Review of the Powerbook G4 and Second Life (December 2005 model)

Review of the Powerbook G4 and Second Life (December 2005 model).

Background of the Reviewer:
Hullo all, you may know me by several names: Foolish Frost in SecondLife.com, TheFool1972 of Ancient-Awakenings.com, or my real life name of John Bowden. My background includes being a twenty year computer tech and programmer, graphics designer and writer, 3d artist, audio and video tech, and generally a multimedia/computer jack-of-all-trades.

In addition, I have not used an Apple computer since the Mac Lisa, and can say that my experiences with that ancient platform chased me off from apple for over a decade. In the time since then, I have worked with Linux and Intel based Windows systems, in addition to tinkering with everything from Beos to Solaris. It was only at the end of 2005 that I decided to buy my first laptop, and began my quest to find one that could take care of my needs.



Before the Purchase:
When both my wife and I began to look at laptops, we started where you would expect someone of my experience to go: With to the Windows-Intel laptop section of my local Comp-USA. The sales people were nice enough to give me free reign installing software to test them, and I began gleefully testing software.

I ran into a problem: One online program I used extensively, Second Life, refused to run in a usable manner on ANY of the laptops available. The problem seemed to be the video card: Not a single laptop had one that could deal with SL's evil 3D requirements.

Needless to say, the sales person blinked at this, and we went all the way up to the $2500 laptops to see what the results would be. Same thing. The rendered display of the Second-Life 3D world was a slideshow. Utterly unusable. While I and my wife pondered this, the sales person asked a question that begins this little review in earnest: "Well, how well does it run on a Mac?"

We walked over to the Apple section of the store and downloaded the SL client software for the Mac. While doing this, I looked at the Powerbook we were testing. Shiny. Very shiny. It was an aluminum encased laptop, with grey highlights. Very clean, very smooth, and very nice. The 'geek-bait' warning bell went off in my head, reminding me that a shiny shell does not a good device make. We quickly installed the software, and ran it.

Smooth as silk. Utterly beautiful frame rates and movement. While not perfect, it was running smoother than my 3000 MHz AMD desktop. I nodded and we began to talk about the price.

$2000 for it.

It was this point I whined like a kicked puppy and tried to curl up in a fetal position. The sales person would have nothing to do with that, and dragged me back out, all the while telling me how the Powerbook could do anything that my desktop could do. We talked it over, we argued, and we geek-speaked until my wife decided that I needed to leave.

She was right.

I went online that very evening and began looking over sites and articles on Powerbooks and Apple OS X (the Apple Operating system, like windows for Macs). The more I read, the more I decided that it might be a good idea to give the powerbook a try. Within two days, I went back to the store and purchased the 15" PowerBook G4, deciding that the only thing the 17" had to offer was a slightly bigger screen and more hard drive, neither of which was a priority for my needs.

And now the review of the system itself begins...



Review:
The PowerBook, as I said before, is a SHINY piece of equipment. The casing is aluminum, with plastic seams. The apple logo adorns the lid/screen of the laptop, and lights up when opened and powered on. The screen itself takes up nearly the entire lid, and is perfectly re-enforced against bending. The keyboard is very usable, with speakers taking up about 1.5" to either side of it, and a touchpad with a single large button beneath it. (There are plenty of pictures of the laptop on the net, just do a Google search for them if you want to see it.)

The system I brought home came with the PowerBook with the battery already installed, a power cord with 2 prong and 3 prong plugs for wall outlets, the software and restore disks, and some basic cables. I also got a music keyboard to go with it for about $100, because it just looked cool, and I was so indebted at this point in the cost of these things it didn't even register.

In addition, I purchased some basic accessories: A car power converter, USB hub, USB two-button mouse, USB keyboard, a backpack laptop case, and a copy of HomeWorld 2. The game was so that I could have at least ONE game to play on it for the moment, as I was under the impression that games did not come to the Apple very quickly.

Let me discuss what specs the Powerbook has, just for the record: 512 megs ram, 128 meg ATI video card, 2 USB ports, phone modem, Ethernet port, 2 kinds of firewire ports, S-video plug-in for TV output, and a monitor plug-in that comes with an adapter for connecting to a standard PC monitor. It also has Wireless networking and Bluetooth.

The first time I started up the Powerbook, it began the same nosey little Q&A session that all computers do when starting up: "Who are you, and can you fill out these ten million screens of information?" I filled them out and began on the setup screens for the PowerBook itself. Networking options being most of it.

Once I got to the desktop, I was not surprised to find an interface similar enough to Windows to allow me some measure of comfort. I began by examining the desktop and icons. They were just about everything you ever saw in Windows, double click to open a desktop or window Icon, dragging a box around things multi-selected, right clicking (or CTRL-Click, if you have a single button mouse) pulls up option menus. Nothing really new here.

The Macintosh HD icon leads to a window that has not only the system folders, but also some shortcuts to folders you'll use fairly often. Links to Documents, Music, Applications, Pictures, and so on allow you to easily sort your programs and data. Clicking on Applications allowed me to wander over the software that came with the system.

I Looked over the GarageBand software, and decided it was A+ design, as I was able to figure it out with a combination of tinkering and using the help files. The DVD player worked great, as did the iMovie software for making you own DVD movies. iTunes, A software I never used on Windows, worked great for organizing my music as I imported it by way of DVDs burned from my PC.

The Safari web browser came with the system, and while very good, it took me about a day to replace it with FireFox. Same thing happened to the built in Mail program, as it was replaced with ThunderBird within another day. Both of the original programs were good, but the familiarity of the Mozilla programs helped me to adjust faster to having a Mac.

I also was able to download Skype and install it without problems. SecondLife also loaded without a hitch. In fact, installing software was fairly easy all around. You downloaded the software from the internet, opened the compressed file (if needed), and then in most cases double-clicked on the FILENAME.DMG file to open up a 'virtual disk' that contained the program. You then installed it with the simple act of dragging the program icon into your applications folder. That's it. All done.

For the technophiles out there, this simplicity of having one file to open is based on a bit of fakery in the OSX system: The program file you're copying is actually 'package' file. Inside this package are all the files and subfolders that the program needs to run properly. While you can still get into the package easily enough by right clicking and choosing to 'view package contents', it's nice that for day-to-day use that it keeps the directories clean by hiding the background files.

After using the PowerBook for a while, I began finding all sorts of built in tools and toys. Let me discuss a few of the more interesting ones I ran into:

It's a TalkBox: OSX seems to have the built-in feature allowing it to not only speak using a voice synth, but to also do voice recognition for commands. These abilities are so ingrained into the system that error messages can be set to be spoken by the system, and that nearly every included program has commands that can be used to operate them. While the voices can get annoying, some are even amusing. The voice recognition is only good for commands, and not dictation, but works well.

Two heads are better than one: You can have a monitor connected to the computer, and use it as a second display. This other display is one of better things about this Powerbook, allowing me to have SecondLife loaded and running on the LCD, and my other tools open on the secondary monitor. The system even allowed me to spread the Second Life screen across TWO monitors at the same time! While almost impossible to function in this mode, it was still interesting to see a nearly 180 degree view around the character. Also, I noticed the 3D rendering ran just as smooth as it did on one screen. It may not have been usable, but it spoke highly of the hardware in that it did not choke or crash.

Words Worth: It has a built-in Dictionary. Enough said on this.

Chess Champ: The only game that comes with the system. You can download a solitaire or minesweeper freeware from the web, so you're not TOO bad off, but worth mentioning.

Quicktime: Considering what I paid for this computer, you think apple could have thrown in a copy of Quicktime Pro for free. Picture my surprise when I found out that my QuickTime license for Windows did not work on this machine either. For all of the good points about my move over to Apple in this case, this left me a bit cold.



Attaching old equipment:
When I first got this laptop home and booted it up, the Powerbook immediately found my local wireless connection and asked if I wanted to use it. The connection was easy and without problem. Internet access was immediate, and E-mail setup was generally painless, even with my IMAP servers. Funny enough, the system has a built-in firewall that was OFF when I first found it.

Attaching my digital camera was a breeze, it acted like a USB memory card drive, and was found automatically. Sadly, the web-video options did not have drivers for the Mac. Not really the fault of the computer or Apple, but noted.

The USB keyboard and mouse worked perfectly. The Keyboard was a cheap windows keyboard, and was detected by the Computer upon plugging it in. It then asked me to hit a few keys to make sure it was right about what model it was. The mouse, a two-button laser with scroll-wheel, worked fine in all ways. The scroll wheel ran fine, and both mouse buttons were as functional as they ever were in windows.

Using the adapter, I plugged in an extra monitor I had laying about. OSX found it instantly and gave it a strange default resolution. After about 5 minutes of playing with it, I got it up to a respectable 1024x768. I could have possibly gotten higher with a different monitor. Regardless, when I unplugged the monitor and plugged it back in, it remembered the settings. Also, this system was built to allow hot-plugging the monitor, so no need to worry about damage to the system from it.

