Compiled by Charles Moore
and edited by
Dan Knight
- 2005.06.24
This Week's Apple and Desktop Mac News
PowerBook, iBook, iPod, and other portable computing is covered
in The 'Book Review. News about
Apple's transition to Intel CPUs and other Intel developments is
covered in The Macintel Report.
iPod news is covered in The iNews Review.
News & Opinion
Products and Services
News & Opinion
Single-CPU Power Mac Phased Out
EarthTimes' Zipporah Koganowich reports:
"Apple has removed the 1.8 GHz,
single processor Power Mac G5 from its online store. Yesterday
[June 20] the company confirmed that single-chip processor systems
were being taken off as the company plans an entire lineup of
systems featuring dual-chip processors.
"The production of the single-chip Power Mac G5 is discontinued
and the last of the systems would be sold through other channels.
As part of the effort, the Power Mac G5
line was upgraded two months ago, by adding dual-processor
systems ranging from 2 GHz to 2.7 GHz in clock speed."
WebProNews' David Utter reports:
"The era of the single processor
Power Mac G5 has come to a close, and future machines will have
dual-chips....
"Future Power Macs will be dual-processor systems, with chips by
Intel inside, replacing the IBM PowerPC chips previously used.
High-end systems from Apple with Intel processors won't be
available until later in 2006.
"Existing units of the 1.8 GHz G5 with the single processor can
be found in other sales channels, though potential users will
likely wait for a favorable price drop before picking one of them
up.
In a statement, Apple clarified its plans. 'The 1.8 GHz Power
Mac G5 is no longer available at the online Apple Store but is
available in other channels while supplies last. The Power Mac G5 line is now all dual processor
and delivers the ultimate in performance for our most advanced
customers."
Report Indicates Q1 LCD Desktop Monitor Sales
Up 7%
DisplaySearch, the worldwide leader in flat panel display (FPD)
market research and consulting, indicated in its latest Quarterly
Desktop Monitor Shipment and Forecast Report that worldwide LCD
desktop monitor shipments grew on track with previous predictions,
rising 7% Q/Q to 22.7M units in Q1'05. This growth represents a
unit shipment growth of 44% Y/Y, continuing the 26% Q/Q growth seen
in Q4'04 brought on mainly by the aggressive street-level price
points which began to hit the market in the fall of last year. For
the quarter, the three most popular LCD monitor sizes continued to
carry average retail price points of $199 for 15", $299 for 17" and
$399 for 19", which increased penetration of LCD-based desktop
solutions to reach a record high penetration rate of 63.6% of the
total Desktop monitor marketplace in Q1'05. The increased demand
that yielded record revenues of $8.2B in Q4'04 was not enough to
overcome the continued aggressive industry price points, so
revenues dropped 5% to $7.8B in Q1'05.
The aggressive price points for LCD monitors seen in Q1
continued to erode the share of CRT monitor shipments for desktop
computing worldwide, resulting in CRT monitor shipments falling 21%
Q/Q to 13.2M units. As more PC companies move away from bundling
CRT products in their entry level PC bundles, the CRT monitor
market is forecasted to fall even faster than previously expected.
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) was the largest market for
LCD monitor shipments in Q1'05 with 41.0% of the world's shipments
going into this region, slightly down from 43.7% in Q4'04. The
North America market remained the #2 region with 31.6% of worldwide
shipments. Dell was again the worldwide leader in the shipments of
desktop LCD monitors in Q1'05, with a 20.2% worldwide market share.
After Dell in worldwide shipments were Samsung, HP, Acer and LGE.
