Rating: 
Summary: OK - this is the home run laptop
Review: I just replaced a whole pile of older Apple gear (including a 500 MHz IceBook) with this model (the G4/667/DVD). It was well worth it. The iBook is a great Mac for the money, but the newest PowerBook G4 systems are just great Macs, period. The speed is fast for virtually any task, and OS X 10.1 is snappy in a way that the G3-based systems can't touch. The improved Radeon Mobility video (with double the VRAM of the older G4) improves display performance, and mirroring is snappy, without the lag that some mirrored displays have been known to show. It fully supports the resolution of the Apple Cinema display (with an adapter, though - the Powerbook only has VGA out). Performance on the latest builds of the OS X DVD player is excellent thus far, and it can use the full screen for a simulated 16:9 effect. Built-in networking options include 10/100/1000 (!) Ethernet, an included V.90 modem, and an integrated AirPort card supporting 128-bit WEP (broken though WEP is).Apple also addressed most of the design flaws from the original G4 series - the port cover in the back now has slits machined into it for better ventilation, the body flexes a little less, and disc alignment doesn't seem to be the problem it was in some earlier models. AirPort range is improved, though still nowhere near as good as what you can get with the iBook series - the antennas are quite limited by the metal case (Faraday cage, anyone?). The new power adapter is a big improvement over the previous "flying saucer" design, as well. Chances are good that you'll never need to connect anything to the built-in Cardbus slot, but one is provided in case 1 6-pin Firewire port, 2 USB ports, VGA and S-Video out, and the integrated Ethernet, modem and wireless aren't enough for you. Go figure. What can I quibble about? Well, I still hope they find a better way to integrate the AirPort antenna. A DVD/CD-RW combo drive like the one in the iBook would be nice - but apparently none currently are available to fit the super-slim slot-loading format the G4 uses. Heat distribution isn't bad, but the back right corner can occasionally get uncofortable under heavy use. And finally, the keyboard is held in place by magnets as well as the little clips Apple uses - those magnets attach with adhesive to the keyboard bottom (and grab the metal in the inner case), and have a habit of the adhesive getting loose. Easily fixed, but a little annoying. Really nothing I'd take points away for. All in all, this is by far the best laptop I've used or owned (and I've had a lot of them). No, the G4 doesn't offer the sheer processing speed of the latest mobile Pentium and Athlon processors, but the combination of a spectacular screen, light weight, good battery life, and general engineering isn't matched by anything on the market I know of. As an added bonus, the PowerBook G4 even runs Virtual PC very well if you really need Windows in your life.
Rating: 
Summary: PowerBook Rocks
Review: I've had my PowerBook G4 since January. I was shopping around for a new computer and came across this beauty. Up to that point I had been strictly a PC user. However, I was sold on this computer. Sure, it took a little getting used to a new OS, but that only took a few days. When I bought this computer, I splurged. I brought the RAM to 512 MB, I bought an iPod (5GB) and an airport station, plus Office X. Yes, it cost me a small fortune, but it's still worth it. I love this computer. This computer is FAST (even at 667 MHz)!! It never seems to slow down. I can play a DVD in a window and be working on email or in Excel or on a website and it keeps up. OS X is incredibly stable and has only crashed once in 7 months. Oh yeah, it's also great looking. I sit at Starbucks with it and constantly get people asking me about it. Why only 4 stars? Battery life doesn't seem to be that great, even after turning the brightness down on the screen. However, Apple has recently tweaked the DVD player and I can play a three hour DVD with no problems. For cross-country trips, I bought an extra battery. Also, the keyboard presses up against the screen when it's closed and has made some marks on the LCD display. If you can afford it, I HIGHLY recommend an iPod.
