Instant-On Laptops?
March 11, 2005 3:54 PM Subscribe
I am exasperated. I ordered an iBook from Apple on February 23 and it still has not shipped. Each time I call, I am assured that it is shipping today. Regardless, as it has not happened since Tuesday, I have decided to look into PC alternatives. Apple's primary allure was its "instant-on" ability. Any PC suggestions?
Cancel your Apple store order and get an iBook through Amazon. They've got a $100-$150 rebate and it will actually ship tomorrow Monday.
posted by boaz at 4:20 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by boaz at 4:20 PM on March 11, 2005
Boaz -- wow, thanks! I was literally about to go out and buy an iBook myself from the Apple store this weekend. I can't figure out if I'm able to order it from Amazon with extra RAM, though...?
posted by scody at 4:54 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by scody at 4:54 PM on March 11, 2005
I can't figure out if I'm able to order it from Amazon with extra RAM
No, but RAM is a CIP (customer-installable part) in iBooks, and you can find it for far cheaper than what the Apple Store charges. DealRAM provides price comparisons by (Apple) system and excludes all the non-trustworthy vendors. It's the only site I even bother checking for RAM any more.
posted by boaz at 5:09 PM on March 11, 2005
No, but RAM is a CIP (customer-installable part) in iBooks, and you can find it for far cheaper than what the Apple Store charges. DealRAM provides price comparisons by (Apple) system and excludes all the non-trustworthy vendors. It's the only site I even bother checking for RAM any more.
posted by boaz at 5:09 PM on March 11, 2005
Just so you know, I wouldn't consider this an abnormal delay. I think it took about a month for my PowerBook to arrive.
posted by sbutler at 5:31 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by sbutler at 5:31 PM on March 11, 2005
This is quite tangential, but Windows XP is fine with "instant on" if you use Suspend (I have the power button on mine mapped to it). It'll flake out about every 20th time you do it, though; so always save before doing so.
posted by zsazsa at 5:49 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by zsazsa at 5:49 PM on March 11, 2005
My sister had the same problem. Ordered from the Apple online store about the same time you did. She gave up and went to the local apple store instead. (They didn't have any in stock initially.. but they did a few days later)
posted by defcom1 at 6:18 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by defcom1 at 6:18 PM on March 11, 2005
Threads like this really validate AskMe. Awesome advice.
posted by caddis at 6:32 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by caddis at 6:32 PM on March 11, 2005
For what it's worth, I purchased a PowerBook from the Online Apple Store last summer, and it actually arrived before the website updated to show that it had shipped at all.
That said, I've yet to have a good experience with the Online Apple Store in terms the delay between shipping and ordering.
posted by SemiSophos at 6:34 PM on March 11, 2005
That said, I've yet to have a good experience with the Online Apple Store in terms the delay between shipping and ordering.
posted by SemiSophos at 6:34 PM on March 11, 2005
I know someone who just had Apple take 2 weeks to fix his PowerBook which shipped broken and got a free 20GB iPod for his trouble by shouting at them. Just FYI.
posted by abcde at 8:21 PM on March 11, 2005
posted by abcde at 8:21 PM on March 11, 2005
I own Apple hardware and I like it, but you may not want to buy it for "instant on" features. Apple's implementation of this is almost exactly equivalent to the normal sleep mode of a commodity PC laptop, which in Windows or Linux you can set to behave precisely the same way by setting it to sleep when the lid is shut. It's not a unique feature by any means., and in fact it's kind of annoying that the damn thing sleeps immediately when closed, rather than waiting for some reasonable timeout like 15 or 20 minutes, and that there's no way to configure it.
My PC suggestion would be to look at IBM. I know, they have those awful and annoying eraserhead pointers, but there are models with a proper trackpad, and of course the quality of construction is superior to every other PC laptop made today. Configure the sleep mode and you'll even have your favorite "instant on" feature.
