PowerBook G4 Titanium v. Wintel by Remy Davison Last year we compared the Pismo PowerBook with the high-end Wintel portables and found that the Pismo was the clearly superior market entrant. Offering FireWire, a fast 500MHz G3, 100bT ethernet, DVD and 9-10 hour dual battery life, few PC portables approached Pismo's level of system integration. That was then; this is now. The Titanium PowerBook G4 is Apple's latest and greatest and PC Pro portables have finally cracked the 1GHz barrier (up from 800MHz last year). But how much have the Wintels improved in the last 9 months? Have they caught up with the PowerBooks? For this comparison, we'll be looking at some of the high-end models from brand-name manufacturers: IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Gateway and Compaq. The criteria was that the specifications closely matched Apple's two Pro PowerBook models. And, as you'll find, the $2,500-$3,500 price point is a fiercely competitive one. So what we're shopping for is a professional portable with a 15" display (where possible) and a PIII processor (no Celerons or K6s). Before we start, let's very quickly recap the PowerBook's main features: 400 or 500MHz G4; slot-loading DVD-ROM; 1" thin Titanium enclosure; 15.2" screen; 5-hour battery; 10/100bT ethernet; FireWire; USB; Airport-ready; 10 or 20GB hard drive and room for 1GB RAM. $2,600 to $3,500. Pretty decent spec sheet, hey? But is that enough to make Wintel buyers switch? If you've read my previous column on the Titanium, you'll know that I strongly criticised the absence of an expansion bay (i.e. the fixed DVD-ROM device). When comparing the PowerBook with the Wintels, I find the omission of this feature even more pronounced; virtually every Wintel portable still offers the option of packing a second hard drive, battery, CDRW or Zip. When you consider that every single PowerBook (bar the 2400 sub-notebook) since the 5300 has had at least one expansion bay, I consider this a glaring fault with the TiBook. Yes, I hear you say, of course you can merely plug any FireWire or USB storage device into one of the ports, but that misses the point. Pro portables are about convenience, and external peripherals are about as convenient as hefting around a brick. Built to order Let's take a look at two Dell models first: the Latitude C600 and the notebook touted as the 'fastest portable ever tested', the Inspiron 8000. Performance can be an extremely subjective issue across platforms of course, but I think we can safely assume they weren't running Photoshop or Director when they did the tests. Just as Apple, Gateway 2000 and a slew of others offer build-to-order options on line, Dell gives you a basic system a you can build it from there. Unfortunately, their site hasn't improved since last year; you still have to wade through pages of 'we know you are an idiot' garbage before you can finally hunker down and design your system. Starting with the Titanium 400's competitor, the Latitude C600, the base model sports a 850MHz Mobile Pentium III (1GHz is an option), 64MB RAM, a 10GB hard drive, 15" SXGA or UXGA display, 8MB VRAM (16 or 32MB ATI card optional), floppy drive, IEEE-1394 (FireWire), two USB ports, IrDA and a 56K modem. Everything else is an optional add-on. Dell recommends Windows 2000 Professional, which is obviously why it bundles the C600 with Windows Me and charges you some bucks for Win 2000. Normally right in the heart of PowerBook 400 territory ($2,559), Dell has cut prices to $2,259, which probably means it's about to be superseded. You'll need the $300 saving to bring the C600 up to Titanium status though: a 10/100bT PC card or Dell's integrated 56K/10/100bT mini-PCI card; optional 8 DVD-ROM (to replace the standard 24x CD-ROM). Plus you'll need to boost that RAM, although that's cheap (around $44 for 128MB right now). 8.2 pounds That's the first statistic you should read about the Inspiron 8000. Lug this baby around for the duration of the warranty and you'll qualify for the Russian weight-lifting team. However, the 8000 is Dell's top-spec, no-compromises notebook which boasts some interesting features. While you can configure a fixed drive module (CD, DVD or CDRW), the 8000 has three bays (2 front, 1 rear), which permits a second removable drive or battery to coexist alongside the fixed media drive. 