Apple PowerBook Laptop 17" M9462LL/A (1.50-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)

by Apple

Product Details

Product Manual [2.51mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 15.4 x 1 inches ; 6.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00022HY7S
• Item model number: M9462LL/A
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 19, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Surf the Web, chat with friends, do homework, play games, even burn DVDs and CDs to create your own video or musical masterpiece. In your favorite café. At 2 a.m. The iBook G4 delivers today's digital lifestyle to your backpack.

With a fast PowerPC G4 processor running at accelerated speeds of up to 1.33 GHz, built-in wireless networking capability, a DVD-burning SuperDrive, and up to 1.25 GB of memory, the iBook G4 introduces impressive performance and flexible mobility to everyday work and play. It's your go-anywhere digital solution.

	You Can Take It with You Built-in wireless capability on every iBook G4 means you can work or play anywhere. Enabled with AirPort Extreme technology, the iBook can surf the Web in any WiFi hot spot, from hotels to bookshops. With an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express Base Station in your room or office, you can get online from the comfort of your couch. The iBook also offers an incredible 6 hours of battery life. Thanks to the energy-saving features built into the PowerPC processor, the ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics processor, and Mac OS X Panther, the iBook works as long as you do. As the lightest all-in-one consumer notebook on the market, the 12.1-inch iBook G4 weighs in at a mere 4.9 pounds. The iBook G4 is thin, too--to be exact, a svelte 1.35 inches--making this impressive notebook small enough to fit in a backpack and light enough to carry around all day. Rave-Worthy Performance To maximize its speed, Apple engineers pair the G4 processor with a fast 133 MHz system bus and 256 MB of onboard memory to accelerate calculations and make your applications scream. And you'll be glad to hear that you can boost memory capacity to a remarkable 1.25 GB, giving you room to run many applications at once. An Impressive Display Both iBook models offer brilliant 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution--ideal for doing everything from working on spreadsheets to displaying your movies and digital pictures in millions of colors. What's more, the iBook display scales down beautifully, again with millions of colors, for special games and applications optimized for 800 x 600 or 640 x 480 pixels. And both come powered by an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics processor with 32 MB of dedicated video memory and AGP 4x support for dazzling 3-D graphics that bring games to life.
iBook models M9627LL/A and M9628LL/A both feature a 14-inch TFT XGA display.
iBook model M9623LL/A features a 12.1" TFT XGA display.

The 12-inch iBook comes well equipped with a 30 GB hard drive. With iBook's slot-loading Combo Drives you can watch DVDs, play music CDs, and burn your own data and music CDs. You can also include an optional Bluetooth module for wireless connections to a wide range of peripheral devices. Built-in FireWire, USB 2.0, and a long list of other expansion options offer numerous communication and data-transfer capabilities.

Mac OS X Panther
The iBook comes with Mac OS X version 10.3 Panther, Apple's easy-to-use, next-generation operating system. Mac OS X Panther gives you over 150 new features, including Exposé, for making the most of the real estate on your screen; Fast User Switching, perfect for families who share one computer system; and FileVault, ironclad security for all the files on your hard disk. Naturally, you also get the Internet to go, with automatic networking to make connecting a snap: Mac OS X senses whether you're connecting from home, school, or the office, and configures your system accordingly. And with the Instant On feature, your iBook wakes from sleep instantly when you open it.

Mac OS X has evolved. The fourth major release in just three years, Panther offers breakthroughs in innovation, ease of use and reliability that won't be seen in other operating systems for years, if ever.

If you're one of the millions of Mac owners, you'll love the powerful refinements to your system. Or as a user of a Windows- or UNIX-based system, you'll find mouthwatering incentives to switch to a Mac as your main computer. A New Point of View The world's most elegant user interface just got easier. A completely new Finder provides a vastly improved view of the system, with one-click access to your favorite files and folders, whether on your hard drive, iDisk, network servers, or removable media. On top of that, Panther returns search results as you type in queries to find your stuff, refining the list as you narrow options. Sure, you could quantify that as up to six times faster than Jaguar, but you'll probably think Panther's done almost before you stop typing. It's just that fast. Compare that to finding files on a Windows-based machine and, well... there's simply no comparison.

Enjoy the Digital Lifestyle
You'll never run out of amazing things to do with your iBook. Especially since every iBook ships with the entire suite of iLife '04 applications--iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand, and iDVD. Apple's award-winning software suite lets you create your own music CDs, manage your digital photos, edit pro-quality movies, write your own music with drag-and-drop ease, and author DVD projects, too. What's more, the entire suite works seamlessly together, so you can easily bring your photos into iMovie and songs from your iTunes music library into iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD. You won't find anything like it on a PC.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brains, brawn and beauty!, July 31, 2004

By 

J. Clarkson "jaffle: graphics monkey" (Aldie, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple PowerBook Laptop 17" M9462LL/A (1.50-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) (Personal Computers)

Hello everyone. I've owned my 17" 1.5 PB for about three months now. I use it both on the road, and as my main desktop computer. It is by far the most capable and useful computer I have ever owned.