In any case, I bought the very piece of Apple hardware in question -- the current 12" Powerbook -- from the online store on the day of release. There was a short delay of a couple days during shipping, which I attribute primarily to the fact that Apple uses UPS for shipping from the warehouse in Shanghai. UPS sucks. They did, however, ship almost immediately. I didn't expect that they would be ready to ship so quickly; in fact the site said there was a 3 day lead time.
posted by majick at 8:43 PM on March 11, 2005
My PC suggestion would be to look at IBM. I know, they have those awful and annoying eraserhead pointers, but there are models with a proper trackpad, and of course the quality of construction is superior to every other PC laptop made today. Configure the sleep mode and you'll even have your favorite "instant on" feature.
In any case, I bought the very piece of Apple hardware in question -- the current 12" Powerbook -- from the online store on the day of release. There was a short delay of a couple days during shipping, which I attribute primarily to the fact that Apple uses UPS for shipping from the warehouse in Shanghai. UPS sucks. They did, however, ship almost immediately. I didn't expect that they would be ready to ship so quickly; in fact the site said there was a 3 day lead time.
posted by majick at 8:43 PM on March 11, 2005
the damn thing sleeps immediately when closed, rather than waiting for some reasonable timeout like 15 or 20 minutes, and that there's no way to configure it.
There are heat issues with doing this - it is apparently quite possible to damage various parts of your computer if heat can't escape through the keyboard. However, it is perfectly possible to do it - here is one page that tells you how. Also, apparently there is even a non-hack way to do this on a powerbook, as long as you have an external monitor/keyboard/mouse plugged in - it's purported to be described in the manual.
For more information do a google search for "powerbook clamshell"
posted by advil at 9:30 PM on March 11, 2005
There are heat issues with doing this - it is apparently quite possible to damage various parts of your computer if heat can't escape through the keyboard. However, it is perfectly possible to do it - here is one page that tells you how. Also, apparently there is even a non-hack way to do this on a powerbook, as long as you have an external monitor/keyboard/mouse plugged in - it's purported to be described in the manual.
For more information do a google search for "powerbook clamshell"
posted by advil at 9:30 PM on March 11, 2005
Thanks, advil. I'd heard something about this a few years back, but hadn't tracked down the origin as I didn't have Apple hardware.
The excuse of not running while closed being a heat issue is apparently an artifact of earlier system designs. The last couple years' aluminum Powerbook designs don't vent heat through the keyboard -- there are intake vents on the left side near the CPU, and three exhaust vents in the rear the largest of which is partially obscured by the display hinge in an open or closed position, and in fact there is a big plastic mat beneath the keyboard that prevents it from being used for air circulation -- though if the CPU is cranking at full load, there's a small amount of radiant cooling through the left wrist rest.
But it's good to know that with some workarounds you can sort of almost nearly kinda maybe-ish make the Powerbook run while closed. It doesn't address the design flaw I described, which is that the act of closing the lid will always initiate a powersave mode (unless you start stuffing bits of metal into the right places) but I'm pleased to hear there's a way to partially mitigate it if you treat a Powerbook as a desktop instead of a laptop.
In any case, most PC laptop hardware offers more options in terms of how sleeping works, and using suspend-to-disk or "hibernation" isn't an option under OSX. If power management flexibility is a compelling feature for ajr, as alluded in the question, just about any reputable manufacturer of PC laptops will offer a better solution than Apple does. The down side, of course, would be missing out on the many other, more well thought-out, features that Apple provides both in hardware and software.
posted by majick at 10:12 PM on March 11, 2005
The excuse of not running while closed being a heat issue is apparently an artifact of earlier system designs. The last couple years' aluminum Powerbook designs don't vent heat through the keyboard -- there are intake vents on the left side near the CPU, and three exhaust vents in the rear the largest of which is partially obscured by the display hinge in an open or closed position, and in fact there is a big plastic mat beneath the keyboard that prevents it from being used for air circulation -- though if the CPU is cranking at full load, there's a small amount of radiant cooling through the left wrist rest.
But it's good to know that with some workarounds you can sort of almost nearly kinda maybe-ish make the Powerbook run while closed. It doesn't address the design flaw I described, which is that the act of closing the lid will always initiate a powersave mode (unless you start stuffing bits of metal into the right places) but I'm pleased to hear there's a way to partially mitigate it if you treat a Powerbook as a desktop instead of a laptop.
