Switch! Part 2
I haven’t really used my PowerBook too heavily but I’ve been quite happy with it performance so far. It really gives me a Unix environment with a polished desktop. Clicking on links in one application brings up the web browser without issues. Various media types are better supported.
One new con:
- It seems like it always sleeps when the lid is closed. Maybe it’s just my usage pattern but I would prefer that it didn’t sleep when on AC. I tend to close the laptop when I’m leaving it, but often times it may be doing something in the background or I want to stay connected to AIM or through SSH.
One new pro:
- I am able to fit two 80 column terminals side by side.
A quick comparison:
|
Apple PowerBook 12″ |
IBM X40 |
IBM T Series 14″ |
Compaq X1000 (my old laptop) |
|
| Video |
12″, 1024×768, dedicated, 64 megs, nVidia go5200 |
12″, 1024×768, integrated |
14″, 1024×768 or 1400×1050, varies |
15.4″, 1680×1050, dedicated, 32 megs, ATI 9200 |
| Battery Life (hours) |
5 |
3.5 |
7.5 |
5 |
| Optical Drive? |
yes |
no |
yes |
yes |
| Dimensions (inches) |
10.9 x 8.6 x 1.18 |
10.6 x 8.3 x 1.1 |
12.2 x 10.9 1.2 |
14 x 10 x 1.3 |
| Volume (inches cubed) |
110.6 |
96.8 |
159.6 |
182 |
| Weight |
4.6 lbs |
2.6 lbs |
4.5 lbs |
6.5 lbs |
I did not really consider the X40, but I threw it in as a data point. The X1000 is available with different options, but the ones listed are the ones that I had. Most (all?) info came from the manufacturers so they’re probably a little optimistic. It’s odd, the PowerBook doesn’t seem that much smaller than my old laptop but when I went to the store I was blown away by how large my old laptop looked. I thought HP/Compaq had introduced a new laptop model. When I had it, it didn’t seem that large. The PowerBook doesn’t seem any smaller than my girlfriend’s T41 either but, when placed on top of it, there is an obvious difference. I guess the moral of the story is that it acts bigger than it really is.
November 6th, 2004 at 7:59 am
Awesome! I’m really glad to see that you’ve switched. Now you can be the guinea pig…I mean, forerunner! It seems like OS X is all that it purports to be. I am still considering an iBook when I can afford to get a laptop.
Sha, I was going to ask you something, and upon reading your Switch! 2 entry I got so excited I forgot. So I’ll ask you another question in the meantime:
Have you used Matlab and if so, then what’s your opinion on it? Dr. Hoffman over at UCI was pimping it saying that all Psychology students need to learn to program for their projects and that Matlab is a good language to learn.
Right, now I remember! Do you have an effective backup solution? Backups are one of those things ever good computer user knows should be done. And one that I know no one who does it. I’ve been burned a few times.
November 8th, 2004 at 11:19 am
Matlab: I’ve never used it. I have used Mathematica but on barely scratched the sruface there. I understand they’re both capable programming environments with a focus on math, so I imagine its capabilities for modeling and reporting to be relatively limitless.
Backups: For my laptop, I don’t really have anything set up yet, nor do I have any data of value yet. For my development machine (which I often SSH to from my laptop), I have a nightly cron job that backs up my home directory to my fileserver. It archives and maintains 3 days worth of data, so I can go back if I accidentally delete something.
A lot of my work is also checked into CVS (the repository is also on the fileserver). So I have complete revision information for my work.
The fileserver’s main data volume is running in RAID 1 (mirrored), so I have redundancy in that area. Right now, I need to focus on backing that data up. I’ll probably archive to DVD from that point. I don’t have anything set up for that right now, as part of the issue is that a DVD doesn’t have sufficient capacity to backup all of the data. So someone needs to sit there and baby sit it, and swap discs.