The New PowerBooks


Recommended Posts

Pilsbury: Is it really that much zippier than the stock HD?

Standard is a 2MB cache 4200RPM drive, so, yes it is...

I reckon boot time dropped by a good 30 - 40%.

There's also 7200RPM Hitachi 2.5" drives out that should be faster again, although, they 'only' have 8MB cache

does a faster harddrive eat more battery or generate more heat? if i were to get the new 15" PB, do you reckon i should for the 4200rpm or 5400rpm? battery life is my main concern.

edit: does anyone know how fast is the hdd in the old 1GHz 15" TiBook? :unsure:

Did you max out the ram? if you did that would account for the 4-6 weeks delay, you might be better of ordering it with the standard amout of ram and upgrading it yourself, it would be a lot cheaper and you would only wait 3-5 days instead. Also you should order it through the apple education store save a few hundred ?s, they never check if you are a teacher or student.

I din't max out the RAM, but i got 1Gb on 1Dimm so i can buy another dimm and get approx 1.5gb when it arrives. I bought my PB through the HE education store which works through my uni, so it's really cheap, even got myself an ipod. Don't mind waiting 4-6 weeks cos it'll hopefully arrive day before my birthday.

umes

does a faster harddrive eat more battery or generate more heat? if i were to get the new 15" PB, do you reckon i should for the 4200rpm or 5400rpm? battery life is my main concern.

edit: does anyone know how fast is the hdd in the old 1GHz 15" TiBook? :unsure:

The old ones are 4200 RPM

5400RPM drives do run a little hotter and use up more power

But the performance boost is good too

I agree with some of the others here about not being much of an upgrade for exisiting users. I have a Ti 15" @ 867mhz that works great. Only downer is no superdrive - I was cheap and didnt feel like spending the extra money. Also, I saw a few of you talking about removing the superdrive... If you dont want it, maybe we can do a trade for normal CD/DVD combo????? hehe

BTW, does any know if you can get a backlit keyboard for a Ti PB and install it yourself?

I agree with some of the others here about not being much of an upgrade for exisiting users. I have a Ti 15" @ 867mhz that works great. Only downer is no superdrive - I was cheap and didnt feel like spending the extra money. Also, I saw a few of you talking about removing the superdrive... If you dont want it, maybe we can do a trade for normal CD/DVD combo????? hehe

BTW, does any know if you can get a backlit keyboard for a Ti PB and install it yourself?

I am pretty sure the design and structure is totally different than the TI, so there is no way to make the backlit keyboard work. Where would you even plug it in to?

dang.. i'm sooo tempted to get a new one.. the backlit keyboard is soooo wicked. and i'm just kinda sick of bringing my d-link bluetooth adapter with me all the time.. and with all the extra...

what do you guys think??

I think you are fooling yourself, and you know already you are going to get one. ;)

hahaha.. you all know me well :D

i'll see how much i can get on ebay.. if the price is good, then i'll join you guys! :D

Told you so... :p

About the combo, I am pretty sure that it does not generate less heat. You will get more life because you won't be burning DVD's, but other than that, it is the same.

EDIT: asked stupid question, deleted it. :whistle:

Told you so... :p

About the combo, I am pretty sure that it does not generate less heat. You will get more life because you won't be burning DVD's, but other than that, it is the same.

EDIT: asked stupid question, deleted it. :whistle:

lol :laugh:

another stupid question :D does more ram eat more battery? :D is 512MB DDR RAM enough? :)

Gary, nice to hear you want a PB :-) I say the more the merrier!

It might actually do you good to wait a bit before getting one- maybe Apple would have the next revisions ready. In that case, we'd be bugging you for pics :laugh:

Told you so...  :p

About the combo, I am pretty sure that it does not generate less heat. You will get more life because you won't be burning DVD's, but other than that, it is the same.

EDIT: asked stupid question, deleted it.  :whistle:

lol :laugh:

another stupid question :D does more ram eat more battery? :D is 512MB DDR RAM enough? :)

Not a stupid question at all.

Maxing the RAM should improve battery life. The reall killer is paging out the hard disk, with the maximum ammount of RAM installed in the machine, this is reduced.