In any case, most PC laptop hardware offers more options in terms of how sleeping works, and using suspend-to-disk or "hibernation" isn't an option under OSX. If power management flexibility is a compelling feature for ajr, as alluded in the question, just about any reputable manufacturer of PC laptops will offer a better solution than Apple does. The down side, of course, would be missing out on the many other, more well thought-out, features that Apple provides both in hardware and software.
posted by majick at 10:12 PM on March 11, 2005
the damn thing sleeps immediately when closed, rather than waiting for some reasonable timeout like 15 or 20 minutes
Why would you want your laptop to run down 20 minutes of battery doing nothing every time you stop using it? Hein? That said, I don't think there is a technical reason for them not offering the option to disable it completely.
(btw I ordered an iBook last month and it shipped the same day)
posted by cillit bang at 8:29 AM on March 12, 2005
Why would you want your laptop to run down 20 minutes of battery doing nothing every time you stop using it? Hein? That said, I don't think there is a technical reason for them not offering the option to disable it completely.
(btw I ordered an iBook last month and it shipped the same day)
posted by cillit bang at 8:29 AM on March 12, 2005
I'd suggest a "desktop replacement" convertable tablet like the (now pretty old) gateway M275. Not because you want a tablet, but because a convertible is the only way to get a laptop that fails to suck. Apple laptops suck.
Get a gateway because apple sucks? I've heard it all now ;)
Also, WinXP has a "hibernate" feature, which not only allows for a much faster "on", but brings back your computer exactly as you left it - including whatever you were working on when you hibernated it.
I agree with everyone that your idea of buying a mac because of 'instant on' is a little misdirected. XP has more options. However, my ibook does the exact thing described above without fail. I don't turn it off ever. I close it and it goes to sleep. When I open the lid it starts right back up with everything just the way I left it. Both my dell and gateway were suppose to do the same thing but often wouldn't wake up.
If I were you I'd wait it out, or go to an apple store if at all possible. I walked in and out with an ibook in 10 minutes. I would have waited 10 weeks however. For me it's that much better than having a windows laptop. (I have no gripes with windows, I just love the mac OS)
posted by justgary at 4:58 PM on March 12, 2005
Get a gateway because apple sucks? I've heard it all now ;)
Also, WinXP has a "hibernate" feature, which not only allows for a much faster "on", but brings back your computer exactly as you left it - including whatever you were working on when you hibernated it.
I agree with everyone that your idea of buying a mac because of 'instant on' is a little misdirected. XP has more options. However, my ibook does the exact thing described above without fail. I don't turn it off ever. I close it and it goes to sleep. When I open the lid it starts right back up with everything just the way I left it. Both my dell and gateway were suppose to do the same thing but often wouldn't wake up.
If I were you I'd wait it out, or go to an apple store if at all possible. I walked in and out with an ibook in 10 minutes. I would have waited 10 weeks however. For me it's that much better than having a windows laptop. (I have no gripes with windows, I just love the mac OS)
posted by justgary at 4:58 PM on March 12, 2005
Btw, iBooks vent through the keyboard of course and can't be safely put in clamshell mode for more than a few minutes, but there's a hack to make them do it, along with enabling iBooks to do monitor spanning, here (previously discussed here).
posted by abcde at 5:02 PM on March 12, 2005
posted by abcde at 5:02 PM on March 12, 2005
Best answer: All Apple laptops can do instant on from sleep because they have a special circuit that runs power only to the ram while it's sleeping. NO PC has this and I'm sure it's an OS-level implementation of the sleep that uses it, so no PC will have it soon either.
