1-10-03
The new super sized 17 inch PowerBook will be available some
time in February .. our guess is in the latter part of the
month. The price on the new machine is $3,299. This
is $500 more than the similar speed 15 inch Titanium model,
now that this model has been reduced $200.
If a gigantic portable appeals to you, there
are lots of improvements in the new PowerBook, beyond the
screen size, to justify the price difference.
The new PowerBook is the only machine that Apple
sells with 800 Mbps FireWire. There are two FireWire
ports on the machine but only one of them is 800 Mbps. The
other one is standard issue 400 Mbps. The 800 Mbps port is
of a different construction than the the 400 Mbps port, and
will not take the current standard FireWire cable. Apple provides
an adapter that will allow you to use any of your current
FireWire peripherals with either port. The catch is that the
800 Mbps port will max out at 400 Mbps when you use this adapter.
Also built into the Big Al PowerBook is Airport
Extreme (sometimes Apple is none to subtle with its naming
schemes). This new wireless communications standard leapfrogs
over the the previous standard, providing up to a 54 Mbps
transfer rate. The previous Airport standard was a maximum
11 Mbps. It will be a while before this extra capacity is
really useful for the home user, but it should be popular
within the business and education markets.
The Airport Extreme standard that Apple has
adopted is backwards compatible with the previous wireless
standard. This is unlike the wireless protocol Intel is pushing.
Older hardware and networks, according to Apple, should integrate
with Airport Extreme seamlessly. You won't be putting any
Airport Extreme cards in your current machines though, unless
someone creates an adapter, since the size, shape and construction
is different.
The SuperDrive
that comes in the Big Al PowerBook burns DVDs at twice the
rate of the SuperDrive that is in the Titanium PowerBook.
(The optional SuperDrive you can have installed in the 12
inch Little Al PowerBook also burns DVDs at only 1 X .. same
at Titanium)
It will be interesting to see how much life
we are able to wring out of the 55-watt-hour lithium-ion battery.
Apple says 4.5 hours .. but they have special clocks in the
Apple Battery Testing Room.
We will be ordering one of the Big Al PowerBooks
as soon as they are released, and will be able to provide
you with more details at that time
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics processor with AGP
4X support and 64MB of DDR SDRAM video memory
NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go graphics processor with AGP 4X
support and 64MB of DDR SDRAM video memory
Display
15.2-inch (diagonal) built-in TFT display
3:2 aspect ratio 1280 x 854
4:3 aspect ratio 1024 x 768
17-inch (diagonal) TFT display
6:10 aspect ratio 1440 x 900
4:3 aspect ratio 1024 x 768
Video Output
DVI output port VGA output using included Apple DVI
to VGA Adapter
Support for dual display and video mirroring: Millions
of colors on the built-in display and on an external
display at up to 2048 by 1536 pixels
DVI output port VGA output using included Apple DVI
to VGA Adapter
Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports
up to 1440 by 900 pixels on the built-in display and up
to 2048 by 1536 pixels on an external display, both at
millions of colors
Hard disk drive
60GB Ultra ATA/66 4200rpm
60GB Ultra ATA/100 4200rpm
Optical drive
"SuperDrive"
CD read - 24x
DVD read - 6x
DVD write 1x
CD-R write - 8x
CD-RW write - 4x
"SuperDrive"
CD read - 24x
DVD read - 6x
DVD write 2x (note twice as fast)
CD-R write - 8x
CD-RW write - 4x
RAM
512 MB of PC133 SDRAM with support for up to 1 GB
512 MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SDRAM with support for
up to 1 GB
Battery Life
61-watt-hour lithium-ion battery providing up to 5
hours of battery life
55-watt-hour lithium-ion prismatic battery providing
up to 4.5 hours of battery life
2 USB 1.1 Ports
1 FireWire 400 Port
Audio in & out
DVI-I port
?2 USB 1.1 Ports
1 FireWire 400 Port
1 FireWire 800 Port
Audio in & out
DVI-I port
Size and weight:
Height: 1.0 inch (2.6 cm)
Width: 13.4 inches (34.1 cm)
Depth: 9.5 inches (24.1 cm)
Weight: 5.4 pounds (2.45 kg) with battery and optical
drive installed
Height: 1.0 inch (2.6 cm)
Width: 15.4 inches (39.2 cm)
Depth: 10.2 inches (25.9 cm)
Weight: 6.8 pounds (3.1 kg) with battery and optical drive
installed
Additional Features
S-video output using included Apple Video Adapter
Composite video output using included Apple Video Adapter
One PC Card/CardBus slot supporting one Type I or Type
II card
S-video output using included Apple Video Adapter
Composite video output using included Apple Video Adapter
One PC Card/CardBus slot supporting one Type II card
Ambient light sensor controls keyboard illumination
and screen brightness.
First Mac with FireWire 800
Click on the pictures below for a larger version
Apple set up two long shelves filled
with both of the new PowerBooks. The crowds were thick
on both sides and we had to fight our way to get close
to the portables. There were also numerous Apple representatives
each assigned a territory along the shelf, to answer
questions
The Palm rest area, as you can see, is huge and makes
the keyboard look dinky. Two speaker grills sit, one
on each side, of the keyboard. Amazingly though the
Books were locked down with a security cable, you
could turn them over and remove the battery ... I
wonder if anyone walked off with one?
Internal omnidirectional microphone resides under the
left speaker grill
Most of the ports have been moved to the right side
of the PowerBook. However you will also find one USB port
on the left, as well as ports for the modem, audio line
in and headphones. The PC card slot is also located on
the left
The right side contains most of the ports
(on the Titanium PowerBook the ports were located on the
back of the machine under metal flap). I found this a
pain and think that having the ports on the side is a
much better solution
From the back the new PowerBook's lines
look a little more rounded to me than the 15 inch Titanium.
The Airport antennas have been moved from the side area
of the body of the machine into the top sides of the screen
housing. Airport reception was (and is) notoriously poor
in the 15 inch PowerBooks. Apple says that the placement
in the screen housing has improved reception to the level
of the iBooks .. which have been lauded for their good
reception.
The keyboard no longer lifts up to
reveal RAM & Airport slots. These are now accessed
through a panel on the back of the machine.
The PowerBook has a new graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce4
440 Go with 64MB of DDR SDRAM. Apple says that the machine
has turned in 76 frames per second when running Quake
III Arena
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