AppleInsider is reporting on the potential of an upgraded PowerBook G4 announcement at Apple Expo in Paris on 20 September 2005.
At the high-end, the new PowerBooks are expected to gain a mere 30MHz speed boost that would put the 15-inch and 17-inch models at 1.7GHz. Additionally, the new 15-inch PowerBook is expected to step up to the feature set of the current 17-inch PowerBook.
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AppleInsider is reporting on the potential of an updated PowerBook G4 announcement at Apple Expo in Paris on 20 September 2005.
At the high-end, the new PowerBooks are expected to gain a mere 30MHz speed boost that would put the 15-inch and 17-inch models at 1.7GHz. Additionally, the new 15-inch PowerBook is expected to step up to the feature set of the current 17-inch PowerBook.
The new PowerBooks are also expected to be the first Macs to gain support for dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM, which can reach higher frequencies with less energy consumption than standard DDR SDRAM.
AppleInsider also speculates that the speed-bumped PowerBook 17-inch could include a larger 1920 x 1200 pixel Wide Ultra eXtended Graphics Array (WUXGA) display which makes sense since Steve Jobs’ christened 2005 as “The Year of High Definition Video.”
The new PowerBooks are expected to be the first powered by the new Freescale MPC7448 processors their latest high-performance PowerPC processor and the highly touted successor to the MPC7447A chip used in today’s Apple PowerBook G4 systems. The MPC7448 will include a 1MB Level 2 backside cache, double the 512KB cache found in today’s PowerBooks.
UPDATE:
The Mac Observer is reporting that analyst Mark Stahlman at investment banker Caris & Co. expects that Apple will announce PowerMac and Mac mini updates in addition to a new PowerBook based on the Freescale 7448 processor “potentially running as fast as 2GHz.”
“We believe that Apple is preparing new G5 PowerMacs based on IBM?s dual-core 970 PPC, G5 Mac Minis based on a new IBM low-power processor, and new G4 PowerBooks based on next generation processors from Freescale Semiconductors.”
Mr. Stahlman also said he believes the new G4 PowerBooks will “likely be based on the Freescale 7448 processor, potentially running as fast as 2GHz” and that possible new “dual-core PPC systems will likely be used to build 4x CPU Macs ? so called ?dual dual? machines.”
UPDATE 2
Apple Expo Paris has come and gone without a PowerBook update. It appears that the speed-bumped machines will ship sometime in the October/November time frame.
