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

more interestingly - software criticisms

[hype7]

was the reg's comments on the software, which I found from personal experience to be particularly pertinent.

First off; bluetooth needs to be simplified. The current method of doing it is confusing and unclear.

Next; same goes for the airport software and splitting up between authentication and encryption. The way apple uses the "internet connect" application in tandem with the network system pref is something that should be addressed.

The battery conditioning issue; Apple doesn't really provide users with any clear and obvious documentation on it.

Finally; CDRWs needs the Disk Utility app. What a joke! It should all be able to be done from within the Finder.

Hopefully these will get addressed in Panther...

-- james

Good review, some small nits to pick.

[American AC in Paris]

I recently switched to one of these puppies, and their review is pretty much spot-on. It's one sweet machine. I take some issue with their characterization of the memory expansion limit, yes, it's only one slot, but as they note, it'll hold up to 4GB of RAM once the chips come out. That ain't bad for a laptop, and it makes it hard for me to hold the solitary expansion slot against Apple. It is, after all, a hella-small laptop we're talking about, here.

Second,while the machine does get "hot", I've gotta say, from a switcher's perspective, it isn't really -hot- hot. It's a pleasant wrist-warming feature compared to some of the scalders I've worked with on the PC side. On the downside, I can no longer locate my laptop by following the drone of the cooling fans.

Re:Buying one..

[WasterDave]

Think really hard about buying an iBook instead. I had the order in for a 12" PowerBook and changed it to be an iBook. Pretty glad I did.

Differences?

* Faster, ish
* Possibly a better screen, the iBook one is less than spectacular. Look at them side by side.
* iBook keys scratch the screen in transit. This is fucking annoying. Look to see if the PB does it.
* Combo drives, super drives blah de blah de blah doesn't bother me. I have a desktop machine for CD burning and a playstation to play DVD's.
* The mobility radeon in the iBook is quite possibly the better chip, but the PB can screen span. The iBook can screen span too but you need to hack the bios :(
* Price. Oh yes. Go work out how many gameboy SP's you can buy with the money you save from getting an iBook.

Dave