Told you so...?:pp

About the combo, I am pretty sure that it does not generate less heat. You will get more life because you won't be burning DVD's, but other than that, it is the same.

EDIT: asked stupid question, deleted it.?:whistle:e:

lol:laugh:h:

another stupid questio:D:D does more ram eat more battery:D:D is 512MB DDR RAM enough?:):)

Not a stupid question at all.

Maxing the RAM should improve battery life. The reall killer is paging out the hard disk, with the maximum ammount of RAM installed in the machine, this is reduced.

thanks mate!:):) i thought more ram will draw more battery and reduce the time.

BxBoy: I really thought somebody would've answered your question by now- I guess this thread has lost its steam. Oh well, it was a great run for my first ?hot? p:laugh:ugh:

Anyway, if you'd ask me, I'd say get the 15" PB with the fixed upgrades you want already opted in- this means deciding whether or not you'd get a SuperDrive,Lighted Keyboard and 1.25GHz G4 instead of 1GHz.

If you don't expect to buy another one in just a few years, I'd say get the 15" SuperDrive PB. That way, you could grow into getting more out of it. Try saving on the accessories instead.

BxBoy: I really thought somebody would've answered your question by now- I guess this thread has lost its steam. Oh well, it was a great run for my first ?hot? p:laugh:ugh:

Anyway, if you'd ask me, I'd say get the 15" PB with the fixed upgrades you want already opted in- this means deciding whether or not you'd get a SuperDrive,Lighted Keyboard and 1.25GHz G4 instead of 1GHz.

If you don't expect to buy another one in just a few years, I'd say get the 15" SuperDrive PB. That way, you could grow into getting more out of it. Try saving on the accessories instead.

How about discounts? Should I go the educational route or the ADC (Apple Developer) route?

for ADC you gotta buy the membership which is $100 and with the discount it will prolly be around the same price as with a student discount

I too did the math and it didn't seem far too economical... and why bother having to go through 'processing'.

I too did the math and it didn't seem far too economical... and why bother having to go through 'processing'.

What are you guys talking about? You are way off! :no:

Education discount is only 100 dollars or so off the top cost. WIth ADC, not only do you get a HUGE discount on the initial item, but all the upgrades such as RAM and HD are at an extremely discounted rate also. Plus the fact that you get Jaguar, Developer Tools, etc.... all of which you can easily sell on eBay and make back the money that you spent on it in the first place if you wanted to.

