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TiBook Report #4
2001.02.05 - I've put in a lot more hours and run a few more tests on
Quicksilver, my 400 MHz PowerBook
G4
.
Toaster?
One of the most asked questions is about heat. Specifically,
people want to know how hot it runs.
Unfortunately, every single utility I've tried doesn't provide
meaningful results. One reports 33°F or 1ºC, another says
error, and yet another reports unknown.
As soon as someone creates a temperature utility that works with
the TiBook, I will do some tests. Until then, all I can say is, "It
gets hot."
Cool It
The most common suggestion to attack the heat problem is the
CoolPad from Road Tools. I
have one coming in; I'll report here once I've had a chance to use
it.
Other suggestions include building my own NadPad
with about $10 worth of parts from an office supply store and picking
up a dual-layer cookie sheet from Macy's - alas, no Macy's here.
DVD Performance
The second most common question is about the "jerkiness" I noted
in my first report. My response at this
point is that we only tried one movie, The Matrix. We ran it before I
had a chance to configure the TiBook to my liking. I have since
viewed the first 15 minutes of The Matrix and not seen the
problem.
I hope to find time for more extensive testing, but should note
that I have a real DVD player connected to my TV - and I'm far more
likely to use that to watch a DVD than use my TiBook (see DVD
and the Mac for more on the subject).
SETI@home
My first complete work unit was interrupted by Sherlock trying to
index over 40,000 files on my hard drive in the background. My second
work unit was completed in 14 hours, 8 minutes, 6.9 seconds.
Game Performance
If you visit Low End Mac regularly, you may have noted that we
don't pay much attention to games. There are two reasons for that:
other sites do an excellent job with Mac gaming, and I don't play
games very often.
When I do game on my Mac, it's not Myth, Marathon, Quake, or any
of the other 3D shooters. My top choices are SimCity 2000 and
Shanghai II, followed by Solitaire Royale 1.0 (an 1987 program that's
never needed an update) and Euchre.
That's why you won't see frame rate reports here. For results like
that, your best bets are performance sites (Accelerate Your Mac,
Bare Feats) and gaming sites
(MacGamer.com)
Battery Life
I launched Jeremy Kezer's Battery
Amnesia 1.5.2 at about 06.45 Sunday morning, unplugged the power
adapter, and began draining the battery. According to Apple, this is
a five hour battery, so it could have run until 11.45.
Battery Amnesia wasn't about to allow that. After all, the program
is designed to drain a PowerBook battery as quickly as possible.
Battery Amnesia simulates constant use and makes regular hard drive
access. The TiBook shut down somewhere around 10.30. In all, the
battery lasted 206 minutes under maximum drain - 3 hours, 26
minutes.
After recharging the battery, I set "Reduce Processor Speed" under
advanced settings in the Energy Saver control panel. This reduces CPU
speed to 300 MHz - and had no significant effect on battery life
while Battery Amnesia was doing all it could to run down the battery.
This time the battery lasted 211 minutes, five minutes longer than
running at 400 MHz.
In the real world, you'll probably see longer battery life than
this, since you'll probably be using energy saving setting when
running from the battery. All in all, 3-1/2 hours of continuous use
is very impressive.
The Display
I'd mentioned last week that the onscreen colors seemed a bit
washed out, knew there was a profile somewhere out there to address
the issue, but couldn't for the life of me remember where. I
know I linked to it from LEM when it was released.
Searches with Google and my site seach engine came up empty,
undoubtedly because I couldn't remember the right keyword to find
that particular item. A big thanks to Charles W. Moore for mentioning
Accelerate Your Mac in
a
recent Applelinks article. The article is here
- scroll down to the link for downloading Brock's Pismo/iBook
profiles. At this point, I have not been able to choose either
profile.
The TiBook Reports
- TiBook Report #7: Zap!, 2/16/01. Great
laptop, but there's this pesky problem with static
electricity....
- TiBook Report #6, 2/8/01. Is the
PowerBook G4 really a desktop replacement? Also, more comments on
DVD playback.
- TiBook Report #5, 2/6/01. Heat
reduction with CoolPad, burning CDs, DVD tips, and more.
- TiBook Report #4, 2/5/01. Battery life,
SETI performance, and more on heat.
- TiBook: Day 2, 2/2/01. Internet
connection update, more on heat, brief benchmark discussion.
- TiBook: Day 1, 2//01. More impressions
from my first day with a PowerBook G4.
- First Impressions: TiBook, 1/31/01.
Stop the presses - I got my PowerBook G4 this afternoon.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Mac Pro overclocking, Windependence with Darwine, Blu-ray for Macs, and more, Mac News Review, 07.04.
Also more on running Leopard on non-Apple hardware, Ubuntu on a Mac mini, the first autofocus webcam with Zeiss optics for Macs, and more.
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PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche.
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- List of the Day: Mac Pro List is for those using a Mac Pro.
- July 5 in LEM history: 98: The iMac: First of a family? - iMac Perfect for schools - 00: Apple is not your friend - 01: 75 Mac Advantages - Do you trust me? - 02: The joy of X with Classic - The good, the bad, and the intrusive - 05: No Quartz Extreme for Pismo - A brief history of NeXT - 06: Education iMac - iTunes and the French interoperability law - TopXNotes - Apple's secret battery reset utility - Misleading hard drive capacity
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- More links in our archive.
Go to the 'Book Page.