Apple Powerbook G4
Buying a computer is always a daunting task. For one thing, there are so many models to choose from. Computer is one of the most complex machines you can buy, with so many factors to worry about. You not only have to worry about hardware but also software, performance, reliability, service etc. If the choice is Apple Powerbook G4, there are more concern for platform difference.

There are some people for whom Powerbook G4 is must. Die-hard Mac power users and creative professionals who use Mac extensively for their work. For others, the choice isn't as obvious. I wrote this as a guide to those who ponder about getting Powerbook. Powerbook has its pros and cons and you must carefully weigh before you make decision.

MacOS Platform
Getting Powerbook is different from getting Thinkpad for one prime reason- MacOS. Now Apple had made a significant transition to new MacOS X(ten). Recently Apple introduced OS X 10.2 Jaguar. If you buy a Powerbook, it comes with MacOS X with an option to use classic mode, a way to use OS 9 application. Especially if you are Windows user, using new OS will be a grave concern. I, myself, switched from Windows. Honestly I think switching from Windows to MacOS is not a difficult one.
Especially, MacOS X is very thoughtfully designed and intuitive. Though you will often feel that MacOS doesn't work the same way as Windows, it is usually simpler in most aspects so should not be a big problem. For example, just remember that everything is controlled by keyboard in Mac. No eject button to press and no accidental opening of CD-ROM drive while reading off the CD. The OS is more foolproof than Windows in general. No BIOS and no command prompt to worry about.

But it is hard to say that MacOS X is superior to Windows XP. I personally like the style and look and the way it operates. Windows XP is a bit more functional sometimes but the style and user interface are worse. Also, because Apple designs all hardware and software, there is less problem about driver and incompatibility issue.
In the raw power of OS, I think Windows XP and OS X are at par. OS 9 was definitely inferior to Windows NT but with UNIX core and redesign from ground-up, OS X is a reliable and industrial strength OS, with preemptive multitasking, protected memory and Mach microkernel architecture. Though it does not apply to the case of Powerbook, it supports multi-symmetical processing for dual processor machines. So overall MacOS is just as good as Windows XP and certainly wins in the user interface front.

Application
What good is a great OS without great apps? Mac has a large selection of software, though not as great as Windows. For Windows users, it means buying new applications again. Well, it sounds like a crazy idea, but because MacOS X is a new OS with no resemblance to OS 9, even oldtime Mac users have to buy all over again. So everybody has to buy anew.

Apple bundles "i-apps" to its machines. I personally love most i-apps. First of all, they are free. If you get a powerbook, you would get iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iCal and iSync. I think iTunes is the most useful of all because everyone loves music. It is the best mp3 jukebox software all around. It has much cleaner interface thanks to Aqua interface of MacOS X than other jukeboxes like Windows Media player and RealOne. Apple is not intending to sell stuff on its player so it does things better with fewer annoyance. It burns and rip CD, plays the Internet radio, and organize music collection. I love its realtime search feature. Like encyclopedia, it searches the collection as you type, rather than waiting to press "search" button. It also has sound check feature which analyzes the volume level of mp3s and adjust them so that they play in constant level.

iPhoto is a great way to organize digital photos. It has realtime resizing of thumbnails which makes it a breeze to find photo. It imports digital photos from digital camera and catalog them as a "roll"- a clever way to organize them. iPhoto can publish photos online or email with one click. It lacks Photoshop like photo retouching feature but it is not intended for that anyway (just like iTunes does not let you edit mp3s.)

iMovie lets you edit and make simple movie using MiniDV camcorders. It is no Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro but many times easier to use than those two. It is very fun to use it and if you own digital camcorder, it is definitely a plus to own Powerbook.

iCal is a calendar program. I think it has some clever interface but people can use other alternative like Palm Desktop and Microsoft Office Entourge. iSync is a bit ahead of time to realize its fun potential. It lets one synchronize many mobile devices like cell phones and Palm PDA. Not many phones support its protocol so it is yet to be seen how it will play out.

