Enormous improvements make a classic design shine

Author's Rating:

Pros: Impressively fast, sleek, still gets admiring looks. Big improvements over old version

Cons: It's expensive. That's about it.

The Bottom Line: 
Enormous improvements make an already legendary design even better.

Author's Review
Back in 2001, the first PowerBook G4 was introduced to oohs and ahhs of approval. The public responded by making it a major best-seller, and thousands of people, including myself, picked one up.

But technology marches on, and a machine that was fast then doesn't look that fast today. I wanted a system that would be better as a mobile video editing station, with more disk space and a higher speed processor. When my original PowerBook was stolen, it was time for me to buy a new one.

Almost all Titanium G4 owners loved their computers (see my earlier review for how much), but there's no question that in the first iteration there were a few annoyances. These appear to have been almost entirely addressed in the new machine. I thought it would be worthwhile to describe the improvements in some detail so that you could make up your mind as to whether it was time to replace your old friend with something new.

First and foremost, this machine is fast. You can open up a million browser windows and close them with no problems at all. The transparent menus in MacOS X now snap on and off the screen with commendable efficiency. I have a dual G4/450 system which is now virtually idle due to the superior performance of my new laptop. It may not seem like much of a difference - 900mhz total versus 1000mhz - but in practice, it's enormous. This is due to improvements such as a Quartz Extreme-compatible graphics card (with a whopping 64MB RAM), a faster system bus, and of course a faster processor.

Durability is substantially improved over the old model. If you held the old model by one corner, you could feel the body flex slightly. The new system doesn't do this at all; they obviously added some material to strengthen the case.

In my earlier review, I didn't downgrade it for speaker quality because I really didn't expect much. But the speakers on the new model now produce much better sound. It's good enough to be a music source now, whereas in the previous model trying to use it to play music from the built-in speakers was a source of irritation more than anything else. I'm not saying it's as good as the Monsoon speakers attached to my PowerMac, but at least it sounds good enough to make music enjoyable.

The old model could get very hot if you put it on your lap; the new model is pleasantly warm, never hot. The fan doesn't cut in as often, and when it does, it's reasonably quiet. (The old one could feel like a 747 taking off at times).

Although my fingers sometimes get stuck under the keys of the new keyboard, it happens only about 10% as much as it did with the old model, where this was a genuine irritant. Now it's pretty good, and they've improved the touch as well.

The old screen may have seemed bright at the time, but the new one has at least double the brightness. You now have to dim it a bit in a dark room for it to be easier to read. I haven't tested it in bright sunlight, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a lot more readable than the old version.

The higher resolution is a real joy. I haven't tried it with an external display yet, mainly because any external display isn't going to match the brightness and beauty of the built-in monitor.

The DVD drive seems to accept and eject discs significantly more smoothly than the old model.

Technical support through the Apple Stores continues to be excellent. I had a problem with my digital camera and the PowerBook, and they were - as always - friendly, patient and great to be around. The Apple Store continues to be a real class act in the cost-cutting, poor service world of computer retail.

If you have the old model, it's a safe bet that you'll love the new one. Virtually all of the niggling complaints with the old appear to have been well-addressed by the new.