PC killer on the loose

THERE ARE TREND-CONSCIOUS people at every company who demand the sharpest-looking cell phone or PDA, something that screams "I'm so hip." Whether or not it actually works is irrelevant. With IT budgets squeezed almost to zero, management is understandably touchy about frivolous purchase requests.

Therefore, when you hand in your requisition for an Apple PowerBook G4, attach this review. Few who look at the PowerBook G4 can believe it's not the latest fashionable toy. After spending quality time with the PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.2.2, we don't care if we ever touch another $3,500-plus top-end PC notebook. Yes, it is that good, and its value has nothing to do with its sleek looks.

Apple packaged the PowerBook G4s so exquisitely that at first we were afraid to get our fingerprints on them. Our reverie lasted about 15 minutes. Then we dragged two systems -- an earlier 867MHz model and the newest 1GHz unit -- through hell for several weeks, both in the lab and on the road. We beat them twice as hard because they're so pretty and because, well, we're not Mac people. When it was over, the PowerBooks owned us utterly. Trust us; that never happens.

Nice specs

The object of this review is the newly updated PowerBook G4, the model that includes a 1GHz PowerPC processor and a SuperDrive DVD/CD burner. It features a 15.2-inch display set in a 3:2 ratio (other notebooks are 4:3), 512MB of RAM, and a 60GB hard drive.

The landscape screen, which has a default resolution of 1280 by 854 pixels, has the widest horizontal viewable range we've seen on a notebook. You can drive an analog or digital external monitor at resolutions as high as 2048 by 1536. The external display either mirrors what's on the LCD or stretches your desktop across both screens. Apple includes all the video connectors you'll need for presentations: VGA, S-Video, and composite.

Apple's sales literature claims the PowerBook G4 outperforms a 2.2GHz Pentium 4, but don't count on that claim. Running at full speed, a P4-M notebook will feel faster than a PowerBook G4, especially when running applications optimized for the Pentium 4 architecture. But when the P4-M throttles back to conserve the battery or keep from burning your lap, the more efficient PowerPC takes the lead.

The ATI Radeon 9000 display controller with 64MB of RAM makes a big difference in perceived speed. Apple uses hardware-accelerated OpenGL (comparable to Microsoft's DirectX gaming graphics technology) for the entire OS X GUI. Where ClearType font smoothing slows Windows way down, Apple's smoothed text draws fast and scrolls quickly. The combination of the ATI graphics chip and the 1GHz PowerPC processor keeps the interface responsive, even in low-power mode. It's amazing that a 5.4-pound machine can pull five hours out of a battery without slowing to a crawl.

Getting online

The PowerBook G4 has exceptional network and peripheral connectivity. The built-in Ethernet supports copper gigabit, and the 1GHz model includes an AirPort 802.11 wireless adapter. The back panel, protected by a hinged metal cover, also has two USB (not USB 2.0) ports and a full-sized FireWire socket.