Hibernation requires a full boot and then it restores the ram from disk. Both sleep and wakeup take forever. Suspend works in some way that I'm not really sure about, but I still remember it being slower. A Mac just has to restore power to all of it's components and it's off and running.
posted by easyasy3k at 8:54 PM on March 12, 2005
Hibernation requires a full boot and then it restores the ram from disk. Both sleep and wakeup take forever. Suspend works in some way that I'm not really sure about, but I still remember it being slower. A Mac just has to restore power to all of it's components and it's off and running.
posted by easyasy3k at 8:54 PM on March 12, 2005
Best answer: easyasy3k:
"Suspend" seems to be basically what you describe as not being availible in PCs. At least, it seems to work that way in tablet PCs, not sure about run of the mill laptops. I do know that it's only available in computers that have the necessary hardware, bios, and OS support for it (which also sounds like what you describe). Mine has it all, maybe when a computers doesn't have the hardware for a true suspend, the OS substitutes a power-management fudge instead. That might explain your poor results.
Funnily enough, because of this thread (where I previously wrote how my laptop has all these extra OS and hardware features I never use, (sketching diagrams right into your word processor documents with the pen, hand notation, etc etc.), today I bought a book about those features, thinking I should probably learn about em :-). Anyway, under the section "What defines a tablet PC", one of the entries in the list is "Resume from suspend in under 2 seconds", which again suggests that not all PC laptops can do it, though obviously some do.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:53 PM on March 12, 2005
"Suspend" seems to be basically what you describe as not being availible in PCs. At least, it seems to work that way in tablet PCs, not sure about run of the mill laptops. I do know that it's only available in computers that have the necessary hardware, bios, and OS support for it (which also sounds like what you describe). Mine has it all, maybe when a computers doesn't have the hardware for a true suspend, the OS substitutes a power-management fudge instead. That might explain your poor results.
Funnily enough, because of this thread (where I previously wrote how my laptop has all these extra OS and hardware features I never use, (sketching diagrams right into your word processor documents with the pen, hand notation, etc etc.), today I bought a book about those features, thinking I should probably learn about em :-). Anyway, under the section "What defines a tablet PC", one of the entries in the list is "Resume from suspend in under 2 seconds", which again suggests that not all PC laptops can do it, though obviously some do.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:53 PM on March 12, 2005
Damn, now I'm getting all excited about these features I've had for a year and never used, after this thread made me start thinking about them. I just tested the suspend function of my convertible with a multimeter - the power consumption is less than 30mA! (~0.5W). That's practically nothing! For perspective, that's about four LEDs, or half a pocket flashlight bulb. It also fairly closely concurs with the specs Easyasy3k linked to (ie basically only enough to maintain RAM, indicator LEDs). In other words, it would take months to drain the laptop battery at this rate (taking the numbers at face value and ignoring all those imperfections of real-world factors, such as how batteries actually lose some of their charge over long periods of storage time like that, etc etc.) yet the startup time is always 2 to 4 seconds. I'm really impressed.
(When the little blue LED periodically turns on to you remind you it's in suspend instead of completely off, the extra drain of powering a mere LED makes a noticeable increase in the total on the meter, because that total is just so small). To think I've instead been using hibernate all this time! (I just always assumed standby used signifiant power, so never bothered with it). I suck :-) Thanks guys.
ajr:
For a top notch "instant on" feature, a convertible PC seems to be totally the way to go. (I didn't even know this until now). With buckets of apps running, and large files loaded, (ie all RAM in use plus ~600Mb page file) I was sometimes able to slow down the "instant on" time to four seconds, but with the same load of stuff running it would also manage three or two seconds. (Not sure why the variation). And this is the suspend mode that you can happily use all day without denting your batteries. I can't believe I've had this over a year and only just found this out. Duh! Guess that makes me Idiot Of The Year. But currently a happy idiot :-)
Doing a bit of online searching, it seems that some tablets have a more power-intensive standby (eg. only lasts a day). So far it looks like older models, but not sure. Just saying - check rather than assume if considering buying.