A standard audio headset works fine, but oddly enough, Skype had trouble using the Microphone until I found the setting for it. Probably just a settings that needs to be set in the OS to correct it, and since the laptop had a very good built-in mic, there was really no problem.



Final Verdict:
After using the system for a week, I have come to a few basic conclusions:

- Apple systems, even though slower in terms of hard processing power, are better balanced machines. The video card compliments the computer, allowing it to run at a decent speed no matter what you are doing. Also, the slower processor in the laptop allows better battery life, around the 3 hour range.
- The aluminum case is also a heat-sink, helping to radiate the heat of the systems internal parts. While this can make it uncomfortable to use on a lap, cheap lap-pads abound and relegate this issue to a mild complaint. Regardless, other laptops I saw get hot too when you push them, so this is really an issue with laptops in general. During basic use, and not pushing the CPU and video card with video-game level graphics, the system never became hot, and only became moderately warm.
- The operating system is very efficient, and runs well on less memory than windows. While 512 megs of ram is really a minimum on a Windows machine in today’s market, on a Mac it feels like more in how the system responds. I would still recommend an addition 512-1024 megs if you plan on running lots of applications at once. Keep in mind that additional memory may effect battery life.
- The Operating System of the PowerBook is clean, useful, and does a good job at what it was made to do: Allow the user to do whatever he needs without getting in the way. The built in help was useful most of the time, and It never took me very long to figure out what to do when I tried something new.
- This thing is STURDY. The trade off is that it's much heavier than it looks. Since I really was not worried about weight, I like the additional protection that the aluminum casing gives, and feel it was a good trade off.
- After being a windows tech for decades, I like the way that this thing needs less hand-holding to keep running or add software too. Let's be honest: I'll always keep my Win-Tel machines in order to run the latest and greatest software and tools, but for a portable system like a laptop I need something that will start up on a dime and run with less problems. The Powerbook does this.
- I really like the 15-30 second boot up time from power-on. 'Nuff said.

So my last thoughts are, the price was high, but I got what I paid for. An excellent computer that will work just as well next to all my others as it does on the road.


Discussion of Second Life on a Mac:
This section is for the Second Life users out there that want more info on how SL works on the Mac. Other sites may choose not to include this info as not really applicable to a PowerBook general review.

As far as it goes, SecondLife for OSX works the exact same way as it does for windows. I noticed a few difference in the way things reacted, and will mention them below.

First, Physics seems springier than in Windows. I'm not sure of if this is related to the better video-card in Mac or not, but the effects can be a bit funny when things fall partway though others and bounce back out. Regardless of this, physics seem to work fine overall.

I had regular crashes in Windows with SL. For some reason, I don't with this new Mac system. I will not go as far as to say that the Mac SL client is better, since this may be due to some other related issue I am unaware of. I can just say, every Windows machine I have sometimes crashes with SL, and the Mac has not crashed in the week-and-a-half I have had it. Your mileage may vary.

I noticed a HEAVY frame rate drop with water ripple effects turned on. Looks beautiful, but is not useful enough for the performance hit.

The dual monitors I mentioned above make for an excellent tool when scripting. One monitor with the LSL wiki and the other with SL running. My speed programming increased by quite A bit. This can of course be done with windows machines too, so keep it in mind.

Overall, I'm happy with SL on a Powerbook. Considering the failure of even high-level PC laptops to keep up with SL, I think I came out ahead by quite a bit.


I hope you found the information in this review useful! Myself, I need to get back to work.

Later,
John Bowden
Foolish Frost (Second Life)
TheFool1972 (Ancient-Awakenings.com)

Thanks for the rundown. One thing I'd like to note as a PC notebook user with WinXP Pro, SL runs quite smoothly on my machine and rarely crashes. It's a modest machine too, cost less than $2000 over a year ago. Not sure what the problem was with the notebooks you saw at Comp USA.

Perhaps it was the sad little video cards they're putting in them nowdays? Only a few with a 128 meg card, and most had a 3rd rank chipset for the video card. I counted perhaps 10 total with nvidia OR ati...

<sigh> Anyway. I needed to be bi-Operating on computers anyway. Mac users need tech support too on occasion.

I've gotten SL to run on PC notebooks, but they generally cost around $1800 USD for SL to run well. I am, however, a huge Mac fan. Congrats on the PowerBook.

Not sure if this is going to make you regret purchasing now, but later this month, at the MacWorld expo in San Francisco, it's widely rumored that Apple is going to unveil their lineup of "Intel Macs" -- as in, you can dual-boot XP and OS X. Also, some rumors say one of the first computers to be upgraded to Intel will be the PowerBook, and they also say that the new Intel PowerBook will have a built in iSight camera. We shall see what is true in a few weeks.

