Apple 12-inch PowerBook G4 Review

Dave_B writes "Tony Smith of El Reg gives his verdict after a month with Apple's 12-inch Powerbook." His overall impression was good, but there are some words of caution in here regarding battery life and heat, so read before buying one ;)

Comments

A Developer's Perspective of the 12" PB

[TomSawyer]

O'Reilly's Mac Dev Center also put out a review here.

Heat Issues

[xdfgf]

There is a thread on Ars where the author checked the temp of his 12in PB against a 12in iBook. The results are a little disapointing...

PS. There is a large set of images in the thread that could bog down 56k'rs

One nitpick with the pb 12"

[TomorrowPlusX]

I've had my AiBook for (about) 2 months now, and right now I'm going to say I love every single aspect of it. Absolutely. No waffling here. I'm a switcher, but from the linux/i386 world, and I've had no trouble porting over my servo control routines and all the other robotics related code I've written over the last couple years for linux.

So basically, I'm happy as a clam. Happier even.

But for one silly little thing: the metal drop-down catch which locks the lid shut when I close it. For some reason (most likely a mechanical defect) it doesn't pop back in when I open the lid. Trivial? Yes. All it takes is one tenth of a second to tap it with my finger when I open it and it pops back where it belongs.

Nonetheless, as a fella raised in a machine shop (my father's a machinist/sculptor/etc/luddite) this kind of thing bothers me. I examined it closely and it's very simple -- the latch's "bearing" is nothing but a hole slightly larger than the axle, so you get minimal friction and maximum simplicity. But it seems to allow sideways motion and this (in my case) is causing binding. I'm not about to oil it, for obvious reasons, though if I can find a non-conductive graphite lube ( "Dry Slide" ) I might give it a shot.

What concerns me is not so much the lack of it retracting, but that someday, if the binding gets too great, it might stop popping down when I close the lid.

So, it's a cool feature and all but my old thinkpad, with its simpler trigger mechanism never had this problem.

There's a lot to be said for simplicity. I kind of wish apple had forgone the cool and wow effect in this place for something a little more sturdy.