A Month with a Mac - Part II: The Mobile Experience
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 24, 2005 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
When I finished writing the first Mac article, I knew that I hadn't covered everything that I wanted to. At the end of this article, I'm left with a similar feeling. I haven't even talked about the applications that make up iLife, but that's actually on purpose, since they have just been updated to their new '05 versions. I haven't touched on a number of the applications that I use on a regular basis under OS X, or even bothered comparing cost of software ownership on Mac vs. PC platforms. I've talked a bit about subjective performance, but I haven't done much with actually doing apples-to-apples performance comparisons within the Mac world. Over 10,000 words in this article, and there's still so much more to talk about. I started the first Mac article saying that it had been one of the most difficult articles that I'd ever written, and that statement holds true for this one as well. I can crank out a review of a CPU or a video card or just about any benchmarkable, quantifiable technology in a day, but summing up an entire platform, from the perspective of an outsider, is difficult - especially to a group composed of insiders, outsiders and critics alike. There will be more of these articles to come - you can pretty much already guess what the next one will be. I took it upon myself to do the first two Mac articles about the Power Mac G5 and the PowerBook G4, but AnandTech readers have written me asking for my take on the Mac mini. Hopefully, I can shorten the turn around time on that one though.As for the PowerBook G4, it's an excellent laptop. If you're used to the portability offered by something ultra thin, ultra small and ultra portable, then the PowerBook isn't the notebook for you. But, having owned some of the smallest laptops around, I can say that despite its bulk, I can get a lot more work done on the PowerBook than I could on my more portable notebooks. And compared to most average notebooks, the PowerBook is extremely competitive in portability, especially the 12" and 15" models. It's smaller, lighter and thinner than competing PC notebooks, which are all things that matter when talking about a notebook. In terms of performance, the PowerBook G4 held its own just fine as my companion on numerous trips, never disappointing me in terms of performance. I was actually somewhat surprised, especially considering the low expectations of G4 performance I had going into the experiment - whether it is OS X, the G4 itself or the combination of the two - the performance of the laptop was definitely nothing to complain about (other than the slow hard disk, which is true of all notebooks, unfortunately).
As far as the display goes, the beauty of LCD panels is that there are only a handful of manufacturers, regardless of whether you're talking about PCs or Macs, so the display specifications are obviously competitive. The native 1280 x 854 resolution provides a decent amount of desktop real estate, which is quite handy when working on the road and it is a good resolution for the 15.2" screen.
The slot loading Super Drive (CD-RW/DVD-R) is also nice to have, especially coming from a string of notebooks without any built-in optical drive for portability. The plethora of ports, including DVI-output, is equally useful. Evaluated purely as a notebook, I'd say that the 15" PowerBook G4 is a little expensive, but the most full-featured, complete package that I've ever seen in a notebook. The 12" PowerBook would be a little tougher of a sell for me, simply because I'd be giving up a decent amount of screen real estate, but despite its heavier weight compared to things like the ThinkPad X series, I'd still probably pick it simply because the package as a whole is much more complete. Having an optical drive, despite the number of times that I've said the contrary, always comes in handy. It's not that you use it all the time, but it's the handful of cases when you need it that you can really appreciate it.
And then there's the OS. On the desktop, there's the issue of gaming, but when you're dealing with a portable solution like the PowerBook, gaming isn't really much of an issue. The integrated Mobility Radeon 9700 isn't used for much now, but it will come OS X Tiger. Unless you do a lot of .NET development on the road, just about anything you use your laptop for is available under OS X - and as a portable OS, OS X works very well. The price argument isn't as big of a deal on the mobile side, and although the Mac mini is an attractive platform on which to get introduced to OS X, the PowerBook may actually be a more useful one if you find yourself using a laptop a lot. While OS X as a desktop replacement to a life-long PC user may be a tough sell, the PowerBook is a much easier sell if you need a laptop. If you don't, well, then there's this little thing that Apple just released...
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jsares - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
Here's what I wrote on my blog:http://macmini.blogspot.com
Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech has a great second article about his experiences with switching to the Mac.
If you could say he liked the Mac in his first article you could say he loves the Mac in this article.
Some great quotes and my comments in italics:
"It took a lot of convincing (as well as some executive privilege) for the establishment of the Mac section, and then came the ... article "
Some of Anand staff didn't want him to write about the Mac.
"Within the first three days of publication, that little Mac article skyrocketed to becoming one of the all-time most popular articles ever published on AnandTech."
Windows enthusiasts are dying for something new.
"One problem with these types of articles is that they inevitably take much longer to put together, simply because there are no structured tests to run and analyze."
That's why this article is so good."
"At the end of the first Mac article, I came to the realization that what attracted me most to OS X was the way everything just worked the way that you'd expect it to."
