Article:		Tiger Presents New Opportunities for Developers
Subject:		Universal Portable Laptop
Date:		2004-11-24 13:51:48
From:		Alan27
I can find no perfect portable that will essentially do almost anything. I wondered about the Powerbook G4 with Virtual PC 7. How well will this work? Any experience out there! Can you access a modern high-speed wireless internet network with the Sierra/Verizon card for example? How does performance degrade under Virtual PC. How fast is switching from one environment to another - PC to OS X and back? I suspect you will have to wait for a Powerbook G5 to make all this happen very well. There is also the issue that this ultimate laptop will cost more than buying a good PC laptop and a decent Powerbook without the additonal memory and software required to run Virtual PC really well. The grahpics card would have to be very good for a portable and decent battery life would be necesssary also. Digital audio/video interfaces are not commonly available on good laptop PCs - I would like both inputs and outputs withotu boxes or dongles/breakout/converters/splitters.

Showing messages 1 through 5 of 5.

• Universal Portable Laptop
  2004-12-06 03:18:01  shrus1 [View]
  
  
  I have been running a 12" Powerbook 867MHz Laptop with VPC 6.1 and yes it does work but the speed is snail paced on Windows based software ( especially in a networked environment). I have recently dumped the VPC and use the Mac at home, I was contemplating going to VPC 7.0 but I do not trust Microsoft enough to make the program efficient or faster. I will be going back to a Windows machine which I suspect is exactly what MS wants to happen.

• Universal Portable Laptop
  2004-11-29 07:45:45  rva1 [View]
  
  
  Nearly a year ago I was ready to purchase a new laptop. I am a long time Apple/Mac user and hadn't owned a Mac for almost 10 years, primarily because my company requires us to use a couple of programs that are Windows only.
  
  I knew about Virtual PC, but never used it, but I spoke with a friend who is a Mac consultant and he gave me 2 thumbs up. That was for Virtual PC 6, and it has worked flawlessly. Switching from the PC envirement to Mac is instant. Basically, you are switching from one window to another. Version 6 starts and closes a little slow on my PowerBook G4 1.25ghz with 1 gig of ram.
  
  I have since upgraded to Virtual PC 7. It loads and closes MUCH faster and still works as good, if not better.
  
  To me, it is the ultimate laptop and gives you the best of both worlds. I only use the PC side when I must and everything else is Mac including ALL MS Pro Office products, Mail, iCal, Safari, Quicken, etc...
  
  My PC friends drool at my Ultimate, Multi-Platform, Virus AND Spyware Free, and let's not forget, Beautiful G4. It is truly the BMW of computers!

• Universal Portable Laptop
  2004-11-28 14:53:33  Crypto212 [View]
  
  
  I have a 12" Power Book G4 and could not be happier as it is light weight, reliable, great for photographic downloads and editing, excellent Firewire support for video input, etc. However, it does not have a PCI card slot so you would need to opt for the 15" to use Sierra/Verizon wireless network cards.
  
  I carry a spare, always charged battery to deal with the long flights plus a power box that works on aircraft power outlets and auto power outlets (formerly known as cigarette lighters).
  
  I run Virtual PC on it for remote access to a corporate network and it has never failed me for wifi or hotel network access connections anywhere in the world. Log onto the network in OS X then start Virtual PC.
  
  Virtual PC loads up and shuts down reasonably quickly. Other than ie and the Java scripts my remote access requires, I do not run PC programs.
  
  Tried to load up some Windows games using Virtual PC for my son on his mac, a bad and disappointing experience given the hardware reguirements of high end PC games. I could not get Rise of Nations to work, for example. Except for my son's game envy, I have not had a need to supplement my program needs with non-Mac software.
  
  Good luck with finding your "universal" solution. I found mine.

• Universal Portable Laptop
  2004-11-25 06:33:49  jkrutch [View]
  
  
  You can use the Verizon wireless card with a Mac laptop. There are patches out there.
• Universal Portable Laptop...Verizon
  2004-12-08 19:20:27  Raed [View]
  
  
  Apple has written a driver for this card
  
  http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/verizonbroadbandaccesssupport.html
  
  It works just like you would expect a mac to work. The people at Verizon don't know it though. I downloaded it to use my partners card to see if I wanted one. So when I went into Verizon to purchase one they almost wouldn't sell it to me because they "didn't have the software for it". Educate them.