A terrific used PowerBook
Written: Mar 11 '04
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Pros: Small, light, fast-enough if you stick to OS 8.6.1
Cons: Smallish screen and keyboard, 80MB ram ceiling
The Bottom Line: A small, stylish Apple laptop that won't crimp your style or your wallet.
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| lawman67's Full Review: Apple PowerBook 2400C (M5241LL/A) Mac Notebook |
I never owned a PowerBook 2400c, but I sure did want one. I used to do Macintosh and PC tech support, and in that position I had the opportunity to play with almost every Mac that ever was, at least those introduced before the year 2000 when I closed down my business, and during that time, the 2400c was always my favorite portable Mac.
So what was so great about the 2400c? It is the third smallest (behind the 12” PowerBook and 12” white iBook) and THE lightest (at 4.0lbs) portable Macintosh ever offered for sale. It also, unlike the previous Duo-series, had a useable 800X600 resolution for its large-enough 10.4” active matrix screen. Finally, with PCI architecture and a reputed cardbus modification for the PCMCIA slots, can even be brought into the modern age with USB and FireWire PC cards. Even without the cardbus modification, modern WiFi 802.1 (AirPort) networking is an easy and cheap add-on.
Of course, the 180 or 240 MHz PowerPC 603e processor and 80 MB RAM capacity is also more than adequate to run OS 8.6.1 or even OS 9 with blazing speed, while available (getting hard to find) G3 upgrades bring even more speed. Sadly, the video chip and low RAM ceiling keep OS X out of reach, even though it can be installed with cheats such as XPostFacto. I recommend 8.6.1 and a good WiFi PC card in one slot, a fast 10/100 ethernet/56K modem combo card in the other.
Hard drives were rather small back in 1997, but OS 8.6 and MS Office 98 or 2001 won’t take up that much space, nor will most other applications of the same vintage. If you want to store tons of music, laptop hard drives in 40 or even 80 GB capacity are cheap these days, and will go right into a 2400c.
The only real hassle with such a machine is the need for an external SCSI CD ROM drive for software installation/recovery. You can buy one VERY CHEAP on eBay these days, and with a nice 2400c itself often selling for under $200, you can pick up a near-mint 2400c, a few spare batteries, a CD drive and a ton of software for less than half the price of the cheapest new iBook, and in the bargain you will get a machine that while slightly larger in case volume (its thicker, but smaller), is almost a full pound lighter and remains VERY stylish.
Inconveniences are the same as with any ultra light computer. Look at a review of an IBM X-series, Sony Super Slim or Toshiba Portege, and you will get the idea of life with a 2400c. Without a floppy, CD or any other removable media drive, you cannot boot or access anything other than your hard disk unless you plug something in. Personally, I like this approach, and until switching to Macintosh last month favored such systems (my last PC was a 3lb IBM ThinkPad X21).
There are ergonomic issues to using a 2400c today as well. The screen is very nice (exact same unit as on the old 5300ce), but no matter how you look at it, 10.4” is definitely on the small side today, and while the 2400c was very small in 1997, today it looks positively huge for such a tiny screen. My new 12” PowerBook isn’t much wider or deeper (it is a lot thinner), but squeezes a 12.1” screen into a bezel about the same size as the 2400c’s. 12.1” LCD were available (expensive) in 1997, though I’m not certain Apple could have crammed one into such a small frame.
The keyboard is also a bit strange. Some keys are in different places and the keys themselves are bit undersized. the size is due to the physical size of the computer, which unlike current PowerBook and iBook 12” models, do not have keys extending to the edges of the chassis. The layout is due to the fact that the 2400c was a very low-production model imported from Japan and made by Sony. Since the same computer was sold in the Japanese market and volume was low, Apple didn’t spend the money on two different keyboards, so the US got the Japanese keyboard only without the Japanese keycaps.
Other than those minor nits, a 2400c makes a terrific laptop computer, even today. with 8.6.1 it is stable and very fast, the keyboard, while a bit small and strange, has EXCELLENT action, and the screen, while a bit small, is very bright and clear. The computer is not as stunningly light as the current ultra light PCs, its lighter than any other Apple portable except the old PowerBook Duo, which has nowhere near the capability of the 2400c.
So in conclusion, the 2400c has been displaced as a status symbol, but remains even today a very useful older laptop that remains a terrific bargain on the used market.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): not mine
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC
Processor speed: 201-300
Screen Size: 10 inches
RAM: 64
Hard Drive (GB): Under 4
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Epinions.com ID:
lawman67
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 in Computer Hardware |
 - Top 200 |
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Member: Andrew F
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 207
Trusted by: 63 members
About Me:
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl but she doesn't have a lot to say.
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