Apple Finally Does Something Right?
Written: May 19 '01
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Pros: Big screen, looks great, long battery life
Cons: its a mac
The Bottom Line: If your looking for a high end Apple Laptop then this is it.
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| jhcashman's Full Review: Apple PowerBook G4 (M8362LL/A) Mac Notebook |
Well, I’ve gotten into college and now its time to celebrate! I have decided to treat myself to a brand new laptop. I have a couple in mind including ones by Dell, Hp, Micron and Gateway. My friend had just gotten the new G4 Titanium Powerbook and had urged me to look into it. Some how he convinced me to start my search at the new Mac G4 Titanium Powerbook. Now before I start let me tell you a little about myself… First of all I HATE Macs!!! I am an avid PC user and proud of it. I built my last 2 desktops from barebones. I am a HARDCORE computer user and I have always looked at Macs as toys made for computer handicaps. If I could build my own laptop from scratch I would…but I can’t so here we go…
The Bare Specs…
This part is the HARDCORE technical specs… if you have no idea what the parts of a computer are then you can probably skip this section since you probably won’t get it and it will only get you more confused…
The Exterior:
The G4 Titanium Powerbook is probably the thinnest and lightest laptop I have ever seen. At just 1 inch thick, 13.4 inches wide, 9.5 inches dept and weighing a mere 5.3 pounds it is like carrying around a magazine. The outside is made of “99.5% pure grade commercially pure titanium,” this not only makes it light and durable, but also makes it look sweet, but more on that later… The Titanium sports a 15.2-inch (measured diagonally) widescreen display, which supports up to 1152x768-pixel resolution in millions of colors.
Under the Hood:
Under the Hood you have a 400 or 500MHz PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine. The processor also has an integrated floating-point unit, 64K on-chip level 1 cache, and 1 MB backside level 2 cache on a processor module. The processor runs on a 200 or 250MHz dedicated 64-bit backside bus and a 100-MHz system bus. In a nutshell you get a whole lot of power under the hood. Although Apple claims that the G4 is twice as fast as a Pentium III…you can’t possibly believe their ads. I admit that the G4 is faster; however, it is not nearly twice as fast. A 500 MHZ PowerPC G4 is probably comparable to 850 MHZ Pentium III.
Memory, Storage & Multimedia:
For memory it really doesn’t matter since you can add up to 1GB, which is more then you will ever need, but the standard is 128MB or 256MB of PC100 SDRAM. For storage you can get an Internal 10GB, 20GB, or 30GB Ultra ATA/66 hard disk drive. This is more or less standard for all laptops. Multimedia wise, you get a wicked cool slot-loading DVD-ROM, which reads CD-ROM discs. It also comes with two built-in stereo speakers as well as a 16-bit CD-quality stereo and microphone output jacks. You get a standard 8MB of SDRAM video memory with built-in 2D/3D graphics acceleration through an integrated ATI RAGE Mobility 128 video controller with AGP 2X.
Communications, Expansion & Power:
The Titanium comes with a built-in 10/100BASE-T Ethernet (RJ-45 connector) as well as a built-in 56K V.90 modem (RJ-11 connector). You have the option to get an 11-Mbps AirPort Card for wireless networking. As far as ports you get an infrared technology port, a 400-Mbps FireWire port, as well as 2 USB ports. You can expand your Laptop with a PC Card and CardBus slot, which supports Type I or Type II PC Cards, CardBus cards, and Zoom Video PC Cards. The Titanium is powered by a 50-watt lithium-ion battery, which provided up to 5 hours of battery life.
The Good…
So what’s good about the Titanium G4? Lets see where do I start? First of all the thing that caught my eye first was how damn good it looks. It’s so thin and light. The Titanium shell is not only durable, but also very cool looking. Compared to the “colorful” Imacs this Powerbook is much more professional looking. It is probably one of the coolest looking laptops period! The widescreen screen is absolutely the biggest screen you will ever find. It is absolutely perfect for DVDs! With the long battery life you can watch a whole DVD without recharging! My current laptop only lasts about an hour and a half under heavy use. As with all Macs it’s extremely easy to use and has some very nice multimedia features. Most multimedia programs run very fast on this laptop and the FireWire port is an extra that doesn’t come with most PCs. This computer comes with all the features and power you would expect for a $2500+ computer.
The Bad…
Well the biggest thing really is the price. For a fairly decent customized machine you are looking at more then $3000. That’s about $500-$1000 more then a comparable PC, although you don’t get some of the extras like the extra-wide screen and a FireWire port. Another big concern for me is the issues I will have with my PCs. I am getting a laptop to use along side my desktops, which are both PCs, which could cause a problem. Trying to work cross platform is always a pain.
A Final thought
All in all the G4 Titanium is a very good machine. It is the first Mac that I have ever considered buying. It is very powerful and fast. I highly recommend this to any Mac users in the market for a laptop. But for all the PCs users like me you might want to think about it, but defiantly consider it.
Look for more laptop reviews as I continue my search for a laptop…and as usual feel free to write me if you have any questions…
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2500
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G4
Processor speed: 401-500
Screen Size: 15
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
jhcashman
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Location: Lexington; Ma
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 110 members
About Me:
Fresh out of College... Traveling around the USA working as a Tech Consultant...
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