Best Laptop On The Entire Planet

Author's Rating:

Pros: Best Powerbook yet from Apple

Cons: Feet too grippy. Do not slide this laptop

The Bottom Line: 
This is a top notch unit and very reliable. I recommend it especially to those who work with photo editing or video.

Author's Review
The title says it all. Rock solid Mac OSX helps make it so. After nearly 4 months now this laptop still has my attention. I felt it would be wrong not to write about it.

The Exterior finish is an incredible anodized aluminum. Smooth to the touch and pleasing to the eye, the finish is much more durable than the older Titanium laptops from Apple.

Weighing in at only 6.8 lbs, it continues to be the leader in the desktop replacement category. Why? Search and see for yourself; I don't know of any laptop that holds such a low weight yet carries so many features, such as DVD-R, CD-RW, 17" LCD screen, 64 MB nVidia graphics chip, light up keyboard and much more. I do not believe any other laptop has this size/weight ratio with these included features. I am using a Microsoft Bluetooth wireless mouse with my 17" Powerbook as I type this review, and there are no dongles to plug into the laptop to get the mouse to work, since Bluetooth is built into the laptop. I also recently purchased an exterior firewire 800 hard drive to compliment the large, internal 60 gig HD. With an extra 120 gig editing video is a breeze. Firewire 800 is much faster than the older firewire 400 but this laptop has both 400 and 800 ports. There is also an earjack, audio in, ethernet, 56K modem port as well as two USB ports, an SVHS video out port and a DVI port for an exterior monitor. The keyboard is excellent, although some may complain the keyboard should be nearer to the front, yet it has never really bothered me. The track pad is nice and wide and operates quite smoothly. The top of the laptop will get warm but not uncomfortably so. I remember my old Titanium laptop could actually burn me; not this one. The fan is likewise what I consider the quietest of the G4 series, even quieter than the 667 DVI Titanium I used to own, which was arguably the quietest of the Titanium series. Speakers are very loud and clear, as far as laptop speakers go. The keyboard lighting system, however, should have been designed to be a bit brighter. In fact I never use it. I prefer my LCD screen at full brightness even at night, and this provides plenty of light to see all keys clearly. DVD movies play smoothly without jerkiness or stutter, as should be expected with a 1 Ghz G4 CPU and 64 MB DDR video RAM. I swear, after watching the James Bond flick "Die Another Day" when the ending credits began rolling up the laptop screen, I felt as if I had returned to my motel room after participating with James Bond in his adventures. Of course, added exterior Labtec speakers helped send me into 007 world too. It really seemed as if I had returned from a dream. No kidding. That big 17" screen does things no other laptop has done for me. You must see it to believe it.
Opening the laptop is especially cool; it feels as if you have a "power lid" because it doesn't have the resistance the older Titanium models have. I no longer fear cracking the shell while trying to pry open a giant clam. Fit and finish are impeccable on my machine. You would expect such a large laptop to have considerable flex and a flimsier feel, but this laptop feels quite solid. You can get a look at my laptop as long as this web page stays posted:

http://homepage.mac.com/bhardy3/PhotoAlbum34.html

Battery life I can estimate generally about 3 hours at least, depending on what you are trying to do with the laptop. This laptop burns DVD blanks at only 1x but the disks burn dependably. Out of 20 I only made one coaster and I suspect it was because I moved the laptop while it was burning. All in all I can say money well spent, and while some might complain at what seems too big a laptop to lug around, I say it is the perfect laptop for me. Although the screen size seemed king size at first, these days I look at the screen as normal and don't see looking for anything smaller.

I never fly, so I cannot comment on airline comfort. But while traveling by car I find laptop mobility is great. Just slip it into a sleeve which is already in a backpack and go.

One last note; the laptop feet are basically rugged, but you can lose them if you slide the laptop instead of picking it up when you move it, simply because the little feet have such a tenacious grip on almost any surface, especially glass.

This laptop comes with a standard 1 year warranty or an optional 3 year contract.

In closing I can say I can recommend this laptop whole heartedly.

Update Nov 15, 2003:
No problems have developed with this laptop and I am still well pleased. The finish still looks new. Just upgraded the software OS to Panther. Virtual PC 5 no longer worked so I bought VPC 6.1 which works flawlessly. I cannot see buying another G4 laptop for at least 2 more years unless they come out with a Apple G5 Powerbook.