The nicest 12" laptop money can buy
Written: May 16 '04 (Updated May 16 '04)
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Pros: Incredible Design, Multitasking wonder, Solid Operating System, Great Applications
Cons: Can get somewhat warm under the left palmrest. No Office Suite included.
The Bottom Line: One of the nicest laptops on the market, period. In a 12 inch notebook, you get just about everything you could hope for.
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| mark_ufl's Full Review: Apple PowerBook G4 12.1 in. (M9007LL/A) Mac Notebo... |
So, after my experience with the iBook (see related epinions review), I decided to upgrade to Apple's high-end notebook line, with the 12" Powerbook. With a slightly smaller size, sturdier build, and additional features, it was a nice upgrade from the iBook.
Specifications:
- 1 Ghz G4 Processor, 512K L2 cache
- 256 MB DDR ram standard, 512 MB as reviewed (1.25 GB maximum)
- 60 GB HD @ 4200 rpm, 24xCD-RW/8x DVD Combo drive
- 12.1" TFT-LCD display, capable of up 1024x768 resolution
- Nvidia Geforce FX Go 5200 graphics with 32MB VRAM
- 2 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, 10/100 Ethernet, 56k modem, A/V port with S-Video/Composite and DVI output, audio input, headphone ports
- Internal Airport Extreme (802.11g wireless) slot
- Integrated Bluetooth support
- Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)
- Major Included Apps: Safari, Mail, iChat, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Address Book, Quicktime, OmniGraffle
First Impressions:
As usual, Apple takes pride in laying out everything in the box so nicely that you almost don't want to take it out. Seeing the Powerbook for the first time, it's a marvel of engineering with its aluminum casing and small size. While the iBook I used previously was pretty small, I could notice that this was even smaller.
The manual, while short, contains numerous graphical illustrations showing the basics of the Powerbook, as well as a brief introduction to OS X and the main applications. The vast majority of the documentation is located within Help Viewer, accessible from the Help Menu.
On turning the computer on for the first time, it plays a nice welcome to OS X movie, and goes through a short configuration process (setting up a user account, internet settings, etc.) which takes a few minutes. It's a pretty painless process, and it accessed my wireless network instantly.
Usage:
The PowerBook is a very solid notebook, unlike some other notebooks I've used that just feel flimsy with their plastic construction. The aluminum casing feels really solid, and they keyboard has excellent touch, with firm response. The 1 GHz G4 processor is very powerful and easily runs just about anything that you want to throw at it.
Apple's OS X operating system has went through many refinements over the last several years to add more features and speed. With the latest incarnation of Mac OS X, codenamed Panther, it included a nifty feature called Expose, a document switcher which allows you to shrink all open windows so you can see everything at once, then allows you to pick a window that you're looking to access. You can do it over all applications, or on a per-application basis. It really helps when you have several applications open, as you can find exactly what you're looking for without having to clunk around through menus or switching from one program to another. It greatly increases productivity in your workflow and is a feature I can't live without. The stability of OS X is incredible; I can run as many applications as I want, and the system almost never crashes. If, by chance, one of your programs does freeze, a control-apple-escape key combination (similar to control-alt-delete in Windows) will bring up a force-quit screen where you can quit the misbehaving program. OS X does eat up memory rather quickly, so while 256MB is sufficient, upgrading to 512MB will definitely make running multiple applications much smoother.
The Nvidia GeforceFX Go 5200 with 32MB ram that comes with the 12" Powerbook is the most powerful graphics chip that I'm aware of in any 12" laptop. It's powerful enough for working on photos and movies, and will even allow you to play some games such as Unreal Tournament 2003 reasonably well. The standard 40GB hard drive allows for plenty of space for your music, photos, and movies. If you need more space, you can upgrade to a larger hard drive via the online Apple Store. The slot loading combo drive is awesome (much cooler than the tray loading kind), and it works extremely well.
As with most Apple notebooks, the area to the left of the trackpad (where the hard drive is located) becomes quite warm, particularly when it's hooked up to the AC adapter. It's very tolerable, but some people may find it a bit annoying. When running the Powerbook on battery power, it typically is pretty cool and doesn't get too warm.
