Powerbook vs. MacbookPro

Whats the difference between the Powerbook and the Macbook pro as far as performance and besides the Intel Processor?

The Intel Core Duo makes up for a huge portion of the performance difference, but aside from that? The MBP has faster hard drives, a slower DVD burner, and MUCH, MUCH faster RAM.

dndcomputers said:

Whats the difference between the Powerbook and the Macbook pro as far as performance and besides the Intel Processor?

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The MacBook Pro has a much faster CPU and a much faster video card, along with faster-acting RAM and a Serial ATA hard drive. It will utterly devour the PowerBook in terms of performance on any universal application. That, of course, is the trick. Not all apps are universal and neither are most plugins, so you won't get very good performance out of Photoshop, and you'll have to run Safari in Rosetta if you want to view any media online. As a side note, when Leopard comes out at the end of the year, you'll also be able to dual boot the MacBook Pro for Windows use to supplement your main tasks with Windows gaming if you so desire. Other benefits are a much brighter screen (brighter than most desktop displays in fact), a built-in iSight camera, the Front Row media-access program with the Apple remote, and a slimmer design.

The only disadvantages to getting a MacBook Pro over a PowerBook are the aforementioned lack of Universal solutions for some software, lack of dual layer DVD burning, and lack of S-Video out and Firewire 800 in case you need those for some reason.

According to the Macworld Magazines tests the powerbook is faster with most 3rd party applications but the macbook did better using apple software.

The reason the Powerbook is faster with some 3rd party applications (for now) is they only run in Emulation using Rosetta. When they are all made into Universal Binaries, that will change. Compaired to the G4, even a Core Solo is faster leave alone a Core Duo.

Go with the Mac Book Pro. Much Much Faster, and all the apps like Photo Shop will be Universal Binary in a few months. Plus you get Front Row and the iSight, I use them both every day. You might want to wait on Leopard to Dual Boot Windows XP.

So with everything said, go with the Mac Book Pro!!