re fair benchmarks
Apple's fighting to differentiate two product lines that, due to supplier limitations, share core, defining components that are really identical. I don't think comparing what Apple does and offers to what others do and offer is really the issue (though I respect your theory that this is where the comparison should occur) in whether offering the machine was worth doing. I think it's important to ask whether, in advertising an upgrade whether Apple is really delivering an upgrade. Since the underlying tech has changed (third-party GPU cards with dedicated VRAM vs CPU-supplier-sourced onboard graphics hardware sharing RAM with the system), the question is fair to ask: is this a downgrade? And the apparent answer is "no" because immediately prior products are outperformed by the new one. If the this comparison were unfavorable, we'd be wondering whether Apple had abandoned a product niche, opened a new line, or the like, because its new models aren't really competitors with the old models. We would not be analyzing the new notebook as a serious iBook replacement, and we'd be trying to work out where in the spectrum of buyers Apple was fishing with each of its lines, since the new lines would apparently have moved significantly.
The comparison with other vendors has a different purpose: you either want comparisons of quality (in some relevant metric) on the highest-end products offered by various manufacturers (this is sort of like reading comparisons between the Rolls Royce and the Maybach; the Maybach is a mere $350k and not really in the same price ballpark as a $500k Rolls, but it's the top end from each vendor), or -- more useful if not as entertaining -- quality comparisons of products in various price ranges (and thus, whether near the $1500 price point Apple's notebook's graphics performance is slaughtered by that of competing products that contain a "real" GPU with dedicated VRAM).
So it should make sense to Apple's iBook customer base that Apple has offered GMA on the low-end products (the top comparison, which shows it's reasonable to think of the MacBook as an upgrade to the iBook product line) and the question becomes whether Apple's hardware offering to replace the iBook has good value (the second comparison). KCMW had ti right, I think:
For those of us with fairly deep ties to Apple, we do look at the new products and compare them to our most recent Apple purchase. If they offer a better perceived value, we are generally pleased. The better the value, the sooner we will upgrade.
Value can be seen relative to the old model, and relative to the current competition. Both have different meanings, and will be used accordingly. Neither is a replacement for the other, but to the extent they answer different questions, they can look like they give conflicting answers (e.g., it may look good on one test and not the other).
Take care,
--Tex.
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