Introduction:
Miraculously engineered, the ultralight 17-inch PowerBook G4 is a mere 1-inch thin and only 6.9 pounds, making it one of the planet's thinnest, lightest, 17-inch notebooks. The first thing you'll notice is the megawide display -- the largest ever in a notebook. This PowerBook's stunning display gives you the same viewing area as a 19-inch CRT monitor. And as for the amount of information you can see on the screen at one time, the 17-inch PowerBook supports a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels -- an eye-popping 1.3 million pixels appearing on the screen simultaneously, with room aplenty for your menus, toolbars and palettes. Thanks to its built-in, dual-link DVI support and 128 MB of graphics memory, you even have the option of connecting your PowerBook to Apple's breathtaking flat-panel displays, including the massive 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. Featuring a powerful 1.67 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, a standard 5400-rpm 100 GB hard drive, an 8x SuperDrive, up to 2 GB of DDR RAM and AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR built right in, the top gun of notebook computers has it all.
SpecificationsAs Smart as It Looks
You'll love the high-resolution 17-inch active-matrix display with brilliant 1440 x 900 pixel resolution. And you'll marvel at the way this supersharp display fits into such a remarkably small frame: just 15.4 inches wide, 10.2 inches deep, 1.0 inches thin and a mere 6.9 pounds. Housed in a lightweight and durable aluminum alloy enclosure, the 17-inch PowerBook G4 is resistant to stains and scratches. Flat-out, drop-dead gorgeous, this revolutionary notebook is perfectly smooth on all surfaces, with no doors, protruding latches, levers or external buttons to accidentally press or break, and no sharp edges to catch on your clothing.
Built for Speed
The 1.67 GHz processor gives a tremendous performance boost with an advanced cache memory architecture that provides ultrafast dedicated memory with massively enhanced throughput. The 17-inch PowerBook G4 comes with 512MB of DDR SDRAM -- expandable to 2 GB of RAM -- allowing you to run several RAM-hungry applications simultaneously, or to store an entire graphics project in main memory for fast image manipulations.
Exremely Fast Wireless
Bluetooth. Wi-Fi. Ethernet. Modem. When it comes to communication, the PowerBook G4 covers all the bases, offering state-of-the-art solutions right out of the box, including built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, built-in AirPort Extreme, built-in high-speed Ethernet and a built-in modem.
Built in to the PowerBook G4, AirPort Extreme delivers state-of-the-art wireless performance, employing the 802.11g wireless standard. Now you never have to worry about compromised data rates: AirPort Extreme gives you blazing connectivity speeds up to 54 megabits per second(1). And with 802.11g and 802.11b interoperability, AirPort Extreme allows you to connect at the majority of wireless hotspots.
Feel the Burn of 8x SuperDrive
Your PowerBook G4 with SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW) comes loaded with iDVD software. Use it to burn DVDs that can be played in most consumer DVD players. Or use iTunes to burn your own CDs, or the Disc Burner feature in Mac OS X to burn data CDs and DVDs. The 8x SuperDrive reads DVD titles and burns DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs.
Sizzling Graphics Processor
The 17-inch PowerBook G4 models come standard with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor featuring 128 MB of DDR SDRAM. Featuring a number of cutting-edge graphics technologies, including programmable pixel and vertex shading for lighting, the Mobility Radeon 9700 dramatically enhances all aspects of your visual experience in every application.
Fast FireWire 800 and USB 2.0
The PowerBook G4 features FireWire, for connecting external hard drives and DV cameras, and USB, for connecting graphics tablets, digital cameras, printers and scanners. With more than 30 times the bandwidth of the popular USB 1.0 peripheral standard, FireWire 400 has become the gold standard for high-speed data transfer. And Apple ups the ante, effectively doubling data throughput, with FireWire 800. The new 15-inch PowerBook G4 has two FireWire ports -- one for the hundreds of FireWire 400 peripherals already available and the other for the coming generation of FireWire 800 peripherals. In addition, the PowerBook G4 offers the fastest connection to USB peripherals with two 480 Mbps USB 2.0 ports.
Built-in Bluetooth 2.0
Three times faster than Bluetooth 1.x, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (enhanced data rate) is now built into every new PowerBook model. Like AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth connects wirelessly to digital devices, including Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, handhelds and peripherals. What's more, you can even choose to enjoy a cable-free desktop with Apple's Bluetooth-enabled wireless keyboard and mouse. Operating within a 30-foot range, Bluetooth enables wireless data transfers between a rapidly growing list of Bluetooth-savvy peripherals. Using iSync, for example, you can use Bluetooth to synchronize your personal information between your PowerBook, your mobile phone and your Palm OS-based handheld. And your new PowerBook can use your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to take advantage of GPRS or 1xRTT connectivity, so you can check your email from just about anywhere -- a life saver for those occasions when an 802.11 wireless hot spot isn't available
ReviewI use my Powerbook as my primary machine. At any given time, I am usually running Adobe Photoshop and/or Illustrator, Macromedia Flash, as well as a few native applications (Mail and iCal are always open, usually iTunes as well). The programs that come with the computer are well integrated into the operating system. I use mine for about 15 hours a day, and I put it to sleep rather than shutting it down. Even with all of the work that I do on it, a year and a half after purchasing my model it still stays on for two to three weeks with no need to shut it down.
