Macopinion

The Road Warrior Mailbag, December 1, 2008

The End Of Matte Notebook Displays

From Taurus

“FireWire ports, per se, are not that expensive. but the ultra-compact motherboard design necessary to fit inside that MacBook Air-esque, ultra-slim enclosure simply left no room for a FireWire port, or so they say.”

I think it’s not that simple. Back in the old days, when Macs were based on the PowerPC architecture, Apple designed its own chipsets. E.g., the Pismo uses Apple’s custom “Uni-N” northbridge chip to implement (among many other things) the Firewire interface.

Nowadays, Macs are based on PC chipsets, and Firewire is uncommon in the PC world, so PC chipsets simply don’t support Firewire. To “emulate” the previous situation, Apple is forced to include an additional chip on the motherboard. And that chip costs money, requires space on the motherboard, complicates the design and manufacturing of the motherboard, and takes power, countering the efforts to use more energy-efficient parts like an LED backlight.

Looks like Apple is loathe to include this additional chip on its motherboards and therefore tries to get the user base accustomed to a Non-Firewire situation. It’s a problem they’ve catched with the Intel-transition. I do agree that the lack of Firewire is absolutely unacceptable, given that USB 2.0 is much slower than Firewire 800.

As for the glossy display, there’s an alternative anti-glare film product by 3M called Vikuiti ARMR200 ("Anti-Reflection Matt Removable"). Might be worth a look.

I also wanted to throw in my 2 cents worth on your upgrade plans: I really do think that you should buy a Unibody Macbook Pro. Just wait until the first affordable ones turn up on the Apple Store’s Refurbished page.

And that’s because I’d love to see a review of that notebook from a die-hard Pismo user’s perspective.

Being a Pismo die-hard myself, I’ve been waiting for years for an adequate replacement for that machine, and my impression is that the Unibody Macbook Pro might finally be what I’ve been looking for. While there still are several things that I don’t like, particularly that the case is silver and not colored (like, black), I’m impressed with the engineering achievement, and I’m particularly impressed that they managed to keep the power consumption down. The German c’t magazine writes that with the 2.4GHz version and 3D acceleration turned off, the fans are rarely on. And that’s good news, because one of the reasons I’ve been turned off by the previous Macbook Pro was the amount of heat and noise it generated. With the Unibody machines, not only did they manage to reduce the power consumption to Pismo levels, they can also use the Unibody as one giant passive cooling system. I think that’s a really interesting architecture. I also like the Pismo-style tapered edges of the Unibody machines.

The c’t magazine writes that one of the four machines they received for their review had a mechanical glitch: The battery/harddrive cover’s size differed by 1 mm from the Unibody case’s size, suggesting that the manufacturing precision of these parts still needs improvement. Another reason not to buy one of the first Unibody machines, but to wait for a few months.

Finally, some rambling on G4 upgrades for the Pismo: Last week, my G3/500 card died. I called Daystar to order a G4/550 card. Turns out they no longer perform this upgrade. They pointed me to WegenerMedia, but as you wrote, the Daystar upgrade was the most “cut and dried”. I already wanted to buy a Daystar upgrade last year and sent an email to Gary Dailey with a few questions in December 2007. I completely missed that they discontinued that product this year.

Geez. I guess the US economy can’t be that bad if companies can afford pointing customers to competitors like this. Shame on them!

taurus

(now working with a spare G3/400 card I had lying around, looking for a used Daystar upgrade...)

___

Hi Taurus;

Thanks for the commentary and very plausible explanation as to why Apple is disinclined to retain FireWire support in the unibody MacBook. I still think that's a mistake, and evidently so do a lot of others.

I too am smitten with the unibodies, and would love to have a uni MacBook Pro. I thought long and hard about taking advantage of Apple's Black Friday sale price on the uni MacBook, but in the end didn't pull the trigger. Thing is, I have a provisional policy about not buying Revision A gear, so by the time Revision B refurbished MacBook Pro unis enter the channel it could be next fall. Not sure I can hang in using a 1.33 GHz G4 that long. I can't justify (or afford) the sticker price of a new one.

Sorry to hear about the processor card crapping out. Yes; Daystar is out of the laptop upgrade business, at least for now. Gary Dailey is a stand up guy, and I'm not surprised that he suggested an alternative source. FWIW, I've had very good luck with a Wegener 550 MHz Pismo upgrade - no hassles or problems at all, and it's in the Pismo I use daily. The FastMac 550 upgrade works well too.

Charles

***

Glossy Screens A Major Turn-off

From Krishna

The glossy screens are a major turn-off for me. While there are options to remove the glare by purchasing anti-glare film, why pay more money on top of what is already a premium product?

I had high hopes for the new MBP models to include a matte option, but since that door has forever shut, I'm now contemplating the purchase of an older model with the matte screen (at a substantial savings).

___

Hi Krishna;

I actually don't find glossy displays a problem, but a lot of folks certainly object to them, and I'm sorry that Apple decided to drop matte displays as an option on the MacBook Pro, but as long as they stick with the "display-behind-glass" styling motif pioneered on the aluminum iMac, I don't hold very lively hope for restoration.

As you say, the deals offered on Certified Refurbished and leftover discounted Early 2008 MacBook Pros are pretty attractive.

Charles

***

May Never Go Back To Apple Portables Again

From Undo

Removal of Firewire and new extra, extra-glossy glass displays on the MacBooks prompted me to buy a new netbook; my first ever Windows computer. It has a bright matte display with great viewing angles, weighs less than three pounds, has a sweet 93% keyboard, exceptional battery life and costs just $500. I've previously owned five different PowerBooks, iBooks and MacBooks but I may never go back to Apple portables again.

___

Hi Undo;

Interesting, given my advocacy of Apple building a netbook (hopefully with a matte display optional at least).

I would be interested in hearing more about your impressions of how the PC netbook performs, and what it's like living with Windows after so many years on the Mac; what sort of stuff you do with the computer, and so forth.

Charles

***

Wireless Hard Drive

From Terry

Hi Charley:

Hope you are having a Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

The reason I am writing is I would like to see you write an article on the best way to back up using wireless. The points I would like to see is speed in backing up would be the most important, then the most expensive to the cheapest. Range and ease of setup along with security. I am by far not a writer and have no idea how much time or work this is. And I am sure it would not been done before the New Year if you like the Idea.

Thank you for your time and you do not have to respond to this email.
Looking forward to more of your articles.

Sincerely Terry

___

Hi Terry;

Thanks for the Christmas greeeting. Sunday was the first in Advent for this year, and so far, so good.

Thanks also for the suggestion.

While I'm sure that the topic would be of interest to many readers, the problem I would have in writing an article like that, is that I have essentially zero frame of reference or experience in wireless backups. I don't have an Airport network, and am still a hard-wired Ethernet LAN user.

It's a good idea, however, and I'll keep it in mind if circumstances change.

Merry Christmas to you.
Charles





***



cmoore@macopinion.com

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM