Walter Mossberg har (igen) i Wall Street Journal givet en Apple
Powerbook et fantastisk review:
http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/030116/72/36jla.html
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Thursday January 16, 10:00 AM
Smallest PowerBook Has Ability To Make Apple Shine
By Walter S. Mossberg
APPLE COMPUTER announced last week two new models in its PowerBook
laptop line. The one that drew the most attention was the industry's
first laptop with a gargantuan 17-inch screen. But the company also
announced its smallest laptop ever: a petite PowerBook with a 12-inch
screen and a mass-market base price of $1,799. Apple also rolled out a
slew of new software, including a Web browser called Safari.
I've been testing the small PowerBook and the Safari browser for nearly
a week now, and I like both of them.
The 12-inch PowerBook is one sweet little laptop. Sheathed in an
aluminum case, it has the feel of a finely made camera. And it's the
smallest notebook I've tested that sports a full range of features,
including one I've never seen on a compact laptop. Yet it's
significantly less expensive than some comparable Windows laptops.
This PowerBook is slightly smaller than Apple's low-end laptop, the
iBook, but is powered by the more potent G4 processor that drives the
larger PowerBooks. Apple has omitted a few standard PowerBook features
-- including a special memory cache that speeds things up -- to protect
sales of the older PowerBooks. But in my tests, the little PowerBook
felt speedy and sure on every task I threw at it.
THIS NEW POWERBOOK isn't in the lightest and smallest category of
laptops, the sub-three-pound models that lack an internal optical
drive, such as a CD or DVD drive. Instead, it's meant to compete with
laptops like Toshiba's Portege 4010, which have an integrated CD or DVD
drive but still weigh under five pounds.
Apple's base model has 256 megabytes of memory, a 40-gigabyte hard
disk, and a built-in "combo" drive, which can play CDs or DVDs and
record CDs. It has a full complement of ports, including USB and
FireWire connectors, a modem and an Ethernet networking jack. Bluetooth
short-range wireless connectivity is built in and Wi-Fi wireless
networking is a $99 option. For $200 more you can even get an internal
drive that records DVDs, something I've never seen in a small laptop.
Despite Apple's reputation for costliness, this little laptop is
aggressively priced. To match its base configuration, plus Wi-Fi, for
$1,899, you'd have to pay a whopping $2,399 for a Portege 4010 at
Toshiba's online store.
At 4.6 pounds, the 12-inch PowerBook isn't the lightest full-featured
notebook. The Portege weighs 4.2 pounds and Fujitu's Lifebook P2000
weighs just 3.4 pounds, though it cheats a bit with a puny 10.6-inch
screen and a cramped keyboard.
But the new Apple model is the most compact laptop I've reviewed with
an integrated optical drive and a full range of ports and networking
features. It's about 111 cubic inches. Even the tiny Fujitsu is 118
cubic inches and the Toshiba is 135 cubic inches.
The machine abounds with the kind of clever design touches for which
Apple is known. CDs and DVDs are sucked into the machine through a
slot, like in an auto CD player, so there's no protruding tray. The
rear hinge dips down so the screen sets lower than on other laptops,
making it even more compact for use in tight spaces.
In my home, the machine's Wi-Fi wireless networking range was very
good, and Apple's new Wi-Fi card and base station can handle the new
"G" flavor of Wi-Fi, fives times the speed of the original. Battery
life was also strong. Apple claims up to five hours, but my tests
indicated a likely life of around four, still excellent.
I found one notable drawback in the new PowerBook: Like its larger
siblings, it gets pretty hot because of its metal skin.
All in all, the 12-inch PowerBook is a dandy laptop -- small,
relatively inexpensive, yet powerful and beautiful.
APPLE'S NEW SAFARI Web browser is aimed at nothing less than replacing
Microsoft's Internet Explorer on the Macintosh platform. It's the first
all-new browser from a major company in years, and I like it a lot. It
has a slimmed-down, clean user interface that leaves more room on the
screen for Web-page content. But it also sports several cool features:
a built-in field for entering Google searches, a built-in popup-ad
blocker and a system that automatically opens files you download.
The coolest new feature is called Snapback. This allows the user, with
a single click, to jump back to the first page of a site, after digging
down through multiple levels.
Safari's main goal was to be speedier than the Mac version of IE, and
it is. In my tests of five popular Web sites, Safari beat the Microsoft
browser in rendering a page every time, sometimes by seconds, other
times by huge margins.
There are a few rough spots in Safari, still considered a "public
beta," or test. These mainly involve compatibility with a few types of
sites and pages. The browser includes a button you can click to report
these to Apple.
Like the 12-inch PowerBook, Safari shows Apple's deft sense of design
and dedication to ease of use. Both products will help make the
Macintosh platform an attractive alternative to Windows.
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E-mail me at mossberg@wsj.com.
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- Eolake
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eolake@maccreator.com
http://MacCreator.com