Anyway, I gotta go do some more experiments with these settings... :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 4:33 AM on March 13, 2005
(When the little blue LED periodically turns on to you remind you it's in suspend instead of completely off, the extra drain of powering a mere LED makes a noticeable increase in the total on the meter, because that total is just so small). To think I've instead been using hibernate all this time! (I just always assumed standby used signifiant power, so never bothered with it). I suck :-) Thanks guys.
ajr:
For a top notch "instant on" feature, a convertible PC seems to be totally the way to go. (I didn't even know this until now). With buckets of apps running, and large files loaded, (ie all RAM in use plus ~600Mb page file) I was sometimes able to slow down the "instant on" time to four seconds, but with the same load of stuff running it would also manage three or two seconds. (Not sure why the variation). And this is the suspend mode that you can happily use all day without denting your batteries. I can't believe I've had this over a year and only just found this out. Duh! Guess that makes me Idiot Of The Year. But currently a happy idiot :-)
Doing a bit of online searching, it seems that some tablets have a more power-intensive standby (eg. only lasts a day). So far it looks like older models, but not sure. Just saying - check rather than assume if considering buying.
Anyway, I gotta go do some more experiments with these settings... :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 4:33 AM on March 13, 2005
Quick note: Discrepency between wattage numbers/battery life is due to external power supply operating at higher voltage than the battery and my assumption that voltage regulators and not steppers are used inside the computer. I'm testing external power, and extrapolating to battery that I think isn't wasting that extra energy. So plenty of room for error, but for an estimate that takes into account those pesky Real World issues, I'm thinking standby should easily last days. Whether it break into weeks I couldn't say, but intend to find out. Ok, this is all already far enough from the topic that I should leave it :)
posted by -harlequin- at 5:15 AM on March 13, 2005
posted by -harlequin- at 5:15 AM on March 13, 2005
Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. For what it's worth, I called and cancelled my order with Apple (they offered me a $50 discount not to) after i got another email saying shipping would be delayed until March 17. I am definitely going to check out the Tablet PCs. Thanks for the suggestions -harlequin-.
I am, however, a little bummed about all of the energy I wasted on learning about Apple and being so disappointed by their service. I don't know if the delay was due to customization (increased hard drive capacity, RAM, and added bluetooth on iBook), but I imagine they were. If I don't buy a Tablet PC, the closest Apple store is about 5 hours away. If I were willing to make the drive, would they be able to customize the system in-store?
posted by ajr at 7:09 AM on March 13, 2005
I am, however, a little bummed about all of the energy I wasted on learning about Apple and being so disappointed by their service. I don't know if the delay was due to customization (increased hard drive capacity, RAM, and added bluetooth on iBook), but I imagine they were. If I don't buy a Tablet PC, the closest Apple store is about 5 hours away. If I were willing to make the drive, would they be able to customize the system in-store?
posted by ajr at 7:09 AM on March 13, 2005
easyasy3k, The "special circuit" that keeps the RAM refreshed is not special and is in any kind of computer that supports a suspend/sleep mode at all, including any kind of instant-on PDA like a PocketPC or Palm, or any iPod. When any PC or Mac goes into suspend, it disables any hardware drivers so they can restart at wakeup, then turns power off to everything but RAM. When woken up, the computer has to re-enable any hardware drivers. The special part of the Apples that makes suspend/sleep fast is a good OS/BIOS implementation that makes this process as fast as possible.
posted by zsazsa at 5:14 PM on March 13, 2005
posted by zsazsa at 5:14 PM on March 13, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
Since the computer converts from a laptop to a slate, and every position in-between, it's far better for watching DVDs while commuting on the plane/bus/train - by rotating the screen you get the perfect viewing angle without having the screen jammed into the seat in front of you.
Weight and battery life is better than most laptops (2-6 hours, depending on activity) as these tend to matter more in the tablet market than in the laptop market.
Plus there you get a bunch of tablet features built in, like being able to use handwriting instead of the keyboard, speech recognition, screen orientation rotation, and various other stuff. I don't really use that stuff, as to me, the point is a laptop that is easy to use, but maybe you'd like it.
Also, WinXP has a "hibernate" feature, which not only allows for a much faster "on", but brings back your computer exactly as you left it - including whatever you were working on when you hibernated it. It's kind of dumping the RAM to the HDD, then booting from the ramdump. It's very cool and useful, and a shame it's taken until winXP to be implemented in a MS OS. (Tablets and convertibles come with WinXP Tablet Edition)
posted by -harlequin- at 4:19 PM on March 11, 2005