![]() They're all available with SuperDrives, AirPort Extreme, Universal Serial Bus 2.0, FireWire ports and other shared goodies. model is close to the speed of the 1.5-GHz chip in the 17-in. The processing speed of the 1.33-GHz G4 chip in the 12-in. In the past, opting for portability meant a major trade-off in speed or features. When trying to decide which PowerBook to get, would-be buyers for years have posited the same question on numerous message boards: Should they snag a 12-in., the midrange 15-in. model, which costs $500 less than the first version did a year ago. entry-level PowerBook, which goes for $1,599, and the 17-in. The latest crop of PowerBooks shows that Apple has done a superb job of narrowing the gap in features between the 12-in. Now that's a portable desktop (see story). Hewlett-Packard Co., for instance, this week released its new Compaq Business Notebook nx9500, which also sports a 17-in. But at 6.9 lb., this one stacks up well in comparison with some of its PC competitors. Of course, laptops are designed for portability, and not everyone would be happy lugging around a 17-in. And if Apple came out with a table-sized laptop, I'd probably go for that one, too. As much as I like Apple's smaller PowerBooks, I'd be hard-pressed to go back to using anything other than this one. models I've grown accustomed to in the past 15 months. Maybe my earlier rant was due more to the claustrophobia of using a smaller PowerBook than the 17-in. The screen, still checking in at 1,440 by 900 pixels, looks brighter, and the colors seem more rich (maybe it's that 128MB of video RAM).Īs I noted in my last laptop review (see story), I wouldn't mind a bit higher resolution, although that issue pales somewhat with the larger screen size. The keyboard, already a strong suit on all of three PowerBook models, feels as if it's welded to the rest of the laptop chassis. model feels more substantial, heavier, more solid. It even runs a few degrees cooler than earlier models. Battery life ranges from about 2:40 to more than 3:15 depending on how much you scale down the screen brightness and processor speed. The newest PowerBook uses the same aluminum casing, the same illuminated keyboard and the same LCD screen as prior models. It's neither slow nor pokey, and it seems to be even more solidly built than the first two versions of the 17-in. I get to keep the slowpoke, which I bought for myself after being duly impressed with the third iteration of Apple's top-of-the-line widescreen laptop.Īctually, calling my new PowerBook a slowpoke isn't fair (see important update below). Want to add insult to injury? The stock PowerBook was a loaner for review purposes, and it went back this week to Apple. And on the Quartz graphics test, the OpenGL graphics test and the user-interface test, PowerBook B reported better scores, even though it had half the video RAM. With that in mind, I checked the breakdown of Xbench results by component, and they showed virtually no difference between the two hard drives in terms of read/write speed. The Xbench scores were the same whether it was installed or not. And no, the extra memory I had added to PowerBook A made no difference. PowerBook A clocked in with an Xbench score of 125 PowerBook B reported a score of 129. Surprise! PowerBook B - the cheaper, "slower" one - got slightly better numbers. (Both come with 802.11g-based AirPort wireless cards and a 4X SuperDrive for burning CDs and DVDs.)Ĭurious as to what kind of performance difference the build-to-order additions would make, I promptly ran the Xbench benchmarking program to see how much faster PowerBook A would be than PowerBook B. ![]() The second machine came from Apple with the standard 4,200-rpm hard drive, 512MB of RAM and the stock 64MB of video RAM. One came from the factory with a 5,400-rpm hard drive and 128MB of video RAM, build-to-order options that added $100 to the base price of $2,799. I recently had a chance to evaluate two Apple Computer Inc. ![]() OK, PowerBook fans, here's a puzzler for you.
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