Rating:
Summary: PowerBook Rocks
Review: I've had my PowerBook G4 since January. I was shopping around for a new computer and came across this beauty. Up to that point I had been strictly a PC user. However, I was sold on this computer. Sure, it took a little getting used to a new OS, but that only took a few days. When I bought this computer, I splurged. I brought the RAM to 512 MB, I bought an iPod (5GB) and an airport station, plus Office X. Yes, it cost me a small fortune, but it's still worth it. I love this computer. This computer is FAST (even at 667 MHz)!! It never seems to slow down. I can play a DVD in a window and be working on email or in Excel or on a website and it keeps up. OS X is incredibly stable and has only crashed once in 7 months. Oh yeah, it's also great looking. I sit at Starbucks with it and constantly get people asking me about it. Why only 4 stars? Battery life doesn't seem to be that great, even after turning the brightness down on the screen. However, Apple has recently tweaked the DVD player and I can play a three hour DVD with no problems. For cross-country trips, I bought an extra battery. Also, the keyboard presses up against the screen when it's closed and has made some marks on the LCD display. If you can afford it, I HIGHLY recommend an iPod.
Rating: 
Summary: Move on up to 1GHz, 667 is yesterdays news
Review: I've had my Powerbook since mid March. It wasn't a few days ago that I realized that I made the switch from a PC user to Apple user when booted up my PC for the first time in a couple of weeks for the purpose of moving all my personal files from big clunky PC to the Powerbook. I'm not even going to get into how cool this thing looks, you can see in the picture that this an extremely handsome piece of hardware ... I'll delve right into the reason why you'd should buy this thing. Lets face it, these things cost an awful lot of money and it would be quite foolish to buy this thing on its good looks alone. As a lot of you know, Apple has completely redone the operating system that they ship with this thing (OS X). To cut to the point, its a flavor of the BSD operating system with a Mac GUI called Aqua running on top of it. What does that mean you ask? Its running on a flavor of the UNIX operating system which will rarely crash, if ever. So if you're into tinkering around with GNU/Linux or the like, you'll love this thing. If you always hear about all the cool things that computer hacker types can do with computers but have no idea in where to start with these things you'll love this thing too. Apple has a GUI called that runs on top of it that has all the cool stuff that can take hours setting up yourself as simple as (literally) clicking on a button that says start. For instance, if you have a connection to the internet (dialup, cable modem, dsl, etc.) you can set this laptop up to be a full fledged Unix server that can host your web pages and that you can telnet into in a matter of seconds (go into System Preferences and click start). So you won't have to spend hours trying to set this up if its not your thing. If it is your thing, you can still get into the guts of the computer and do it at the command prompt as you would in Linux. The one thing that I was very weary about in buying this thing was can you find software for this thing and will the stuff I use on Windows work on this. To quickly answer it, yes Microsoft Office, Photoshop files, mp3s, etc. all work perfectly fine once you transfer them over. If your into that sort of thing, there's just as many Peer to Peer sharing programs for Apple as there are for Windows, the Mac ones might even be better. As for the downsides of this thing ... there are a few but none that should stop anyone from thinking of checking out the Powerbook from not buying it. The battery life is not as good as advertised - if you plan on using this for extended amounts of time before recharging it (over three hours) you should strongly consider getting the extra battery. Also rumor has it that since its so thin that the dust and grease from your fingers that get on the keys can damage the LCD when its closed (that hasn't happened to me but I believe it ... putting a piece of paper between the keyboard on LCD when you store it solves this problem). Software wise my only complaint is dialup connections are painfully slow. A 52K connection seems like it may as well be a 14.4 connection. If you have any type of a high speed internet access this will not effect you one bit. That's my take on this machine. I think its the greatest thing in computing since the Internet explosion and I just wanted to put in my two cents on it. Dan
Rating:
Summary: The Best Thing Since the Internet.