Among the top 10, Acer showed the strongest worldwide Q/Q growth
with shipments up 13.7% Q/Q. Dell continued to hold the top
positions in Japan, North America and Latin America. Dell has
almost a 40% market share in North America, but Acer grew a
remarkable 46.4% Q/Q, increasing its market share to 5.1%. Dell's
dominance in the LCD monitor market is becoming evident in EMEA as
well, growing 16.5% Q/Q to an 11.3% share. Samsung held the
dominant position in the AP (Asia Pacific) region with a 21.6%
market share, while Lenovo held the top position in China with a
14.2% share. The market share results for the top five vendors for
Q1'05 are shown in the following tables:
New desktop monitor sizes from 19" wide to 24" wide continued to
emerge, but the three most popular sizes - 15", 17" and 19" -
accounted for 96.7% of all desktop monitors shipped in Q1. 15" LCD
monitors had a 19.7% market share, even though shipments were down
20.3% Q/Q. Shipments of 17" grew 11.1% Q/Q to 58.4% market share,
and 19" grew a significant 45.2% Q/Q to capture 18.3% share in
Q1'05. With sales demand still strong in Q1'05 but revenues down
due to the aggressive street-level price points, pricing for the
LCD monitor panel components began to rise in Q1. The effect of
these component level price increases is already starting to impact
the street prices of end-market LCD monitors, which are now on the
rise. Increases in street-level pricing usually slow the growth of
the LCD monitor market especially in seasonally weak periods, a
market condition seen as recently as Q2'04. If the unprecedented
amount of planned additional LCD production capacity continues to
ramp, however, these street-level price increases may not last for
long, thus allowing for LCD monitor price points to realign with
the market to allow for continued sales growth throughout the rest
of 2005.
Products and Services
Compact, Quiet 4-Bay Serial ATA Hot-Swap Drive
Enclosure
PR: Sonnet Technologies has announced Fusion 400, the
first in a new line of Serial ATA (SATA) desktop drive enclosures.
Fusion 400's small footprint, powerful built-in universal power
supply, and ultra-quiet fan make it a great solution for users
looking to store large amounts of data in a minimal space.
Easy-to-use, hot-swap drive trays enable users to quickly add or
swap out storage on the fly. This SATA II enclosure supports 3Gb/s
drives and is backward compatible with 1.5Gb/s drives, so users are
assured maximum flexibility in choosing drives for years to
come.
The four hot-swap trays
offer great freedom of choice for end-users and value-added
resellers (VARs) as well - no need to get locked into a specific
configuration. "End-users can start out with a single drive for
simple data storage and then add additional ones as the need
arises, or they can populate the enclosure with four drives up to
500 GB each to create a monster 2 Terabyte striped RAID array for
HD video capture and editing," says Steve Garceau, Product Manager.
"VARs can easily assemble complete systems to fulfill the needs of
their clients ranging from turnkey video stations to simple backup
solutions - Fusion 400 is truly versatile."
Fusion 400 combines support for the fastest 3.5" SATA drives
with whisper-quiet cooling technology - especially valuable traits
in work environments where the need for high performance is just as
important as the desire for quiet operation. Fusion 400 is
ventilated front and back - even the removable trays are perforated
to help cool the bottom surfaces of attached drives. "Fusion 400
was designed with an attention to detail, and is built to last,"
states Robert Farnsworth, Sonnet President and CEO. The enclosure
is rugged, yet attractive, the drive trays have built-in locking
levers that double as handles to make swapping drives easy, and the
cable-less drive trays simplify setup and assure reliability over
the long haul. Fusion 400 features eSATA connectors, ships complete
with mounting hardware for four 3.5" drives, and also includes four
eSATA cables. eSATA cables and connectors are designed specifically
for external applications, offer better shielding for improved EMI
characteristics, the connectors have better retention than the
internal SATA version, and are rated at 5,000 insertion cycles.
Fusion 400 Key Features
- 4-bay Serial ATA (SATA II) hot-swap drive enclosure
- Small footprint - 7.47" H x 5.06" W x 11.58" D (12.05 x 12.85 x
29.4 cm)
- 4 removable drive trays with locking levers that offer
cable-less connection between trays and enclosure
- Whisper-quiet fan capable of cooling the fastest drives
- Supports up to 2 Terabytes of storage
- Universal 90-260V AC power supply
- Features eSATA connectors for cable connection to host
controller
- Compatible with Serial ATA cards such as Sonnet's Tempo-X
family of PCI-X host controllers
OS Compatibility
- Platform independent: Mac, Windows, or Linux computer with
compatible SATA controller
Fusion 400 will be available July 1, 2005 with an MSRP of
$599.95.
Tempo-X eSATA PCI-X Host Controllers for Power Mac
Computers
PR: Sonnet currently offers two PCI-X Serial ATA host
controllers featuring 4 or 8 external ports for Power Mac G4 and G5
computers.