The little details that Apple pays attention to are what makes Apple products great. For example, there is a button on the battery you can press which allows you to check the battery life, and 5 lights indicate the battery status. In addition, when you put the PowerBook into sleep mode by closing the lid, the area to the left of the latch begins to pulsate a white glow, as if it's breathing (Oh my!) which is pretty cool. Waking up from sleep is near instant, and you can start working by the time you open up the display all the way. It's such a great feature that I rarely turn my laptop off... I just put it to sleep when it's not in use. :)
It has pretty good battery life, though not as good as the iBook I owned previously. Under normal use you'll get about 3.5 hours out of a fully-charged battery, while watching DVDs you'll probably get closer to 2-2.5 hours. Keeping the brightness on the display low helps the battery life a bit, as does disabling things like Airport or Bluetooth if you don't use it.
Applications:
The PowerBook comes loaded with standard web/organization applications such as Safari for web browsing, Mail for your e-mail, Address Book for contacts, and iCal for calendar scheduling. All of these applications work very well and interoperate nicely. Mail's built in live searching of e-mails is a particularly useful feature that I use often to find e-mails from a specific person, or about a specific topic.
The iLife suite of imaging and audio applications is also included: iPhoto for importing/basic editing of photos, iTunes for organizing and playing mp3 music, and iMovie for editing your own movies. All of the programs are well laid out and show off the ease of use with which Apple takes care to put into each of their products. iPhoto makes it quite easy to store and organize your digital photos, as well as purchase photos and albums of your photos online.
iTunes, now at version 4.5 will burn mp3s from your audio CDs, organize them, and allows you to create "Smart Playlists" that allow you to choose a couple options and automatically make a playlist based on your selections. Party Shuffle is a useful new feature that allows you to see upcoming songs in the shuffled playlist, and add/move songs onto it as you like... great for those parties. The iTunes Music Store also hooks into iTunes incredibly well, and has a huge library of songs available for purchase at your fingertips. In addition, iTunes sharing allows you to share your song library with other people in your local network, so you can share/browse other libraries of songs within a home or apartment.
Although I don't use digital video, iMovie will help you to edit movies, place in transitions and other effects into your movies easily.
The current Powerbook line also comes with Garage Band, a new application that allows you to mix prerecorded audio loops and even record music from items such as guitars and pianos, and allow you to make your own songs.
Another nice included application is Omnigraffle, which allows you to make diagrams and flowcharts with ease.
For developers, OS X also comes with free Developer tools which allows you to create your own Carbon and Cocoa OS X programs in Objective-C as well as Java.
One thing I've found very nice with OS X is the basic installation process for most programs. To install a program, simply open up a disk image, and drag the contents into the Application folder. To uninstall, simply select the item and drag it to the Trash and empty it. It can't possibly be any simpler.
Other Notes:
- DVI-output: A nice professional feature that allows you to connect your PowerBook to any of the many flat panel monitors that have DVI support, for digital output. It will even allow you to hook up the PowerBook to one of Apple's Cinema Displays with the proper adaptor.
- Bluetooth: An emerging technology that allows you to sync contact/calendar information with a bluetooth enabled cell phone. The bluetooth module is built into the Powerbook, so you can take advantage of it right away. With third party software, you can even use your cell phone to control things such as iTunes and do presentations by using the buttons on your bluetooth enabled cell phone. Nifty stuff.
Gripes:
There's not too much that I didn't like about the PowerBook, but here they are:
- lack of a PC card slot. While not necessary because of built in modem/ethernet as well as Firewire and USB ports and an Airport Extreme slot, it would have been a nice addition for expandability.
- Support options. For some this may be important. It comes with a one year parts/labor warranty, but phone tech support is only for 90 days, afterwards it's $49/incident unless you buy Applecare ($349) that extends your warranty to 3 years parts/labor and 3 years phone support. While some may find this as a lack of support, the users in the Apple support forums as well as various Mac forums on the internet are very enthusiastic about Apple, and it's not very hard to get advice online.
Conclusion
Overall the PowerBook is an incredible notebook, with everything packed into a small but solid 12" laptop. It's combination of size, speed, graphics, stability, and features is almost unmatched by any other 12" laptop on the market. At just 4.6 lbs, it's the ultimate laptop for those who want a full featured laptop for photos, audio, movies, and gaming, in a reasonable size that's not too difficult to transport. While a little pricey at $1599, it's very competitive when compared to 12" notebooks on the PC side. If the price tag is too high, then the 12" iBook at $1099 is another great value without losing too many features from the Powerbook(see my iBook review at epinions for that review).
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1500
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G4
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
mark_ufl
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Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
UF student majoring in computer science. Wish me luck!
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