Review: I've had my Powerbook since mid March. It wasn't a few days ago that I realized that I made the switch from a PC user to Apple user when booted up my PC for the first time in a couple of weeks for the purpose of moving all my personal files from big clunky PC to the Powerbook. I'm not even going to get into how cool this thing looks, you can see in the picture that this an extremely handsome piece of hardware ... I'll delve right into the reason why you'd should buy this thing. Lets face it, these things cost an awful lot of money and it would be quite foolish to buy this thing on its good looks alone. As a lot of you know, Apple has completely redone the operating system that they ship with this thing (OS X). To cut to the point, its a flavor of the BSD operating system with a Mac GUI called Aqua running on top of it. What does that mean you ask? Its running on a flavor of the UNIX operating system which will rarely crash, if ever. So if you're into tinkering around with GNU/Linux or the like, you'll love this thing. If you always hear about all the cool things that computer hacker types can do with computers but have no idea in where to start with these things you'll love this thing too. Apple has a GUI called that runs on top of it that has all the cool stuff that can take hours setting up yourself as simple as (literally) clicking on a button that says start. For instance, if you have a connection to the internet (dialup, cable modem, dsl, etc.) you can set this laptop up to be a full fledged Unix server that can host your web pages and that you can telnet into in a matter of seconds (go into System Preferences and click start). So you won't have to spend hours trying to set this up if its not your thing. If it is your thing, you can still get into the guts of the computer and do it at the command prompt as you would in Linux. The one thing that I was very weary about in buying this thing was can you find software for this thing and will the stuff I use on Windows work on this. To quickly answer it, yes Microsoft Office, Photoshop files, mp3s, etc. all work perfectly fine once you transfer them over. If your into that sort of thing, there's just as many Peer to Peer sharing programs for Apple as there are for Windows, the Mac ones might even be better. As for the downsides of this thing ... there are a few but none that should stop anyone from thinking of checking out the Powerbook from not buying it. The battery life is not as good as advertised - if you plan on using this for extended amounts of time before recharging it (over three hours) you should strongly consider getting the extra battery. Also rumor has it that since its so thin that the dust and grease from your fingers that get on the keys can damage the LCD when its closed (that hasn't happened to me but I believe it ... putting a piece of paper between the keyboard on LCD when you store it solves this problem). Software wise my only complaint is dialup connections are painfully slow. A 52K connection seems like it may as well be a 14.4 connection. If you have any type of a high speed internet access this will not effect you one bit. That's my take on this machine. I think its the greatest thing in computing since the Internet explosion and I just wanted to put in my two cents on it. Dan
Rating:
Summary: Great Speed, Great Display, Great Laptop!
Review: If you don't need the top of the line Powerbook, the 400mhz model has great speed (faster than Pentium III and 4s), a huge (for a notebook) 15" display, and it's light at about 5 lbs. Plus, the Titanium body and glowing Apple logo are cool. Get a Powerbook, get a Mac and don't look back.
Rating:
Summary: Take this, Bill gates!
Review: Like many windows users, I bought into the fallacy that you didn't want an apple computer because of the lack of software - until I saw this Powerbook at an Apple store, did some research, found all the software I wanted was available for apple computers, and realized that I need not support the dark dominion of Microsoft anymore. Bought the computer and I have never regretted it. OS X is great too, no more one program crashing the entire computer. Beautiful in looks and execution, fast, with a RW drive, light, beautiful screen. If Apple had been as unscrupulous as Microsoft in it's early days we might all be using these wonderful computers.
Rating:
Summary: The PowerBook G4 is an amazing machine
Review: This is a beautiful computer. I have no complaints. I love it!
Rating:
Summary: The PowerBook G4 is an amazing machine
Review: This is a beautiful computer. I have no complaints. I love it!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding laptop
Review: This is an outstanding laptop to use. The extra inch of screen makes most programs easier to use (you can put the OS X dock on the left or right), and it is a comfortable size to type on or carry. This laptop is a significant jump in design from the previous, black, powerbook G3 laptops. Apparently, the latest model has a slightly textured case, to prevent the chance of dropping it.
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