1GHz 12" PowerBook arrived!

[Jeremy Kezer]

Our new 1GHz 12" PowerBook arrived today, direct from Taiwan via 
FedEx.  This is the SuperDrive model, upgraded with AirPort Extreme 
and the 60GB hard drive.

The unit was well-packed as they usually are.  The black PowerBook 
box was wrapped in a plastic bag, and that was then encased in a 
plain brown shipping wrapper.  Opening the box, one found the 
PowerBook and AC adapter, a mini-DVI to DVI cable, a mini-DVI to VGA 
cable, a phone cable, and a blank 2x DVD-R.  All the system software 
and apps is on a single DVD.  Mine also had a separate doc/CD package 
for the AirPort Extreme software.

A couple notes...

-  60GB internal drive is from Hitachi (55.89GB formatted).  It's *very* quiet.

-  All of the connectors are on the left side, with the drive slot on 
the right side.  The 2 USB connectors are BOTH on the left side, 
unlike it's larger brethren who have one port on either side.

-  The SuperDrive is a bit louder than my 17" PowerBook, but not 
annoyingly so.  It's a MATSHITA UJ-815 for those interested.

-  The screen is bright and crisp, but the viewing angle seems to be 
a bit less than the 17".

-  When I compared the thickness of the unit side-by-side with my 
17", it's not that much thicker.  But when you pick it up and hold 
it, it feels "chunkier" - I think because the proportions are 
different.  Very solid feel and no latch problems so far.

-  512MB memory upgrade was a snap (4 screws to remove small base 
plate).  Memory slot has metal latches, which is an improvement over 
the easily-broken plastic ones I've seen in some earlier PowerBooks.

-  Unit gets warm, especially under left palm rest.  ThermographX 
reports internal temps as high as 147F ("GPU ON DIE") in the short 
time I've had it.  The fan is about as loud as the 17".

Some quickie benchmarks (processor set to "highest" on both models)...

Xbench results [larger is better]:

Test                   12" 1GHz        17" 1GHz
----                   --------        --------
Results                 88.05          91.58
CPU                    117.50         115.16
Thread                  63.56          62.76
Memory                  89.44         118.90
Quartz graphics        115.67         120.66
OGL graphics            97.50         116.68
User Interface          96.79         110.85
Disk Test               67.41          57.04

Avid XPress Pro rendering (DV25 material) [shorter is better]:

Test                   12" 1GHz        17" 1GHz
----                   --------        --------
Color correction       0:30             0:27
Resize                 0:48             0:44
Box wipes              1:06             0:59

So the 17" has a slight edge, probably due to the faster bus (167MHz) 
and L3 cache.  So in XBench's eyes, my 17" is slower than the 12". 
I'm wondering if XBench's benchmarks are taking advantage of the 
larger L2 cache.

In general, I'm impressed with it and I think my wife will be as 
well.  So, if anybody's in the market for a 12" iBook, please let me 
know.  :)

Jeremy

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jeremy at kezer.net                              http://www.kezer.net/
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