I'd agree it more being a graphics card issue, both in the laptop and the mac i think the current models are bundled with nvidia 5 series or equivalent which is the entry level of water ripple

As far as otherwise goes i can compare my iMac G5 which is 1.6Ghz to my laptop which is a Intel Mobile 1.6Ghz, the laptop is slightly faster most likely due to the superior video card ati 9700 even though it has less ram 512Mb compared to the 1.5Gb in the mac, although non of these compare with my main pc which has a nvidia 6800GT

What a fantastic write up! I know the thrill of getting a new Apple laptop. It's like brining home a new Porsche. What I really liked about this story, is that I started to play SL on my G4 laptop (now I'm on a Dual 2 GHz G5). It brought back a lot of fond memories.

My only recommendation is to beef up the memory. While 512 MB is sufficient, you'll see big performance gains with 1 GB and above. With 2 GB on our G5, we can have two to three users logged in simultaneously, each running their own copy of Safari (or Firefox), Mail, Calendar, Terminal, Preview, TextEdit, iChat, iTunes, X11, Dictionary, Dashboard, etc. without a lick of instability or slowdown. As a matter of fact, we have an uptime of 31 days right now even with 200 processes running around the clock.

I also recommend the Mighty Mouse for playing SL. It works great.

~Ulrika~

Agree with you about QuickTime Pro. The act of not including a license of QuickTime Pro with Apple's PowerBooks and PowerMacs is just silly. I can understand the consumer-level gear like iBook and iMac, but come on. What's another 30 bucks, Apple?

As for the rest, have fun with your new PowerBook. You'll be very happy with it. I might recommend iCurve from Griffin Technology for your setup. Since you're using a USB mouse and keyboard, you're probably going to be more comfortable having your laptop display lifted a little higher.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00007L6IA/qid=1136668601/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-4068336-1769402?n=507846&s=pc&v=glance

Also, which keyboard did you get for the PowerBook? There are a couple of driver tricks you can use to make sure the Alt and Start keys are inverted properly for keyboard shortcuts -- if it's a major brand like Logitech or Microsoft, though, you don't need to worry about it.

Finally, if you find yourself desirous of input devices that don't have official Mac support, check out ControllerMate from OrderedBytes. It's an inexpensive shareware driver that will capture any USB HID device, including those monster-pimped Logitech keyboards with a zillion buttons, and allow you to configure a bunch of different actions for different button presses.

http://orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

As for gaming on the Mac, it's not that bad. We're delayed anywhere between 6 and 18 months behind major releases on the PC side, but we get all the good titles (unless they use Havok, which has no Mac port). If you're not using it already, definitely check out VersionTracker.com for all of your software needs, including game patches and such. If you're big on multiplayer gaming, GameRanger.com is a must. It's a game finding service that is supported by most major multiplayer releases, plus much shareware.

Please post any questions you have about useful tools or missing functionality. I bet migrating is a little disorienting and it's hard to know who to trust for useful information -- especially for a geek.

Also, macosxhints.com has pretty much every piece of information you'll ever need for troubleshooting, tweaking and customizing your OS X experience.

edit:



This is great advice, too.

I had forgotten you were an Apple user. It explains why you're so cool.

~Ulrika~

I didn't know a modern Mac such as this had such a fast startup time. I've been away from Mac developments for awhile now, but I grew up on them, so they're an essential part of my history.

What a comprehensive, blow-by-blow review, Foolish. I really appreciate your approach in covering each of the points, and getting the feel of what it's like to be on a Mac for the first time in such a long time.

It actually makes me think, if we had more reviews from Resis purchasing specific hardware and describing both their general experiences and how their new computers mesh with Second Life, it could shine a lot on light on what effectively might work and what might not. YMMV as a precaution, of course, but at least it's more information that currently isn't there.

Apple's Human Interface Guidelines are sooo inspiring to read.

You forgot to mention the Superdrive and 1440x960 resolution

I have the exact same PowerBook, but with 1GB RAM (definitely a good addition, MacOS X makes use of all the free RAM available to speed all its operations). I didn't notice any noticeable drop in framerate with the water ripple effect Maybe I need to test it again.

Ulrika: don't you find the Mighty Mouse too hard to click on ? That's the reason I'm not using it




Oh, and, the nifty addition: the trackpad scrolls vertically and horizontally when you put two fingers on it

[Edit]
And the Column view in the Finder ! I only use that.

