By The keyboard on the new 17 inch PowerBook is
almost dwarfed the the computer's overall size. Its trackpad
is super-sized. The keyboard lights up in a very sophisticated
way when ambient light falls, and the machine is even capable
of remembering your preferred light settings.
Apple's sales of laptops, compared to desktop
machines has been between 30 to 35% of the product mix during
the last year. Jobs said that Apple feels people are
migrating to portables, and away from desktops, as a trend
in the overall computer marketplace. Apple believes
that sales of laptops will eventually supplant the desktop
as the most widely sold type of computer. With the current
portable line-up at Apple, he feels that they will be able
to take advantage of this trend. We'll see. Portables still
have a way to go in catching up to the Towers in terms of
performance, and there is still the expandability factor.
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To highlight the differences between
the two new PowerBooks that Apple introduced, Apple
created a new commercial
featuring Houston Center Yao Ming & the actor that
plays
Mini
Me. The 17 inch PowerBook is almost bigger than
Mini Me! |
The screen
is basically the same size as the 17inch flat panel
iMac
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| The slightly shaded areas on either side of the keyboard
are expanded speaker grills. The speakers are supposed
to be larger and the sound quality less tinny compared
to the Titanium PowerBook. |
Basically what you are getting here is a better graphics
card. All of the other stats are the same as the 15 inch
1 GHz Titanium PowerBook |
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| Airport
Extreme (Airport 2), that runs 54Mbps and can handle
up to 50 users, is built into the 17 inch PowerBook.
The new Airport
Base Stations have a USB port built into them so you
can connect a printer to the base station and share that
printer wireless with other computers within range. |
At 6.8 pounds the 17 inch PowerBook is
26% heftier than the 15" Titanium. The head to the
left is obscuring the word 'ambient'. There are ambient
light sensors hidden under the speaker grills of the PowerBook.
When the lights go down the keyboard automatically illuminates |
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| The Ports on the left side of the PowerBook includes
one 800 Mbps FireWire port. The protocol is backwards
compatible, but the port is not. However Apple provides
an adapter so you can use your older 400 Mbps devices
with the new port .. though they will only operated
at 400 Mbps |
A boon to right handed people everywhere, Apple has
now put a a USB port on the right side of the machine.
Having ports on the sides of the machine is a much better
solution, in my opinion, to having them under a flap at
the back, as with the Titanium PowerBooks. |
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| I think there is a cash prize for the first person
that can actually get 4.5 hours of life out of their
PowerBook. Jobs said that the 17 inch PowerBook
should get about half an hour less of life than the
15 inch PowerBook. Under heavy use we have gotten a
little under 2 hours of life out of a Titanium before
it needed to be charged up again. |
At $3,299 the new PowerBook is $500
more than the 1 GHz 15 inch PowerBook. What do you
get for that. The bigger screen, better graphics card,
faster FireWire & Wireless networking, a better design
and an extra 1.4 lbs. Oh yeah, and a keyboard that lights
up. |
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| Native resolution? A whopping 1440 x 900. The 15
inch PowerBook is 1024 x 768 |
And what can you fit on the big screen? Photoshop without
all your pallets covering up your image. |
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| At the end of the presentation Jobs always runs
a video of well known people extolling how Apple has
once again come out with the greatest thing since sliced
bread. Here Aaron
Sorkin, the creator of the television program the
West Wing, drools over the the new PowerBook. |
Back to back. The movie you see playing is playing
on the new 12
inch PowerBook. It is sitting with its back to the
17 inch PowerBook. Gives you and idea of the differences
in dimensions. |