2.5 hours real-world time isn't bad for a high-end Wintel laptop, but it's not in Pismo territory. Bear in mind that this 2.5 hours won't be at full CPU speed and it's a general-purpose mix of tasks, not a DVD spinning full time. The 8000's vital stats include PIII CPUs ranging from 700MHz to 1GHz and a very fast intel graphics subsystem with 32MB VRAM on board. It supports 512MB RAM although probably 1GB is the case now. It also features Dell's first built-in use of a FireWire port. Hard drives up to 48GB are available - at a price. I priced an 8000 system at $3,121, making it as close to TiBook spec as possible: 1GHz PIII, 20GB drive, 256MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive and 8MB VRAM only. Of course, if your expense account's unlimited, the sky's the limit on both the Dell and the PowerBook. Buyer beware Gateway's Solo 9500 SE looks like an extremely attractive buy in its base form: only $1,799 for an XGA 15" TFT, a 700MHz PIII, 64MB RAM, 8MB VRAM (upgradeable to 16MB) and (yes) a 6.0GB hard disc. If that's all you want, it's probably the cheapest 15" notebook out there. You could always swap in your own aftermarket hard drive, memory and PC cards in order to get it up to speed. But I priced an up-spec model at Gateway's site (better navigation than Dell's site, but still tedious in places). I added a 1.0GB PIII, a single 256MB SO-DIMM (like the Titanium 500), a 10/100baseT ethernet PC card ($129), an integrated 56K modem/FireWire port (includes one year AOL access), a 20GB hard drive and a DVD-ROM to bring the 9500 up to the Titanium 500's spec. Price? A cool $3,277. Not such a bargain after all. Still a bit cheaper than the Titanium, but lacking the long battery life (a second battery would add another $100). Adding wireless networking capabilities will cost you $159 (versus $99 for Apple's Airport), while the equivalent of an Airport Base Station will scalp your wallet to the tune of $899! ($299 for an Airport Base Station). Gateway's another one that recommends Win 2000 as its OS, but they bundle Win Me or 98 and charge you an extra $99 for the Win 2000 privilege. While you might be buying OS X out of curiosity now, when was the last time you bought a new Mac and had to pay extra for the OS? Whether you bought a client (PowerBook, Power Mac, iMac) or server (G3/G4 Server), you got the OS included in the price, didn't you? Speaking of software, if you buy that 56K modem/FireWire adapter, you get some video editing software, but I can tell you here and now it's no iMovie 2.0. On the tech support/repair side of things, Gateway, like Dell, does at least offer a 3-year warranty. Read the fine print though - it expires if you sell it before the warranty's up - unlike AppleCare which you can transfer (and thus make a selling point). Power and Sex? Sony's Vaio seems to be the choice of Mac users whose office forces them to choose a Wintel portable. It's not hard to see why, given the numerous choices Sony gives you - rivalled only by IBM's ThinkPad series probably. The number of times I've heard Mac Pro portable users say "If only it ran the Mac OS". Mind you, I haven't heard anyone say that since Titanium was released. For this comparison, I looked at Sony's XG700 with a 14.1" XGA display ($2,999 after rebate) and the very cheap FX150 with 15" SXGA screen ($2,200). Taking the FX150 first, it's an odd mix of high-end and low-end features. The 15" screen classifies it as high-end, but the price is lower than the Titanium 400. It also offers a slew of features, including i.Link (FireWire), 750MHz PIII and DVD. Up the ante to $2,900 and you get a DVD and CDRW drives, 128MB RAM and 20GB hard drive. Spend $3,400 on the FX190 and you can have a PIII-850. All models include an integrated 56K/10/100bT. What's odd on this spec sheet is that the graphics card, while it takes up to 11MB, is all shared VRAM (i.e., it steals it from main memory), thus making the video controller both less efficient and slower as it's not a dedicated controller, and therefore video signals hog RAM and use up processor cycles (and battery time), further degrading graphics performance. Not a Photoshop machine, clearly. The FX series Vaios are also dual-battery capable - and you'll need it. Sony claims 2.5 hours on a single LiION cell. Mine dutifully ran out after 38 minutes. And, in any case, given the limitations of Intel's 'Speedstep' technology (i.e. processor cycling that's been in PowerBooks since 1991), the CPU kicks down by 150MHz whenever you pull the mains plug. Seems like those dual (or triple) fans suck a lot of juice too. I didn't price a wireless PC card or LAN access station from Sony, but I'm betting the farm it's not cheap. Turning to the XG700, it's an odd one as it's priced at $3,000, yet only comes with a 14.1" display as its best screen option. It also fits into a slightly different market category to the TiBook: it's meant to be