Thanks for the offer. So far, no problems. OSX having a UNIX kernal doesn't hurt in the slightest, and being able to local Gimp by way of X11 was a godsend.

Now, I just need to scrape together the money for a windows emulator for the couple of programs not made for OSX. PagePlus 10 is a major item of mine for doing book layouts, and I just feel like I can't function without it. I know that Desktop Publishing programs are on the Mac, but I'll be darned if I'm going to spend $1000+ dollars for something that PagePlus can do already.

Has anyone here ever got Bochs working on the Mac? I have it installed, but am having trouble getting it to WORK.


Oh, and JEdit makes a decent replacement for Scite.

let me see... Anything else...

Oh yes! And donations are welcome to the Foolish Frost wants an extra gig of ram fund... I take all major, minor, and fictional credit cards! Be differant, and don't hesitate to send me money! Or Mac items you don't want anymore! You know... Whole computers... Software disks and licences... Etc...

<The above was humor based on taking advantage of Enabran Templar's willingness to help. While the cost of the Powerbook MAY have beggered me, I am not currently in need of charity. I won't send it BACK, but I don't need it... >

Well, I was trying not to scare off basic users with too many numbers. You can get the specs from any website. I offer experience with the device. I guess I could add it in a small window to the side...

Oh, and in my defense: I HATE touchpads... Mouse man, all the way. I use the pad when truly mobile. But yes, for reading, the two finger action on the touchpad is excellent.

Oy.

Windows emulation sucks, man. Don't count on it for anything critical. See if Pages will do the job for you. I THINK it's included with new Macs. Check Applications > iWork > Pages.app (or maybe Applications > Pages.app)

Gotta agree with Enabran, I think you'll be better off finding an DTP replacement, rather than trying to a vitual PC environment.

Myself, I have used Virtual PC 7 (I love work's Enterprise MS licensing....), and found it as slow as a dog, and tended to use all the CPU all of the time.

I would really recommend reading through this thread on my beloved whirlpool forums

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=57457

You'll find a LOT of good, useful apps for the mac.

Nope. Nothing called Pages...

Looking it up...

$80 for it... <sigh>...

Ok. I have a question for all the Mac users out there:

What inexpensive Page Layout software would YOU recommend? I layout books, and PagePlus 10 did everything I needed for about $130. Does the Mac have anything compairable? Searches are coming up thin.

<And do NOT mention Quark. You know better.>

Not a Mac person - but what about Adobe InDesign or PageMaker?

<sigh> For the same reason as The above banned. $500-$1000 price ranges...

I'm not a hard man to get along with, but GOOD GRAVY! Even I can see pricing meant to keep out the rif-raf. Combine that with a moral issue with copying software, and you have a problem...

Anyone use Swift Publishing?

Wait three days for the Mac Expo keynote speech (it's on Tuesday). Rumor has it that the iLife suite will include a new application called iWeb. It's bound to impress.

If that doesn't work for you, you can use what we use in our house -- vim.

~Ulrika~

<looks are Ulrika with amusment> And while I'm at it, You'll let me borrow your stone slabs and chisle for the image engraving?

<rubs face>

Let me back that up... What I mean is that I'm looking for software to make my life EASIER. Not to make me want to commit random acts of violence. Vi and it's children cause the latter in me. It's all well and good to be able to use software that is basicaly user hostile, but really. No.

I don't know if you have any way to meet the eligibility requirements, but you can get educational licensed versions of InDesign CS2 for $188. The latest release has gotten rave reviews.

http://www.campustech.com/c/campust/title.html?mv_arg=ADB110&mv_pc=google1_adobe_indesign&gclid=COSKwf_auYICFQk5IgodlVdnQw

I was just joking with the vim suggestion for you. I am serious about iWeb. I'll post in this thread on Tuesday if it turns out to be real and not just a rumor.

~Ulrika~

Why would he use iWeb, which is going to be a web page design tool, not a print tool? He is looking for a tool to use for doing print book page layouts.

He's got a point. I actually use PHP for my web needs. Postnuke to be specific.

Swift seems to be immature, not even having the ability to deal with facing pages.

Ready,Set,Go! seems to be very... Hmnnn. Unfriendly? Limited? Resizing an image in it is quite a bit of work, so...

Still looking. And no... I'm not eligable for educational. Thanks for the thought.

Ah. I missed that.

In that case he should use LaTeX! Install "Fink" on MacOS and then download the LaTeX package. LaTeX is free and wonderful. For something simple, perhaps Pages (part of iWork) would be useful.

Sorry. I'm a poor resource for recommending consumer WYSIWYG programs. Everything we use is ultra techy.

~Ulrika~