Powerbook G4 vs. Macbook

Paul C · #1 February 22nd, 2007, 02:44 AM

I currently have a Powerbook (spec below) but quite like the look of the new Macbook's, thing is I don't wanna switch to a macbook and find out I made a big mistake, ok the screen on the macbook is smaller but that doesn't really bother me, the main things I use my mac for is browsing the net, burning DVD's (from camcorder), listening to iTunes and watching movies, I had a G3 800 iBook back in the day and didn't like it as the performance was very poor imo, although I know the Macbook has a more modern processor will I notice a big difference in performance compared to my G4 Powerbook?

Thanks in advance

Paul

**fryke** · #2 February 22nd, 2007, 04:06 AM

List all the applications where speed is really important to you. All the Apple stuff (iLife, iWork, Pro Apps) are universal binaries by now. So are many little utilities etc. Adobe's apps will be universal this Spring, Microsoft will follow at the end of the year, probably. That's the main issue.

For all _universal_ applications, the MacBook _is_ much faster than your old PowerBook. For all apps that have to be emulated in Rosetta, the difference would not be that much. Oh, and give that MacBook 2 GB of RAM, and you're good.

Paul C · #3 February 22nd, 2007, 04:37 AM

iLife - mainly iPhoto & iMovie
iTunes
Toast - Encoding video (all legal)
MS Word/Excel
Safari
Mail.app
Watching video in VLC/iDVD
MSN Messenger

The macbook I'll be getting is the 2ghz, 1gb RAM, DVDRW DL, etc, I also like the idea of being able to run windows for all those stupid apps that won't run in OS X.

Lt Major Burns · #4 February 22nd, 2007, 05:13 AM

you'll probably see it being roughly 5-7x times faster (really) than your old powerbook. the G4's were stretched out for far too long, while the rest of the world was moving on.

**fryke** · #5 February 22nd, 2007, 06:37 AM

While I agree that the G4s were "stretched out", I find these "5-7 times faster" type claims a tad cheesy, because these are not talking about _everything_, and different users have different areas where they expect better performance of newer hardware. There are a _lot_ of variables in a good notebook - CPU speed is only one of them. Not _everything_ in a MacBook is 5 times faster than a PowerBook G4, so at _least_ a "your mileage may vary" should be added to such a claim.

So let's talk about the apps you've listed...

iLife - mainly iPhoto & iMovie ... Those really are much faster on a MacBook C2D compared to your PB G4. Same for iTunes/Quicktime encoding.

Toast - Encoding video (all legal) ... If you have (or will buy) a newer version of Toast (version 8 was released recently), this task will definitely be faster.

MS Word/Excel ... Since Office is not yet universal, the Rosetta-thing applies. This needs RAM, simply put. The apps are perfectly useable. With very large documents, you might see a performance decrease in some areas. Either way: Get the 2 GB of RAM.

Safari & Mail.app run natively. They're good.

Watching video in VLC/iDVD ... I guess you mean DVD Player, not iDVD. DVD Player is good on intel Macs, for VLC, I'd get the nightly binaries, although some of them are more "crashy" than others. We're all looking forward to the final version of 0.90.

MSN Messenger ... The original works "fine", like on your PB G4 I mean. Might want to try Adium as an alternative.

mightymenk · #6 February 24th, 2007, 06:12 PM

i have the same pb config but with 1.5 gb ram - all works fine and i mostly use photoshop cs2 an finalcut on it - so i dont really think you should switch to a mac book too early

Qion · #7 February 24th, 2007, 06:24 PM

My MacBook (1GB RAM) feels at least 5-7 times faster (really) than my 1GHz eMac (768 RAM). Even Photoshop and Illustrator seem a *little* bit faster. The graphics and the processor are definitely faster, app launching is faster, the camera is nice, the keyboard is good, it's just... better. You're not going to regret going from any G4.