I have used both Macs and PCs everyday for the past 2 years (I am a creative director, and use both machines depending upon the nature of the work). I am not Mac centric: PCs have many nice features, are generally faster than Macs, and the software is now pretty much up to parity.

With that being said, I still prefer the Mac OS to Windows. Everything works extremely well, the user experience is far more polished and user-centric, and it NEVER crashes. Never. My last laptop was a G3 and it was a stinker. I convinced myself that laptops were inherently less stable than their full-sized cousins. Nope. Not true. This machine is solid as they come.

Speaking of solid: the keyboard is easily the best I have ever used on a laptop. The action is tight and crisp, and the placement is comfortable. And, the fiber optic backlighting (when ambient lighting is down) has been a pleasure. No going back. I can sit in bed with the lights off and play poker, surf the web, or write with no problems.

The ports (of which there are many) are well placed, and seated extremely well (my old G3 shed ports like a molting emu). Since I come and go a lot, and don't have a docking station, the port integrity is REALLY important. So far, happy happy.

The display is sharp and bright, with a good viewing angle. Its 17", and runs at a max resolution of 1400x900. I am a graphic designer, and have been working on 300DPI images in Photoshop, and while I would be happier with a bigger screen, this 17" is more than adequate. At home I hook my PB up to a Dell 17" flat panel, and the graphics card (which I raised to 128 megs of video) has no problem running both the native display and the Dell. Tons of working room, and great refresh.

Battery life is ok. The big screen is a power hog. BUT, the batteries recharge very quickly. And the little AC adaptor is a gorgeous design, with a very very long cord. You might think about getting an extra: one for home and one for the travel bag.

The superdrive is fast and responsive. I don't know how Apple fit it in there, but its there, and I use it regularly, either burning archival CDs, DVDs, and getting music to the iPod.

I am trying to think of negatives. The 17" PB is a bit heavier, but then again, it's a bit bigger than any 15". So, weight to me is not a detriment. What's a couple of pounds anyway? The size is bigger, but hey, I wanted a 17" screen, so I am not really expecting to sit in coach class and be able to open a Mile High Cinema Experience. Its a 17" screen. So, no gripes there. I'll just have to start working on getting into First Class. :)

All in all, a great computer. The fact that you can carry it around, only triples its usefulness. Combine it with a wireless network, and whoa, you can a killer portable entertainment center: email, web surfing, movie watching, music listening, anywhere you want. This PB has surprised me again and again with its usefulness and versatility. Completely, utterly five stars worth of laptop.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I switched, unswitched, and switched again, May 26, 2004

By 

William Westerman "utilware.com" (California, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple PowerBook Laptop 17" M9462LL/A (1.50-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) (Personal Computers)

I bought a PowerBook 12" 867MHz about nine months ago, had a brief fling with a Dell that my work issued me, and went back to the Mac. Then, in a fit of insanity, I clicked "buy" and now I am a very happy owner of the 17" 1.5GHz.

Positives:
- The screen is just massive, and you don't need to be a graphic artist or movie producer to use it; it works great for Excel, side-by-side document editing, or just keeping iChat and Sticky Notes in view while surfing the web
- It's pretty fast; I'm finally happy with the performance of Virtual PC 6.0 running Windows 2000 and Outlook XP; as a matter of fact I've duplicated my Windows work laptop in VPC and no longer have to carry two machines around
- Movies are incredible on the big screen, and the speakers have great stereo separation (to the point that sometimes working late at night, I think I hear someone in the room, and it turns out to be part of the song)
- It's quite thin, even compared to the 12", which is good on my wrists when typing

Negatives:
- Trying to get around the massive screen with the touchpad is a chore; get an external mouse ASAP
- Sitting in bed working on e-mail can be a bit difficult, because if you end up slanting the PowerBook upwards, the cover wants to close
- Even though this is one of the smallest 17" laptops out there, you just can't get away from the fact that it's a big monster of a machine when you spread out on a desk, airplane tray table, or other area

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INCREDIBLE! You won't believe your eyes..., May 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Apple PowerBook Laptop 17" M9462LL/A (1.50-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) (Personal Computers)

Wow. This is a stunning laptop. No other laptop on the market can match the Apple Powerbook. Yes, no other laptop SHOULD match the Apple Powerbook because you're paying nearly double the price for this one, but I assure you, you won't be disappointed with this power-house. I am a college graphic design student, and I was required to purchase this computer for my field of choice. I was sort of reluctant to have to ask my parents to purchase ANOTHER computer for me, but once I started researching the powerbook, I totally changed my mind immediately. I worked on Powerbooks inside my classes and began to fall in love. Stunning graphics, quiet as a mouse, and people will all be jealous of this little beauty. I suggest upgrading memory to 1 GB. It makes your computer run so much faster with multiple programs. You can burn a dvd and surf the interent while working on a document. It's really nice to be able to do all of that without your computer freezing on you. Go to the Apple website and research more about the Powerbooks, and if you choose this route for your laptop, you won't be disappointed!!!