For more information about the Sonnet's Tempo-X line of Serial
ATA PCI-X host controllers, please refer to the Sonnet website.
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 800 RAID Offers 800 GB
Storage
PR: Other World Computing (OWC) is bulking up its line of
Mercury Elite external storage solutions by adding the Mercury
Elite-AL Pro 800 RAID Dual Drive FireWire 800 Solutions,
immediately available at a starting price of $249.99.
"These
drives are a beautiful combination of high performance and high
style," said Larry O'Connor, president of OWC. "They carry on a
tradition established by our award-winning Mercury Elites - they're
high-performance, high-reliability and high-capacity
solutions."
The new Pro 800 RAIDs combine custom Oxford bridge solutions
with fast and reliable disk mechanisms to provide the ultimate in
performance and reliable operation. Using drives with a 7200 RPM
spindle speed and combining to feature up to a 16 Megabyte ( MB)
data buffer, these solutions take full advantage of the 100
Megabytes per second data rates supported by the FireWire 800
interface.
The 800 Pro RAID is one of four versions of OWC's new Mercury
Elite-AL Pro series. These aluminum drives were designed with
today's aluminum style displays and computers in mind.
The following 800 Pro RAID solutions are immediately
available:
- 160 GB with 4 MB Data Buffer for $249.99
- 240 GB with 16 MB Data Buffer for $299.99
- 320 GB with 16 MB Data Buffer for $319.99
- 400 GB with 16 MB Data Buffer for $379.99
- 500 GB with 16 MB Data Buffer for $419.99
- 600 GB with 16 MB Data Buffer for $549.99
- 800 GB with 16 MB Data Buffer for $749.99
As with all Mercury Elite-AL Pro models, the Pro 800 RAID is
covered by a two-year warranty and comes with Dantz/EMC Retrospect
Backup, Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools and connecting cables. The
drives also are compatible with Apple OS X 10.1 and later
(including 'Tiger'), Windows 98SE and later, and Linux. Apple OS X
10.2.8 or later or Windows 2000 or later are required for FireWire
800 performance.
The full line of Mercury Elite-AL Pro 800 RAID solutions, as
well as the single drive Elite-AL models available from
$129.99.
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 400/USB 2.0
Solutions
PR:
Sleek, Fast, and Totally Plug & Play - OWC's new Mercury
Elite-AL line of professional FireWire/USB solutions. Stand them up
for vertical placement or place them horizontally & stack. Four
versions to choose for interface, features, and capacity up to 800
GB right for you.
- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 400 + USB 2.0 Combo Solution.
80 GB to 400 GB from $129.99
- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 800/400+USB 2.0 Combo
Solution. 80 GB to 400 GB from $159.99
- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 800/400 Solution. 80 GB to
400 GB from $149.99
- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 800/400 RAID Solution. 160 GB
to 800 GB from $249.99
All Elite-AL Pro models are covered by a 2 year Warranty.
Includes Dantz/EMC Retrospect Backup, Intech Hard Disk
SpeedTools, and connecting cables.
SeriTek/1VE2+2 Two-Port Internal, Two-Port
External Serial ATA PCI-X Host Adapter
PR: FirmTek, LLC, a leading developer of ATA host adapter
solutions for Apple's Macintosh, announced today the immediate
availability of their newest Serial ATA host adapter: the four-port
SeriTek/1VE2+2 featuring external and internal ports. This solution
joins FirmTek's expansive and innovative line of Serial ATA
solutions, which already includes the world's first Serial ATA
adapters for the Macintosh supporting internal and external drives,
the SeriTek "1S" and "1V" series, as well as the award-winning
SeriTek/1EN2 external enclosure.
The SeriTek/1VE2+2 is
designed with a 133 MHz PCI-X interface to deliver extreme Power
Mac G5 performance with high-performance compatibility on all other
PCI-based Macintoshes. It features direct booting from any attached
hard drive or volume, hot-swap capability, support for native Mac
OS X RAID 0/1 (mirroring or striping), and it works with
OS 8, OS 9, and OS X 10.1.5 and later on any PCI
bus-based machine intended to run those OSs.
