PowerHouse - PowerFul - PowerBook
Written: Apr 14 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast, Versatile, Workstation class Notebook
Cons: No native serial port, still feels somewhat flimsy
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| pheh's Full Review: Apple PowerBook G3 (M7308LL/A) Mac Notebook |
I've owned several Macintosh "PowerBooks" in the past, but this is the first Apple notebook computer that really deserves the "PowerBook" name in this authors opinion. They could have easily named it the "UberUltraMegaPowerBookasaurus" and it could live up to it with ease.
My -purchased configuration- came as:
PowerBook G3 "Lombard"
400 Mhz G3
192 Megs of RAM
6 Gig Hard drive
DVD
The construction of the machine while sturdy enough, is still somewhat flimsy when compared to comparable IBM and Dells I have used. A graphite frame, which may or may not have increased the price significantly, would seemingly remedy this problem. This PowerBook model does not however suffer from the screen/hinge weekness as seen in earlier PowerBook models.
Truly this laptop is the most versatile laptop I have ever owned. Utilizing VirtualPC I am able to run 3 OSes at the drop of a hat (currently WindowsNT, Redhat Linux, and MacOS 9). Enabling me to do network auditing, network mapping and a host of other things I might well have to reboot to do using just a dual boot Intel-chip laptop configuration.
On the fun side of things... again... I have a portable gaming/movie station better than any offerings I could make out of a Intel-chip laptop. Playstation? Got that in my PowerBook. Neo-Geo? Got that in my PowerBook. Quake 3? Got that in my PowerBook. Unreal Tournament? Got that in my PowerBook.... I could go on, but won't bore you.
Are there pitfalls? Sure. MacOS 9 (8.5 as well) is still a horribly unstable and immature operating system. My PowerBook shipped with and still has 1 dead pixel. All the really cool games and a lot of networking applications still come out for PC first and a lot still never make it MacOS (and Virtual PC is no gaming environment).
But the book is a screamer. In the past 6 months of ownership it has paid for itself several times over in both billing and sheer enjoyment. And its my opinions that no networking engineer should ever carry around an intel based laptop. With VirtualPC and/or a dual boot Linux setup, everything you could need is here for you. Hmm... except perhaps a way to hook up a console cable, I'm going to have to look into that.
Links of interest:
Apple: http://www.apple.com
VirtualPC and Virtual Gaming Station: http://www.connectix.com
LinuxPPC: http://www.linuxppc.com
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
pheh
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Reviews written: 18
Trusted by: 29 members
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