasks, it runs about 4 or 5 degrees cooler. Part of that is because of the greater surface cools more.
Now, it might feel a little warmer to the touch with the alu over the iBook casing.
As the others said, ghet what you can afford and what meets your needs and it should be cool enough.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Randman:
The fan will come on at different times, according to Energy Savings settings and task.

Of course, but it will always come on at a certain temperature. Temperature Monitor can tell you what this temperature is.

Of course the temperature depends on Energy Saver settings, tasks, room temperature, etc. but the threshold for the fan in degrees is constant. Id' like to know what that is for the 15" 1.5GHz AlBook. My 1GHz 12" rev B PowerBook has its fan threshold at 119.5F/48.5C.

[urrl78]

I see PC laptop users are worried about their temps too:

http://www.w1n-forum.net/ftopic508.php

Their CPU temps can get hotter than my 1.5 Ghz 17"

You may have to register to see the link, don't know.

[MRTrauffer]

My fan will turn on when the CPU reaches about 141F.

I owned a 14" iBook G4 (1GHz) prior to this PowerBook (1.5GHz), and both machines got no hotter than 148F. It was running about the same temperature as this powerbook.

While I'm at work, I have a small fan pointed at the back of my PB just to help keep it cool.

So comparing both machines, they both run at about the same temperature when doing similar tasks. I remember the iBook getting pretty warm. The PowerBook feels hotter because it's an aluminum case which is designed to radiate the heat. I use a Targus Traveler's CoolPad so I don't really notice the heat when it's sitting on my lap.

My recommendation would be to stick with the PowerBook, you won't be disappointed.

[Randman]

148? Wow, that is warm. I've only broken 130 once on my PB17 (rev c) and that was burning a disc, using photoshop, quark, indesign, itunes, mail, text edit and downloading stuff via Safari and iTunes at the same time.

[buffalolee]

I would not worry about the heat so much. I am sure Apple had stress tested it for reliability. If Apple was afraid it would get too hot, there would have been many fried 'Books around.

Just do not burn your lap, though.

[MRTrauffer]

Originally posted by Randman:
148? Wow, that is warm. I've only broken 130 once on my PB17 (rev c) and that was burning a disc, using photoshop, quark, indesign, itunes, mail, text edit and downloading stuff via Safari and iTunes at the same time.

I do a lot of video editing and rendering. It got up to 148F after playing Battlefield 1942 for a while.