SeriTek1VE2+2 Specifics
This adapter offers four Serial ATA ports; two for internal
drives and two for external. These ports are independently
controlled to maximize performance at all times. The two external
ports are fully shielded and support hot-swapping of drives at any
time. This innovation allows for the quick connection of storage to
virtually any PCI-based Macintosh for any number of applications,
and the hot-swap feature means that multiple users or applications
can share the same machine without rebooting between projects. Even
a fully operational RAID volume can be unmounted, disconnected, and
replaced with another volume without powering the Macintosh down, a
feature pioneered by FirmTek. This can be especially useful in
applications where large files like streaming HD video, or other
media, are being captured and created.
With legacy G4 platforms, including most of the "Sawtooth"
varieties of Power Macintosh, SeriTek storage solutions are capable
of outpacing the system bus, where earlier storage technologies
were slower than the G4 processor. This leap in throughput results
in impressive performance when the processor is fully utilized.
While the original Sawtooth machines will often exhibit throughput
in excess of 130 MB/sec, the later Digital Audio, Quicksilver and
MDD systems deliver RAID performance nearly equivalent to the
latest G5 towers. Given these older systems' greater internal
storage capacities, this will be important for many video
professionals and network managers seeking to maximize performance
as well as storage capacity.
"The new SeriTek/1VE2+2 will give Macintosh users another option
for next-generation storage, this one focused on flexibility," said
Chi Kim Stanford, Vice President of Business Development for
FirmTek. "With two internal and two external ports, users can now
install permanent, high-performance volumes and support flexible
hot-swappable external solutions without tying up two slots. This
is ideal for users who see the value in both approaches, but can't
accommodate a two-card solution due to budget or space constraints.
As with our other products, each drive can be configured
individually, striped with others using OS X's disk utility, or
configured as high-performance RAID sets with third party solutions
such as SoftRAID. This introduction furthers our belief that Mac
users need the freedom to store their data their way."
For users considering the switch to Serial ATA for the first
time, the SeriTek/1VE2+2 offers the key benefits of speed and
capacity with remarkable flexibility and ease of service. With
drives now surpassing 500 GB each, there are few applications with
requirements too extreme for the latest SeriTek models. When
formatted and controlled by Mac OS X's RAID software, today's
high-performance drives support the storage of uncompressed
high-definition streaming video, which was nearly impossible to
accomplish on desktop systems before the arrival of Serial ATA. The
easy and accessible cabling of Serial ATA drives also makes
installing and servicing them a snap when compared to their
predecessors.
SeriTek/1VE2+2 Key Features and Benefits
- Four independently controlled Serial ATA ports; 2 internal and
2 external
- Exclusive hot-swap capability of stand-alone drives and entire
RAID volumes; add and remove drives without shutting down the
computer
- Latest 133 MHz PCI-X interface technology
- Compatible with all PCI-based Power Macintosh computers;
deliver top performance on "Sawtooth" G4, and all G5 computers
- Supports direct booting from any attached drive
- Boosts overall system performance with data transfer rates of
up to 150 MBytes/sec or 1.5Gbits/sec per port
- Supports Mac OS 8, OS 9, and OS X version 10.1.5 or later
- Provides performance and protection: Supports native OS X RAID
0/1; OS 9 RAID with third party software
- User-upgradeable firmware for easy updates
- Large LBA support for drives larger than 137 GB
- Includes two "works with Macintosh" thin and flexible SATA
cables to allow easy, optimal placement of internal devices
- Ideal for backing up large amounts of data - perfect for
multimedia-intensive applications: audio/video capture and editing,
graphics manipulation and high-end digital publishing
Pricing and Availability
- FirmTek's SeriTek/1VE2+2 Serial ATA host adapter is available
now and priced at $139.95 (SATA-1VE2+2). Specially priced bundles
with external enclosures are available. For more information on
these and other storage solutions, please visit FirmTek's
website.
Desktop Mac
Deals
Low End Mac updates the following price trackers every two
weeks:
For deals on laptops, see our Week's
Best PowerBook G4 Deals, Week's
Best iBook G4 Deals, and Week's
Best iBook G3 Deals. For deals on iPods, see our Best iPod Deals.
