Categories
Archive

Where are the G4 PowerBooks?


In the wake of the G4 launch last week in San Francisco, PowerBook aficionados are clamoring for information about when to expect G4 upgrades for their machines. Wallstreet and Lombard machines should be easy enough to upgrade because the CPU (cache, memory and ROM) are on a processor module.

Unfortuantely Apple is mum on any mention of the word “upgrade” after a lawsuit in 1997 when the company didn’t deliver upgrades for Performa models after selling them as “upgradeable.”

We expect that G4 PowerBooks and upgrades will debut in January at Macworld Expo 2000 in San Francisco at the earliest. Apple would rather allocate the scarce quantities of the “Supercomputer” G4 silicon to the production of complete computers which have a higher profit margin.

The PowerList‘s Anson Ringenoldus recently posted some interesting thoughts on PBG4s and heat:

The correlation between the amount of power used and the amount of heatgenerated is very high. Some chips/setups need more help than others indissipating it, and some are less comfortable getting hot than others.But 5W of power used will cause almost 5W of heat, less a small amountof electricity that’s pushed elsewhere in the system, which in turn willgenerate heat there.

There’s virtually no “work” done by computers in the sense of pumpingwater up out of the ground, etc. A tiny fraction tickles your eyeballsand your ears but the other 99+% goes off in heat.

I think that Apple is going to put a G4 500 in the Lombard before theend of this year. The old G3 292 used 7 watt peak. The new copper G3 which is used in the Lombard uses 5 watt peak. The G4 according to Motorola has a peak of 7 watt at 500 Mhz. Second, the G4 is almost pincompatible to the G3.

Got some ideas on when Apple will debut the G4 PowerBooks? Surf on over to our new G4 Message Board and share the wealth.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.