Customer Reviews

Apple PowerBook Laptop 12.1" M9092LL/A (867-MHz PowerPC G4, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive, DVD-R/CD-RW Drive)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought my little 12 inch iBook was cool. This laptop is significantly smaller & lighter. But it is faster and has 60GB of disk. Two negatives: airport reception is not as long ranged as the plastic iBook and battery life is roughly half that of the iBook. No matter, this machine the most personal computer I have ever owned. This little laptop is my 5th! It is sooo much better than the early clunkers! Because of its size weight and power - this one goes everywhere with me. I recommend you buy a 60GB firewire drive to make clone backups of the hard drive. Then you are bulletproof - even on the road. With all the latest Apple software I have trashed my Palm Pilot - between my laptop and my iSynched Ericson phone - I have everything. This iSynch stuff is just brilliant! My Canon S45 and iPod are both part of my environment. It is all so tightly integrated and "synched", previous complexity has disappeared. Apple, you really are the best! Thanks for making life so much more powerful and so much easier!

Yeah, I know it's a little more money than the knock-off PC clones from Dell and Gateway, but this is a far superior computer. The Mac platform is not only the most powerful one available, it is also the simplest and most versatile - once you learn it.

The 15-inch is the perfect size for me. I looked at both the 12 and 17-inch models and felt they were a little too small/big respectively. There is something attractive about the 12 inch - a friend of mine has one and he carries it around everywhere, able to write anywhere anytime. And seated at a desk the 17-inch is also attractive, presenting a massive, bright screen to work on. But all in all, the 15-inch provides the best both worlds. It's very portable - maybe not as easy to tug along as the 12-inch, but certainly manageable with a small backpack. The 17-inch can be problematic on a plane if there are people crowding you, and it's certainly cumbersome to maneuver in tight spaces, whereas the 12-inch is easy to maneuver but can cause a little eyestrain from a distance.

I definitely recommend a Mac, first of all, and within that I recommend the 15-inch G4 notebook. If you must have a 12-inch, you might take a look at the 12-inch iBook, which is cheaper but obviously not as feature rich (the iBook's graphics card is not as powerful and the processor is slower, most notably).

The complaints I have are exterior - the computer doesn't age well (i.e., it nicks and scratches rather easily) and there should be some sort of elevation device to raise the back end while typing (like the older Powerbooks had).

All in all you can't go wrong with any Apple laptop you choose. They are truly making the digital life a reality with all of their integrated software - iTunes, iPhoto, iSight, and the iPod are particularly cool. No other laptop will have an operating system with so many fantastic programs that are so perfectly integrated together. If this is remotely in your price range, go for it. It can literally change the way you operate on a day-to-day basis.

I bought a 12-inch Powerbook after I gave my old Sony Vaio notebook the Pete Townshend treatment - I put my fist through it. (Yes, it looks like a stained glass window.) I hadn't used a Mac in years, but I decided I'd had it with Microsoft and Windows. All it took was one weekend and a good book - "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual," by David Pogue -
however, and I mastered the machine.

SOFTWARE
The computer comes with some great software. iTunes is the best media player on the market. I have almost 5,000 songs stored on mine. With the search function and browser display, it is easy to find a particular song. iTunes also keeps track of the number of times you've listened to a song and it allows you to rate your songs. It's easy to create a playlist. Also, burning one of those playlists onto a CD can be done with one click.

Safari is a great web browser. It has a Google search box built into the toolbar, prevents pop-up ads (I've never had one), has tabbed browsing (preventing a cluttered desktop), and allows for bookmarks to be added with one click.

iChat allows Mac users to customize their AIM and Rendezvous chat sessions in ways that the normal applications don't allow, such as adding pictures from iPhoto to their profile.

I haven't mastered iPhoto yet, but it is downloading pictures from a digital camera is as easy as plugging it into the USB port and clicking a button.

Also, Macs are less likely to get a virus or be overtaken by spyware.

The iCal and Address Book look good, but if you are going to sync a PDA with your Mac, you are better off using Palm Desktop software. Hopefully the functionality of those programs will be improved in the future though.

Finally, most of the programs work with each other. For example, if someone on my iChat buddy list is online, a green dot will appear next to a message from him or her in my Mail inbox.

I also use Microsoft Office, Quicken, Dreamweaver MX, and Palm Desktop - they all work well on the Mac. Office shares files perfectly with PCs.

HARDWARE
Spend the money and get the superdrive (CD-RW/DVD-R). DVDs have more memory than CDs and blank DVD-Rs are becoming more affordable. If you are into collecting videos of concerts, a DVD-R is a must.

I'd recommend upgrading to at least 768 MB of memory and the 80 GB hard drive. Burning a DVD requires a lot of memory and can take a while - this way you can use other applications while burning a DVD (on my old PC, if I was burning a CD, I couldn't use anything else). The hard drive space is really cheap. Plus, if you load your CDs on your computer, they can eat up a lot of memory, even as MP3s (my 5,000 songs take up about 25 GB).

Also, there is a lot to be said for getting the Airport Exteme card (although you can buy a third-party base station for less). I am able to browse the Internet in any room of my house - well worth the extra $100 or so.

I have the 12-inch monitor, but that was because Apple hadn't released the 15-inch in the new style when I made my purchase. The 12-inch is fine - it's much clearer than my old PC notebook - but if I had the opportunity, I'd probably go with the bigger monitor.

DRAWBACKS
-While most software is available for Mac OS X, there are some programs that aren't (Google toolbar, Yahoo! toolbar, Kazaa, AvantGo) or minor problems in software that is available (Quicken can't access accounts on Ameritrade via Macs)
-The PowerBook doesn't have a fan, which is great for the battery, but can cause it to get a bit hot underneath where the user rests his left hand.

Regardless of those drawbacks, however, buying a Mac was an easy decision. If you have any questions about it, click on my profile and send me a e-mail.

UPDATE: After 14 months, the hard drive started making noise and system performance got slow and I couldn't run as many programs as I used to. I called Apple and had to spend $300 for them to put in a new hard drive and some other hardware. They were unable to transfer my data to my new hard drive, so I've spent the past four days reloading all of my software and applications. No idea why the hard drive went. Hence I dropped the rating from five stars to four.

I've had this powerbook for five years, and it's still going strong. It's a great computer for traveling (you can really notice the difference between it and a full size MBP in a backpack).

To optimize performance, you should upgrade to 1.1 GB RAM (costs around thirty dollars), buy a faster hard drive (a 160GB 5400 rpm ATA drive for around sixty), and install OSX 10.4, which is far faster than any of the previous OSX releases, and is marginally faster than 10.5.

If the fan comes on too frequently, try using some compressed air to blow dust out of the computer, or better yet, open it up and give it a good cleaning. Opening the case or replacing the HD is about a 1 hour job, so have someone else do it if you're not good with tools.

I resisted laptops until picking up this 12" Powerbook 9 months ago. I had always felt that switching from a desktop to a laptop model was a bit like going from a Steinway to a flimsy electric keyboard (I'm a pianist). But I'm sold. I take this machine to the library, where it works wirelessly; I bring it into the classroom and use it to project DVD's; I take it to bed and do mail and Amazon reviews. People comment on how cute and compact the machine is. I-Book users envy my speed and multi-tasking abilities, apparently beyond the lower-priced Apple models that sport the same G-4 processor.

One complaint: after an hour this is a "hot" machine. No problem if you're using it as a faux desktop model. But if you take "laptop" literally, be prepared for hot thighs. At least I don't have to tip it.