Here's what PC Magazine had to say about Mac's claims that it's
new 250Mhz G3 Laptop could beat a 300- or 333 Mhz Pentium II:
By Daniel Grotta & Sally Wiener Grotta
June 3, 1998 -- Apple proudly proclaims that its latest generation
of PowerBook G3 laptops will outperform "any Wintel notebook at all
key price points." What's more, Apple boasts that the 250-MHz G3
notebook we tested (which costs $4,100 street) will score higher than
any 300-MHz desktop and is, in fact, comparable to a 333-MHz Pentium
II.
What's Inside
There's no question that the G3s are fast. Their processor--the
first of the PowerPC family to be optimized specifically for Mac
OS--uses 0.25-micron technology and is only 67 square millimeters. It
draws 5 watts and runs so cool that it doesn't require a fan. The
zippier performance results from this CPU combined with 64K of L1
cache (twice that of a Pentium II CPU), 1MB of L2 cache (most PCs
have a maximum of 512K), an 83-MHz system bus (faster than that of a
PC laptop), SDRAM architecture, 4MB of SGRAM graphics memory, an IDE
hard disk, a 20X CD-ROM drive, and an ATI 3D RAGE LT chip for 2-D/3-D
graphics acceleration. But as our test results indicate, the G3's
performance may or may not be faster than that of comparable Wintel
platforms. It all depends upon the application and function.
On either side of the G3 is an easy-to-open spring-loaded clip,
which allows for rapid removal or insertion of batteries or
hot-swappable drives. There are two side-mounted 32-bit PC Card slots
(two Type I or II cards or one Type III card); the lower slot
supports Zoomed Video, which allows fast, direct access to the video
controller. Also built in are an array of Mac ports and connectors,
including IrDA, sound and microphone, ADB (keyboard/mouse),
printer/modem, Ethernet, SCSI, external monitor, and S-video-out
ports.
In addition to using software-activated commands, the G3 comes
with buttons to control volume, mute, and screen brightness and
contrast. Because there's no reset button (you must press the
function, Ctrl, and Shift keys instead), if the computer freezes and
requires a hard reboot, you must either remove the battery or pull
out the power cord.
Unlike some earlier Mac laptops, the G3 lets you access its
innards without special tools. Once you've removed the
batteries/drives, flipping two switches inside will release the
keyboard. You may then remove the heat shield by unfastening two
screws, exposing both the hard disk and the memory DIMMs. The only
dissonant note in an otherwise excellent design is the G3's weight:
Depending upon the battery/drive combination, the unit is a hefty 7.7
to 7.9 pounds.
The RJ45 network interface is 10Base-T--not 100Base-T--but the 56K
modem comes with 4MB of flash ROM for upgrades. The printer and modem
share the same port, so you'll need an external adapter to run them
simultaneously. The G3 comes with a built-in VGA adapter for
attaching a standard PC-configured color monitor. Because everything
is built-in, there's no need for a separate docking station.
Our test machine had one of the best 13.3-inch XGA screens we've
seen--bright and contrasty, even in strong light, with good color
fidelity and saturation, edge-to-edge sharpness, and a fast refresh
rate and stable signal. The 4MB of SGRAM lets users display 24-bit
color at 1,152-by-870 or 16-bit color at 1,280-by-1,024. The G3s with
12-inch screens come with 2MB of SGRAM, which yields a top resolution
of 800-by-600 in 24-bit color or 1,024-by-768 in 16-bit color.
Because of the ability to display photorealistic colors at high
resolution, the G3s with 13.3- and 14-inch screens are particularly
useful with image-editing applications (like Adobe Photoshop),
although a large screen adds significantly to the cost. Apple is
working with third-party developers to produce a CardBus video card
that will let the G3 drive a second independent monitor. (IXMicro has
announced the IX3D RoadRocket, a CardBus that delivers dual-screen
capability.)
Given its raw speed and System 8.1 refinements, we were
unsurprised but nonetheless delighted when our machine booted up
extremely fast--even with a number of extensions enabled. The hard
disk is also fast, letting a 10MB TIFF file open in seconds.
What did surprise us (considering Apple's prerelease hype and its
own benchmark numbers) was that the 250-MHz G3's performance was only
marginally better on some of our real-world tests than a 300-MHz
Pentium II desktop with a Number Nine Revolution graphics card; it
was notably slower in others. Apple PowerMac systems, including G3
notebooks, do well with graphics applications that are optimized for
RISC architecture, but they lag far behind in business and other
applications.
Our first comparison used several common functions in Photoshop
4.0.1: Resize, Gaussian Blur, Unsharpen Mask, Lighting Effects, and
Rotate. On our first run, we used Adobe's default settings: a rather
miserly 10MB of RAM, a 1,024K disk cache, virtual memory, and RAM
disk enabled. Since all but one of our tests used a 10MB TIFF file,
this setting proved impractical, because it required using virtual
memory, which is slow. We then changed to Apple's recommended memory
setting (50MB of RAM, disk cache of 96K, and both virtual memory and
RAM disk off). Adobe advised us to set Photoshop's memory to 1MB less
than the physical RAM in the computer, or 63MB.
Adobe's and Apple's suggested settings were slower than the sweet
spot we discovered by trial and error (35MB of RAM, 1,024K disk
cache, and both virtual memory and RAM disk enabled). Since our test
PC runs under Windows 95 and not Mac OS, it was not necessary to
tweak the memory settings. The G3 was slightly faster than the PC on
Resize and Lighting Effects but marginally slower on Gaussian Blur,
Unsharpen Mask, and Rotate.
We saw significant performance differences between the G3 and the
PC in Microsoft Excel and Word, and we found no difference when
raising Microsoft's default memory setting higher than 10MB.
Microsoft's recent release of Office 98 for Mac is a vast improvement
over the earlier sluggish, freeze-prone version; but as our tests
indicate, PCs still have across-the-board performance superiority
under Windows. On average, the PowerBook G3 took almost twice as long
to perform simple Excel and Word macro tests as a 300-MHz NEC
Direction SPL 300 Pentium II machine took to run comparable
tests.
The G3s are superbly engineered, well-built notebooks. Mac users
will undoubtedly embrace them as the best operating under OS 8. But
they are not likely to win many converts among PC power users,
because the bragging about more speed and power is somewhat
exaggerated.
Macintosh PowerBook G3. Street price: $4,100 with 250-MHz PowerPC
CPU, 64MB RAM, 4GB hard disk, 13.3-inch TFT screen, 20X CD-ROM drive.
Apple Computer Co., Cupertino, CA; 800-538-9696; www.apple.com.
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/firstlooks/9806/f980603a.htm