Power Macintosh client hardware Apple's G3 increases corporate appeal
By Jennifer Plonka (online at http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/reviews/990315pmg3.htm)
Corporate Macintosh users who envy the buzz and appearance of the popular iMac need wait no longer for their turn. Apple's Power Macintosh G3 line is fast, flashy, and forward-thinking in its peripheral support. Users will be eager to shed their old beige workstations for one of these curvy translucent ones; not only should they enjoy the attentions of their colleagues, but also welcome the blazing speed and features of the G3 line
If Apple is trying to reach both professionals and high-end consumers with this machine, then the company is getting much closer to its goal. Compelling features include a 100-MHz system bus and high-speed hard drives (as many as three 36GB drives spinning as fast as 10,000 rpm), including Ultra2 SCSI in the top model. However, the best part of this machine is howI easy it is to upgrade. A round handle on the side of the machine releases the hinged side of the computer, revealing the motherboard and all the guts.
Apple has aggressively priced these machines at approximately $1,000 less than the previous high-end Power Mac G3s. Four configurations are available, ranging from a 300-MHz system priced at $1,599 to a 400-MHz unit at a price of $2,999. A midrange 350-MHz system is available with a DVD-ROM drive priced at $1,999. Three new Apple Studio Displays work with the G3 line: a 15-inch flat-panel, and 17-inch or 21-inch Trinitron monitors.
I tested the high-end, 400-MHz configuration for my tests. When I received it, the system was ready to go with Mac OS 8.5.1 pre-installed. Large, sturdy white handles on each corner give you something to hold on to as you find the perfect spot to place this stylish blue box. Unfortunately, if that spot is not on your desk, you are out of luck. Thanks to a Universal Serial Bus-connected standard iMac keyboard and mouse, the unusually short keyboard cable forced me to keep the CPU on my desk next to the monitor, taking up valuable space, instead of on the floor or elsewhere. Including a USB extension could have easily solved this problem. The hockey-pucklike mouse is easy to lose in your hand and the cursor can disappear on the screen.
As with the iMac, there is no floppy drive included, although a Zip drive is standard on the midsize model. Networking was easy to set up with the built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet port. I just plugged in to the corporate network and was up and running. Gigabit Ethernet is optional on some systems.
What's under the hood?
Inside, you will find a G3 processor housed in a zero insertion force socket with a 1MB backside cache and four DIMM slots for PC100 (high-speed) synchronous DRAM. One 66-MHz PCI slot is dedicated to the ATI Rage 128-bit graphics card, and three 33-MHz PCI slots are available for expansion cards. (The 400-MHz tower holds just two, due to the space the Ultra2 SCSI card takes up.)
On the back of the machine are two USB ports to connect to 128 peripherals, such as printers, modems, and input devices. Although Apple has abandoned the standard serial port on recent machines, the G3 still has one ADB port to maintain a user's investment in legacy input devices. If you choose not to use a USB modem, there is also a proprietary internal slot for a 56Kbps modem.
One of the most exciting new features of the G3 is the addition of two high-speed FireWire (1394) ports. Unlike SCSI, FireWire allows as many as 63 devices to be connected at once as fast as a 400Mbps transfer rate. FireWire is currently being used for digital video, but some storage devices have already hit the market.
Unlike previous benchmark tests in which Power Mac G3s were measured against each other or against slower Macs, I threw a Pentium II system into the mix to see how the G3 would stand up against Intel. In my cumulative tests, the G3 edged past the Pentium II, especially in the Photoshop 5.0 benchmarks. I also included a 233-MHz G3 system for an all-Apple comparison. All three machines had 128MB of RAM. The 400-MHz G3 and the 450-MHz Pentium had a 1MB cache on a 100-MHz system bus, while the 233-MHz G3 ran on a 66-MHz bus. Each machine ran a suite of real-world tasks with Microsoft Office 98 or Office 97 applications and separately with Adobe Photoshop 5.0.
The faster G3 was about 11 percent slower than the Pentium system in the Office tests, but it was 26 percent faster in Photoshop. The 400-MHz G3 was 59 percent and 23 percent faster, respectively, than the 233-MHz G3 in the same two tests.
If you have been waiting for the right time to purchase a Power Mac, carpe diem. This is the most advanced Power Mac I have seen in years; and it has the features and upgradability to keep users happy well into the next millennium.
Jennifer Plonka is one member of the InfoWorld Test Center who's willing to give up her Pentium for a cool-looking Power Mac. You can share your passion with her at jennifer_plonka@infoworld.com.
iMAC: more than eye candy
The iMac brought Apple back from near death last year with its eye-catching design and attractive price. The newly upgraded iMac, introduced this year, should further strengthen Apple's position. The space-saving all-in-one design, round translucent exterior, and built-in 56Kbps modem make it a great solution for any telecommuter looking for the right machine to dial into the network. Companies with networked Macintoshes will see many benefits from these little boxes because of their built-in 100Base-T ports, speedy processors, and easy setup.
The iMac I received was "lime green," though "apple green" would have been a more appropriate appellation. Like most currently available Macs, OS 8.5.1 was preinstalled, so I was able to go from box to boot-up in just minutes.
The only difference between this year's iMacs and the earlier versions of the iMac, beyond the flashy colors, are a larger hard drive (increased from 4GB to 6GB), and a speedier 266-MHz G3 processor replacing the 233-MHz processor. I was disappointed, however, that Apple did not upgrade the RAM from 32MB, as well as do something different with the nonergonomic round mouse.
The crystal-clear 15-inch shadow-mask display supports 24-bit color as high as 1,024 dpi-by-768 dpi resolution thanks to the ATI Rage Pro graphics chip with 6MB of video memory. There is still no floppy drive on this computer, only a 24x CD-ROM drive. I found the Imation superdisk (purchased separately at a price of $149) to make the perfect companion; it reads regular floppies as well as the120MB superdisk. Two Universal Serial Bus ports allow users to connect up to 128 USB external devices.
Although I don't see this computer sweeping away Windows machines, for Mac lovers it is a great buy, with a list price of just $1,199. It should make a fine addition to a corporate desktop or home office.
