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Apple 15-inch PowerBook G4PerformanceWi-Fi is now standard in Apple's speedy and shiny new 15-inch PowerBook. |
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Explore this product:
Product Summary
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JiWire's Review
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Specifications
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Setup & Usability
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Performance
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Photo Gallery
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Cool Tips
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| By Becky Waring (JiWire) (Updated 10/3/08) |
JiWire Lab Test Results
Wi-Fi performance is necessarily somewhat subjective, since conditions vary so much from hotspot to hotspot, but in comparison to the earlier 15-inch PowerBook G4 Titanium, the aluminum model sports a vast improvement in range. In my small house, the new PowerBook G4 provides a somewhat low, but usable, signal in the farthest bedroom from my office, about 45 feet away through several walls and ceilings. With the G4 Titanium, I could get no connection at all. Similarly, it is noticeably easier to connect at various public hotspots without having to move to a position close to the access point. There's still room for improvement. I got better reception with my old PowerBook G3 and an Orinoco Gold card, but overall Wi-Fi performance is good, and will suffice for most users. If it's still not enough for you, check out our Cool Tips page for some pointers.
Computing performance, a function of processor speed, bus speed, video card speed and hard drive performance, among other things, was excellent. Unless you are doing heavy processor- and disk-intensive tasks like editing many large image or video files, you won't notice much difference between the PowerBook G4 and an iMac. Tasks like surfing, email and word processing are speedy and responsive. However, while our tests were done with a stock 512MB RAM model, we definitely recommend getting more RAM. A gigabyte or more will let you run multiple applications with ease, without frustrating pauses while the beach ball spins...
Here are the results of our benchmark testing. For comparison purposes, we also tested a 768MHz 12-inch PowerBook G4.
PowerBook G4 Performance Test Results
| Task | 12" PowerBook G4 867MHz (seconds) | 15" PowerBook G4 1.5GHz (seconds) |
| Start Up | 51 | 48 |
| Duplicate 328MB File | 37 | 37 |
| PDF Scroll | 57 | 51 |
| iTunes Encode | 57 | 42 |
| iMovie Compress | 101 | 93 |
| Battery Life (hours) | 1:55 | 2:08 |
| XBench Scores | (higher scores are better) | |
| Overall | 87 | 129 |
| CPU Test | 104 | 181 |
| Thread Test | 76 | 132 |
| Memory Test | 96 | 127 |
| Quartz Graphics Test | 89 | 180 |
| OpenGL Graphics Test | 95 | 114 |
| User Interface Test | 119 | 231 |
| Disk Test | 58 | 67 |
How We Tested
Our real world testing included the following everyday tasks: starting up the computer, duplicating a 328MB file, scrolling a 104-page PDF in Preview 2.1.0, encoding nine songs as AIFF files in iTunes 4, and compressing 95 seconds of video in iMovie 4. To look at the individual components of the PowerBooks we ran Xbench 1.1.3. To gauge battery life we ran a DVD movie until the system died. We ran each of our tests three times and averaged the results. Our test systems were both running Mac OS X version 10.3.4.