light (6.5lbs?) and the included dock includes i.Link, twin USB ports and S-video out. Like the FX, the 700 series also includes hot-swappable DVD and CDRW drives for the expansion bay. At the price, that's pretty generous, although 'integrated' ethernet is optional via a PC card (I wonder what Sony's idea of 'disintegrated' ethernet is?). The XG's graphics card is better (8MB), although the RAM expansion's on the lousy side, supporting only 256MB. On the warranty front, Sony matches Apple with a bargain-basement 1-year guarantee (90 days if you forget to register!). Interestingly, the OS is only guaranteed for 90 days. Does that mean if it blows up and goes out to lunch, or the CD turns into a foil sandwich wrapper, you're on your own? Moreover, the FX series is sure to make a dent in your shoulder: it's 2lbs heavier than a TiBook (approximately the same as a Wallstreet: 7.3lbs). And it's almost 2" thick (about Lombard/Pismo height). Experience with Sony's i.Link also suggests that its proprietary implementation of FireWire is far from perfect; it works fine with Sony cameras and software. But use a third-party camera and software, and you may be in for trouble. Sony itself notes that not even all i.Link-equipped devices will necessarily talk to each other. Conversely, I've never had problems getting iMovie, Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere to get a DV stream out of a camera (and, just to contradict Jim Heid's MacWorld review of Premiere 6.0, it does indeed recognise analog capture cards. But I digress). Power Without Glory Toshiba's long been a heavy hitter in the mobile market. Right in the heart of Titanium 400 territory at $2,599 is the Tecra 8100. Not exactly today's technology though. Only a 14.1" display, although it offers wider resolution choices than the PowerBook G3 series did. The DVD ROM's only 6x and CPUs only up to 850MHz are available (well behind the rest of the PC crowd on this one). At the base price quoted, you only get a 700MHz PIII. There's no integrated FireWire and video is lineball with the TiBook at 8MB. You also need an optional port replicator to get 10/100bT integration. And I don't believe Toshiba's quoted 3 hour battery time for a second. Not an impressive portable. The $3,369 Tecra 8200's a better package - although it had better be, at a price approaching the PowerBook G4/500. For the extra dough, you get ethernet, wireless networking and a 900MHz or 1GHz PIII. Like all other PC manufacturers, Toshiba's wireless options are horrendously expensive compared with Apple's (don't expect change from $1,000). DVD is standard, but you can option in a DVD/CDRW combo drive, although its write speeds (CDR/CDRW at 4x) are pretty pedestrian. Still, given the choice, I'd rather CDRW be integrated into the portable than hanging off a dongle (unless I was in a real hurry to burn my cooked income tax books at 16x). With the 14.1" display as the max though (even with SXGA), I don't think Toshiba's in the hunt in this company. Compact Compa Compaq's Armada M700, with a 15" display, kicks off at $2,249 in base spec with a PIII-700. It attempts to look advanced by using a magnesium display enclosure, but it's not comparable with the titanium PowerBook, although it keeps the Armada commendably light, at 4.8lbs (and it's 1.2" thick). But take the weight figure with a grain of salt: the base weight doesn't include loading up all of its bays with modules. Like Dell's Inspiron 8000, the M700 features three bays: you can have two batteries and a CDRW or DVD, or a battery, floppy, CDRW combo, for instance. It's not quite as flexible as Dell's solution though, as you can't have, say, a CDRW and a CD-ROM loaded into the media bays at the same time. The M700's base spec includes only 64MB RAM, 8MB VRAM and a 10GB hard drive. The 1GHz PIII, integrated ethernet, FireWire and so on will cost you dough. To equip an Armada so it's roughly comparable to a TiBook, you're looking at spending around $2,500-$3,000. Some rough design edges from last year's Compaq models persist, however: the ridiculous speakers-under-the-palm are still there. And although you can option in a mini-PCI card to handle modem/ethernet, the two PC card slots are probably going to be clogged with a wireless LAN card plus a FireWire card. Swapping over to a FlashRAM card adapter is likely to be an inconvenience. Executive Express Heading over to IBM's sector of the notebook market, we find the much-touted A Series plum in the middle (and beyond) the TiBook's market space. Fully loaded, they can cost $4,295. Available in 850MHz-1GHz models, the A21p ThinkPad tilts