There are other bundled applications like DVD player and Mail program. DVD player works fine and Mail has a clever anti-spam feature. It is hard to say that they are much better than other alternatives. But these are all designed by Apple so they look beautiful and more well integrated with the OS.

But how about third-party apps? There is a crowd jewel- Microsoft Office v.X, now with the first service pack. The Office is just as good at its Windows counterpart with minor additional features like Quartz text smoothing and transparency. It comes with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Entourge, an equivalent to Outlook. There is no Mac version of Access or Frontpage or Project. Well, for those who miss Access and Frontpage, I would recommend Dreamweaver MX or Adobe GoLive 6.0 which are now available in OS X. They are superior to Frontpage. Filemaker Pro 6 is also very good alternative to Access, many times easier to use. Did you know Filemaker Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple?

Almost all Adobe applications are available in MacOS- like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop Element. Same with Macromedia.

Internet Explorer for Mac works well too. You can also use Netscape 7. Need Instant messaging? There are MSN, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ etc. One can argue that the PC versions are superior but most people rarely use all features. There are some Mac only applications which are pretty nice. BBEdit, Fetch, or Fire are on my list of favorites.

But if you are gamer, Mac is no-no. Only a fraction of games in PC, every make their way into Mac world. And consider a long delay to port them.. Definitely no no. But remember that with the price of one Powerbook, you can probably buy all the game machines and tons of titles.. perhaps you can get a cheap desktop PC to play PC games. Laptop of this price range, isn't for game. But there are quite a few good games you can play on Mac so it is not completely with game.

So the verdict is.. that Mac has a good case for software, and a strong side in multimedia.

Now enough about software... and into hardware...

The Look
Most people don't consider look when they purchase computer. But Powerbook is just one good looking laptop. It is a definite head turner. It is Mercedez like finishing touch and titanium glow justify its high price tag. If you hate the design, don't buy it. You are missing the important feature of powerbook!

The LCD display is 15.2 inch long, with unique aspect ratio which is longer than most displays out there. Apple upped the screen resolution recently so it can display more pixels. It is also brighter than older Powerbook G4.

The machine is 5.4 pound heavy, rather light for this size and power. The weight matters for laptop! You will appreciate over and over for its lightweight.

What's Under
Powerbook comes with G4 (with AltiVec or Velocity Engine in Apple's jargon) processor. It is disputable that G4 is faster than Pentium 4 given its slow clock speed. I would say G4 is slower than Pentium but not that much. The speed is even complicated by subjective user experience. Mac is often more streamlined so it can feel faster. Apple tweaks much in other areas like L3 cache to speed up Powerbook. G4 excels in velocity engine optimized tasks like video compression and mp3 encoding. In this selective tasks, G4 might be faster.

It comes with plenty of RAM and roomy hard drive. Notebook hard drives are made by a couple of manufacturers like IBM and Toshiba so the variability is rather small. Powerbook has I/O ports on the back, protected by a metal door. It has firewire ports, USB, DVI port to connect to digital display, infrared and gigabit ethernet, and modem. Firewire ports comes handy in digital camcorder and external hard drive. Gigabit ethernet is great for high speed network, though not many places have it yet. Powerbook, like other Macs, support Airport IEEE802.11 WIFI networking.
Powerbook comes with touchpad (only no eraser head) with one click button. It works fine though Windows users may miss right button. Keyboard is OK but not the best you can get. Speaker makes decent sound but no match to subwoofer enhanced dolby surround sounds in some notebooks.

Powerbook comes with a DVD/CD-RW slot loading drive. Pretty standard.
Price is rather high. It goes over $2500 to over $4000.

Powerbook has a great style and usability. It has a good performance and applications which are joy to use. But paying extra $1000 for style when you can use cheaper Macs with same application, seems not a bad idea. The choice is yours.


Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 2000
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G4
Processor speed: 601-700
Screen Size: Greater than 15 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 41-50