Welcome to the Mac, Anand.
I don't want to give away too much so go read the article and give the guy some credit in the comments section and send him some nice emails.
Great article Anand!
CrankyTodd - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
Hi Anand,Regarding Expose, especially on a laptop, you'll find yourself enjoying Expose MUCH, MUCH more if you dont use the function keys to launch it.
Under System Preferences, choose Expose, and use "Active Screen Corners" to activate Expose functions. I was reluctant to try it at first, but I was hooked within minutes, and cant imagine going back. I Set the lower left corner of the desktop to activate the "Application Windows" function, and the upper right corner of the desktop to activate the "All Windows" function. So as I'm using my Mac, as soon as I want to switch applications or windows within the current application, I just throw my mouse into one corner or the other, instead of having to actually go hit a button to activate either function. Once you try it, you'll see that its an incredible seamless way of navigating the system.
ugly - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
"OS X Tiger...as well as the fact that in Tiger, every single pixel on the screen will ac-tually be rendered by the graphics card."
I thought some image "things" (I couldn't come up with a better word for what was in the core image demo) could be offloaded to the graphics card, but this statement makes it sound as if Tiger will be Quartz Extreme like it should have been.
Dualboy24 - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
I loved the article. I was waiting for a new Mac read at anandtech. It seems like ages since the first one... I recently made a jump to a Mac Powerbook 17" a few months before the first article. The funny thing is I build/sell PCs on the side... but my main system is now the mac and of course I have 5 PCs running every MS-Linux but I must say that the Mac OS is the most advanced OS in terms of interface and it seems multitasking. Expose is a wonderful feature (I use an MX500 mouse with the exposes features mapped)Oh. Also you shouldn't forget the system wide spell checker. Such common sense I wonder if MS does not include this in windows in order to push some of their other products?
Anyway looking forward to the Mac mini review I am probably going to get one for the low noise and power factor.
miniMUNCH - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
I 2nd the 5400 rpm HD for an extra $45...well worth it. Or you can upgrade the HD yourself or have MAc Shop throw in a 7200rpm HD, but for me the 5400 rpm HD is plenty.wilburpan - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Oops. What I meant to say was:Being a user of OS X, Linux, and Windows, I would say that the often cited lack of a two button mouse in OS X is not so much a flaw as it is a preference. Personally, I can move from the one button mouse in OS X to the two button mice of Linux and Windows and back again without much trouble. To complicate things further, two button mouse behavior is different in Windows and Linux. One can get right-click type behavior in many OS X applications by control-clicking the mouse, which does not seem to slow me at all compared to right-clicking.
Until someone can produce data or a usability study that shows that, say, editing an image in Photoshop is slower using a one button mouse than a two button mouse, this is all a matter of what one is used to. You might as well criticize a scroll mouse for the tendency for middle clicks to be interpreted as scrolling commands, or harp on the inconsistencies of menu shortcuts and menu item locations (e.g. does Preferences belong under Edit or Tools?) between applications.
pkthoo - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Great article!I consider myself as a neutral. This article sheds light on what I have been looking for; user experiences on using Mac.
Now, I am certain that I am going to be Mac+iPod user, hopefully by year's end.
Apple should make 512MB as minimum RAM amount, and bundle Mac mini with iPod Shuffle as a new 'wholesome' package.
wilburpan - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Snoozy - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
I still think you are missing out on the complete mac experience by not using a launcher application.I run Butler (http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?thema=butler&am... but there are many more: LaunchBar (http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html)... QS as mentioned earlier, just do a search on versiontracker.com.
What these applications enable you to do is virtualy elimate the need for CMD+tab switching, using the dock, or using the Applications folder to launch things. Basically press CMD + Space (as I have it setup, you can go with whatever key combo you want!) and then type what you want - you can even teach them anacronyms for commonly used applications. For example if I do CMD+Space then type PS and hit enter it opens photoshop, or switches to it if its already open. The applications are infinitely configurable, I've got a shortcut for blog which runs an apple script that then pops open MarsEdit and opens a new post window for my blog (which is WordPress powered, MarsEdit contacts it via XML-RPC). Butler also has a built in dictonary, and multiple other widgets. Check it out.
I 2nd the suggestion on using sidetrack. I bought my PB (1st mac) in march last year and this was one of the first things that I had to have - makes it so much nicer.
hopejr - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
#23, On OS X there is the Zoom thing in the Universal Access Pref panel, that allows everything on the screen to be zoomed at what ever zoom level is necessary. You can set it to follow the mouse, or keyboard focus. It's a nice feature. There's other good features in OS X that help with those who can't see too well.#28, I just tried that and you're right, it does (I tried in 2k3). Oh well, I use OS X more so it's more important to me there :P (although it's nice to know it works in Windows too, for the times I use it)