the scales at 7.5lbs with its 15" monitor. At $3,199 for the base model, it's got some heavyweight features, like fast hard drives (5,400rpm) up to 32GB (48GB shortly) on a UATA-100 EIDE controller and 16MB VRAM, but some surprising omissions as well. No standard FireWire standard, only one USB port; no integrated ethernet. On the plus side, it offers a 3 year warranty. ThinkPads are also generally regarded as pretty solid and businesslike - witness their level of acceptance in executive suites. The keyboards are good, but it's a shame they've still got that damn 'pointing stick' instead of a trackpad. My IBM manager techie friend, who prefers to remain nameless, has a more savoury name for the pointing stick. Here's a clue: think of that Seinfeld episode with Dolores. I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Take it Anymore Now let's be very clear about this, dear reader: Apple offers FireWire, 10/100bT ethernet, Airport ($99) and USB on the logic board of the PowerBook G4/400, its entry-level model. Wintel notebooks do not. If you want it, you must option it in - and pay for it. Wintels do not offer free FireWire-enabled video editing software bundled into the package. They do not offer free audio-CD burning/ripping/cataloging software. They do not offer five-hour batteries either. The key word here is integration. With the PowerBook, what you see is what you get and what you pay for. Don't want to pay Apple's RAM price? Fine, buy elsewhere and install it yourself. Want a big hard drive? Good, buy a Travelstar at less than what Gateway's going to fleece you. The PowerBook G4 doesn't offer dozens of options, but it doesn't waste a CardBus slot on Airport; it integrates FireWire onto the logic board of every PowerBook (and iBook); its single battery provides as many hours as two batteries in a Wintel portable; it doesn't short-change you by putting a CD-ROM on a lower-spec model and forcing you to spend more on DVD. Or putting a 14.1" display on the entry-level model and making you jump up to the 15" screen - at a price. The sins of omission don't stop there. Why do you ever have to order ethernet as an option? Why are you forced to upgrade to the high-end model to get ethernet on board? Is there anyone using a Pro notebook who doesn't require ethernet? Is anyone in a Pro environment using parallel or USB storage devices instead of FireWire or (at a pinch) SCSI? Why can't I just plug in a FireWire burner without finding out the port doesn't exist on the Dell I bought? Why aren't these standard on Wintel notebooks when SCSI was on every Apple PowerBook until 1999 and FireWire has been ever since? (I know why; intel won't put it on the motherboard as they're pushing USB 2). Why do I have to pay more to get MP3 burning software on a Wintel? Why do I have to shell out megabucks to get Windows DV editing software that comes close to iMovie? And what sort of take-up rate of wireless networking would you expect when solutions cost $1,000 or more? And what's that fan noise and why is my battery running out at 9.55am? Put it this way: it's always been true that Macs and PowerBooks represent value for money. They always include built-in networking, connectivity and longevity. The styling's a bonus. The fact that you still can't take fast networking for granted on a Pro-level Wintel portable demonstrates that the PC manufacturers aren't interested in selling you an integrated computing experience; more accurately, they're interested in selling you parts. It's like buying a car: you like it? Buy it. Hey, the mag wheels are extra? The fat tires too? How much is that gonna cost? You get the point. The TiBook's far from faultless. The fact that expansion bay drives are unavailable for PowerBook G4s is a serious design omission. I've complained about it twice before and I'll continue to do so until it's fixed. Yes, I appreciate accommodating expansion bays less than 1" thick while maintaining case rigidity is an exceptionally difficult engineering task, but so is building a 1" notebook. I'll bet if Apple made the DVD-ROM drive removable, MCE and VST could design modules to suit. In the meantime, PowerBook G4 users are forced to rely upon a range of external peripherals to accommodate their storage requirements. Some G4 owners won't find this a big deal. But many TiBook users I've spoken with suggest otherwise. And some prospective buyers have snapped up the last - or refurbished examples - of the Pismos for this reason. But in the longer term, that's not an acceptable solution and Apple should move to restore hot-swappable internal drive bays to the PowerBook.