post-60-1064203278.jpg

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • GitHub removes manual model selection from Copilot free and student plans by Karthik Mudaliar GitHub is removing the ability to manually select an AI model from its Copilot Free and Student plans, making its automatic routing system the default and only way to choose a model. This means users on these tiers will no longer be able to deliberately select a particular OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft model for a task. In its announcement, GitHub said Copilot Auto will dynamically choose what it considers the best model for each request. Free and Student accounts will retain access to models from multiple families, although the available selection will continue to depend on the restrictions attached to each plan. GitHub did not identify a fixed pool of models that Auto will always use, and its documentation warns that model availability can change over time. GitHub describes Auto as more than a random fallback system. On supported surfaces, its task-optimization technology evaluates the complexity of a request alongside real-time information about model health and availability. Straightforward prompts can be routed to faster and less expensive models, while more demanding coding tasks may be sent to higher-cost reasoning models. The company says this approach should reduce rate limiting, latency, and failed requests. Auto generally selects one model along natural prompt-caching boundaries rather than repeatedly switching models during a session, as GitHub found that mid-session changes increased costs without producing sufficient improvements in output quality. Users can still check which model generated a response. In Copilot Chat, the information appears when hovering over an answer, while Copilot CLI and the Copilot cloud agent display the selected model alongside their output. Auto is available in Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent, with the exact implementation and release status varying between supported development environments. The latest restriction follows several months of adjustments to Copilot’s individual plans. GitHub temporarily halted new Pro, Pro+, and Student subscriptions in April as it sought to manage demand and service reliability. It later introduced token-based billing and began gradually reopening individual-plan registrations on June 17. Alongside the picker change, GitHub is retiring the “Preview” label from Microsoft-developed models. It argues that the label is no longer necessary because Auto handles model routing and models are continuously updated behind the scenes.
    • Look up 'inflation' kid. Ask an AI for the numbers between both games.
    • Google reportedly set to lose two key Gemini and DeepMind researchers to Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly preparing to lose two more prominent artificial intelligence researchers, with Gemini contributors Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel planning to join rival AI developer Anthropic. According to a report from Bloomberg, both researchers are viewed internally as important contributors to Google’s flagship Gemini model family. Adler worked on Google’s AI coding efforts, while Pritzel was involved in the process used to train AI systems. Neither company has publicly confirmed the moves. The report also does not say when the researchers will formally leave Google or what positions they will hold at Anthropic. Training a large AI model requires decisions covering its architecture, data preparation, distributed computing infrastructure, and post-training methods that shape how the finished system behaves. Researchers with experience operating at the scale of Gemini are consequently difficult to replace quickly. Both Adler and Pritzel have previously contributed to Google DeepMind’s scientific research as well. They are listed among the authors of the company’s work on expanding AlphaFold protein-structure predictions across entire proteomes, alongside AlphaFold researchers including John Jumper. The reported departures arrive shortly after another important change within Google’s Gemini organization. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving Google for OpenAI, after returning to the search company in 2024 through its deal with Character.AI. Shazeer is particularly well known as one of the authors of the Transformer paper, whose architecture became the foundation for most modern large language models. Anthropic, meanwhile, has been recruiting recognizable figures from other leading laboratories. OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May. His move, followed by the reported recruitment of several Google researchers, suggests Anthropic is strengthening the research teams responsible for the core capabilities of future Claude models rather than concentrating solely on product and enterprise sales. The competition is complicated by the companies’ extensive commercial relationships. Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models, but it also relies on Google as an infrastructure partner. In April, Anthropic announced an expanded agreement with Google and Broadcom covering multiple gigawatts of next-generation Tensor Processing Unit capacity. TPUs are Google-designed accelerators used to train and run large AI models. via Bloomberg
    • This article makes my head hurt. Lots of confusing words
    • Google adds built-in computer control to Gemini 3.5 flash by Karthik Mudaliar Google has added Computer Use as a built-in tool in Gemini 3.5 Flash, giving developers a single model that can reason about a task and operate graphical interfaces across browsers, mobile devices, and desktop environments. The feature is available through the Gemini API and Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, although it remains a preview feature for now. Computer Use enables an AI agent to examine screenshots and return actions such as mouse clicks, scrolling, and keyboard input. A developer’s application must execute those actions, capture the resulting screen, and send it back to Gemini, creating a continuous loop until the task is completed. Google says the integration can be used for activities including repetitive form filling, application testing, research across multiple websites, and longer enterprise workflows. Gemini 3.5 Flash can work with browser, mobile, and desktop environments, whereas Google’s earlier standalone Computer Use model was primarily positioned around browser interaction. The main change is consolidation. Computer control was previously offered through the separate Gemini 2.5 Computer Use preview model. As Neowin reported when that model was introduced, it was designed to interpret a visual interface and generate actions without requiring a website-specific API. Google later brought Computer Use to preview versions of Gemini 3 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash in January 2026. The latest release now incorporates the tool into the stable Gemini 3.5 Flash model rather than requiring developers to select a specialized model solely for interface automation. Gemini 3.5 Flash itself was announced in May as Google’s latest fast model for coding and multi-step agent workflows. It supports a one-million-token input context window and up to 65,000 output tokens, along with adjustable thinking levels that let developers trade additional reasoning for lower latency and cost. Google also added that Gemini 3.5 Flash received targeted adversarial training for computer-use scenarios. The company is also offering safeguards that can require user confirmation before sensitive or irreversible actions and automatically stop a workflow when suspected prompt injection is detected. Its developer documentation describes configurable protections for areas such as financial transactions and changes to sensitive records. Google isn't the first to bring Computer Use to its platform. Anthropic has made computer control available through Claude, while OpenAI has continued improving computer-use performance in its recent models. Microsoft has also applied the concept to business workflows, including a Computer Use capability for the Researcher agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      D0nn13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Rookie
      +ChiefOfNeo went up a rank
      Rookie
    • One Year In
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      463
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      177
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      124
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!