[luau] If you could have your wish

[Nicholas E. Walker]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 10:59:55PM -1000, Virgil wrote:
> Sony is ok. Why didn't you consder the powerbook G4? It had everything there
> you needed to do DVD everything.

The Sony has 1.5x the screen real estate, twice as much (faster?) RAM,
larger and faster disk, a vastly superior keyboard, and a 2.4GHz CPU.

I recommended the Sony and the Toshiba laptops because I've been in the
position of finding the sexiest and highest-performing laptops on a few
occasions and have settled on those two laptops (well, series of
laptops).  I've been using both of the laptops I recommend for several
months now and have used others, too (e.g. the 17" G4).

The PowerPC CPUs are without a doubt superior to the inefficient garbage
served up by Intel.  Apple fails to integrate the chips into a
competitive hardware platform, however.  They do not offer an
ultra-portable.  Compare the 2lb .5" Portege (with full-size keyboard)
with the 1.18" 4.6lb 12" G4 (Apple's smallest offering).  An executive
can replace the latest issues of BusinessWeek and Fortune in their
briefcase with the Portege and not notice the difference.

On the other end of the spectrum, Apple fails to compete at the
high-performance end.  The G4 powerbook fails to offer a rewritable DVD
drive.  They fail to offer desktop-speed disks.  They fail to keep up
with LCD technology; the 17" display in the G4 is capable of packing
twice as many pixels (as it is they over 1.2M pixels vs. the Sony's
1.9M).  The Sony's display is tall enough not to strain one's neck.
Hasn't everyone who has used a laptop noticed the neck and back strain
of always looking down at a laptop screen?

While the G4 may be the Mac user's wet dream, it fails to hold up when
it comes to ergonomic usability and when compared to the PC offerings.
Apple could stand to focus on advancement rather than sex appeal.
Apple's OS is certainly superior to Windows.  That doesn't make me want
to buy their hardware, though; it makes me wonder why it doesn't run on
the sexy silver all-magnesium magazine-sized Portege.

I would much rather see Apple compete by producing competitive hardware
-and- a competitive OS than by trying to strong-arm people into using
slower and bulkier "futuristic" (their words) hardware.  

iRamble.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

P.S. speaking of strong-arming, I'd rather have a modernized (i.e.
faster) StrongARM in my Portege than a G4.